NRLF Ui '»f> V' A LIBRARY OF THE University of California. ■^ ■^ THE COMPLETE WORKS OF l^flhrt lurns. INCLUDING HIS CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. ST WILLIAM GUNNYOK EDINBURGH: WILLIAM p. NIMMO. 1867. THE COMPLETE WORKS OF EGBERT BUENS INCLUDING HIS CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. mitl) a 9^zmoiv BY WILLIAM GUNNYON. THE TEXT CAEEFULLY PRINTED, AND ILLUSTRATED WITH NOTES. WITH PORTRAIT AND ILLUSTRATIONS ON WOOD BY EMINENT ARTISTS. EDINBURGH: WILLIAM P. NIMMO PREFACE. In introducing this edition of Robert Burns's Poetical Works to the public, the Editor has to state that his aim has been to produce, as far as possible, an edi- tion which might lay claim to completeness. He is aware that many readers, whose opinion he has every desire to respect, may not agree with him as to the propriety of reproducing every line of each poem in all cases ; but a very con- siderable experience of men in relation to books induces him to believe that a large proportion of the reading public — and that no^the least fastidious in matters of feeling and taste — prefer to have an author's works as they came from his pen. He also believes that the number of BowdleHsed editions of popular authors which circulate at the present day is the result of a want of courage on the part of publishers, who have a dread of offending the fancied over-sensitiveness of the bulk of the reading public ; for he does not believe that such a feeling exists to an extent which would warrant the indiscreet purification of the bulk of our standard literature. No admirer of the poet can defend the too frequent coarse- ness of many of the poems j but it should be remembered that Burns himseK, in the two editions of his works which he lived to see through the press, did not include any of those which offend against good taste ; — most of them refer to purely local matters, and were evidently looked upon by the Poet as the mere fugitive emanations of his Muse, hurriedly produced for the amusement of his friends. Xo poet was so prodigal in giving MS. copies of his poems to his inti, mates and correspondents ; and after his death, when every line he had written was eagerly collected and read, no difficulty was found in gathering them to- gether, and no regard for the Poet's memory or good name prevented their pub- lication. While the occasional grossuess of Burns is not to be denied, it may with safety be affirmed that there is positively nothing demoralising or seductively impure in his writings — nothing that can for one moment be put in comparison with the deliberate and pernicious prurience of the modem sensation novel, wliich finds its thousands of readers. In a sense, the bad even springs from the good — *' Misled by Fancy's meteor ray, By passion driven ; But yet the light that led asti-ay Was light from Heaven." The descriptive improprieties are but the momentary excesses of a healthy and Tigorous nature, which, though prone to err, was seldom designedly gross or aa^)^ PREFACE. wicked. Besides, the censorious critics have too often forgotten his services on the side of purity. It ought to be remembered that he found the Scottish Muse a dirty, ribald bawd, and tha'^i he made her presentable everywhere. But for him the ancient lyric poetry of our country would at the present day have been all but dead and forgotten — he breathed through it the spirit of his own genius, and it is now as imperishable as the more immediate of his creations. The moderate price of the series to which this volume belongs rendered a very full annotation impossible ; but every Poem, Song, and Epigram, the history of whose production is known, will be found to have its illustrative note, care hav- ing been taken, from a collation of authorities, to be as accurate as possible. The Editor believes that in no similar edition hitherto published has any attempt been made in this direction, and this must be his apology for having ventured upon his present task. In preparing the Glossary, he has been guided in his renderings of Scottish words and phrases more by the meaning conveyed in the text than by the arbitrary meanings given by Jamieson and other authorities. Burns's phraseology was in many cases his own ; and, like all men of true creative power, he made his native tongue his slave, and adapted and moulded it to the expression of his genius. The Poems, Epistles, Epigrams, and Songs are arranged separately, and as nearly as can be ascertained in the order in which they were produced. The Editor believes that this mode of arrangement will be found to have its advantages. The Appendix to the graphic Biographical Sketch by Mr William Gunnyon, in which are grouped together all the authentic personal sketches of the poet by his friends and intimates, will, it is hoped, very materially assist the reader in judging what manner of man he was, and the personal and intellectual impression he made on his contemporaries. The Editor has to thank several friends for assistance received ; and he desires specially to note the valuable service rendered by Mr Alexander Gunn, a reader at Paul's Work printing-office. Authors and others who are hourly indebted to the intelligence and industry of the reading staff at their printer's wiU readily appreciate the value of such assistance, more especially when it is stated that any editorial labour bestowed on the present edition was given from day to day as the sheets passed through the press, and in the midst of the harass and worry of business. It is all but needless to acknowledge obligations to previous editors and bio- graphers of the Poet. The Editor knows that every page will show that his humble labours would have been impossible had it not been for the many emi- nent workers in .the same field, from Dr Currie down to Mr Robert Chambers, the latest and ablest of them all. CONTENTS. Original Preface Dedicatiox to Edinbcrgh Edition Memoir APPENDIX TO MEMOIPv The Poet's Letter to Dr Moore Letter of Gilbert Burns to Mrs Dunlop Letter from Mr John Mimloch Sketch by David Sillar Recollections of William Clark Sketch by Dugald Stewart Sketch by Professor Walker . Sketch by Sir Walter Scott . Two Sketches by Mrs Riddel of Woodley Park Account by Dr Adair of a Journey with the Poet Sketches by Mr Ramsay of Ochtertyre Account by Mr Syme of a Journey with the Poet ..... Domestic Sketch of the Poet . Personal Sketch of the Poet . Letter from ;Mr Findlater Letter from Mr James Gray to Gilbert Burns Letter from Mr George Thomson Ix Ixii Ixii Ixiii Ixvi Ixvii Ixvii Ixxi Ixxii Ixxii Ixxiii Ixxiv Ixxv Ixxvi Ixxviii Ivi'^Halloween ."••—'. Elegy on the Death of Robert Dundas, Esq., Arniston ..... Elegy on the Death of Robert Ruisseaux . Elegy on the Death of Sir James Hunter Blair. Elegy on the Year 1788 Epistle from Esopus to Maria Epitaph on Holy Willie of Holy Willie's Prayer -i , POEMS. ^ A Bard's Epitaph .... Adam A 's Prayer i A Dedication to Gavin Hamilton, Esq. A Dream ..... j Address of Beelzebub to the President of the I Highland Society .... i Address Spoken by Miss Fontenelle on her Benefi ^ f 1 Night ..... . \ /_ ii Address to Edinburgh ; /«M»' Address to the Deil .... / 'I Address to the Shade of Thomson, on Crowning I his Bust at Ednam, Roxburghshire, with Bays j Address to the Toothache .... ,mm\ "Address to the Unco Guid, or the Rigidly Right j eons ..... '; A Mother's Lament for the Death of her Son Answer to a Poetical Epistle sent to the Author by a Tailor ..... A Pi-ayer, Left by the Author at a Reverend Friend's House, in the Room where he Slept A Prayer in the Prospect of Death A Prayer under the Pressure of Violent Anguish A Winter Night .... / Castle Gordon . . . : n 'Death and Dr Hornbook . Delia ..... Despondency : an Ode Elegy on Capt&in Matthew Henderson Elegy on iliss Burnet of Monboddo Elegy on Peg Nicholson 49 J^- Man was Made to Mourn .... MauchUne Belles ..... Monody on a Lady Famed for her Caprice Nature's Lavr ..... Ode : Sacred to the Memory of JIrs Oswald Ode to Ruin ...... Oh, why the Deuce should I Repine On Scaring some Water-fowl in Loch Turit On Sensibility ..... On the Birth of a Posthumous Child On the Death of a Favourite Child. Poem on Pastoral Poetry .... Poetical Address to Mr William Tytler . Prologue for Mr Sutherland's Benefit Night, Dum- fries ...... Prologue, Spoken at the Theatre, Dumfries, on New-Year's Day Evening, 1790 . Prologue, Spoken by Mr Woods on his Benefit Night ...... Impromptu on Mrs Riddel's Birthday Invitation to a Medical Gentleman to Attend a Masonic Anniversary Meeting . Lament for James, Earl of Glencairn Lament occasioned by the Unfortunate Issue of a Friend's Amour .... Lament of Mary Queen of Scots on the approach of Spring ...... Liberty : a Fragment .... Lines on Fergusson ..... Lines on Meeting with Lord Daer . Lines sent to Sir John Whitefoord, Bart., of Whitefoord ..... Lines Written in a Wrapper, enclosing a Letter to Captain Grose ..... Lines Written in Friars' Carse Hermitage, on the Banks of the Nith ..... Lines Written in Friars' Carse Hermitage, on Nithside ...... 'Lines Written on a Bank-Note Lines Written to a Gentleman who had Sent him a Newspaper, and ofifered to Continue it free of Expense .... . . Lines Written with a Pencil over the Chimney- piece in the Parlour of the Inn at Kenmore, Taymouth . .... Lines Written with a Pencil, Standing by the Fall of Fyers, near Loch Ness 35 56 CONTENTS. Remorse ..•••♦ Scotch Drink ..... Sketch : Inscribed to the Right Hon. C. J. Fox . Sketch— New- Year's Day, 17yO Sketch of a Charactsr .... Sonnet oa lleurlug a Thrush Sing in a Morning Walk ...... Sonnet on the Death of Robert Riddel, Esq., of Glenriddel ...... Stfxnzas in the Prospect of Death . Stanzas on the Duke of Queensberry PAGE . 25 f T; ■+■ 'am o' Shanter . ... Tam Samson's Elegy . . * , ^ * The Auld Farmer's New- Year Morning Saluta- tion to his Auld Mare Maggie, on (living her the Accustomed Rip of Com to Hansel in the New Year • • • • • ^, The Author's Earnest Cry and Prayer to the Scotch Representatives in the House of Com mons . . . . • The Eelles of Mauchline ... The Brigs of Ayr . . . • The Calf . . . . • The Cotter's Saturday Night The Death and Dying Words of Poor Maillie The Farewell . " . The First Psalm .... The First Six Verses of the Ninetieth Psalm The Hermit ..... The Holy Fair .... The Humble Petition of Bruar Water to the Noble Duke of Athole .... The Inventory . • # • The Jolly Beggars .... The Kirk's Alarm . . . . The Ordination .... The Poet's Welcome to his Hlegitimate Child The Rights of NV'oman The Torbolton Lasses The Tree of Liberty .... The Twa Dogs .... The Twa Herds : Or, The Holy Tulzie The Vision ..... The Vowels : A Tale The Whistle ..... To a Haggis ..... To a Kiss ..... To a Louse, on Seeing one on a Lady's Bonnet at Church ..... To a Mountain Daisy To a Mouse ..... To Captain Riddel of Glenriddel . To Chioris ..... To Clarinda ..... To Clarinda ..... To Clarinda ..... To Clarinda ..... To Collector Mitchell To Colonel De Peyster To John Taylor .... To Miss Cruikshank To Miss Ferrier .... To Miss Jessy Lewars, Dumfries . JCoMis3ji21BU>) with Beattie's Poems as a New ''TiaPs Gilt, January 1, 1787 To Mrs C , on Receiving a Work of Hannah More's ..... To the Owl . . Tragic Fragment .... Verses Intended to bo "Written Below a Noblo Earl's Picture ..... Verses on an Evening View of the Ruins of Lin- cluden Abbey ..... Verses on a Scotch Bard Gone to the West Indies Verses on Captain Grose's PeregrinatloDS through Scotland Collecting the Anthiuities of that Kingdom ...... Verses on Reading in a Newspaper the Death of John M'Lcod, Esq. .... ^-Verses on Seeing a Wounded TIare Limp by me which a Fellow had just Shot Verses on tha Destruction of the Woods near Drumlanrig ..... Verses to an old Sweetheart After her Marr^ase . Verses to John Maxwell of Tcrraughty, on his Birthday .... Verses to John Rankine Verses to Miss Graham of Fintry, with a Present of Songs .... Verses to my Bed . Verses Written under Violent Grief Willie Chalmers . . . Winter : a Dirge EPISTLES. Epistle to a Young Friend . Epistle to Davie .... Epistle to Dr Blacklock Epistle to Gavin Hamilton, Esq. . Epistle to Hugh Parker Epistle to James Smith Epistle to James Tait of Glenconner Epistle to John Goudie, Kilmarnock o«dl '■'^P'S'^1^ to Jolui Lapraik . . 2®*i»i}pistle to John Raukine Epistle to Major Logan Epistle to Mr M'Adam of Craigengillan . Epistle to the Rev. John M'Math . Epistle to William Creech . Epistle to William Simpson First Epistle to R. Graliam, Esq., of Fintry Fourth Epistle to Robert Graham, Esq., of Fintry Poetical Invitation to Mr John Kennedy . SL^cond Epistle to Davie oecond Epistle to Lapraik . Second Epistle to Robert Graham, Esq., of Fintiy Third Epistle to John Lapraik Third Epistle to Robert Graham, Esq., of Fintry To the Guidwife of Wauchope House 45 97 87 EPIGKAMS, EPITAPHS, &c. A Bottle and an Honest Friend . . A Farewell ...... A Grace before Dinner .... A Mother's Address to her Infant . Epigram on Bacon ..... Epitaph on a Suicide .... Epitaph on Robert Aiken, Esq. Epitaph on Tam the Cliapmun Epitaph on the Author s Father . Epitaph on W ..... Extempore on Two Lawyers "iDxtempore on William Smellie Extempore, Pinned to a Lady's Coach Extempore to Mr Syme .... Grace after Dinner ..... Grace after Dinner ..... Howlet Face ...... Innocence ...... Inscription on a Goblet .... Johnny Peep ..... Lines on Viewing Stirling Palace . Lines sent to a Gentleman whom he had Offended Lines Spoken Extempore on being apjwiated to the Excise ...... Lilies to Jolm Rankine .... Lines Written under the Picture of the Celebrated Miss Burns ..... Lines Written on a Pane of Ghiss in the Inn at Moflat On a Celebrated Ruling Elder . . On a Country Laird ..... On a Friend ...... On a Henpecked Country Sqn'ro . On a IKupecked Country Squiro . , On a Henpecked Country Squii'Q . , On H Noisy Polemic ..... On a NotL-d Coxcomb .... On II Person Nicknamed the Marquis . On a Schoolmaster ..... On n Sheep's Head ..... On a Wag in Mauchliao .... 83 95 94 90 96 88 97 101 101 95 111 102 110 111 107 108 109 109 102 105 103 103 107 108 111 111 106 104 108 110 104 105 1C4 111 104 104 109 109 109 110 110 110 109 109 105 104 108 102 CONTENTS. •n Andrew Turner .... On Bunis's Horse being Impounded On Captain Francis Grose . Oil Elphiuatona's Translation of Martial's "Epi grams" ...... On Excisemen . . On Gabriel Richardson, Brewer, Dumfries On Gavin Hamilton .... On Grizzel Grim . . On Incivility shown to liim at Inverary . On John Bushbv .... On John Dove, Innkeeper, Mauchline On Lord Galloway . On Lord Galloway . On Miss Jean Scott of Ecclefechan On Mr Burton ..... On Mr W. Cruikshank .... On Mrs Kemble ..... On Robert Riddel . . On Seeing Miss Eonteneile in a favourite Char- acter . . On Seeing the benutiful Seat of Lord Galloway . Oa tlie Death of a Lap-Dog named Echo . On the Illness of a Favourite Child On the Kirk of Lamington, in Clydesdale . On the Poet's Daughter .... On the Recovery of Jessy Lewars . On the Sickness of Miss Jessy Lewars On Wat ...... On Wee Johnny ..... Poetical Inscription for an Altar to Independence Poetical Reply to an Invitation Poetical Reply to an Invitation The Black-headed Eagle . The Book-worms The Creed of Poverty The Epitaph .... The Henpecked Husband . The Highland Welcome The Parson's Looks . The Parvenu The Reproof .... The Selkirk Grace . The Toast The Toast . . • . The True Loyal Natives Thougli Fickle Fortune has Deceived Me To a Painter .... To a Young Lady in a Church To Dr Maxwell To John M-Murdo, Esq. . To John M'Muido, Esq. . To Lord Galloway . To Miss Jessy Lewars To Mr Syme .... To the Editor of the Star . Terses Addressed to the Landlady of the Inn at Rosslyn ...... Verses to John Rankine .... Verses AVritten on a Pane of GHass, on the Occa- sion of a National Thanksgiving for a Naval Victory ...... Verses Written on a Window o" the Globe Tavern, Dumfries . . . Verses Written on a Window of the Inn atCarron Verses Written under the Portrait of Fergusson the Poet ...... Written in a Lady's Pocket-book . SONGS. PAGB 110 105 105 104 107 106 109 105 104 111 102 106 As I was A-wanderin;^ Auld Laug Syne Auld Rob Morris A Vision Bannocks o' Barley . Behold the Hour Bess and her Spinning- Wheel Beware o' Bonny Ann Blithe Hae I Been . Blithe was She Blooming Nelly Bouny Dundee . . . lO C^ J Bonny Lesley Boany Peg . Bonny Peg-a-Ramsay Bonny Peggy Alison ■»««rrT . Braving Angry Wintei-'s Storms Bra v Lads of Gala Water . Brose and Butter -SBruce's Address to his Army at Bannockborn By Allan Stream I Cuanced'to Rove 1+ Address to the Woodlark Adown Winding Nith Ae Fond Kiss A Farewell to the Brethren Torbo.ton . A Fratinient . Afton Water . Ah, Chloi-is I . Aman;; tlie Trees, where H An Excellent New Song Anna, thy Charms . A Rod, Red Rosi . A Rosebud by my Early Walk of St James's Lodge Bees . 109 105 110 107 107 106 108 106 103 110 108 111 111 110 103 108 102 1U5 106 107 107 107 110 103 107 108 104 108 108 111 103 102 102 103 108 105 105 1C6 111 103 105 104 106 111 108 103 103 107 181 161 143 121 117 Im 174 185 les j^ 123 Caledonia .... Caledonia .... Canst thou Lsave me thus, my Katy? Cassillis' Banks Ca' the Ewes . Ca' the Yowes Chloris Cock up your Beaver Come Boat me o'er to Charlie Come, let Me Take Thee . Come Rede Me, Dame Coming through the Braes o' Cupar Coming through tlie Rye Contented wi' Little Countrie Lassie Craigie-Burn Wood . Dainty Davie Damon and Sylvia . Deluded Swain, the Pleasure ■ iiJ[>uncan Gray Eliza .... Eppie Adair . Fair Eliza Fairest Maid on Devon Banks Fair Jenny . ' . Fareweel to a' our Scottish Fame Farewell, thou Stream Forlorn, my Love, no Comfort near For the Sake of Somebody . Frae the Friends and Land I Love Fragment — Chloris . Gala Water . Oioomy December . Gi'een Grow the Rashes, ! Guid E'en to You, Kimmer Giiidwife, Count the Lawin Had I a Cave Had I the Wyte Happy Friendship . Hee Balou ] . Her Daddie Forbad . Here 's a Health to Them that 's Awa' Hex-e's his Health in Water Here 's to thy Health, my Bonny Lass Her Flowing Locks . Hey for a Lass wi' a Tocher Hey, the Dusty Miller Highland Mary ,«..»__ How Cruel are the Parents ! How Long and Dreary is the Night I Hunting Song I do Confess thou Art sae Fair I Dream'd I Lay where Flowers were Springing I hae a Wife o' my Ain I 'il Aye Cii' in by Yon Town I'm o'er Young to Marry Yet Is there, for Honest Poverty It is na, Jean, tliy Bonny Face Jamie, Come Try Mo Jeanie's Bosom Jockey 's ta'en the Parting Kiss - -. Where glorious Wallace Aft bure the gree, as story tells, Frae southron billies. " At Wallace' name what Scottish blood But boils up in a spring-tide flood ! Oft have our fearless fathers strode By Wallace' side, Still pressing onward, red-icat shod, Or glorious died ! " The Muse, nae poet ever fand her, Till by himsel' he learn'd to wander, Adown some trotting burn's meandei*. And no think lang ; O sweety to stray and pensive ponder A heartfelt sang I *' The war'ly race may drudge and drive, Hog-shouther, jundie, stretch and strive ; Let me fair JVature's face descrive^ And /, wV pleasure^ Shall let the busy, grumbling hive Bum owre their treasure.'* The same devotion to poesy, and resolve to make it its own reward, is expressed somewhat more jocularly in the " Epistle to James Smith " : — *' Gie dreeping roasts to country lairds, Till icicles hing frae their beards ; Gie fine braw claes to fine life-guards, And maids of honour ! And yill and whisky gie to cairds, Until tliey Bcojjner, BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. ^^^^ " A title, Dempster merits it ; A garter gie to Willie Pitt ; Gie wealth to some be-ledger'd cit, In cent, per cent. : Bui gie me real, sterling wit. And I'm content ** "While ye are pleased to keep me hale, 1 11 sit do^vn o'er my scanty meal, Be 't water-brose, or muslin-kail, "VTi' cheerfu' face, As lang 's the Muses dinnafail To say the gra^e.'* But the final dedication to the Muse, and his consecration by her, are presented with singular vividness and power in " The Vision," a poem of the very highest excellence. *' The thrasher's weary fliugin'-tree The lee-lang day had tired me ; And when the day had closed his e'e, Far i' the west, Ben 1' the spence, right pensivelie, I gaed to rest. " There, lanely, by the ingle-cheek, I sat and eyed the spewin' reek. That fiU'd, wi' hoast-provoking smeek, The auld clay biggin' ; And heard the restless rattons squeak About the riggin'. " All in this mottie, mistie clime, I backward mused on wasted time. How I had spent my youthf u' prime, And done nae thing. But stringin' blethers up in rhyme, For fools to sing. *' Had I to guid advice but harkit, I might, by this, hae led a market, Or strutted in a bank, and clarkit My cash-account : While here, half-mad, half-fed, half-sarkifc. Is a' th' amount. ** I started, muttering, ' Blockhead ! coof ! ' And heaved on high my waukit loof, To swear by otless as she 's bonnie, O ; The opening gowan, wet wi' de^v, Nae purer is than Nannie, O. " A country lad is my degree. And few there be that ken me, O ; But what care I how few they be, I 'm welcome ayo to Nannie, O. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xliii *' My riclies a's my penny-fee, And I maim guide it cannie, O ; But warl's gear ne'er troubles me, My thoughts are a' — my Nannie, O. " Our auld guidman delights to view His sheep and kye thrive bonnie, O ; But I 'm as blithe that hands his pleugh. And has nae care but Kannie, O. *' Come weel, come woe, I care nae by, I 'U tak' what Heav'n will send mc, O ; Nae ither care in life ha'e I, But live and love my Nannie, O." To show with what skill he could seize upon a line or two of a song that was float- ing up and down the country, and complete it in the spirit of the original, we sub- join the following " splendid lyric," as Mr Lockhart justly designates it : — *' Go fetch to me a pint o'-wine, And fill it in a silver tassie ; That I may drink, befoi-e I go, A service to my bonnie lassie ; The boat rocks at the pier o' Leith, Fu' loud the wind blaws frae the Ferry. The shiiD rides by the Berwick Law, And I maun leave my bonnie Mary. ** The trumpets sound, the banners fly, The glittering spears are ranked ready ; The shouts o' war are heard afar. The battle closes thick and bloody ; But it 's not the roar o' sea or shore Wad make me lauger wish to tarry ; Nor shouts o' war that's heard afar — It 's leaving thee, my bonnie Mary." « One verse more from his love songs — *' Had we never loved sae kindly, Had we never loved sae 'olhidly, Never met, or never parted, We had ne'er been broken-hearted." Uyron uses this stanza as the motto to " The Bride of Abydos." Scott says it contains the essence of a thousand love tales. And Mrs Jameson says these lines are in themselves a complete romance. " They are the alpha and omega of feeling, and contain the essence of an existence of pain and pleasure distilled into one burn- ing drop." Three other classes of songs have been produced by him in equal perfection — l^jssi<, "noEftesti^ Son^s^^ of which " John Anderson my Jo, John," is the finest spe- cimen. Second, Bqjcchanalian Songs, represented best by " Willie brewed a peck o* maut," and illustratecnjy*'the « Earnest Cry and Prayer," and ** Scotch Drink." These are by no means coarse, as some dull fools suppose. They breathe the finest and most ethereal spirit of Bacchus, matched only by some of the exquisite lyrics of the Ehzabethan era, and infinitely raised above the emanations of Anacreon's muse by superior vigour and by a rare sense of humour. We never think of Anacreon but as an old debauchee, unredeemed by a single unselfish trait. Beyond the solace- ments of Yenus and Bacchus he seems never to have had an aspiration. And, third, War Songs, as " The Song of Death" and " Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled." Most people recollect Mr Syme's account of the circumstarices under which the last was xliv BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH composed. Burns and he were riding over the hills of Galloway amid the sublimities of a thunder storm. It is, by acclamation, the best war-ode ever written. In it he rivals Tyrtaeus. The same steady gazing upon and contempt of death, the same stern patriotism, and the same disregard of the hon'ors of a " foughten field." From his earliest years he had studied song- writing as a craft. He had in the course of his ramblings over Scotland visited the scene of every remarkable song except Lochaber and the Braes of Bellenden. And his earliest poetic and patriotic desire was that for poor auld Scotland's sake he " might sing a sang at least." Hence his enthusiasm in everything pertaining to Scottish song, and his generous ofier of assistance to Johnson in getting ui3 the " Scots Musical Museum." From his first letter to Johnson, in May 1787, to his last, in July 1797, he never ceased to take a lively interest in that work. In the department of Scottish poetry he was virtually the editor, though an unpaid one. Among Johnson's papers Cromek saw no fewer than 184 of the pieces which compose the collection written out in Burns's own hand. Thus for upwards of ten years he busied himself about a work for which all the remuneration he asked or expected was a copy now and then for a friend. " I am ashamed," he whites to Johnson, not much more than a fortnight before his death, " to ask another favour of you, because you have been so very good already ; but my wife has a very particular friend of hers, a young lady who sings well, to whom she wishes to present the * Scots Musical Museum.' If you have a spare copy, will you be so obliging as to send it by the very first /y, as I am anxious to have it soon." A much more ambitious imdertaking in the same line was projected by George Thomson, clerk to the Board of Trustees for the Encouragement of Manufactures in Scotland. He was assisted by some musical amateurs in Edinburgh, and among them by the Honourable Andrew Erskine. It was resolved to solicit the co-opera- tion of Burns, and Thomson wrote to him in September 1792. In his letter the terms of the engagement are explicitly stated ; and as much controversy has arisen on this subject, it is well to note the following sentences : — " AVe will esteem your poetical assistance a particular favour, besides paying any reasonable price you shall please to demand for it. Profit is quite a secondary consideration with us, and we are resolved to spare neither pains nor expense on the publication." Burns agreed, with an enthusiasm that might have been anticipated, to embark wath them in an undertaking that jumped so exactly with his predilections, and gratified his most cherished patriotic longings. He wrote : — " As to any remuneration, you may think my songs either above or below price ; for they shall absolutely be the one or the other. In the honest enthusiasm with which i. embark in your undertaking, to talk of money, wages, fee, hire, &c., would be downright prostitution of soul ! " Mr Thomson's ofier of remuneration was extremely guarded ; Burns's rejection of it was explicit and peremptory. The undertaking would be expensive, and might prove a failure, and Thomson was not then in much better circumstances than Burns. Besides, the afiairs of the poet wore a promising aspect, and no immediate need of money pressed. In the ordinary afiairs of life, his views were much more business-like than is usually supposed ; but in so congenial a task as song-writing, and for a work with whose projectors "profit was quite a secondary consideration," it was clearly impossible for him to be influenced by pecuniary motives. In a letter to the Be v. P. Carfrae he had said — " The profits of the labours of a man of genius are, I hope, as honourable as any profits whatever.'* And he had printed the Kilmarnock edition of his poems to raise a sum of money to pay his passage out of the country. Ho had, further, realised about £600 from the Edin- burgh edition, printed by Creech. I J is only motive, then, in assisting Johnson and Thomson so efficiently for nothing with songs whose equals could not have been BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xiv purchased anywhere for money was, not a belief in the impropriety of an author's living by the productions of his brain, but solely a high sense of patriotism, and of boundless pleasure iu the work itself. Towards the close of his life his circum- stances, from the increase of his family, and from the pressure on British commerce- from the war with France, were considerably more straitened than they had been in Elhslaud. He was sometimes obliged to borrow small sums, which, however, he punctually repaid ; and sometimes his accounts with his landlord and his drapers, for instance, w^ere allowed to stand over longer than w^ould have been expected from a man of his punctilious independence had payment been easy for him. That h& never, therefore, bethought himself of adding to his income by the publication of his later productions, shows the generous spirit in which they w^erc composed. Th& too generous, the unjustly generous spirit — for no more sacred obligation than the comfortable upbringing of a family, and securing the peace and self-respect which freedom from petty cares for paltry sums tends to produce, is incumbent on a parent. It does seem strange that he would rather stoop to borrow ftdiere he could so easily have command'jd money by his own honourable exertions. Nobility of spirit endures no severer test than the pressure of poverty. And that Burns would not write songs for money, that he refused £60 a year from a London newspaper for occasional poems, and that he rejected with scorn the offer from a miscreant of a large sum for the looser productions of his pen, and for the pieces of kindred spirit that his love for the Scottish muse, even when higher kilted than decorum warranted, had prompted him to collect and commit to writing, all tend to prove his naturally high- toned character. And yet no man was more alive to the pleasures that money could purchase, or to the respect that the possession of it generally secures. His Edinburgh life, and his intercourse with the local aristocracy, showed him persons in the enjoyment of all the material comforts and agrhnens of life, of whose understanding and character he thought meanly. And herein lay the great mistake of his life — that he hankered after and enjoyed with exquisite keenness the pleasures that wealth could procure, and yet chose to act otherwise than the accumulation of wealth demands. Between poesy and worldly success he could never fairly decide. When his pride met with a rebuff he merely talked of his independence, and forgot in the next social circle the wounds under \vhich he had lately smarted. And yet had he brought his poetical talents into market he could have secured worldly independence, and along with it- self-respect and the respect of others. However, to use the words of Carlyle, " not as a hired soldier, but as a patriot, would he strive for the glory of his country ; sa he cast from him the poor sixpence a day, and served zealously as a volunteer. Let us not grudge him this last luxury of his existence ; let him not have appealed to us in vain ! The money was not necessary to him ; he struggled through without it ; long since, these guineas would have been gone, and now the high-mindedness of refusing them will plead for him in all hearts for ever." After Burns had been contributing to Thomson's work for nine months, that gentleman wrote to him that the undertaking w^as now entirely on his own respon- sibility, the gentlemen who had agreed to join him in the speculation having requested to be let off. He goes on — " But thanks, my friend, are a poor return for what you have done. As I shall be benefited by the publication, you must suffer me to enclose a small mark of my gratitude, [Five Pounds] and to repeat it afterwards- when I find it convenient. Do not return it, for, by heaven ! if you do, our corres- pondence is at an end." To this Burns's answer was extraordinary. " I assure you that you truly hurt me with your pecuniary parcel. It degrades me in my own eyes. However, to return it would savour of affectation ; but, as to any more traffic of that debtor and creditor kind, I swear, by that honour which crowns the upright xlvi BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. statue of EoBERT BurisS's integrity, on the least motion of it, I will indignantly spurn the bjpast transaction, and from that moment commence entire stranger to you ! " What renders this the more wonderful is, that we have convincing j)roof that at this very time the possession of a few pounds would have been of great ser- vice to him ; and that, in fact, he had to borrow, and with a feeling of shame, and a confession and explanation of poverty, from a gentleman under no obligation to assist him. Thomson, however, did continue occasionally to remunerate him in the way he thought least likely to ofi'end, as by making Mrs Burns the present of a shawl, and the poet himself that of a drawing by Allan from the " Cotter's Saturday Night ;" while he was not niggardly in furnishing him with copies of the first haK- volume of the " Melodies " — all that was published in his lifetime. Ill health, and increasing pecuniary difficulties, magnified, doubtless, by his de- pressed spirits and gloomy imagination, at last, shortly before his death, made him apply in a letter written under great excitement, to Thomson for five pounds , not, however, as a gift, which under any circumstances it could not have been, but as beforehand payment of work to be furnished for the " Melodies." " After all my boasted independence, curst necessity compels me to implore you for five pounds. A cruel scoundrel of a haberdasher, to whom I owe an account, taking it into his head that I am dying, has commenced a process, and will in- fallibly put me into jail. Do, for God's sake, send me that sum, and that by return of post. Forgive me this earnestness ; but the horrors of a jail have made me half distracted. I do not ask all this gratuitously ; for, upon returning health, I hereby promise and engage to furnish you with five pounds' worth of the neatest song-genius you have seen." Thomson's reply is as follows : — "Ever since I received your melancholy letters by Mrs Hyslop [three months before, let the reader remember] I have been ruminating in what manner I could alleviate your sufferings. Again and again I thought of a pecuniary offer, but the recollection of one of your letters on this subject, and the fear of offending your independent spirit, checked my resolution. I thank you heartily, therefore, for the frankness of your letter of the 12th, and with great pleasure enclose a draft for the very sum I i3ro- posed sending. Would I were Chancellor of the Exchequer but for one day, for yom* sake ! " This is all that passed between Burns and Thomson on this subject. After the poet's death Thomson was blamed in different quarters for having acted shabbily to him and his family, and he attempted several not very satisfactory de- fences. Had he spoken the truth manfully, and confessed himself to have been in straitened circumstances, as is well known that he was when Burns wrote that last affecting letter ; that in fact, the five pounds he sent r;o promptly had first to be bor- rowed^ he would have come out of the controversy more honourably than he has done. Professor Walker, whom we consider a pompous prig, came to his defence. When he talks of " the delicate mind of Mr Thomson," we cannot forget how far he had out- raged common decency in his account of his last interview with Burns, and must infer that he thought Mrs Burns the ganger's widow, and the ganger's other relatives, to have been, one and al], v/ithout that superfine article "a delicate mind." The letter he quotes from Lord Woodhouselee shows only that " that highly respectable gentleman and accomplished writer " knew nothing whatever of the true state of the case. That Burns was as much indebted to Thomson for his good counsels and active friendsliip as a man, as for his strictures as a critic, are equally true ; for his criticisms were generally rejected, his active friendship was confined to giving him £10 and a trumpery shawl for a collection of songs and other writings intrinsically priceless, and which were instrumental in yielding to Thomson hundreds of pounds; and his good counsel-?, if ndvico as from a Mentor is meant, were never offered, neveir BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xlvii durst have been offered, to the haughty poet oil whose face he had never looked, or whom at least he had never met. We have often wondered if the following is to be included among the " good coun- sels " referred to : — " Pray, my good sir, is it not possible for you to muster a volume of poetry ? If too much trouble to you, in the present state of your health, some literary friend might be found here, who would select and arrange from your manu- scripts, and take upon him the task of editor. In the meantime, it could be adver- tised to be published by subscription. Do not shun this mode of obtaining the value of your labour; remember, Pope pubHshed the 'Iliad' by subscription. Think of this, my dear Burns, and do not reckon me intrusive with my advice. You are too well convinced of the respect and friendship I bear you, to impute anything I say to an unworthy motive." Is it possible Thomson did not know, or that he thought Burns had forgotten that he had himself published both the Elilmarnock and Edinburgh editions of his IDoems by subscription ? Why, he might easily have published a very respectable volume indeed, composed of the songs in the possession of Johnson and Thomson, of '•' Tam o' Shanter," given to Captain Grose, as cheaply as to the gentlemen above mentioned their treasures had been, and of " The Jolly Beggars," the best thing of its kind in British literature, but of which Burns himself had not a copy, so prodi- gal was he of what others would have coined, and who could have blamed them % into solid gold. A few tales like " Tam o' Shanter," and a handful of songs given annually to the public, had he been strict to turn the productions of his genius, as he would not have scrupled to do the labour of his hands, to good account, would have brought him not only competence but wealth, lighted up his home with sunshine, banished eare and anxiety from his troubled bosom, and furnished him with most congenial and ennobling labour — labour twice blest, and imparting conscious diguity to a life, wasted in great measure in pursuits which he could hardly like, in occasional indul- gences which he was forced to deplore, and in fretting cares for daily bread which unhinged the Jbaltuice of as "equal mind." When we compare the ample means and iersure^ of Wordsworth, not more divinely-gifted than Burns, with his worried life and narrow resources, we are compelled with regret to own that to Burns himself aftei^all, more than to aught external, is the difference to be attributed. When one has a bad case to conduct he is very apt to fall into contradictions. In a letter to Professor Walker, after he must have realised a very good sum from the *• Melodies," Thomson says — " I am not even yet compensated for the precious time consumed by me in poring over musty volumes," &c. Now in his letter to Burns with the first five pounds he had written : " I should be somewhat compensated for my labour by the pleasure I shall receive from the music." And in a letter to Eobert Chambers, written apparently under a partial eclipse of judgment, as he hints in it that he might have retained all the songs and letters, and not have granted the use of them to Dr Currie for the edition of the works he was to under- take for behoof of the poet's family, after pluming himself upon his temporary sur- render of them, (he, of course, retained the right to publish them in the work for which they were origiually intended,) he says : — " For thus surrendering the manu- scripts I received, both verbally and in writing, the wann thanks of the trustees for the family — ^Ir John Syme and Mr Gilbert Burns — who considered what I had done as a fair return for the poet's generosity of conduct to me." He must have been at his wit's end when he had recourse to so lame and impotent a defence. For nearly half a centm-y he must have reaped annually a large sum from the profits of a work, the great charm of which is Bums's exquisite lyrics ; and, as i\Ir Lockhart has remarked, the fault lay in not arranging in limine the poet's proportion of the rewards. And when in ill health, »ud as might have easily been guessed in circum- xlviii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. stances not too comfortable, he might have insisted, and Burns would not have been ill to persuade, that at least a prospective interest in the profits, if any, should be secured to his family in the event of his decease. "We are now drawing to a close. Ill health had broken the j)oet down. He had gone to Brow, on the Solway, for sea-bathing, but without obtaining any permanent relief. He knew his end was at hand ; and he looked death calmly in the face. He was even cheerful in his intercourse with some female friends who saw him there. His cares were all for his family to be left unprovided for, and for his Jean about once more to become a mother. It Avas from Brow he wrote that letter for five pounds — from Brow that he addressed that last ineffectual appeal to Mrs Dunlop for an explanation of the withdrawal of her friendship. Dr Currie says that the poet got a satisfactory explanation. But it was not so ; and his last farewell must have touched her heart, for it was naturally a kind one, with many a secret pang, when she learned that the bard was beyond reach of her sympathy or reproach. As the shadows of the dark valley were closing around him, the falling off of his friends would be doubly painful. His had ever been the open hand, and many had been the recipients of his warm-hearted charity. But nothing could.be more painful for his mind to dwell on, than that the wife and children of one whose watchword had been Independence should be indebted for daily bread to alien bounty. He had given himself wholly for Scotland. Her peasant life, her patriotism, superstitions, heroic-memories, history, music — had all been illustrated by his splendid genius. Before him the literature of his country had lost all tinge of nationality. Her writers were afraid to be Scottish, and, from a dread of English sarcasm, were aim- ing at Addisonian neatness, or moulding themselves on French forms, or exhibiting an insipid cosmopolitanism, "With the instinctive glance of genius he saw a whole world of poetry revealed to him in the everyday life, the ways and customs, loves and griefs of his fellow-peasants, and, as he sung, the domain of human conscious- ness and happiness was enlarged. Neither Smollett nor Dr Moore, both accomplished men, and one of them of splendid genius, ever had the courage to attempt the Scottish dialect. Moore, in fact, attempted to dissuade Burns from its use. But he knew better the region of his power ; and nowhere is he so happy as in the use of his native dialect, which in his hand is never vulgar, and to which he is not slavishly bound ; for when he rises to serious passion the language insensibly acquires dignity, and doffs much of its Scottish garb. Nor in his Scotch is he like the modish minstrels of our own day, who in their attempts in the good old Doric use a dialect that belongs to no district or time, a piebald livery of words diff*ering in locality and in the era of their use. Since his time, in the path which he so hap- pily opened up, we have had our Sir "Walter Scott, our John Wilson, our John Gait, and many others. Nowise is it now attempted to be concealed that an author vz Scottish and imbued with a Scottish spirit, but rather otherwise. Thus far, then, Scotland was a debtor to Burns ; and though she neglected him when alive, her people, gentle and simple, being intent on their own well-being chiefly, it was not to be doubted that she would adopt the family of her great minstrel, and wipe off* in her generous exertions for them the stigma of having allowed him to sink into the grave with a heart saddened for those he left behind. This, we say, could not be doubted. But Burns would be the last to whom it would occur. He never vaj^oured of what his country owed him ; his thought was rather how much he owed his country. He did not theatrically leave his little ones as a bequest to an ungrateful, but haply in the future a repentant, people. He knew from his first appearance as an author, nay, before it, of his genius. AVould that his last sad hours had been illuminated by a forecast of his own immortality, and of the zeal with which Scot- land would hasten to atone to the children for their neglect of the father. The sum BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xlix for which he fancied that he would be thrown into jail was £7, 4s., overdue for his volunteer uniform. Nothing alarms an ordinary honest Scotchman so much as a letter from a writer demanding payment. All the pains and penalties of the law stare him in the face. Especially if he has not the money necessary to liquidate the debt, his fears are acute in proportion to his pride and his honesty. How acutely Burns felt may be learnt from this, that he wrote two letters on the same duT/, one from Dumfries to his cousin James Burnes, Montrose, for £10, and one from Brow to Thomson, quoted above, for £o. The £10 sent from Montrose were not drawn, the ch-af t having been found among the poet's papers after his death. Mr Syme says the people of Dumfries would never have allowed Burns to have been taken to prison for such a sum. It is an unfortunate expression. First, as it is nothing to the point of Burns's anxiety, because he could not know this, nay, would have died almost ere he had acquainted the people of Dumfries with his difficulties ; and, second, because his townsmen were not aware of his being in that particular pecu- niary embarrassment. As sea-bathing promised no permanent relief, he returned to Dumfries on the ISth of July. It was with difficulty he walked up the small brae leading to his own house. His lirst act was to write to his father-in-law in Mauchline to send Mrs Armour to wait on her daughter, who was hourly expecting to be brought to bed. The house in Millhole Brae must have been at this time a sad one. Not, however, unblessed by the hght and love of human sympathy. There was the kind Jessie Lewars, who tended him with filial devotion ; there was Findlater, the supervisor, to soothe as far as he could the last moments of his friend ; and there was Dr Maxwell, skilful and affectionate. A gloom overspread Dumfries and the neighbour- hood when it was understood that the great poet was indeed dying. The streets were filled with groups anxious to know of their illustrious townsman. All political and personal rancours were forgotten. It was enough that a great, ill-requited countryman, the greatest living Scotchman, was grappling with the last enemy in the humble tenement hard by ; that there was a wife about to become a mother and a widow, and four helpless boys to be orphans. "When it was known that the last moment was at hand, his four sons, who had been removed to the house of Mr Lewars, were sent for to witness the parting scene ; and, his family and friends around him, and his bonnie Jean in bed in an adjoining chamber, on the morning of the 21st July 1796, muttering an execration against the legal agent whose letter had embittered his parting hours, this world-weary soul passed away into the un- known and infinite. The body was laid out for the grave in a plain coffin, and had been wrapped about with a linen sheet. In the bed and round the coffin flowers were strewn. On the even- ing of the 25th the remains were removed from his own house to the town-hall. They were buried on the following day with military honours by his brother volunteers. Two regiments, one of infantry and one of cavalry, lined the streets from the town- hall to the burying-ground — a distance of more than half a mile. It was calculated that from ten to twelve thousand individuals took part in the procession or lined the streets. The body after a little delay was lowered into the grave, and few faces were dry. The volunteers fired some straggling shots over the resting-place of their comrade ; the grave was filled in, the green sod replaced, and the people gradually melted away. It is sad to know that while the remains of the poet were being thus honoured, his widow was in the pangs of child-birth. The child was named after Dr Maxwell, and died in infancy. A splendid mausoleum now covers the poet's ashes. Overlooking the banks of the Doon arises a magnificent monument to his memory, while another graces the 1 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. Calton Hill in " Edina, Scotia's darling seat." His country took charge of his Jean and her children whom he had loved so well ; and at this hour no dearer names thrill a Scotchman's heart than those of the honoured " sons of Burns." Pilgrims from all lands, with pious regard, repair to the humble cottage where he was born, to Allowaj's auld haunted kirk, and the banks and braes o' bonnie Doon. And as they wander over the scenes made immortal by a peasant's song, heart clings closer to heart, the pride of birth and wealth melts away in a feehng of common humanity, and it is felt indeed that " a man 's a man for a' that." That his country was niggardly to him. while he was alive, — when he asked for bread giving him a stone, and then pihng monimiental marble over " the poor inha- bitant below," — ^has been often made the theme of reproach to her. But in all coun- tries the truly great men, the prophets, who were not of the market-place, who did not contribute to the material wealth of the people, have often been neglected and even put to death. Think of Socrates, think of the Christian apostles, think of Galileo, think of Tasso. Let England think of Butler, of Otway, of Bloomfield, of Clare, and " Of ChattertoE, tlie wondroiis boy, The sleepless soul that perished in his jDride," and well may Scotland bear up her head in the comparison. All her sons and daughters think more highly of their country that Burns was of it. Let a Scotch- man travel where he will, he is, if otherwise worthy, made more welcome for Burns's sake. That the poet was misappreciated while alive was due to many causes — reli- gious, political, and personal. Besides, how often does it happen that the man we see before us, busy with ourselves in the prosaic battle of life, fighting for bread, jostHng us perhaps, in no dignified position of brief authority, we cannot properly discern. Not till he is removed from us by being lifted up into some ofiicial or other eminence, or hidden from us by the curtain of the grave, do we begin to know his greatness. Not in this generation do we think a man like Burns would be allowed to struggle with base entanglements. To talk of the unknowable is, however, boot- less. Enough that Scotland's eyes were opened in time to succour and honour those who bore the poet's name, and that now she cherishes with an undying love the memory of Egbert Burns. APPENDIX TO BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH The Appendix to the Biographical Sketch of Robert Burns will appropriately commence with his letter to Dr Moore, a distinguished London physician, and author of sevei-al important works, including " A Yiew of Society and Manners in France, Switzerland, and Germany," " Zeluco," &c. The letter — which was called forth by a strong expression of admiration for the Poet's genius on the part of Dr Moore — ^was written in August 1787, immediately after his first visit to Edinburgh, and gives a graphic accoimt of his life and experience up to that time. The Editor believes that in reprinting this letter, along with all the more important and valuable of the sketches written by contemporaries, he will materially assist the reader in forming a distinct impression of the poet's personal appearance and habits. THE POET'S LETTER TO DR MOORE. i I HAVE not the most distant pretensions to I assume that character which the pye-coated guardians of escutcheons call ,a gentleman. ! When at Edinburgh last winter, I got ac- ' quainted in the herald's office ; and, looking I through that granary of honours, I there found j almost every name in the kingdom ; but for 1 loe, j "My ancient but ignoble blood j Has crept through scoundrels ever since the flood." j Gules, purpure, argent, &c., quite disowned me. i My father was of the north of Scotland, the son of a farmer, and was thrown by early mis- fortxmes on the world at large ; where, after many years' wanderings and sojoumings, he picked up a pretty large quantity of observation and experience, to which I am indebted for most of my little pretensions to wisdom. I have met with few who understood men, their manners, and their ways, equal to him ; but stubborn, imgainly integrity, and headlong, imgovernable irascibility, are disqualifying cir- cumstances ; consequently, I was born a veiy poor man's son. For the first six or seven years of my hfe, my father was gardener to a worthy gentleman of small estate in the neigh- bourhood of Ayr, Had he continued in that station, I must have marched ofi" to be one of the little underlings about a farmhouse; but it was his dearest wish and prayer to have it in his power to keep his children under his own eye, till they could discern between good and evil; so, with the assistance of his generous master, my father ventured on a small farm on hia estate. At those years, I waa by no means a favour- ite with anybody. I was a good deal noted for a retentive memory, a stubborn, sturdy some- thing in my disposition, and an enthusiastic idiot [idiotic] piety, I say idiot piety, because I was then but a child. Though it cost the schoolmaster some thrashings, I made an excel- lent Enghsh scholar ; and, by the time I was ten or eleven years of age, I was a critic in substantives, verbs, and particles. In my in- fant and boyLsh days, too, I owed much to an old woman who resided in the family, remark- able for her ignorance, creduUty, and supersti- tion. She had, I suppose, the largest collection in the country of tales and songs concerning devils, ghosts, fairies, brownies, witches, war- locks, spunkies, kelpies, elf-candles, dead-lights, wraiths, apparitions, cantraips, giants, enchanted towers, dragons, and other trumpery. This cultivated the latent seeds of poetry ; but had so strong an efiect on my imagination that to this hour, in my nocturnal rambles, I some- times keep a sharp look out in suspicious places; and, though nobody can be more sceptical than I am in such matters, yet it often takes an effort of philosophy to shake off these idle ter- rors. The earliest composition that I recollect taking pleasure in was the Vision of Mirza, and a hymn of Addison's, beginning, " How are thy servants blest, Lord ! " I particularly remember one half-stanza which was music to my boyish ear — "For though on dreadful whirls we hung High on the broken wave — " I met with these pieces in Mason's English Collection, one of my school-books. The first two books I ever read in private, and which gave me more pleasure than any two books I ever read since, were the Life of Hannibal, and the History of Sir WilHam Wallace, Hannibal gave my young ideas such a turn that I used to strut in raptures up and down after the recruiting drum and bagpipe, and wish myself tall enough to be a soldier, while the story of Wallace poured a Scottish preju- dice into my veins, which will boil along there tiU the floodgates of life shut in eternal rest. Polemical divinity about this time was put- ting the country half mad, and I, ambitious of shining in conversation parties on Sundays, be- tween sermons, at funerals, &c., used a few years afterwards to puzzle Calvinism with so much heat and indiscretion that I raised a hue lil APPENDIX TO BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. and cry of heresy against me, which has not •ceased to this hour. My vicinity to Ayr was of some advantage to me. My social disposition, when not ohecked by some modifications of spirited pride, was, like our Catechism definition of infinitude, without bounds or limits. I formed several connexions with other younkers, who possessed superior advantages ; the yoimgling actors who were busy in the rehearsal of parts, in which they were shortly to appear on the stage of life, where, alas ! I was destined to <3rudge behind the scenes. It is not com- monly at this green age that our young gentry have a just sense of the immense distance be- tween them and their ragged playfellows. It takes a few dashes into the world to give the young great man that proper, decent, unnotic- ing disregard for the poor, insignificant, stupid devils, the mechanics and peasantry around him, who were, perhaps, born in the same vil- lage. My young superiors never insulted the clouterly appearance of my ploughboy carcase, the two extremes of which were often exposed to all the inclemencies of all the seasons. They would give me stray volumes of books ; among them, even then, I could pick up some obser- vations, and one, whose heart, I am sure, not «;venthe "Munny Begum" scenes have tainted, helped me to a little French. Parting with these my young friends and benefactors, as they occasionally went oflf for the East or West Indies, was often to me a sore affliction ; but I was soon called to more serious evils,* My father's generous master died; the farm proved a ruinous bargain ; and, to clench the misfortune, we fell into the hands of a factor, who sat for the picture I have drawn of one in my tale of " The Twa Dogs." My father was advanced in life when he married ; I was the eldest of seven children, and he, worn out by early hardships, was unfit for labour. My father's spirit was soon irritated, but not easily broken. There was a freedom in his lease in two years more, and, to weather these two years, we retrenched our expenses. We lived very poorly : I was a dexterous ploughman for • " My brother," says Gilbert Burns, " seems to set off his early companions in too consequential a manner. The principal acquaintances we had in Ayr, wliile boys, were four sons of Mr Andrew M'Culloch, a distant "re- lation of my mother's, who kept a tea-shop, and had made a little money in the contraband trade very com- mon at that time. lie died while the boys were young, and my father was nominated one of the tutors. The two eldest were bred shopkeepers, the third a surgeon, and the youngest, the only surviving one, was bred in a counting-house in Glasgow, where he is now a res- pectable merchant. I believe all these boys went to the West Indies. Then there were two sons of Dr Malcolm, whom I have mentioned in my letter to Mrs Dunlop. The eldest, a very worthy young man, went to the East Indies, where he had a commission in the army ; he \% the person whose heart my brother says the • Munny Begum scenes could not corrupt.' The other, by the interest of Lady Wallace, got an ensigncy in a regiment raised by the Duke of Hamilton, during the American war. I believe neither of them are now (1707) alive. We also knew the present Dr Paterson of Ayr, and a younger brother of his now in Jamaica, ■who were much younger than us. I had almost forgot to mention Dr Charles of Ayr, who was a little older than my brother, and with whom we had a longer and closer intimacy than with any of the others, which did not, however, continue in after life." my age; and the next eldest to me was a brother, (Gilbert,) who could drive the plough very well, and help me to thrash the corn. A novel-writer might, perhaps, have vicived these scenes with some satisfaction, but so did not I ; my indignation yet boils at the recollection of the scoundrel factor's insolent threatening letters, which used to set us all in tears. This kind of life — the cheerless gloom of a hermit, with the unceasing moil of a galley- slave — brought me to my sixteenth year ; a little before which period I first committed the sin of rhyme. You know our country cus- tom of coupling a man and woman together as partners in the labours of harvest. In my fifteenth autumn, my partner was a bewitching creature, a year younger than myself. My scarcity of English denies mo the power of doing her justice in that language, but you know the Scotch idiom : she was a " bonnie, sweet, sonsie lass." In short, she, altogether unwittingly to herself, initiated me in that de- licious passion which, in spite of acid disap- pointment, gin-horse prudence, and book-worm philosophy, I hold to be the first of human joys, our dearest blessing here below ! How she caught the contagion I cannot tell; you medical people talk much of infection from breathing the same air, the touch, &c. ; but I never expressly said I loved her. — Indeed, I did not know myself why I liked so much to loiter behind with her, when returning in the evening from our labours ; why the tones of her voice made my heart strings thrill like an .,^olian harp ; and particularly why my pulse beat such a furious ratan, when I looked and fingered over her little hand to pick out the cruel nettle-stings and thistles. Among her other love-inspiring qualities, she sang sweetly ; and it was her favourite reel to which I at- tempted giving an embodied vehicle in rhyme. I was not so presumptuous as to imagine that I could make verses like printed ones, com- posed by men who had Greek and Latin ; but my girl sang a song which was said to be composed by a small country laird's son, on one of his father's maids Avith whom he was in love ; and I saw no reason why I might not rhyme as well as he; for, excepting that he could smear sheep, and cast peats, his father living in the moorlands, he had no more scholar-craft than myself. Thus with me began love and poetry ; which at times have been my only, and, till within the last twelve months, have been my highest, enjoyment. My father struggled on till he reached the freedom in his lease, when he entered on a larger farm, about ten miles farther in the country. The nature of the bargain he made was such as to throw a little ready money into his hands at the commence- ment of his lease, otherwise the alFaif would have been impracticable. For four years we lived comfortably here, but a difference com- mencing between him and his landlord as to terms, after three years' tossing and whirling in the vortex of litigation, my father was just saved from the horrors of a jail by a consump- tion, which, after two years' promises, kindly Btepped in, and carried him away, to where the APPENDIX TO BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. liii wicked cease from troubling, and the weary- are at rest ! It is during the time that we lived on this farm that my little story is most eventful. I Avas, at the beginning of this period, perhaps, the most ungainly awkward boy in the parish — no solitaire was less acqviainted with the ways of the world. What I knew of ancient story was gathered from Salmon's and Guthrie's Geographical Grammars ; and the ideas I had formed of luodern manners, of literature, and criticism, I got from the Spectator. These, with Pope's Works, some Plays of Shakespeare, Tvdl and Dickson on Agriculture, The Pan- theon, Locke's Essay on the Human Under- standing, Stackhouse's History of the Bible, Justice's British Gardener's Directory, Boyle's Lectures, Allan Eamsay's Works, Taylor's Scripture Doctrine of Original Sin, A Select Collection of English Songs, and Hervey's Meditations, had formed the whole of my reading. The collection of songs was my vade j mecuin. I pored over them, driving my cart, I or walking to labour, song by song, verse by I verse ; carefully noting the true tender, or sub- lime, from affectation and fustian, I am con- ! vinced I owe to this practice much of my ! critic-craft, such as it is. In my seventeenth year, to give my manners a brush, I went to a country dancing-school. My father had an unaccountable antipathy against these meetings, and my going was, what to this moment I repent, in opposition to his wishes.* My father, as I said before, was subject to strong passions ; from that instance of disobedience in me, he took a sort of dislike to me, which, I believe, was one cause of the dissipation which marked my succeeding years. I say dissipation, comparatively with the strict- ness, and sobriety, and regularity of Presbyte- rian country life ; for though the will-o'-wisp meteors of thoughtless whim were almost the sole lights of my path, yet early ingrained j piety and virtue kept me for several years afterwards within the line of innocence. The great misfortune of my life was to want an aim. I had felt early some stirrings of ambi- tion, but they were the blind gropings of Homer's Cyclops round the walls of his cave. I saw my father's situation entailed on me per- petual labour. The only two openings, by which I could enter the temple of fortune, were the gate of niggardly economy, or the path of little chicaning bargain-making. The * "I wonder," says Gilbert Burns, "how Robert could attribute to our father that lasting resentment of his going to a dancing-school against his will, and of which he was incapable. I believe the truth was that about this time he began to see the dangerous impetu- osity of my brother's passions, as well as his not being amenable tO counsel, which often irritated my father, and which, he would naturally think, a dancing-school was not likely to correct. But he was proud of Ro- bert's genius, which he bestowed more expense on cul- tivating than on the rest of the family— and he was equally delighted with his warmth of heart and conver- sational powers. He had indeed that dislike of danc- ing-schools which Robert mentions ; but so far over- came it during Robert's first month of attendance that he permitted the rest of the family that were fit for it to accompany him during the second month. Robert excelled in dancing, and was for some time distractedly fond of it." first is so contracted an aperture I never could squeeze myself into it — the last I always hated — there was contamination in the very en- trance ! Thus abandoned of aim or view in life, with a strong appetite for sociability, as well from native hilarity as from a pride of ob- servation and remark ; a constitutional melan- choly or hypochondriacism that made me fly solitude ; add to these incentives to social life my reputation for bookish knowledge, a cer- tain wild logical talent, and a strength of thought, something like the rudiments of good sense ; and it will not seem surprising that I was generally a welcome guest where I visited, or any great wonder that always, where two or three met together, there was. I among them. But far beyond all other impulses of my heart was un penchant a Vadorahle moitiS dii genre humain. My heart was completely tinder, and was eternally lighted up by some goddess or other ; and, as in every other war- fare in this world, my fortune was various; sometimes I was received with favour, and sometimes I was mortified with a repulse. At the plough, scythe, or reap-hook, I feared no competitor, and thus I set absolute want at defiance ; and, as I never cared further for my labours than while I was in actual exercise, I spent the evenings in the way after my own heart. A country lad seldom carries on a love- adventure without an assisting confidant. I possessed a curiosity, zeal, and intrepid dexterity that recommended me as a proper second on these occasions ; and, I daresay, I felt as much pleasure in being in the secret of half the loves of the parish of Tarbolton as ever did statesman in knowing the intrigues of half the courts of Europe. The very goose- feather in my hand seems to know instinctively the well-worn path of my imagination, the fa- vourite theme of my song ; and is with diffi- culty restrained from giving you a couple of paragraphs on the love-adventures of my com- peers, the humble inmates of the farmhouse and cottage ; but the grave sons of science, ambition, or avarice baptize these things by the name of follies. To the sons and daughters of labour and poverty they are matters of the most serious nature : to them the ardent hope, the stolen interview, the tender farewell, are the greatest and most dehcious parts of their enjoyments. Another circumstance in my life which made some alteration in my mind and manners, was that I spent my nineteenth summer on a smuggling coast, a good distance from home, at a noted school, to learn mensm-ation, sur- veying, dialling, &c., in which I made a pretty good progress. But I made a greater progress in the knowledge of mankind. The contra- band trade was at that time very successful, and it sometimes happened to me to fall in with those who carried it on. Scenes of swag- gering riot and roaring dissipation were, tiU this time, new to me ; but I was no enemy to social life. Here, though I learnt to fill my glass, and to mix without fear in a drunken squabble, yet I went on with a high hand with my geometry, till the sun entered Virgo, a month which ia always a carnival in my bo- E liv APPENDIX TO BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. som, when a charming fillette, who lived next door to the school, overset my trigonometry, and set me off at a tangent from the sphere of my studies. I, however, struggled on with my sines and co-sines for a few days more ; but stepping into the garden one charm- ing noon to take the sun's altitude, there I met my angel " Like Proserpine gathering flowers, Herself a fairer flower " It was in vain to think of doing any more good at school. The remaining week I stayed I did nothing but craze the faculties of my soul about her, or steal out to meet her ; and the two last nights of my stay in the country, had sleep been a mortal sin, the image of this modest and innocent girl had kept me guilt- less. I returned home very considerably improved. My reading was enlarged with the very im- portant addition of Thomson's and Shenstone's Works; I had seen human nature in a new phasis ; and I engaged several of my school- fellows to keep up a literary correspondence with me. This improved me in composition. I had met with a collection of letters by the wits of Queen Anne's reign, and I pored over them most devoutly. I kept copies of any of my own letters that pleased me, and a com- parison between them and the composition of most of my correspondents flattered my van- ity. I carried this whim so far that, though I had not three-farthings' worth of business in the world, yet almost every post brought me as many letters as if I had been a broad plodding son of day-book and ledger. My life flowed on much in the same course till my twenty-third year. Vive Vamoury et vive la bagatelle, were my sole principles of action. The addition of two more authors to my library gave me great pleasure ; Sterne and Mackenzie — Tristram Shandy and the Man of Feeling — were my bosom favourites. Poesy was still a darling walk for my mind, but it was only indulged in according to the humour of the hour. I had usually half a dozen or more pieces on hand ; I took up one or other, as it suited the momentary tone of the mind, and dismissed the work as it bor- dered on fatigue. My passions, when once lighted up, raged like so many devils, till they got vent in rhyme ; and then the conning over my verses, like a spell, soothed all into quiet ! None of the rhymes of those days are in print, except " Winter, a dirge," the eldest of my printed pieces; "The Death of poor Mailie," "John Barleycorn," and songs first, second, and third. Song second was the ebul- lition of that passion which ended the fore- mentioned school-business. My twenty-third year was to me an impor- tant era. Partly through whim, and partly that I wished to set about doing something in life, I joined a flax-dresser in a neighbouring town, (Irvine,) to leara his trade. This was an unlucky affair. My , and to finish the whole, as we were giving a welcome ca- rousal to the new year, the shop took fire and burnt to ashes, and I was left, liJco a true poet, not worth a sixpence. I was obliged to give up this scheme ; the clouds of misfortune were gathering thick round my father's head ; and, what was worst of all, he was visibly far gone in a consump- tion ; and to crown my distresses, a belle fille, whom I adored, and who had pledged her soul to meet me in the field of matrimony, jilted me, with peculiar circumstances of mortification. The finishing evil that brought up the rear of this infernal file, was my constitutional melan- choly being increased to such a degree, that for three months I was in a state of mind scarcely to be envied by the hopeless wretches who have got their mittimus — " Depart from me, ye accursed ! " From this adventure I learnt something of a town life ; but the principal thing which gave my mind a turn was a friendship I formed with a young fellow, a very noble character, but a hapless son of misfortune.* He was the son of a simple mechanic ; but a great man in the neighbourhood, taking him \mder his pat- ronage, gave him a genteel education, with a view of bettering his situation in life. The patron dying just as he w^as ready to launch out into the world, the poor fellow in despair went to sea; where, after a variety of good and ill fortune, a little before I was acquainted with him he had been set on shore by an American privateer, on the wild coast of Con- naught, stripped of everything. I cannot qiiit this poor fellow's story without adding that he is at this time master of a large West India- man belonging to the Thames. His mind was fraught with independence, magnanimity, and every manly virtue. I loved and admired him to a degree of enthu- siasm, and of course strove to imitate him. In some measure, I succeeded ; I had pride before, but he taught it to flow in proper channels. His knowledge of the world was vastly superior to mine, and I was all atten- tion to learn. He was the only man I ever saw who was a greater fool than myself where woman was the presiding star ; but he spoke of illicit love with the levity of a sailor, which hitherto I had regarded with horror. Here his friendship did me a mischief, and the con- sequence was that, soon after I resumed the plough, I wrote the " Poet's Welcome." f My reading only increased while in this town by two stray volumes of Pamela, and one of Fer- dinand Count Fathom, which gave me some idea of novels. Khyme, except some rehgious pieces that are in print, I had given up ; but meeting with Fergusson's Scottish Poems, I strung anew my wildly-sounding lyre with emulating vigour. When my father died, his all went among the hell-liounds that growl in the kennel of justice; but we made a shift to collect a little money in the family amongst us, with which, to keep us together, my bro- ther and I took a neighbouring farm. My brother wanted myhare-brained imagination, as well as my social and amorous madness ; but in good sense, and every sober qualification, he was far my superior. * Mr Richard Brown. t "Rob the Rliymer's Welcome to his Bastard Child. APPENDIX TO BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. Iv I entered on this farm with a full resolution, " Come, go to, I will be wise ! " I read farm- ing books, I calculated crops ; I attended mar- kets; and, in short, in spite of "the devil, and the world, and the flesh," I beheve I should have been a wise man ; but the first year, from unfortunately buying bad seed, the se- cond from the late harvest, we lost half our crops. This overset all my wisdom, and I re- turned, " like the dog to his vomit, and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire." I now began to be known in the neighbour- hood as a maker of rhymes. The first of my poetic offspring that saw the light was a bur- lesque lamentation on a quarrel between two reverend Calvinists, both of them dramatis pei'sonce in my *•' Holy Fair." I had a notion myself that the piece had some merit ; but, to prevent the worst, I gave a copy of it to a friend, who was very fond of such things, and told him that I could not guess who was the author of it, but that I thought it pretty clever. With a certain description of the clergy, as well as laity, it met with a roar of applause. " Holy Willie's Prayer " next made its appearance, and alarmed the kirk-session so much that they held several meetings to look over their spiritual artillery, if haply any of it might be pointed against profane rhymers. Unluckily for me, my wanderings led me on another side, within point-blank shot of their heaviest metal. This is the unfortunate story that gave rise to the printed poem, " The Lament." This was a most melancholy affair, which I cannot yet bear to reflect on, and had very nearly given me one or two of the prin- cipal qualifications for a place among those who have lost the chart, and mistaken the reckoning of rationality. I gave up my part of the farm to my brother : in truth it was only nominally mine; and made what little preparation was in my power for Jamaica, But, before leaving my native country for ever, I resolved to publish my poems. I weighed my productions as impartially as was in my power ; I thought they had merit ; and it was a delicious idea that I should be called a clever fellow, even though it should never reach my ears — a poor negro-driver — or per- haps a victim to that inhospitable clime, and gone to the world of spirits ! I can truly say that, paicvre inconnu as I then was, I had pretty nearly as high an idea of myself and of my works as I have at this moment, when the public has decided in their favour. It ever was my opinion that the mistakes and blunders, both in a rational and religious point of view, of which we see thousands daily guilty, are owing to their ignorance of them- selves.— To know myself had been all along my constant study. I weighed myself alone ; I balanced myself with others; I watched every means of information, to see how much ground I occupied as a man and as a poet ; I studied assiduously Nature's design in my for- mation — where the hghts and shades in my <*haracter were intended. I was pretty confi- dent my poems would meet with some ap- plause ; but at the worst, the roar of the At- lantic would deafen the voice of censure, and the novelty of West Indian scenes make me forget neglect. I threw ofi" six hundred co- pies, of which I had got subscriptions for about three hundred and fifty. — My vanity was highly gratified by the reception I met with from the public;* and, besides, I pocketed, all expenses deducted, nearly twenty pounds. This sum came very seasonably, as I was thinking of indenting myself, for want of money to procure my passage. As soon as I was master of nine guineas, the price of waft- ing me to the ton-id zone, I took a steerage passage in the first ship that was to sail from the Clyde, for " nangry rain had me in the wind." I had been for some days skulking from covert to covert, under all the terrors of a jail ; as some ill-advised people had uncoupled the merciless pack of the law at my heels. I had taken the last farewell of my few friends ; my chest was on the road to Greenock ; I had composed the last song I should ever measure j in Caledonia — " The gloomy night is gather- ing fast," when a letter from Dr Blacklock to a friend of mine overthrew all my schemes, by opening new prospects to my poetic ambition. The doctor belonged to a set of critics, for whose applause I had not dared to hope. His opinion, that I would meet with encourage- ment in Edinburgh for a second edition, fired me so much that away I posted for that city, without a single acquaintance, or a single letter of introduction. The baneful star that had so long shed its blasting influence in my zenith for once made a revolution to the nadir ; and a kind Providence placed me under the patronage of one of the noblest of men, the Earl of Giencaim. Ouhlie moi, grand Dieu, si jamais je V ouhlie! I need relate no further. At Edinburgh I was in a new world ; I mingled among many classes of men, but all of them new to me, and I was all attention to " catch " the characters and the manners "living as they rise." Whether I have profited, tinie will show. My most respectful compliments to Miss Williams. Her very elegant and friendly letter I cannot answer at present, as my presence is requisite in Edinburgh, and I set out to- moiTow. E. B. * " It is hardly possible to express," says the unfor- tunate Heron, "with what eager admiration and delight they were everywhere received. Old and younjr, high and low, grave and gay. learned or ignorant, all were alike delighted, agitated, transported. I was at that time resident in Galloway, contiguous to Ayrshire, and I can well remember, how that even plough-boys and maid-servants would have gladly parted with the wages which they earned the most hardly, and which they wanted to jpurchase necessary clothing, if they might but procure tlie works of Burns. A copy hap- pened to be presented from a gentleman in Ayrshire to a friend in my neighbourhood ; he put it into my hands, as a work containing some effusions of the most ex- traordinary genius. I took it, rather that I might not disoblige the lender, than from any ardour of curiosity or expectation. 'An unlettered ploughman, a poet." said I, with contemptuous incredulity. It was on a Saturday evening. I opened the volume by accident, while I was undressing to go to bed. I closed it, not till a late hour on the rising Sunday morn, after I had read over evei7 syllable it contained." Ivi APPENDIX rO BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. LETTER OF GILBERT BURNS TO MRS DUNLOP. The following interesting letter was drawn up shortly after the poet's death by his brother Gilbert, at the request of Mrs Dunlop of Dunlop, who was anxious to obtain some biographical details regarding the early years of her admired and lamented friend : — Robert Bums was bom on the 25th day of January 1759, in a small house about two miles from the town of Ayr, and within a few hundred yai'ds of Alloway Church, which his poem of " Tarn o" Shanter " has rendered im- mortal. The name, which the poet and his brother modernised into Burns, was originally Burnes, or Burness. Their father, William Burnes, was the son of a farmer in Kincardine- shire, and had received the education common in Scotland to persons in his condition of life ; he could read and write, and had some know- ledge of arithmetic. His family having fallen into reduced circumstances, he was compelled to leave his home in his nineteenth year, and turned his steps towards the south, in quest of a livelihood. The same necessity attended his elder brother Robert. " I have often heard my father," says Gilbert Burns, in his letter to Mrs Dunlop, " describe the anguish of mind he felt when they parted on the top of a hill on the confines of their native place, each going off his several way in search of new adventures, and scarcely knowing whither he went. My father undertook to act as a gardener, and shaped his course to Edinburgh, where he wrought hard when he could get work, passing through a variety of difficulties. Still, how- ever, he endeavoured to spare something for the support of his aged parents : and I recollect hearing him mention his having sent a bank- note for this purpose, when money of that kind was so scarce in Kincardineshire, that they scarcely knew how to employ it when it arrived." From Edinburgh, William Burnes passed westward into the county of Ayr, where he engaged himself as a gardener to the laird of Fairly, with whom he lived two. years; then changing his service for that of Crawford of Doonside. At length, being desirous of set- tling in life, he took a perpetual lease of seven acres of land from Dr Campbell, physician in Ayr, with the view of commencing nursery- man and public gardener ; and, having built a house upon it with his own hands, married, in December, 1757, Agnes Brown, the mother of our poet, who still survives. The first fruit of this marriage was Robert, the subject of these memoirs, born on the 25th of January 1759, as has already been mentioned. Before Wil- liam Burnes had made much progress in pre- paring his nursery, he was withdrawn from that i\ndertaking by Mr Ferguson, who pur- chased the estate of Doonholm, in the imme- diate neighbourhood, and engaged hira as his gardener and overseer ; and this was his situa- tion when our poet was born. Though in the service of Mr Ferguson, he lived in his own house, his wife managing her family and her little dairy, which consisted sometimes of two, sometimes of three milch cows ; and this state of unambitious content continued till the year 1766. His son Robert Was sent by him, in his sixth year, to a school at Alloway-Mi]], about a mile distant, taught by a person of the name of Campbell ; but this teacher being in a few months appointed master of the work- house at Ayr, William Burnes, in conjunction with some other heads of families, engaged John Murdoch in his stead. The education of our poet, and of his brother Gilbert, was in common ; and of their proficiency under Mr Murdoch we have the following account : — " With him we learnt to read English tole- rably well, and to write a little. He taught us, too, the English grammar. I was too young to profit much from his lessons in gram- mar ; but Robert made some proficiency in it — a circumstance of considerable weight in the unfolding of his genius and character ; as he soon became remarkable for the fluency and correctness of his expression, and read the few books that came in his way with much plea- sure and improvement ; for even then he was a reader when he could get a book. Murdoch, whose library at that time had no great variety in it, lent him ' The Life of Hannibal,' which, was the first book he read, (the school-books excepted,) and almost the only one he had an opportunity of reading while he was at school : for * The Life of Wallace,' which he classes with it in one of his letters to you, he did not see for some years afterwards, when he bor- rovfed it from the blacksmith who shod our horses." It appears that William Burnes approved himself greatly in the service of Mr Ferguson by his intelligence, industry, and integrity. In consequence of this, with a view of pro- moting his interest, Mr Ferguson leased him a farm, of which we have the following ac- count : — " The farm was upwards of seventy acres, (between eighty and ninety English statute measure,) the rent of which was to be forty pounds annually for the first six years, and afterwards forty-five pounds. My father en- deavoured to sell his leasehold property, for the purpose of stocking his farm, but at that time was unable, and Mr Ferguson lent him a hundred pounds for that purpose. He removed to his new situation at Whitsuntide, 1766. It was, I think, not above two years after this, that Murdoch, our tutor and friend, left this part of the country ; and there being no school near us, and our little services being useful on the farm, my father undertook to teach us arithmetic in the winter evenings, by candle- light ; and in this way my two eldest sisters got all the education they received. I remem- ber a circumstance that happened at this time, which, though trifling in itself, is fresh in my memory, and may serve to illustrate the early character of my brother. Murdoch came to ppend a night with us, and to take his leave when he was about to go into Can-ick. He brought us, as a present and memorial of him. APPENDIX TO BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. Ivii a small compendium of English Grammar, and the tragedy of ' Titus Andronicus,' and, by way of passing the evening, he began to read the play aloud. We were all attention for some tinie, till presently the whole party was dis- solved in tears. A female in the play (I have but a confused remembrance of it) had her hands chopt off, and her tongue cut out, and then was insultingly desired to call for water to wash her hands. At this, in an agony of distress, we with one voice desired he would read no more. My father observed, that if we would not hear it out, it would be needless to leave the play with us. Robert replied, that if it was left he would burn it. My father was going to chide him for this ungrateful re- turn to his tutor's kindness ; but Murdoch in- terfered, declaring that he liked to see so much sensibility ; and he left * The School for Love,' a comedy, (translated I think from the French,) in its place. " Nothing," continues Gilbert Burns, " could be more retired than our general manner of living at Mount Oiiphant ; we rarely saw any- body but the members of our own family. There were no boys of our own age, or near it, in the neighbourhood. Indeed, the greatest part of the land in the vicinity was at that time possessed by shopkeepers, and people of that stamp, who had retired from business, or who kept their farm in the country, at the same time that they followed business in town. My father was for some time almost the only companion we had. He conversed familiarly on all subjects with us, as if we had been men ; and was at great pains, while we accompanied him in the labours of the farm, to lead the conversation to such subjects as might tend to increase our knowledge, or confirm us in virtuous habits. He borrowed 'Salmon's Geographical Grammar' for us, and endea- voured to make us acquainted with the situa- tion and history of the different countries in the world ; while, from a book-society in Ayr, he procured for us the reading of * Derham's Physico and Astro-Theology,' and ' Ray's Wis- dom of God in the Creation,' to give us some idea of Astronomy and Natural History. Ro- bert read all these books with an avidity and industry scarcely to be equalled. My father had been a subscriber to ' Stackhouse's His- tory of the Bible,' then lately published by James Meuross, in Kilmarnock : from this Robert collected a competent knowledge of ancient history ; for no book was so volumi- nous as to slacken his industry, or so anti- quated as to damp his researches. A brother of my mother, who had lived with us for Rome time, and had learnt some arithmetic by our winter evening's candle, went into a bookseller's shop in Ayr, to purchase * The Ready Reckoner, or Tradesman's Sure Guide,' and a book to teach him to write letters. Luckily, in place of ' The Complete Letter- Writer,' he got by mistake a small collection of letters by the most eminent writers, with -a few sensible directions for attaining an easy epistolary style. This book was to Robert of the greatest consequence. It inspired him with a strong desire to excel in letter-writing, while it furnished him with models by some of the first writers in our language. *'My brother was about thirteen orfom-teen, when my father, regretting that we wrote so ill, sent us, week about, during a summer quarter, to the parish school of Dalrymple, which, though between two and three miles distant, was the nearest to us, that we might have an opportunity of remedying this defect. About this time a bookish acquaintance of my father's procured us a reading of two volumes of Richardson's 'Pamela,' which was the first novel we read, and the only part of Richard- son's works my brother was acquainted with till towards the period of his commencing author. Till that time, too, he remained un- acquainted with Fielding, with Smollett, (two volumes of ' Ferdinand Count Fathom,' and two volumes of ' Peregrine Pickle ' excepted,) with Hume, with Robertson, and almost all our authors of eminence of the later times. I recollect, indeed, my father borrowed a vol- ume of English history from Mr Hamilton of Bourtreehill's gardener. It treated of the reign of James I., and his unfortunate son, Charles, but I do not know who was the author ; all that I remember of it is something of Charles's conversation with his children. About this time, Murdoch, our former teacher, after hav- ing been in difi'erent places in the country, and having taught a school some time in Dumfries, came to be the established teacher of the English language in Ayr, a circumstance of considerable consequence to us. The re- membrance of my father's former friendship, and his attachment to my brother, made him do everything in his power for our improve- ment. He sent us Pope's works, and some other poetry, the first that we had an oppor- tunity of reading, excepting what is contained in ' The English Collection,' and in the volume of the Edinburgh Magazine for 1772 ; excepting also those 'excellent new songs' that are hawked about the country in baskets, or exposed on stalls in the streets. " The summer after we had been at Dal- rymple school, my father sent Robert to Ayr, to revise his English grammar, with his former teacher. He had been there only one week, when he was obliged to return, to assist at the harvest. When the harvest was over, he went back to school, where he remained two weeks ; and this completes the account of his school education, excepting one summer quarter, some time afterwards, that he attended the parish school of Kirkoswald, (where he lived with a brother of my mother's,) to learn surveying. "During the two last weeks that he was with Murdoch, he himself was engaged in learning French, and he communicated the instructions he received to my brother, who, when he returned, brought home with him a French dictionary and grammar, and the 'Adventures of Telemachus' in the original. In a little while, by the assistance of these books, he had acquired such a knowledge of the language, as to read and understand any French author in prose. This was considered as a sort of pro- digy, and through the medium of Murdoch, procured him the acquaintance of several lads Iviii APPENDIX TO BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. in Ayr, who were at that time gabbling French, and the notice of some families, particularly that of Dr Malcolm, where a knowledge of French was a recommendation. " Observing the facility with which he had acquired the French language, Mr Kobinson, the established writing-master in Ayr, and Mr Murdoch's particular friend, having himself acquired a considerable knowledge of the Latin language by his own industry, without ever having learned it at school, advised Robert to make the same attempt, promising him every assistance in his povv'er. Agreeably to this advice, he purchased * The Rudiments of the Latin Tongue,' but linding this study dry and uninteresting, it was qviickly laid aside. He frequently returned to his Rudiments on any little chagrin or disappointment, particularly in his love affairs ; but the Latin seldom pre- dominated more than a day or two at a time, or a w^eek at most. Observing himself the ridicule that would attach to this sort of con- duct if it were known, he made two or three humorous stanzas on the subject, which I cannot now recollect, but they all ended, ' So I '11 to my Latin again.' " Thus you see Mr Murdoch was a principal means of my brother's improvement. Worthy man ! though foreign to my present purpose, I cannot take leave of him without tracing his future history. He continued for some years a respected and useful teacher at Ayr, till one evening that he had been overtaken in liquor, he happened to speak somewhat disrespectfully of Dr Dalrymple, the parish minister, who had not paid him that attention to which he thought himself entitled. In Ayr he might as well have spoken blasphemy. He found it proper to give up his appointment. He went to Lon- don, where he still lives, a private teacher of French. He has been a considerable time mar- ried, and keeps a shop of stationery wares. " The father of Dr Paterson, now physician at Ayr, was, I believe, a native of Aberdeen- shire, and was one of the established teachers in Ayr, when my father settled in the neigh- bourhood. He early recognised my father as a fellow-native of the north of Scotland, and a certain degree of intimacy subsisted between them during Mr Paterson's life. After his death, his widow, who is a very genteel woman, and of great worth, delighted in doing what she thought her husband would have wished to have done, and assiduously kept up her attentions to all his acquaintance. She kept alive the intimacy with our family, by fre- quently inviting my father and mother to her house on Sundays, when she met them at church. " When she came to know my brother's pas- sion for books, she kindly offered us the use of her husband's library, and from her we got the * Spectator,' ' Pope's Translation of Homer,' and several other books that were of use to us. Mount Oliphant, the farm my father possessed in the parish of Ayr, is almost the very poorest soil I know of in a state of cultivation. A stronger proof of this I cannot give than that, notwithstanding the extraordinary rise in the value of lands in Scotland, it was, after a con- siderable Slim laid out in improving it by the proprietor, let a few years ago five pounds per annum lower than the rent paid for it by my father thirty years ago. My father, in consequence of this, soon came into difficulties, which were increased by the loss of several of his cattle by accidents and disease. To the bulFetings of misfortune, we could only oppose hard labour, and the most rigid economy. We lived very sparing. For several years butcher's meat was a stranger in the house, while all the members of the family exerted themselves to the utmost of their strength, and rather beyond it, in the labours of the farm. My brother, at the age of thirteen, assisted ir? threshing the crop of corn, and at fifteen was the principal labourer on the farm^, for we had no hired servant, male or female. The an- guish of mind we felt at our tender year,«, under these straits and difficulties, was very great.. To think of our father growing old, (for he was now above fifty,) broken down with the long continued fatigues of his life, with a wife and five children, and in a declining state of circumstances — these reflections produced in my brother's mind and mine sensations of the deepest distress. I doubt not but the hard labour and sorrow of this period of his life, was in a great measure the cause of that de- pression of spirits with which Robert was so often afflicted through his whole lif- after- wards. At this time he was almost constantly afflicted in the evenings with a dull headache, which at a future period of his life was ex- changed for a palpitation of the heart, and a threatening of fainting and suffocation in his bed in the night-time. " By a stif)ulation in my father's lease, he had a right to throw it up, if he thought proper, at the end of every sixth year. He attempted to fix himself in a better farm at the end of the first six years, but failing in that attempt, he continued where he was for six years more. He then took the farm of Lochlea, of a hundred and thirty acres, at the rent of twenty shillings an acre, in the parish of Tarbolton, of Mr , then a merchant in Ayr, and now (1797) a merchant in Liverpool. He removed to this farm at Whitsunday, 1777, and possessed it only seven years. No writing had ever been made out of the conditions of the lease ; a misunderstanding took place re- specting them ; the subjects in dispute were submitted to arbitration, and the decision in- volved my father's affiiirs in ruin. He lived to know of this decision, but not to see any exe- cution in consequence of it. He died on the 13thof February 1784. •' The seven years we lived in Tarbolton parish (extending from the seventeenth to the twenty-fourth of my brother's age,) were not marked by much literary improvement ; but, during this time, the foundation was laid of certain habits in my brother's character, which afterwards became but too prominent, and which malice and envy have taken delight to enlarge on. Thougli when young he was bash- ful and awkward in his intercourse with women, yet when he approached manhood, his attach- APPENDIX rO BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. lix nient to their society became very strong, and he was constantly the victim of some fair enslaver. The symptoms of his passion were often such as nearly to equal those of the celebrated Sappho. I never indeed knew that he ' fainted, sunk, and died away ; ' but the agitations of his mind and body exceeded any- thing of the kind I ever knew in real life. He had always a particular jealousy of people who were richer than himself, or who had more consequence in life. His love, therefore, rarely settled on persons of this description. When he selected any one out of the sove- reignty of his good pleasure, to whom he should pay his particular attention, she Avas instantly invested with a sufficient stock of charms, out of the plentiful stores of his own imagination ; and there was often a great dis- similitude between his fair captivator, as she appeared to others, and as she seemed when invested with the attributes he gave her. One generally reigned paramount in his affections ; but as Yorick's affections flowed out toward Madame de L at the remise door, while the eternal vows of Eliza were upon him, so llobert was frequently encountering other at- tractions, which formed so many under-plots in the drama of his love. As these connexions were governed by the strictest rules of virtv;e and modesty, (from which he never deviated till he reached his twenty-third year,) he be- came anxious to be in a situation to marry. This was not likely to be soon the case while he remained a farmer, as the stocking of a farm required a sum of money he had no pro- bability of being master of for a great while. He began, therefore, to think of trying some other line of life. He and I had for several years taken land of my father for the purpose of raising flax on our own account. In the course of selling it,. Robert began to think of turning flax-dresser, both as being suitable to his grand view of settling in hfe, and as sub- servient to the flax raising. He accordingly wrought at the business of a flaxdresser in Irvine for six months, but abandoned it at that period, as neither agreeing with his health nor inclination. In Irvine he had contracted some acquaintance of a freer manner of thinking and living than he had been used to, whose society prepared him for overleaping the bounds of rigid virtue v.hich had hitherto re- strained him. Tovvards the end of the period under review (in his twenty-fourth year,) and soon after his father's death, he was furnished with the subject of his Epistle to John Ran- kin. During this period also he became a freemason, which was his first introduction to the life of a boon companion. Yet, notwith- standing these circumstances, and the praise he has bestowed on Scotch drink (which seem to have misled his historians,) I do not recoh lect, during these seven years, nor till towards the end of his commencing author, (when his growing celebrity occasioned his being often in company,) to have ever seen him intoxicated ; nor was he at all given to drinking. A stronger proof of the general sobriety of his conduct need not be required than what I am about to give. During the whole of the time we lived in the farm of Lochlea with my father he allowed my brother and me such wages for our labour as he gave to other labourers, as a part of which, every article of our clothing, manu- factured in the family, was regularly accounted for. When my father's affairs drew near a crisis, Robert and I took the farm of Mossgiel, consisting of a hundred and eighteen acres, at the rent of ninety pounds per annum, (the farm on which I live at present,) from Mr Gavin Hamilton, as an asylum for the famUy in case of the worst. It was stocked by the property and individual savings of the whole family, and was a joint concern among tis. Every member of the family was allowed ordinary wages for the labour he performed on the farm. My brother's allowance and mine was seven pounds per annum each. And during the whole time this family concern lasted, which was for four years, as well as during the preceding period at Lochlea, his expenses never in any one year exceeded his slender income. As I was intrusted with the keeping of the family accounts, it is not possible that there can be any fallacy in this statement in my brother's favour. His temperance and frugality were everything that could be wished. " The farm of Mossgiel lies very high, and mostly on a cold wet bottom. The first four years that we were on the farm were very- frosty, and the spring was very late. Our crops in consequence were very unprofitable ; and, notwithstanding our iitmost diligence and economy, we found ourselves obliged to give up our bargain, with the loss of a considerable part of our original stock. It was during these four years that Robert formed his connexion with Jean Armour, afterwards Mrs Burns. This connexion could no longer he concealed, about the time we came to a final determina- tion to quit the farm. Robert durst not en- gaga with his family in his poor unsettled state, but was anxious to shield his partner, by every means in his power, from the conse- quences of their imprudence. It was agreed therefore between them, that they should make a legal acknowledgment of an irregular and private marriage ; that he should go to Jamaica to push his fortune : and that she should remain with her father tUl it might please Providence to put the means of sup- porting a family in his power. "Mrs Burns was a great favourite of her father's. The intimation of a marriage was i the first suggestion he received of her real ! situation. He was in the greatest distress, | and fainted away. The marriage did not ap- pear to him to make the matter better. A husband in Jamaica appeared to him and his wife little better than none, and an effectual bar to any other prospects of a settlement in life that their daughter might have. They therefore expressed a wish to her, that the written papers which respected the marriage should be cancelled, and thus the marriage rendered void. In her melancholy state, she felt the deepest remorse at having brought such heavy affliction on parents that loved her so tenderlj'-, and submitted to their entreaties. Their wish was mentioned to Kobert. He Ix APPENDIX TO BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. felt the deepest anguish of mind. He offered to stay at home and provide for his wife and family in the best manner that his daily labours covild provide for them ; that being the only means in his power. Even this offer they did not approve of ; for humble as Miss Armour's station was, and great though her imprudence had been, she still, in the e^'es of her partial parents, might look to a better connexion than that with my friendless and unhappy brother, at that time without house or biding place. Robert at length consented to their wishes ; but his feelings on this occa- Bion were of the most distracting nature : and the impression of sorrow was not effaced, till by a regular marriage they were indissolubly united. In the state of mind which this separation produced, he wished to leave the country as soon as possible, and agreed with Dr Douglas to go out to Jamaica, as an assist- ant overseer, or, as I believe it is called, a book-keeper, on his estate. As he had not sufficient money to pay his passage, and the vessel in which Dr Douglas was to procure a passage for him was not expected to sail for some time, Mr Hamilton advised him to pub- lish his poems in the meantime by subscrip- tion, as a likely way of getting a little money, to provide him more liberally in necessaries for Jamaica. Agreeably to this advice, sub- scription-bills were printed immediately, and the printing was commenced at Kilmarnock, his preparations going on at the same time for his voyage. The reception, however, which his poems met with in the world, and the friends they procured him, made him change his resolu- tion of going to Jamaica, and he was advised to go to Edinburgh to publish a second edi- tion. On his return, in happier circumstances, he renewed his connexion with Mrs Burns, and rendered it permanent by a union for life. *' Thus, cnadam, have I endeavoured to give you a simple narrative of the leading circum- stances in my brother's early life. The re- maining part he spent in Edinburgh, or in Dumfriesshire, and its incidents are as well known to you as to me. His genius having procured him your patronage and friendship, this gave rise to the correspondence between you, in which, I believe, his sentiments were delivered with the most respectful, but most unreserved confidence, and which only ter- minated with the last days of his life." LETTER FROM MR JOHN MURDOCH.* " Sir, — I was lately favoured with a letter from our worthy friend, the Rev. Wm, Adair, in which he requested me to communicate to you whatever particulars I could recollect con- cerning Robert Burns, the Ayrshire poet. My business being at present multifarious and liarassing, my attention is consequently so much divided, and I am so little in the habit of ^ expressing my thoughts on paper, that at this distance of time I can give but a very im- perfect sketch of th3 early part of the life of * For an account of Mr Murdoch, sco note, lutter II. that extraordinary genius, with which alone I am acquainted. '■ William Burnes, the father of the poet, was born in the shire of Kincardine, and bred a gardener. He had been settled in Ayrshire ten or twelve years before I knew him, and had been in the service of Mr Crawford of Doonside. He was afterwards employed as a gardener and overseer by Provost Ferguson of Doonholrae, in the parish of Alloway, which is now united with that of Ayr. In this parish, on the road side, a Scotch mile and a half from the town of Ayr, and half a mile from the bridge of Doon, William Burnes took a piece of land, consisting of about seven acres ; part of which he laid out in garden ground, and part of which he kept to gi-aze a cow, &c., still continuing in the employ of Provost Ferguson, Upon this little farm was erected a humble dwelling, of which William Burnes was the architect. It was, with the exception of a little straw, literally a tabernacle of clay. In this mean cottage, of which I myself was at times an inhabitant, I really believe there dwelt a larger portion of content than in any palace in Europe. The 'Cotter's Saturday Night ' will give some idea of the temper and manners that prevailed there. " In 1765, about the middle of March, Mr Wm, Burnes came to Ayr, and sent to the school where I was improving in writing, under my good friend Mr Robinson, desiring that I would come and speak to him at a cer- tain inn, and bring my writing-book with me. This was immediately complied with. Having examined my writing, he was pleased with it, (you will readily allow he was not difficult,) and told me that he had received very satis- factory information of Mr Tennant, the master of the English school, concerning my improve- ment in English, and in his method of teach- ing. In the month of May following, I was engaged by Mr Burnes, and four of his neigh- bours, to teach, and accordingly began to teach the little school at Alloway, which was situated a few yards fi'om the argillaceous fabric above mentioned. My five employers undertook to board me by turns, and to make up a certain salary at the end of the year, provided my quarterly payments from the different pupils did not amount to that sum. " My pupil, Robert Burns, was then between six or seven years of age ; his preceptor about eighteen. Robert, and his younger brother Gilbert, had been grounded a little in English before they were put under my care. They both made a rapid progress in reading, and a tolerable progress in writing. In reading, dividing words into syllables by rule, sjielling without book, parsing sentences, &c., Robert and Gilbert were generally at the upper end of the class, even when ranged with boys by far their seniors. The books most commonly used in the school were the Spelling-Book, the New Testament, the Bible, Mason's Collection of Prose and Verse, and Fisher's English Gram- mar. They committed to memory the hymns, and other poems of that collection, with un- common facility. This facility was partly owing to the method pursued by their father APPENDIX TO BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. Ixi ! And me in instructing them, which was, to make 1 them thoroughly acquainted with the meaning I of every word in each sentence that was to be I committed to memory. By the by, this may j be easier done, and at an earlier period, than is ! generally thought. As soon as they were I capable of it, I taught them to turn verse into I its natural prose order ; sometimes to sub- stitute synonymous expressions for poetical words, and to supply the ellipses. These, you know, are the means of knowing that the pupil I understands his author. These are excellent ' helps to the arrangement of words in sentences, ! as well as to a variety of expression. { " Gilbert always appeared to me to possess a more lively imagination, and to be more of the wit than Robert. I attempted to teach them a little church music : here they were left far behind by all the rest of the school. Robert's ear, in particular, was remarkably dull, and his voice vintunable. It was long before I could get them to distinguish one tune from another. Robert's countenance was generally grave, and expressive of a serious, contemplative, and thoughtful mind. Gilbert's face said, ' Mirth, with thee I mean to live ;' and certainly, if any person who knew the two boys had been asked which of them was the most likely to court the Muses, he would surely never have guessed that Robert had a propen- sity of that kind. "In the year 1769, Mr Bumes quitted his mud edifice, and took possession of a farm (Mount Oliphant) of his own improving, while in the service of Provost Ferguson. This farm being at a considerable distance from the school, the boys could not attend regularly ; and some changes taking place among the other supporters of the school, 1 left it, having continued to conduct it for nearly two years and a half. *' In the year 1772, I was appointed (being one of five candidates who were examined) to teach the English school at Ayr; and, in 1773, Robert Burns came to board and lodge with me, for the purpose of revising the English grammar, &c., that he might be better quali- :fied to instruct his brothers and sisters at home. He was now with me day and night, in school, at all meals, and in all my walks. At the end of one week, I told him, that, as he was now pretty much master of the parts of speech, &c., I should like to teach him something of French pronunciation; that when he should meet with the name of a French town, ship, ofiicer, or the like, in the newspapers, he might be able to pronounce it something like a French word. Robert was glad to hear this proposal, and immediately we attacked the French with great courage. " Now there was little else to be heard but the declension of noims, the conjugation of verbs, &c. AVhen walking together and even at meals, I was constantly telling him the names of different objects, as they presented themselves, in French, so that he was hourly laying in a stock of words and sometimes little phrases. In short, he took such pleasure in learning, and I in teaching, that it was diffi- cult to say which of the two was most zealous in the business : and about the end of the second week of our study of the French, we began to read a little of the 'Adventures of Telemachus,' in Fenelon's own words. "But now the plains of Mount Oliphant began to whiten, and Robert was summoned to relinquish the pleasing scenes that sur- rounded the grotto of Calypso; and, armed with a sickle, to seek glory by signalising him- self in the fields of Ceres — and so he did ; for although but about fifteen, I was told that he performed the work of a man. " Thus was I deprived of my very apt pupil, and consequently agreeable companion, at the end of three weeks, one of which was spent entirely in the study of English, and the other two chiefly in that of French. I did not, how- ever, lose sight of him ; but was a frequent visitant at his father's house, when I had my half -holiday ; and very often went, accom- panied with one or two persons more intelli- gent than myself, that good William Burnes might enjoy a mental feast. Then the labour- ing oar was shifted to some other hand. The father and the son sat down with us, when we enjoyed a conversation, wherein solid reason- ing, sensible remark, and a moderate seasoning of jocularity, were so nicely blended as to render it palatable to all parties. Robert had a hundred questions to ask me about the French, &c.; and the father, who had always rational information in view, had still some question to propose to my more learned friends, upon moral or natural philosophy, or some such interesting subject. ]\Irs Burnes, too, was of the party as much as possible — ' But still the house affairs would draw her thence, "Which ever as she could with haste despatch, She 'd come again, and with a greedy ear, Devour up their discourse,' and particularly that of her husband. At all times, and in all companies, she listened to him with a more marked attention than to anybody else. When under the necessity of being absent, while he was speaking, she seemed to regret as a real loss, that she had missed what the good man had said. This worthy woman, Agnes Brown, had the most thorough esteem for her husband of any woman I ever knew. I can by no means wonder that she highly esteemed him : for I m^'self have always considered William Burnes as by far the best of the human race that ever I had the pleasure of being acquainted with — and many a worthy character I have known, I can cheerfully join with Robert in the last line of his epitaph (borrowed from Gold- smith) : — " ' And even his failings lean'd to virtue's side.' " He was an excellent husband, if I may judge from his assiduous attention to the ease and comfort of his worthy partner, and from her affectionate behaviour to him, as well as her unwearied attention to the duties of a mother. " He was a tender and afi:ectionate father ; he took pleasure in leading his children in the path of virtue ; not in driving them as some parents do, to the performance of duties to which they themselves are averse. He took Ixii APPENDIX TO BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. care to find fault but very seldom ; and there- fore, when he did rebuke, he was listened to with a kind of reverential awe. A look of dis- approbation was felt; a reproof was sevei'ely so; and a stripe with the tav:z^ even on the skirt of the coat, gave heartfelt pain, pro- duced a loud lamentation, and brought forth a flood of tears. " He had the art of gaining the esteem and good-will of those that were labourers under him: I think I never saw him angry but twice, the one time it was with the foreman of the band, for not reaping the field as he was desired ; and the other time, it was with an old man, for using smutty innuendoes and double entendres. Were every foul-mouthed old man to receive a seasonable check in this way, it would be to the advantage of the rising generation. As he was at no time overbearing to inferiors, he was equally incapable of that passive, pitiful, paltry spirit, that induces some people to Iceeji booing and booing in the pi*esence of a great man. He always treated superiors with a becoming respect ; but he never gave the smallest encouragement to aristocratical arrogance. But I must not pretend to give you a description of all the manly qualities, the rational and Christian virtues, of the vene- rable William Burnes. Time would fail me. I shall only add, that he carefully practised every known duty, and avoided everything that was criminal ; or, in the apostle's words, * Herein did he exercise himself in living a life void of ofience towards God and towards men.' for a world of men of such disposi- tions ! We should then have no wars. I have often wished, for the good of mankind, that it were as customary to honour and perpetuate the memory of those who excel in moral recti- tude, as it is to extol what are called heroic actions : then would the mausoleum of the friend of my youth overtop and surpass most of the monuments I see in Westminster Abbey. " Although I cannot do justice to the cha- racter of this worthy man, yet you will per- ceive, from these few particulars, what kind of person had the principal hand in the educa- tion of our poet. He spoke the English lan- guage with more propriety (both with respect to diction and pronunciation) than any man I ever knew with no greater advantages. This had a very good efiect on the boys, who began to talk and reason like men, much sooner than their neighbours. I do not recollect any of their contemporaries, at my little seminary, who afterwards made any great figure, as lite- rary characters, except Dr Tennaut, who was chaplain to Colonel Fullarton's Regiment, and who is now in the East Indies. He is a man of genius and learning; yet affable and free from pedantry. " Mr Bumes in a short time found that he had over-rated Mount Oliphant, and that he could not rear his numerous family upon it. After being there some years, he removed to Lochlea, in the parish of Tarbolton, where, I beliftve, Robert wrote most of his poems. '* But here, sir, you will permit me to pause. I can tell you but little more relative to our poet. I shall, however, in my next, send you a copy of one of his letters to me, about the year 1783. I received one since, but it is mis- laid. Please remember me, in the best man- ner, to my worthy friend Mr Adair, when you see him or write to him. '•' Hart Street, Bloomsbury Square, London, Feb. 22, 1799." SKETCH BY DAVID SILLAR. David Sillar, to whom Burns addressed several of the finest of his epistles, was a native of Torbolton. He was for many years school- master at Irvine. He published a volume of poems, in the Scottish dialect, of some merit. " Robert Bums was sometime in the parish of Torbolton, prior to my acquaintance with him. His social disposition easily procured him acquaintance; but a certain satirical season- ing with which he and all poetical geniuses are in some degree influenced, while it set the rustic circle in a roar, was not unaccompanied with suspicious fear. I recollect hearing his neighbours observe, he had a great deal to say for himself, but that they suspected his prin- ciples. He wore the only tied hair in the parish ; and in the church his plaid, which was of a particular colour, (I think fiUemot,) he wrapped in a peculiar manner round his shoul- ders. These surmises, and his exterior, made me solicitous of his acquaintance. I was intro- duced by Gilbert not only to his brother, but to the whole of that family, where, in a short time, I became a frequent, and, I believe, not unwelcome, visitant. After the commencement of my acquaintance with the bard, we frequently met upon Sundays at church ; when, between sermons, instead of going with our friends or our lasses to the inn, we often took a walk in the fields. In these walks, I have often been struck with his facility in addressing the fair sex ; many times when I have been bashfully anxious how to express myself, he would have entered into conversation with them, with the greatest ease and freedom; and it was generally a death-blow to our conversation, however agreeable, to meet a female acquaintance. Some of the few opportunities of a noontide walk that a country life allows her laborious sons, he spent on the banks of the river, or in the woods, in the neighbourhood of Stair. Some book or other he always carried, and read, when not otherwise employed ; it was likewise Lis custom to read at table." RECOLLECTIONS OF WILLIAM CLARK. The following testimony by William Clark, who had lived with the poet as a plough- man for six months, was communicated to a gentleman in Kirkcudbright. "Soon after Burns became tenant of Ellisland, William Clark lived with him as servant dur- APPENDIX TO BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. Lxiii ing tlie winter half-year, he thinks, of 17S9- 90 Burns kept two men and two women servants; but he invariably, when at home, took his meals with his wife and familj^ in the little parlour. Clark thought he was as good a manager of land as the generaUty of the farmers in the neighbourhood. The farm of EUisland was said to be moderately rented, and was susceptible of much improvement, had improvement been in repute. Bums some- times visited the neighbouring farmers, and they returned the compliment ; but that way of spending time and exchanging civilities was not so common then as now, and, besides, the most of the people thereabouts had no expecta- tion that Burns's conduct and writings would be so much noticed afterwards. Burns kept nine or ten milch-cows, some young cattle, four horses, and several pet sheep : of the latter he was very fond. During the winter and spring time, when he was not engaged with the excise business, he occasionally held the plough for an hour or so for him (William Clark), and was a fair workman, though the mode of ploughing now-a-days is much superior in many respects. During seed-time, Burns might be frequently seen, at an early hour, in the fields with his sowing-sheet : but as business often required his attention from home, he did not sow the whole of the grain. He was a kind and indul- gent master, and spoke familiarly to his ser- vants, both in the house and out of it, though, if anything put him out of humour, he was fjey guldersome for a wee while : the storm was soon over, and there was never a word of upcast afterwards. Clark never saw him really angry but once, and it was occasioned by the careless- ness of one of the women-servants who had not cut potatoes small enough, which brought one of the cows into danger of being choked. His looks, gestures, and voice on that occasion were terrible ; "\V. C. was glad to be out of his sight, and when they met again, Burns was perfectly calm. If any extra w^ork was to be done, the men sometimes got a dram ; but Clark had lived with masters who were more flush in that way to their servants. Clark, dur- ing the six months he spent at EUisland, never once saw his master intoxicated or incapable of managing his own business Burns, when at home, usually wore a broad blue bon- net, a blue or drab long-tailed coat, corduroy breeches, dark blue st(jckings, and cootilcens, and in cold weather a black-and-white-checked plaid wrapped round his shoulders. Mrs Burns was a good and prudent housewife, kept every- thing in neat and tidy order, and was well liked by the servants, for whom she provided abundance of wholesome food. At parting, Burns gave Clark a certificate of character, and, besides paying his wages in full, gave him a shilling for a. fairing." SKETCH BY DUGALD STEWAET. Contributed to Dr Currie's edition of the Life and Works of the poet. " The first tiino I saw Robert Burns was on the 23d of October 17SG, when he dined at my house in Ayrshire, together wdth our com- mon friend Mr John Mackenzie, surgeon in Mauchline, to whom I am indebted for the pleasure of his acquaintance. I am enabled to mention the date particularly, by some verses w^hich Burns v/rote after he returned home, and in which the day of our meeting is recorded. — My excellent and much lamented friend, the late Basil, Lord Daer, happened to arrive at Catrine the same day, and, by the kindness and frankness of his manners, left an impression on the mind of the poet which never was efikced. The verses I allude to are among the most imperfect of his pieces ; but a few i stanzas may perhaps be an object of curiosity ; to you, both on account of the character to j which they relate, and of the light which they } throw on the situation and feelings of the writer, before his name was known to the | public. ; " I cannot positively say, at this distance of 1 time, whether at the period of our first acquaint- ance, the Kilmarnock edition of his poems had been just published, or was yet in the press. I suspect that the latter was the case, as I have still in my possession copies in his own hand- writing of some of his favourite performances ; particularly of his verses ' On the turning up a Mouse with his Plough ; ' ' On the Mountain Daisy ; ' and ' The Lament. ' On my return to Edinburgh, I showed the volume, and men- tioned what I knew of the author's history to several of my friends ; and, among others, to Mr Henr}^ ]Mackenzie, who first recommended him to public notice in the 97th number of ' The Lounger.' " At this time Burns's prospects in life were so extremely gloomy, that he had seriously formed a plan of going out to Jamaica in a very humble situation, not however without lamenting that his want of patronage phould force him to think of a project so repugnant to his feelings, when his ambition aimed at no higher an object than the station of an excise- man or ganger in his own country. " His manners were then, as they continu-ed ever afterwards, simple, manly, and inde- pendent ; strongly expressive of conscious genius and worth : but without anything that indicated forwardness, arrogance, or vanity. He took his share in conversation, but not more than belonged to him ; and listened with apparent attention and deference on subjects where his want of education deprived him of the means of information. H there had been a little more gentleness and accommodation in his temper, he would, I think, have been still more interesting ; but he had been accustomed to give law in the circle of his ordinary acquaint- ance; and his dread of anything approaching to meanness or servility rendered his manner somewhat decided and hard. ^Nothing, per- haps, was more remarkable among his varioua attainments, than the fluency, and precision, and originality of his language, when he spoke in company ; more particularly as he aimed at purity in his turn of expression, and avoided more successfully than most Scotchmen, the peculiarities of Scottish phraseology. " He came to Edinburgh early in the winter Ixiv APPENDIX TO BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. following, and remained there for several months. By whose advice he took this step, I am unable to say. Perhaps it was suggested only by his own curiosity to see a little more of the world; but, I confess, I dreaded the consequences from the first, and always wished that his pui-suits and habits should continue the same as in the former part of life ; with the addition of, what I considered as then com- pletely within his reach, a good farm on moderate terms, in a jiart of the country agreeable to his taste. " The attentions he received during his stay in town, from all ranks and descriptions of persons, were such as would have turned any head but his own. I cannot say that I could perceive any unfavourable effect which they left on his mind. He retained the same sim- plicity of manners and appearance which had struck me so forcibly when I first saw him in the country; nor did he seem to feel any additional self-importance from the number and rank of his new acquaintance. His dress was perfectly suited to his station, plain, and vinpretending, with a sufficient attention to neatness. If I recollect right, he always wore boots; and, when on more than usual cere- mony, buckskin breeches. " The variety of his engagements, while in Edinburgh, prevented me from seeing him so often as I could have wished. In the course of the spring, he called on me once or twice, at my request, early in the morning, and walked with me to Braid-Hills, in the neighbourhood of the town, when he charmed me still more by his private conversation, than he had ever done in company. He was passionately fond of the beauties of nature ; and I recollect once he told me, when I was admiring a distant prospect in one of our morning walks, that the sight of so many smoking cottages gave a pleasure to his mind, which none could under- stand who had not witnessed, like himself, the happiness and the worth which they contained, " In his political principles he was then a Jacobite ; which was perhaps owing partly to this, that his father was originally from the estate of Lord Mareschal. Indeed, he did not appear to have thought much on such subjects, nor very consistently. He had a very strong sense of religion, and expressed deep regret at the levity with which he had heard it treated occasionally in some convivial meetings which he frequented. I speak of him as he was in the winter of 1786-7 ; for afterwards we met but seldom, and our conversation turned chiefly on his literary projects, or his private affairs. " I do not recollect whether it appears or not from any of your letters to me, that you had ever seen Burns. If you have, it is super- fluous for me to add, that the idea which his conversation conveyed of the powers of his mind, exceeded, if possible, that which is sug- gested by his writings. Amqng the poets whom I have happened to know, I have been struck, in more than one instance, with the unaccountable disparity between their general talents, and the occasional inspirations of their more favourable moments. But all the faculties of Burns's mind were, as far as I could judge, equally vigorous; and his predilection for poetry was rather the result of his own en- thusiastic and impassioned temper, than a genius exclusively adapted to that species of composition. From his conversation I should have pronounced him to be fitted to excel in whatever walk of ambition he had chosen to exert his abilities. " Among the subjects on which he was ac- customed to dwell, the characters of the in- dividuals with whom he happened to meet, was plainly a favourite one. The remarks he made on them were always shrewd and pointed, though frequently inclining too much to sar- casm. His praise of those he loved was some- times indiscriminate and extravagant ; but this, I suspect, proceeded rather from the caprice and humour of the moment, than from the effects of attachment in blinding his judg- ment. His wit was ready, and always im- pressed with the marks of a vigorous under- standing ; but to my taste, not often pleasing or happy. His attempts at epigram, in his printed works, are the only performances, perhaps, that he has produced, totally un- worthy of his genius. " In summer 1787, I passed some weeks in Ayrshire, and saw Burns occasionally. I think that he made a pretty long excursion that season to the Highlands, and that he also visited what Beattie calls the Arcadian ground of Scotland, upon the banks of the Teviot and the Tweed. " I should have mentioned before, that not- withstanding various reports I heard during the preceding winter, of Burns's predilection for convivial, and not very select society, 1 should have concluded in favour of his habits of sobriety, from all of him that ever fell under my own observation. He told me indeed him- self, that the weakness of his stomach was such as to deprive him entirely of any merit in his temperance. I was, however, somewhat alarmed about the effect of his now compara- tively sedentary and luxurious life, when he confessed to me, the first night he spent in my house after his winter's campaign in town, that he had been much disturbed when in bed, by a palpitation at his heart, which, he said, was a complaint to which he had of late be- come subject. ** In the course of the same season, I was led by curiosity to attend for an hour or two a Mason-lodge in Mauchline, where Burns pre- sided. He had occasion to make some short, unpremeditated compliments to different in- dividuals from whom he had no reason to expect a visit, and everything he said was liappily conceived, and forcibly as well as fluently expressed. If I am not mistaken, he told me, that in that village, before going to Edinburgh, he had belonged to a small club of such of the inhabitants as had a taste for books, when they used to converse and debate on any interesting questions that occurred to them in the course of their reading. His manner of 8[)eaking in public had evidently the marks of some practice in extempore elocution. *' I must not omit to mention, what I have always considered as characteristical in a high. APPENDIX TO BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. Ixv degree of true genius, the extreme facility and good-nature of his taste, in judging of the compositions of others, where there was any real ground for praise. I repeated to him many passages of English poetry with which he was unacquainted, and have more than once witnessed the tears of admiration and rapture with which he heard them. The collection of songs by Dr Aiken, which I first put into his hands, he read with unmixed delight, notwith- standing his former efforts in that very dif- ficult species of writing; and I have little doubt that it had some effect in polishing his subsequent compositions, "In judging of prose, I do not think his taste was equally sound. I once read to him a passage or two in Franklin's "Works, which I thought very happily executed, upon the model of Addison ; but he did not appear to relish, or to perceive the beauty which they derived from their exquisite simplicity, and spoke of them with indifference, when compared with the point, and antithesis, and quaintness of Junius. The influence of this taste is very perceptible in his own prose compositions, al- though their great and various ex.cellences render some of them scarcely less objects of wonder than his poetical performances. The late Dr Robertson used to say, that, consider- ing his education, the former seemed to him the more extraordinary of the two. "His memory was uncommonly retentive, at least for poetry, of which he recited to me fxequently long compositions with the most minute accuracy. They were chiefly ballads, and other pieces in our Scottish dialect ; great part of them, he told me, he had leai-ned in his childhood from his mother ; who delighted in such recitations, and whose poetical taste, rude as it probably was, gave, it is presumable, the first direction to her sou's genius. *•' Of the more polished verses which acciden- tally fell into his hands in his early years, he mentioned particularly the recommendatory Tioems, by different authors, prefixed to Her- vey's Meditations; a book which has always Lad a very wide circulation among such of the country people of Scotland as affect to unite some degree of taste with their religious studies. And these poems (although they are certainly below mediocrity) he continued to read with a degree of rapture beyond expres- sion. He took notice of this fact himself, as a proof how much the taste is liable to be in- lluenced by accidental circumstances. " His father appeared to me from the accoimt he gave of him, to have been a respectable and worthy character, possessed of a mind superior to what might have been expected from his station in life. He ascribed much of his own principles and feelings to the early impressions he had received from his instruction and ex- ample. I recollect that he once applied to Mm (and he added, that the passage was a literal statement of fact) the two last lines of the following passage in the 'Minstrel:' the whole of which he repeated with great en- thusiasm : — '• ' Shall T b- left forrotten in tlie r'nst;, \ '»Vlien ^att, rcleutins:, lets tiic f;OTrer reTive ; Shall Nature's voice, to man alone unjust, Bid him, though doom'd to perish, hope to live? Is it for this fair virtue oft must strive, With disappointment, penury, and pain? Xo ! Heaven's immortal sprinjr" shall yet arrive; And man's majestic beauty bloom asrain, Bright through the eternal yeai" of love's trium- phant reign. " ' TAis truth sublime, Jus simple sire Jiad tatifjht : In sooth, 'twas almost all the shepherd knew.' " With respect to Bums's early education, I cannot say anything with certainty. He al- ways spoke with respect and gratitude of the schoolmaster who had taught him to read English ; and who, finding in his scholar a more than ordinary ardour for knowledge, had been at pains to instruct him in the gram- matical principles of the language. He began the study of Latin, but dropt it before he had finished the verbs. I have sometimes heard him quote a few Latin words, such as Gmnia, vincit amor, &c., but they seemed to be suck as he had caught from conversation, and which, he repeated by rote. I think he had a project, after he came to Edinburgh, of prosecutbig the study under his intimate friend, the lato Mr Nicol, one of the masters of the grammar- school here ; but I do not know that ho ever proceeded so far as to make the attempt. " He certainly possessed a smattering o£ French ; and, if he had an affectation in any- thing, it was in introducing occasionally a word or phrase from that language. It is possible that his knowledge in this respect might ba more extensive than I suppose it to be; but this you can learn from his more intimato acquaintance. It would be worth while to in- quire, whether he was able to read the French, authors with such facility as to receive from, them any improvement to his taste. For my own part, I doubt it much ; nor would I be- lieve it, but on very strong and pointed evidence. '•' If my memory does not fail me, he was well instructed in arithmetic, and knew some- thing of practical geometry, particularly of surveying.— All his other attainments were entirely his own. " The last time I saw him was during the winter, 1788-89, when he passed an evening with me at Drumseugh, in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, where I was then living. My friend Mr Alison was the only other person in company. I never saw him more agreeable or interesting. A present which Mr Alison sent him afterwards of his * Essays on Taste,' drew from Burns a letter of acknowledgment which I remember to have read with some degree of surprise at the distinct conception he° appeared from it to have formed of the general principles of the doctrine of associa tion. ^Yhen I saw Mr Alison in Shropshire last autumn, I forgot to inquire if the letter be still in existence. If it is, you may easily procure it, by means of our friend Mr Houl- brooke." Ixvi APPENDIX TO BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. SKETCH BY PEOFESSOR WALKER, A.UTHOE OF A LIFE OF THE POET. After stating that Bums was simple and natural in society, and never assumed airs of superiority, he says : — *■ Though he took his full share in conversation, not only from a per- ception that it was expected, but from a con- sciousness that it would gratify expectation, yet he did so in a manner that was dignified and manly, and altogether remote from petulant vanity, or offensive exultation in an importance so new to him. His deportment was plain without vulgarity, and though it had little softness, and showed him ready to repel any insult with decision at least, if not with rough- ness, yet he soon made it evident that those I who behaved to him with propriety were in I no danger of any unprovoked or boorish rude- ness.'' i The Professor having first met Burns at Dr j Blacklock's at breakfast, says : — " I was not i much struck with his first appearance, as I had i previously heard it described. His person, I though strong and well knit, and much superior to what might be expected in a ploughman, was still rather coarse in its outline. His stature, from want of setting up, appeared to be only of the middle size, but was rather above it. His motions were firm and decided ; and though without any pretensions to grace, were at the same time so free from clownish constraint, as to show that he bad not always been confined to the society of his profession. His counten- ance was not oi that elegant cast which is most frequent among the upper ranks ; but it was manly and intelligent, and marked by a thoughtful gravity, which shaded at times into sternness. In his large dark eye the most striking index of his genius resided. It was full of mind, and would have been singularly expressive, under the management of one who could employ it with more art, for the purpose of expression. " He was plainlj'', but properly dressed, in a style midway between the holiday-costume of a farmer and that of the company with which lie now associated. His black hair, without powder, at a time when it was very generally worn, was tied behind, and spread upon his forehead. Upon the whole, from his person, physiognomy, and dress, had I met him near a seaport, and been required to guess his condition, I should have probably conjectured him to be the master of a merchant-vessel of the most respectable class. " In no part of his manner was there the fllightest degree of affectation; nor could a stranger have suspected, from anything in his behaviour or conversation, that he had been for some months the favourite of all the fashion- able circles of a metropolis. " In conversation he was powerful. His conceptions and expression were of correspond- ing vigour, and on all subjects were as remote as possible from commonplaces. Though some- what authoritative, it was in a way which gave little offence, and was readily imputed to his inexperience in those modes of smoothing dissent and softening assertion which are im- portant characteristics of polished manners. After breakfast, I requested him to communi- cate some of his unpublished pieces I paid particular attention to his recitation, which was plain, slow, articulate, and forcible, but without any eloquence or art. He did not always lay the emphasis with propriety, nor did he humour the sentiment by the varia- tions of his voice. He was standing, during the time, with his face towards the window, to which, and not to his auditors, he directed his eye ; thus depriving himself of any additional effect which the language of his composition might have borrowed from the language of his countenance. In this he resembled the gene- rality of singers in ordinary company, who, to shun any charge of affectation, withdraw all meaning from their features, and lose the advantage by which vocal performers on the stage augment the impression and give energy to the sentiment of the song. " The day after my first introduction to Burns, I supped in company with him at Dr Blair's. The other guests were very few, and as each had been invited chiefly to have an opportunity of meeting with the poet, the doctor endeavoured to draw him out, and to make him the central figure of the group. Though he therefore furnished the greatest proportion of the conversation, he did no more than what he saw evidently was expected. Men of genius have often been taxed with a proneness to commit blunders in company, from that ignorance or negligence of the laws of conversation which must be imputed to the absorption of their thoughts in a favourite subject, or to the want of that daily practice in attending to the petty modes of behaviour which is incompatible with a studious life. From singularities of this sort Burns was un- usually free ; yet on the present occasion he made a more awkward slip than any that are reported of the poets or mathematicians most noted for absence. Being asked from which of the public places he had received the great- est gratification, he named the High Church, but gave the preference as a preacher to the colleague of our worthy entertainer, whose celebrity rested on his pulpit eloquence, in a tone so pointed and decisive, as to throw the whole company into the most foolish embarrass- ment. The doctor, indeed, with becoming self-command, endeavoured to relieve the rest by cordially seconding the encomium so in- judiciously introduced; but this did not pre- vent the conversation from labouring under that compulsory effort which was unavoid- able, while the thoughts of all were full of the only subject on which it was improper to speak. Of this blunder Bums must in- stantly have been aware, but he showed the return of good sense by making no attempt to repair it. His secret mortification was in- deed so gi-eat, that he never mentioned the circumstance until many years after, when he told me that his silence had proceeded from the pain which he felt in recalling it to his memory." APPENDIX TO BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. Ixvii SKETCH BY SIR WALTER SCOTT. The following was written for Lockhart's Life of the poet : — "As for Burns, I may truly say, Virgilium, null tantum. I was a lad of fifteen, in 1786-7, when he came first to Edinburgh, but had sense and feeling enough to be much interested in his poetry, and would have given the world to know him ; but I had very little acquaintance with any literary people, and still less with the gentry of the west country, the two sets whom he most frequented. Mr Thomas Grierson was at that time a clerk of my father's. He knew Burns, and promised to ask him to his lodgings to dinner, but had no opportunity to keep his word ; otherwise I might have seen more of this distinguished man. As it was, I saw him one day at the late venerable Professor l''ergusson's, where there were several gentle- men of literary reputation, among whom I remember the celebrated Mr Dugald Stewart. Of course, we youngsters sat silent, looked, and listened. The only thing I remember, which was remarkable in Burns's manner, was the effect produced upon him by a print of Ban- bury's representing a soldier lying dead on the snow, his dog sitting in misery on one side, — on the other, his widow, with a child in her arms. These hues were written beneath : — 'Cold on Canadian hills, or ?.Iinden's plain. Perhaps that pai'ent wept lier soldier sliiin ; Bent o'er her babe, her eye dissolved in dew. The bis drops min},'ling with the milk he drew, Gave the sad presage of his future years, The child of misery baptized in tears.' "Burns seemed much afiected by the print, or rather the ideas which it suggested to his mind. He actually shed tears. He asked whose the lines were, and it chanced that nobody but myself remembered, that they occur in a half-forgotten poem of Langhorne's, called by the unpromising title of ' The Jus- tice of Peace.' I whispered my information to a friend present, who mentioned it to Bums, who rewarded me with a look and a word, which, though of mere civility, I then received, and still recollect, with very great pleasure. "His person was strong and robust; his manners rustic, not clownish ; a sort of digni- fied plainness and simplicity, which received part of its effect, perhaps, from one's knowledge of his extraordinax-y talents. His features are represented in Mr Nasmyth's picture ; but to me it conveys the idea that they are diminished, as if seen in pei-spective. I think his coun- tenance was more massive than it looks in any of the portraits. I would have taken the poet, had I not known what he was, for a very sagacious country farmer of the old Scotch school; i. €., none of your modern agriculturists, who keep labourers for their drudgery, but the douce gudeman who held his own plough. There was a strong expression of sense and shrewdness in all his lineaments; the eye alone, I think,- indicated the poetical character and temperament. It was large, and of a dark cast, which glowed (I say literally glowed) when he spoke with feeling or interest, I never saw such another eye in a human head, though I have seen the most distinguished men of my time. His conversation expressed perfect self- confidence, without the slightest presumption. Among the men who were the most learned of their time and coimtry, he expressed himself with perfect firmness, but without the least intrusive forwardness ; and when he differed in opinion, he did not hesitate to express it firmly, yet at the same time with modesty. I do not remember any part of his conversation distinctly enough to be quoted ; nor did I ever see him again, except in the street, where he did not recognise me, as I could not expect he should. He was much caressed in Edin- burgh, but (considering what literary emohi- ments have been since his day) the efforts made for his relief were extremely trifling. '' I remember, on this occasion, I thought Burns's acquaintance with English poetry was rather limited, and also, that having twenty times the abilities of Allan Ramsay and or Fergusson, he talked of them with too much humility as his models : there was, doubtless, national predilection in his estimate. " This is all I can tell you about Burns. I have only to add, that his dress corresponded with his manner. He was like a farmer dressed in his best to dine with the laird. I do not speak in malam ^^artem, when I say, I never saw a man in company with his superiors in station and information, more perfectly free from either the reality or the affectation of embarrassment. I was told, but did not observe it, that his address to females was extremely deferential, and always with a turn either to the pathetic or humorous, which engaged their attention particularly. I have heard the late Duchess of Gordon remark this. — I do not know anything I can add to these recollections of forty years since." TWO SKETCHES BY MRS RIDDEL OF WOODLEY PARK, . A NEIGHBOUR AND WAEM FRIEND OF THE POET's. The firsb Sketch occurred in a letter to a friend; the last was contributed to the columns of the Dumfries Journal a short time after the poet's death. '•' I w^as struck," says this lady, (in a confi- dential letter to a friend, written soon after,) " with his appearance on entering the room. The stamp of death was imprinted on his fea- tures. He seemed alreadj'- touching the brink of eternity. His first salutation was, ' Well, madam, have you any commands for the other world?' I replied that it seemed a doubtful case which of us should be there soonest, and I hoped he would yet live to write my epitaph. (I was then in a bad state of health.) He looked in my face with an air of gi-eat kind- ness, and expressed his concern at seeing me look so ill, with his accustomed sensibility. At table he ate little or nothing, and he complained of having entirely lost the tone of his stomach. We had a long and serious conversation about Ixviii APPENDIX TO BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. his present situation, and the approaching ter- mination of all his earthly prospects. He spoke of his death without any of the ostenta- tion of philosophy, but with firmness as well as feeling, as an event likely to happen very soon; and which gave him concern chiefly from leaving his four children so young and improtected, and his wife in so interesting a situation — in hourly expectation of lying-in of a fifth. He mentioned, with seeming pride and satisfaction, the promising genius of his eldest son, and the flattering marks of approba- tion he had received from his teachers, and dwelt particularly on his hopes of that boy's future conduct and merit. His anxiety for his family seemed to hang heavy upon him, and the more perhaps from the reflection that he had not done them all the justice he was so well qualified to do. Passing from this sub- ject, he showed great concern about the care of his literary fame, and particularly the publi- cation of his posthumous works. He said he was well aware that his death would occasion some noise, and that every scrap of his writing would be revived against him to the injury of his future reputation; that letters and verses, written with unguarded and improper freedom, and which he earnestly wdshed to have buried in oblivion, would be handed about by idle vanity or malevolence, when no dread of his resentment would restrain them, or prevent the censures of shrill-tongued malice, or the insidious sarcasms of envy, from pour- ing forth all their venom to blast his fame. *' He lamented that he had written many epi- grams on persons against whom he entertained no enmity, and whose characters he should be sorry to wound : and many indifferent poetical pieces, which he feared would now, with all their imperfections on their head, be thrust upon the world. On this account he deeply regretted having deferred to put his papers in a state of arrangement, as he was now quite incapable of the exertion." The lady goes on to mention many other topics of a private nature on which he spoke. " The conversa- tion," she adds, " was kept up with great even- ness and animation on his side. I had seldom seen his mind greater or more collected. There was frequently a considerable degree of viva- city in his sallies, and they would probably have had a greater share, had not the concein and dejection I could not disguise damped the Bpirit of pleasantry ho seemed not unwilling to indulge. " We parted about sunset on the evening of that day, (the 5th July 1796 ;) the next day I Baw him again, and wo parted to meet no more ! " " The attention of the public seems to be much occupied at present with the loss it h;us recently sustained in the death of the Cale- donian poet, Robert Burns ; a loss calculated to be severely felt throughout the literary world, as well as lamented in the narrower sphere of private friendship. It was not, therefore, probable, that such an event should be long unattended with the accustomed pro- fusion of posthumous anecdotes and memoirs which are usually circulated immediately after the death of every rare and celebrated person- age : I had, however, conceived no intention of appropriating to myself the privilege of criticising Burns's writings and character, or of anticipating on the province of a biographer. " Conscious, indeed, of my own inability to do justice to such a subject, I should have con- tinued wholly silent, had misrepresentation and calumny been less industrious ; but a re- gard to truth, no less than affection for the memory of a friend, must now justify my offering to the public a few at least of those observations which an intimate acquaintance with Burns, and the frequent opportunities I have had of observing equally his happy quali- ties and his failings for several years past, have enabled me to communicate. " It will actually be an injustice done to Burns's character, not only by future genera- tions and foreign countries, but even by his native Scotland, and perhaps a number of his contemporaries, that he is generally talked of, and considered, with reference to his poetical talents only : for the fact is, even allowing his great and original genius its due tribute of admiration, that poetry (I appeal to all who have had the advantage of being personally acquainted with him) was actually not his forte. Many others, perhaps, may have as- cended to prouder heights in the region of Parnassus, but none certainly ever outshone Burns in the charms — the sorcery, I would almost call it, of fascinating conversation, the spontaneous eloquence of social argument, or the unstudied poignancy of brilliant repartee ; nor was any man, I believe, ever gifted with a larger portion of the 'vivida vis aniniL' His personal endowments were perfectly corre- spondent to the qualifications of his mind ; his form was manly ; his action, energy itself ; devoid in a great measure perhaps of those graces, of that polish, acquired only in the refinement of societies where in early life he could have no opportunities of mixing; but where such was the irresistible power of attrac- tion that encircled him, though his appearance and manners were always peculiar, he never failed to delight and to excel. His figure seemed to bear testinionj'' to his earlier destina- tion and employments. It seemed rather moulded by nature for the rough exercises of agriculture, than the gentler cultivation of tho belles lettres. His features were stamped with the hardy character of independence, and the firmness of conscious, though not arrogant, pre-eminence ; the animated expressions of countenance were almost peculiar to himself ; the rapid lightnings of his eye were always the harbingers of some flash of genius, whether they darted tho fiery glances of insulted and indignant superiority, or beamed with the im- passioned sentiment of fervent and impetuous affections. His voice alone could improve upon the magic of his eye : sonorous, replete with the finest modulations, it alternately captivated the ear with the melody of poetic numbers, tho perspicuity of nervous reasoning, or the ardent sallies of enthusiastic patriotism. The keenness of satire was, I am almost at a loss APPENDIX TO BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. Ixix whether to say, his forte or his foible ; for though nature had endowed him with a por- tion of the most pointed excellence in that dangerous talent, he suffered it too often to be the vehicle of personal, and sometimes un- founded animosities. It was not always that sportiveness of humour, that * unwary plea- santry,' which Sterne has depicted with touches so conciliatory, but the darts of ridi- cule were frequently directed as the caprice of the instant suggested, or as the altercations of parties and of persons happened to kindle the restlessness of his spirit into interest or aver- sion. This, however, was not invariably the case ; his wit (which is no unusual matter in- deed) had always the start of his judgment, and would lead him to the indulgence of rail- lery uniformly acute, but often accompanied with the least desire to wound. The suppres- sion of an arch and full-pointed bon-mot, from the dread of offending its object, the sage of Zurich very properly classes as a virtue only to be sought for in the Calendar of Saints; if so, Burns must not be too severely dealt with for being rather deficient in it. He paid for his mischievous wit as dearly as any one could do. ' 'Twas no extravagant arithmetic,' to say of him, as was said of Yorick, that ' for every ten jokes he got a hundred enemies : ' but much allowance will be made by a candid mind for the splenetic warmth of a spirit whom 'distress had spited with the world,' and which, un- bounded in its intellectual sallies and pursuits, continually experienced the curbs imposed by the waywardness of his fortune. The vivacity of his wishes and temper was indeed checked by almost habitual disappointments, which sat heavy on a heart that acknowledged the ruling jxission of independence, without having ever been placed beyond the grasp of penury. His soul was never languid or inactive, and his genius was extinguished only with the last spark of retreating life. His passions rendered him, according as they disclosed themselves in affection or antipathy, an object of enthusias- tic attachment, or of decided enmity ; for ke possessed none of that negative insipidity of character, whose love might be regarded with indifference, or whose resentment could be considered with contempt. In this, it should seem, the temper of his associates took the tincture from his own ; for he acknowledged in the universe but two classes of objects, those c)t adoration the most fervent, or of aversion the most uncontrollable ; and i* has been fre- quently a reproach to him, that, susceptible of indifference, often hating where he ought only to have despised, he alternately opened his heart and poured forth the treasures of his understanding to such as were incapable of appreciating the homage ; and elevated to the privileges of an adversary some who were un- qualified in all respects for the honour of a contest so distinguished. " It is said that the celebrated Dr Johnson professed to 'love a good hater,' — a tempera- ment that would have singularly adapted him to cherish a prepossession in favour of our bard, who perhaps fell but little short even of the surly doctor in this qualification, as long as the disposition to ill-will continued ; but the warmth of his passions was fortunately cor rected by their versatility. He was seldom indeed never, implacable in his resentments, and sometimes, it has been alleged, not invio lably faithful in his engagements of friendship, ;Much, indeed, has been said about his incon stancy and caprice ; but I am inclined to be lieve that they originated less in a levity of sentiment, than from an extreme impetuosity of feeling, which rendered him prompt to take umbrage ; and his sensations of pique, where he fancied he had discovered the traces of neglect, scorn, or unkindness, took their mea- sure of asperity from the overflowings of the opposite sentiment which preceded them, and which seldom failed to regain its ascendancy in his bosom on the return of calmer reflection. He was candid and manly in the avowal of his errors, and his avowal was a reparation. His native ferte never forsaking him for a moment, the value of a frank acknowledgment was en- hanced tenfold towards a generous mind, from its never being attended with servility. His mind organised only for the stronger and more acute operations of the passions, w'as imprac- ticable to the efforts of superciliousness that would have depressed it into humility, and equally superior to the encroachments of venal suggestions, that might have led him into the mazes of hypocrisy. " It has been observed, that he was far from averse to the incense of flattery, and could re- ceive it tempered with less delicacy than might have been expected, as he seldom transgressed extravagantly in that way himself; where he paid a compliment, it might indeed claim the power of intoxication, as approbation from hini was always an honest tribute from the warmth and sincerity of his heart. It has been some- times represented by those who, it should seem, had a view to depreciate, though they could not hope wholly to obscure that native brilliancy, which the powers of this extraordi- nary man had invariably bestowed on every- thing that came from his lips or pen, that the history of an Ayrshire plough-boy was an ingenious fiction, fabricated for the purposes of obtaining the interests of the great, and enhancing the merits of what required no foil. ' The Cotter's Saturday Night,' ' Tam O'Shan- ter,' and 'The Mountain Daisy,' besides a number of later productions, where the ma- turity of his genius will be readily traced, and which will be given to the public as soon as his friends have collected and arranged them, speak sufiiciently for themselves ; and had they fallen from a hand more dignified in the ranks of society than that of a peasant, they had, perhaps, bestowed as unusual a grace there as even in the humbler shade of rustic inspiration from whence they really sprung. " To the obscure scene of Bums's education, and to the laborious, though honourable station of rural industry, in which his parentage en- rolled him, almost every inhabitant of the south of Scotland can give testimony. His only surviving brother, Gilbert Burns, now guides the ploughshare of his forefathers in Ayrshire, at a farm near Mauchline; and our Ixx APPENDIX TO BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH, poet's eldest son (a lad of nine years of age, whose early dispositions already prove him to be in some measure the inheritor of his father's talents as well as indigence) has been destined by his family to the humble employment of the loom. "That Bums had received no classical edu- cation, and was acquainted with the Greek and Eoman authors only through the medium of translations, is a fact of which all who were in the habit of conversing with him might readily be convinced. I have, indeed, seldom observed him to be at a loss in conversation, unless where the dead languages and their writers have been the subjects of discussion. When I have pressed him to tell me, why he never applied himself to acquire the Latin, in particular, a language which his happy memory would have so soon enabled him to be master of, he used only to reply with a smile, that he had already learned all the Latin he desired to know, and that was omnia vincit amor ; a sen- tence, that from his writings and most favour- ite pursuits, it should undoubtedly seem that he was most thoroughly versed in; but I really believe his classic erudition extended little, if any, further. "The penchant Burns had uniformly ac- knowledged for the festive pleasures of the table, and towards the fairer and softer objects of nature's creation, has been the rallying point from whence the attacks of his censors have been uniformly directed : and to these, it must be confessed, he showed himself no stoic. His poetical pieces blend with alternate happi- ness of description, the frolic spirit of the flowing bowl, or melt the heart to the tender and impassioned sentiments in which beauty always taught him to pour forth his own. But who would wish to|reprove the feelings he has consecrated with such lively touches of nature? And where is the rugged moralist who will persuade us so far to * chill the genial current of the soul,' as to regret that Ovid ever cele- brated his Corinna, or that Anacreon sung beneath his vine ? " I will not, however, undertake to be the apologist of the irregularities even of a man of genius, though I believe it i» as certain that genius never was free from irregularities, as that their absolution may, in a great measure, be justly claimed, since it is perfectly evident that the world had continued very stationary in its intellectual acquirements, had it never given birth to any but men of plain sense. Evenness of conduct, and a due regard to the decorums of the world, have been so rarely seen to move hand in hand with genius, that some have gone as far as to say, though there I cannot wholly acquiesce, that they are even incompatible; besides, the frailties that cast their shade over the splendour of auperior merit, are more conspicuously glaring than where they are the attendants of mere medi- ocrity. It is only on the gem we are disturbed to see the dust ; the pebble may be soiled, and we never regard it. The eccentric intuitions of genius too often yield the soul to the wild effervescence of desires, always unbounded, and sometimes equally dangerous to the repose of others as fatal to its own, N"o wonder then, if virtue herself be sometime lost in the blaze of kindling animation, or that the calm monitions of reason are not invariably found sufficient to fetter an imagination, which scorns the narrow limits and restrictions that would chain it to the level of ordinary minds. The child of nature, the child of sensibility, unschooled in the rigid precepts of philosophy, too often unable to control the passions which proved a source of frequent errors and misfortunes to him. Burns made his own artless apology in language more impressive than all the argu- mentatory vindications in the world could do, in one of his own poems, where he delineates the gradual expansion of his mind to the les- sons of the 'tutelary muse,' who concludes an address to her pupil, almost unique for simplicity and beautiful poetry, with these lines : — « I saw thy pulse's madd'ning play- Wild send thee pleasure's devious way : Misled by fancy's meteor ray By passion driven ; But yet the light that led astray Was light from heaven.' "I have already transgressed beyond the bounds I had proposed to myself, on first committing this sketch to papel:, which com- prehends what at least I have been led to deem the leading features of Burns's mind and character ; a literary critique I do not aim at ; mine is wholly fulfilled, if in these pages I have been able to delineate any of those strong traits that distinguished him, of those talents which" raised him from the plough, where he passed the bleak morning of his life, weaving his rude wreaths of poesy with the wild field flowers that sprang around his cpttage, to that enviable eminence of literary fame, where Scotland will long cherish his memory with delight and gratitude ; and proudly remember that beneath her cold sky a genius was ripened, without care or culture, that would have done honour to climes more favourable to those luxuriances— that warmth of colouring and fancy in which he so eminently excelled. " From several paragraphs I have noticed in the public prints, ever since the idea of send- ing this sketch to some one of them was formed, I find private animosities have not yet subsided, and that envy has not yet ex- hausted all her shafts. I still trust, however, that honest fame will be permanently affixed to Burns's character, which I think it will be found he has merited by the candid and im- partial among his countrymen. And where a recollection of the imprudence that sullied his brighter qualifications interpose, let the im- perfection of all human excellence be re- membered at the same time, leaving those inconsistencies, which alternately exalted his nature into the serapb, and sunk it again into the man, to the tribunal which alone can in- vestigate the labyrinths of the human heart — « Where they alike in tremblinp hope repose,— The boscoD of his fnther &nd his Crod.' aaAY's Elcoi/, ♦'Ajjjiamdam!, Aug. 7, ITSe." APPENDIX TO BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. Ixxi ACCOUNT BY DR ADAIR OF A JOUR- NEY \YITH THE POET. Dr James Adair was a relative of Mrs Dunlop's, and a great admirer of the poet's genius. "Burns and I left Edinburgh, together in August 1787. We rode by Linlithgow and Carron, to Stirling. We visited the iron- works at Carron, with which the poet was forcibly struck. The resemblance between that place and its inhabitants to the cave of the Cyclops, which must have occurred to every classical reader, presented itself to Burns. At Stii'ling the prospect from the castle strongly interested him ; in a former visit to which, his national feelings had been powerfully excited by the ruinous and roofless state of the hall in which the Scottish parliaments had been held. His indignation had vented itself in some im- prudent, but not unpoetical lines, which had given much offence, and which he took this opportunity of erasing, by breaking the pane of the window at the inn on which they were written. "At Stirling we met with a company of travellers from Edinburgh, among whom was a character in many respects congenial to that of Burns. This was Nicol, one of the teachers of the High Grammar-School at Edinburgh — the same wit and power of conversation ; the same fondness for convivial society, and thoughtlessness of to-morrow, characterised both. Jacobitical principles in politics were common to both of them ; and these have been suspected, since the revolution of France, to have given place in each, to opinions appa- rently opposite. I regret that I have pre- served no memoraVilm of their conversation, either on this or on other occasions, when I happened to meet them together. Many songs ■were sung, which I mention for the sake of observing, that wlien Burns was called on in his turn, he was accustomed, instead of singing, to recite one or other of his own shorter poems, with a tone and emphasis which, though. not correct or harmonious, were impressive and pathetic. This he did on the present occa- sion. "From Stirling we went next morning through the romantic and fertile vale of Devon to Harvieston in Clackmannanshire, then inha- bited by Mrs Hamilton, with the younger part of whose family Burns had been previously ac- quainted. He introduced me to the family, and there was formed my first acquaintance •with Mrs Hamilton's eldest daughter, to whom I have been married for nine years. Thus was I indebted to Bums for a connexion from which I have derived, and expect further to derive, much happiness. "During a residence of about ten days at Harvieston, we made excursions to visit various parts of the surrounding scenery, inferior to none in Scotland, in beauty, sublimity, and romantic interest; particularly Castle Camp- bell, the ancient seat of the family of Argyle ; and the famous Cataract of the Devon, called the Caldron Linn : and the Rumbling Bridge,, a single broad arch, thrown by the Devil, if tradition is to be believed, across the river, at about the height of a hundred feet above its bed. I am surprised that none of these scenes should have called forth an exertion of Burns's muse. But I doubt if he had much taste for the picturesque. I well remember, that the ladies at Harvieston, who accompanied us on this jaunt, expressed their disappointment at his not expressing in more glowing and fervid language, his impressions of the Caldron Linn scene, certainly highly sublime, and somewhat horrible. " A visit to Mrs Bruce of Clackmannan, a lady above ninety, the lineal descendant of that race which gave the Scottish throne its brightest ornament, interested his feelings more powerfully. This venerable dame, with characteristical dignitj^, informed me, on my observing that I believed she was descended from the family of Robert Bruce, that Robert Bruce was sprung from her family. Though almost deprived of speech by a paralytic affec- tion, she presei'ved her hospitality and urba- nity. She was in possession of the hero's hel- met and two-handed sword, with which she conferred on Burns and myself the honour of knighthood, remarking, that she had a better right to confer that title than some people. . . . You will, of course, conclude that the old lady's political tenets were as Jacobitical as the poet's, a conformity which contributed not a little to the cordiality of our reception and entertain- ment. — She gave us as her first toast after dinner, Atca' Uncos, or Away with the Strangers. — Who these strangers were, you will readily understand. Mrs A. corrects me by saying it should be Hooi, or Hooi Uncos, a sound used by shepherds to direct their dogs to drive away the sheep. " We returned to Edinburgh by Kinross (on the shore of Lochleven) and Queensferry. I am inclined to think Burns knew nothing of poor Michael Bruce, who was then alive at Kinross, or had died there a short while before. A meeting between the bards, or a visit to the deserted cottage and early grave of poor Bruce, would have been highly interesting. "At Dunfermline we visited the ruined abbey and the abbey church, now consecrated to Presbyterian worship. Here I mounted the cutty stool, or stool of repentance, assuming the character of a penitent for fornication; v/hile Burns from the pulpit addressed to me a ludicrous reproof and exhortation, parodied from that which had been delivered to himself in Ayrshire, where he had, as he assured me, once been one of seven who mounted the seat of shame together. " In the churchyard two broad flagstones marked the grave of Robert Bruce, for whose memory Burns had more than common vene» ration. He knelt and kissed the stone with sacred fervour, and heartily {suus ut mos erat) execrated the worse than Gothic neglect of the first of Scottish heroes.'* Ixxii APPENDIX TO BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. SKETCHES BY MR RAMSAY OF OCHTERTYRE. Bums -was introduced to Mr Ramsay of Och- tertyre by Dr Blacklock, and visited that gentleman at his country seat in 1787 and 1790. " I have l)een in the company of many men of genius," says Mr Ramsay, *^ some of them poets ; but never witnessed such flashes of in- tellectual brightness as from him, the impulse of the moment, sparks of celestial fire ! I never was more delighted, therefore, than with his company for two days, tete-a-tete. In a mixed company I should have made little of him ; for, in the gamester's phrase, he did not always know when to play off and when to play on. ... I not only proposed to him the writing of a play similar to the Gentle Shep- herd, qualem decet esse sororem, but Scottish Georgics, a subject which Thomson has by no means exhausted in his Seasons. What beau- tiful landscapes of rural life and manners might not have been expected from a pencil so faithful and forcible as his, which could have exhibited scenes as familiar and interesting as those in the Gentle Shepherd, which every one who knows our swains in their unadulterated state, instantly recognises as true to nature. But to have executed either of these plans, steadiness and abstraction from company were wanting, not talents. AVhen I asked him whether the Edinburgh literati had mended his poems by their criticisms, — ' Sir,' said he, ' these gentlemen remind me of some spinsters in my country, who spin their thread so fine that it is neither fit for weft nor woof. He said he had not changed a word except one, to please Dr Blair." " I had an adventure with him in the year 1790," says Mr Ramsay of Ochtertyre, "when passing through Dumfriesshire, on a tour to the south, with Dr Stewart of Lnss. Seeing him pass quickly, near Closeburn, I said to my companion, *That is Burns,' On coming to the inn, the hostler told us he would be back in a few hours to grant permits ; that where he met with anything seizable he was no better than any other ganger ; in everything else, that ho was perfectly a gentleman. After leaving a note to be delivered to him on his return, I proceeded to his house, being curious to see his Jean, &c. I was much pleased with his vxor Sahina quails, and the poet's modest mansion, so unlike the habitation of ordinary rustics. In the evening he suddenly bounced in upon us, and said, as he entered, * I come, to use the language of Shakespeare, " stewed in haste." ' In fact he had ridden incredibly fast after receiving my note. We fell into conversation directly, and soon got into the mare magnum of poetry. He told me that he had now gotten a story for a drama, which he was to call ' Rob Macquechan's Elshon,' from a popular story of Robert Bruce being defeated on the water of Caern, when the heel of his boot having loosened iu his flight, he applied to Robert Macquechan to fit it ; who, to make sure, ran his awl nine inches up the king's heel. AVe were now going on at a great rate, when Mr S popped in his head, which put a stop to our discourse, which had become very interesting. Yet in a little while it was resumed ; and such was the force and versa- tility of the bard's genius, that he made the tears run down Mr S 's cheeks, albeit un- used to the poetic strain From that time we met no more, and I was grieved at the reports of him afterwards. Poor Burns ! we shall hardly ever see his like again. He was, in truth, a sort of comet in literature, irregular in its motions, which did not do good proportioned to the blaze of light it dis- played." ACCOUNT BY MR SYME OF A JOUR- NEY WITH THE POET. This gentleman was one of Burns' most inti- mate friends, and one of his executors after his decease. " I got Burns a gray Highland shelty to ride on. We dined the first day, 27th July 1793, at Glendenwynes of Parton ; a beautiful situa- tion on the banks of the Dee. In the evening we walked out, and ascended a gentle eminence, from which we had as fine a view of Alpine scenery as can well be imagined. A delightful soft evening showed all its wilder as well as its grander graces. Immediately opposite, and within a mile of us, we saw Airds, a charm- ing romantic place, where dwelt Low, the author of ' Mary, weep no more for me.' This was classical ground for Burns. He viewed ' the highest hill which rises o'er the source of Dee ;' and would have stayed till ' the passing spirit ' had appeared, had we not resolved to reach Kenmure that night. We arrived as Mr and Mrs Gordon were sitting down to supper. '•' Here is a genuine baron's seat. The castle, an old building, stands on a large natural moat. In front, the river Ken Avinds for several miles through the most fertile and beautiful hohn, till it expands into a lake twelve milos long, the banks of which on the south present a fine and soft landscape of green knolls, natural wood, and here and there a gray rock. On the north, the aspect is great, wild, and, I may say, tremendous. In short, I can scarcely conceive a scene more terribly romantic than the ca. tie of Kenmure. Burns thinks so highly of it, that he meditates a de- scription of it in poetry. Indeed, I believe he has begun the work. We spent three days with Mr Gordon, whose polished hospitality is of an original and endearing kind, Mrs Gordon's lap-dog, Echo, was dead. She would have an epitaph for him. Several had been made. Burns was asked for one. This was setting Hercules to his distaff. He disliked the subject : but, to please the lady, he would try. Here is what he produced : — «In wood and wiM, y." wnrhling throng. Your lieavy loss (kiiioiv-, Now lialf exlirict vnur iiowors of son^, Sweet Echo ja no ir.oio. APPENDIX TO BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. Ixxiii ' Ye jarring, screeching things around, Scream your rtiscordant joys I Now half your dm of tuneless song "With Echo silent lies.' "We left Kenmure, and went to Gatehouse. I took him the moor road, where savage and desolate regions extended wide around. The sky was sympathetic with the wretchedness of the soil ; it became lowering and dark. The hollow winds sighed, the lightnings gleamed, the thunder rolled. The poet enjoyed the awful scene — he spoke not a word, but seemed wrapt in meditation. In a little while the rain began to fall ; it poured in floods upon us. For three hours did the wild elements 'rumble their belly full' upon our defenceless heads. Oh ! oh ! 'twas foul. We got utterly wet ; and, to revenge ourselves, Burns insisted at Gatehouse on our getting utterly drunk. *•' From Gatehouse, we went next day to Kirkcudbi'ight, through a fine countrj*. But here I must tell you that Burns had got a pair of jemmy boots for the country, which had been thoroughly wet, and which had been dried in such manner that it was not possible to get them on again. The brawny poet tried force, and tore them to shreds. A whiffling vexa- tion of this sort is more trying to the temper than a serious calamity. We were going to St Mary's Isle, the seat of the Earl of Selkirk, and the forlorn Burns was discomfited at the thought of his ruined boots. A sick stomach and a headache lent their aid, and the man of verse was quite accahle. I attempted to rea- son with him. Mercy on us ! how he did fume with rage ! Nothing could reinstate him in temper. I tried various experiments, and at last hit on one that succeeded. I showed him the house of , across the bay of Wig- ton. Against , with whom he was of- fended, he expectorated his spleen, and re- gained a most agreeable temper. He was in a most epigrammatic humour indeed ! He after- wards fell on humbler game. There is one whom lie does not love. He had a pass- ing blow at him : — •TTiien , deceased, to the devil -n-ent down. 'Twas nntlJnj would serve him but Satan's own crown : Tay fool's head, quoth Satan, that crown shall wear never, I grant thou'rt as wicked, but not quite go clever.' "Well, I am to bring you to Kirkcudbright along with our poet, without boots. I carried the torn ruins across my saddle in spite of his fulminations, and in contempt of appearances; and what is more. Lord Selkirk carried them in his coach to Dumfries. He insisted they were worth mending. ^ " We reached Kirkcudbright about one o'clock. I had promised that we should dine with one of the first men in our country, J. Dalzell. But Burns was in a wild and obstre- perous humour, and swore he would not dine where he should be under the smallest re- straint. We prevailed, therefore, on Mr Dal- zell to dine with us in the inn, and had a very agreeable party. In the evening we set out for St Mary's Isle. Robert had not absolutely regained the milkiness of good temper, and it occurred once or twice to him, as he rode along, that St ^Mary's Isle was the seat of a lord ; yet that lord was not an aristocrat, at least in his sense of the word. We arrived about eight o'clock, as the family were at tea and coffee. St Mary's Isle is one of the most delightful places that can, in my opinion, be formed by the assemblage of every soft, but not tame, object which constitutes natural and cultivated beauty. But not to dwell on its ex- ternal graces, let me tell you that we found all the ladies of the family (all beautiful) at home, and some strangers ; and, among others, who but Urbani ! The Italian sung us many Scot- tish songs, accompanied with instrumental music. The two young ladies of Selkirk sung also. We had the song of Lord Gregory. which I asked for, to have an opportunity of calling on Burns to recite his ballad to that tune. He did recite it; and such was the efl'ect, that a dead silence ensued. It was such a silence as a mind of feeling naturally pre- serves when it is touched with that enthusiasm which banishes every other thought but the contemplation and indulgence of the sympathy produced. Bm-ns's * Lord Gregory ' is, in my opinion, a most beautiful and affecting ballad. The fastidious critic may perhaps say, some of the sentiments and imagery are of too elevated a kind for such a style of composition ; for instance, ' Thou bolt of heaven that passest by;' and 'Ye mustering thunder,' &c. ; but this is a cold-blooded objection, which will be said rather than felt. " We enjoyed a most happy evening at Lord Selkirk's. We had, in every sense of the word, a feast, in which our minds and our senses were equally gratified. The poet was delighted with his company, and acquitted himself to. admiration. The lion that had raged so vio- lently in the morning, was now as mild and gentle as a lamb. Next day we returned to Dumfries, and so ends our peregrination. I told you, that in the midst of the storm, on the wilds of Kenmure, Burns was wrapt in meditation. What do you think he was about ? He was charging the English army, along with Bruce, at Bannockburn. He was engaged in the same manner on our ride home from St Mary's Isle, and I did not disturb him. Next day he produced nie the following address of Bruce to his troops, and gave me a copy for Dalzell :— ' Scots wha hae wi' "Wallace bled,* Ac." DOMESTIC SKETCH OF THE POET. BY THE LATE SIR EGERTON BRTDQES, BAKT. I had always been a great admirer of his genius and of many traits in his character; and I was aware that he was a person moody, and somewhat difficult to deal with. I was resolved to keep in full consideration the irri- tability of his position in society. About » mile from his residence, on a bench under a tree, I passed a figure, which from the en- graved portraits of him I did not doubt was Ixxiv APPENDIX TO BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. the poefc; but I did not venture to address him. On arriving at his humble cottage, Mrs Burns opened the door ; she Avas the plain sort of humble woman she has been described ; she ushered me into a neat apartment, and said that she would send for Burns, who was gone for a walk. In about half an hour he came, and my conjecture proved right : he was the person I had seen on the bench by the road- side. At first I was not entirely pleased with his countenanctf. I thought it had a sort of capricious jealousy, as if he was half inclined to treat me as an intruder. I resolved to bear it, and try if I could humour him, I let him choose his turn of conversation, but said a few words about the friend whose letter I had brought to him. It was now about four in the afternoon of an autumn day. While we were talking, Mrs Burns, as if accustomed to entertain visitors in this way, brought in a bottle of Scotch whisky, and set the table. I accepted this hospitality, I could not help observing the curious glance with which he watched me at the entrance of this signal of homely entertainment. He was satisfied ; he filled our glasses. "Here's a health to auld Caledonia ! " The fire sparkled in his eye, and mine sympathetically met his. He shook my hand with warmth, and we were friends at once. Then he drank "Ei-in for ever!" and the tear of delight burst from his eye. The fountain of his mind and his heart now opened at once, and flowed with abundant force almost till midnight. He had amazing acuteness of intellect, as well as glow of sentiment. I do not deny that he said some absurd things, and many coarse ones, and that his knowledge was very irregular, and sometimes too presump- tuous, and that he did not endure contradic- tion witli sufficient patience. His pride, and perhaps his vanity, was even morbid. I care- fully avoided topics in which he could not take an active part. Of literary gossip he knew j nothing, and therefore I kept ;iloof from it ; in the technical parts of literature his opinions were crude ixnd uninformed ; but whenever he spoke of a great writer whom he had read, his taste was generally sound. To a few minor wi-iters he gave more credit than they deserved. His great beauty was his manly strength, and his energy and elevation of thought and feel- ing. He had always a full mind, and all flowed from a genuine spring. I never conversed with a man who appeared to be more warmly im- pressed with the beauties of nature; and visions of female beauty and tenderness seemed to transport him. He did not merely appear to bo a poet at casual intervals ; but at every moment a poetical enthusiasm seemed to beat in hia veins, and he lived all his days the in- ward, if not the outward, life of a poet, I thought I perceived in Burns's cheek the symp- toms of an energy which had been pushed too far ; and he had this feeling himself. Every now and then he spoke of the grave, as soon about to close over him. His dark eye had at first a character of Bternness ; but as ho became warmed, though this did not entirely melt away, it wtvs mingled with changes of extreme softness. PERSONAL SKETCH OF THE POET. BY ALLAN CUNNINGHAM. Burns, in his youth, was tall and sinewy, with coarse swarthy features, and a ready word of wit or of kindness for all. The man differed little from the lad ; his form was vigorous, his limbs shapely, his knees firmly knit, his arms muscular and round, his hands large, his fingers long, and he stood five feet ten inches high. All his movements were unconstrained and free : — he had a slight stoop of the neck ; and a lock or so of his dark waving hair was tied carelessly behind with two casts of narrow black ribbon. His looks beamed with genius and intelligence ; his forehead was broad and clear, shaded by raven locks inclined to curl ; his cheeks were furrowed more with anxiety than time : his nose was short rather than long ; his mouth firm and manly; his teeth white and regular ; and there was a dimple, a small one, on his chin. His eyes were large, dark, and lustrous : I have heard them likened to coach-lamps approaching in a dark night, be- j cause they were first seen of any part of the poet. — "I never saw," said Scott, "such an- other eye in a human head, though I have seen the most distinguished men of my time." In his ordinary moods, Burns looked a man of a hundred ; but when animated in company he was a man of a million ; his swarthy features glowed ; his eyes kindled tip till they all but; lightened ; his slight stoop vanished ; and his voice — deep, manly, and musical — added its sorcery of pathos or of wit,' till the dullest owned the enchantments of genius. His personal strength was united to great activity; he could move a twenty-stone sack of meal without much apparent effort, and load a cart with bags of corn in the time, one of his neighbours said, that other men were talk- ing about it, A mason was hewing him a stone for a cheese-press, and Burns took jilea- surcj as a side was squared, to turn over the huge mass unaided. A large pebble is still pointed out at Ellisland, as his ])utting-atone ; and though no living man at Nithsdale per- haps can poise it in the air, the tradition proves the popular belief in his great strength. He delighted in feats of rural activity and skill ; he loved to draw the straightest furrow on his fields, to sow the largest quantity of seed-corn of any farmer in the dale in a day, mow the most rye-grass and clover in ten hours of exer- tion, and stook to the greatest number of reapers. In this he sometimes met with his match. After a hard strife on the harvest field, with a fellow-husbandman, in which the poet was equalled : — " Robert," said his rival, " I'm no sae far behind this time, I'm thinking?" — " John," said he in a whisper, " you're behind in something yet : I made a sang while I was stocking ! " 1 have heard my father say that Burns had the handsomest cast of the lumd iu sowing corn he ever saw on a furrowed field. Burns desired as much to excel in conversa- tion as he did in these fits and starts of hus- bandry ; but he was more disposed to contend for victory than to seek for knowledge. The APPENDIX TO BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH, Ixxv debating club of Tarbolton was ever strong within him : a fierce lampoon, or a roiigh epi- gram, was often the i-eward of those who ven- tured to contradict him. His conversation partook of the nature of controversy, and he urged his opinions with a vehemence amount- ing to fierceness. All this was natural enough when he was involved in argument with the "boors around him ; but he was disposed, when pressed in debate, to be equally discourteous and unsparing to the polite and the titled. In the company of men of talent he was an- other man ; he was then among his peers, and listened with attention, and spoke with a modest eloquence which surprised many. " I think Burns," said Robertson the historian, to Professor Christison, "was one of the most ex- traordinary men I ever met with ; his poetry surprised me very much, his prose surprised me still more, and his conversation surprised me more than both his poetry and prose." *' His address," says Robert Riddel, " was pleas- ing ; he was neither forward nor embarrassed in manner; his spirits were generally high, and his conversation animated. His language was fluent, frequently fine ; his enunciation always rapid : his ideas clear and vigorous, and he had the rare power of modulating his pecu- liarly fine voice, so as to harmonise with what- ever subject he touched upon. I have heard him talk with astonishing rapidity, nor miss the articulation of a single syllable ; elevate and depress his voice as the topic seemed to require; and sometimes, when the subject was pathetic, he would prolong the words in the most impressive and afi"ectiDg manner, in- dicative of the deep sensibility which inspired him. He often lamented to me that fortune had not placed him at the bar or in the senate ; he had great ambition, and th* feeling that he could not gratify it- preyed upon him severely." LETTER FROM MR FI]n)LATER, COLLECIOB OP EXCISE, GLASGOW. Mr Findlater was for some time a brother officer of the poet's, although oJC a higher grade, and a tried friend. Glasgott, Odt. 10, 1818. Silt, — I entirely agree with you in opinion on the various accounts which have been given to the world of the life of Robert Burns, and can have no hesitation in expressing publicly my sentiments on his ofiicial conduct at least, and perhaps in other respects, as far as may appear necessary for the development of truth. Amongst his biographers, Dr Currie of course takes the lead, and the severity of his stric- tures, or, to borrow the words of the poet, his "iron-justice," is much to be regretted, as '* his Life" has become a kind of text-book for suc- ceeding commentators, who have, by the aid of their own fancies, amplified, exaggerated, and filled up the outlines he has sketched, and, in truth, left in such a state as to provoke an exercise of that description. It is painful to trace all that Las been written by Dr Currie's successors, who seem to have considered the history of the poet as a thing like Ulysses's bow, on which each was at liberty to try his strength, and some, in order to outdo their competitors, have strained every nerve to throw all kinds of obloquy on his memory. His convivial habits, his wit and humour, his social talents, and independent spirit, havo been perverted into constant and habitual drunkenness, impiety, neglect of his profes- sional duty, and of his family, and in short every human vice. He has been branded with cowardice, accused of attempting murder, and even suicide, and all this without a shadow of proof, 'proh pudor ! Is there nothing of tenderness due to the memory of so ti-ansceudeut a genius, who has so often delighted even his libellers with the felicities of his songs, and the charms of his wit and humour ? — And is no regard to be had to the feelings of those near and dear relatives he has left behind ; or, are his ashes never to "hope repose ?" — My indignation has unwarily- led me astray from the point to which I meant to have confined myself, and to which I will now recur, and briefly state what I have to say on the subject. My connexion with Robert Burns com- menced immediately after his admission into the Excise, and continued to the hour of his death. In all that time, the superintendence of his behaviour as an officer of the revenue was a branch of my especial province, and ii; may be supposed, I would not be an inattentive observer of the general conduct of a man and a poet so celebrated by his countrymen. In the former capacity, so far from its being "im- possible for him to discharge the duties of his office with that regularity which is almost in- dispensable," as is palpably assumed by one of his biographers, and insinuated not very obscurely even by Dr Currie, he was exem- plary in his attention as an Excise-officer, and was even jealous of the least imputation on his vigilance ; as a proof of which, it may not be foreign to the subject to quote part of a letter from him to myself, in a case of only seeming inattention. — '* 1 know, sir", and regret deeply, that this business glances with a malign aspect on my character as an officer ; but, as I am. really innocent in the afiair, and, as the gentleman is known to be an illicit dealer, and par-ticularly as this is the single instance of the least shadow of carelessness or impropriety in my conduct as an officer, I shall be peculiarly unfortunate if my character shall fall a sacrifica to the dark manoeuvres of a smuggler." This of itself afl"ords more than a presumption of his attention to business, as it cannot be sup- posed that he would have written in such a style to me, but from the impulse of a con- scious rectitude in this department of his duty. Indeed it was not till near the latter end of his days that thei-e was any falling off in this respect, and this was amply accounted for in the pressure of disease, and accumulating in- firmities. About this period I advised him to relinquish business altogether, which he com- plied with, but it distressed him a good deal, a« he was thereby liable to suffer a diminu- Ixxvi APPENDIX TO BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. tion of salary ; and lie wrote to Commissioner Graham, in the hope that that gentleman's influence would get his full pay continued during his illness, which I have no doubt it would have done if he had recovered. In the meantime, Mr Graham wrote him a letter, ex- hibiting a solid proof of his generosity and friendship, but, alas ! the poet was by this time too far gone towards that " undiscovered country, from whose bourne no traveller re- turns," and he could not acknowledge it. Having stated Burns's unremitting attention to business, which certainly was not compa- tible with perpetual intoxication, it follows of course that this latter charge must fall to the ground; and I will farther avow, that I never saw him, which was very frequently while he lived at Ellisland, and still more so, almost every day, after he removed to Dumfries, but in hours of business he was quite himself, and capable of discharging the duties of his office ; nor was he ever known to drink by himself, or seen to indulge in the use of liquor in a fore- noon, as the statement, that he was perpetually under its stimulus, unequivocally implies. To attempt the refutation of the various other calumnies with which his memory has been assailed, some of which are so absurd as hardly to merit any attention, does not fall in my way, though I hope they will be suitably taken notice of ; but permit me to add, that I have seen Burns in all his various phases — in his convivial moments, in his sober moods, and in the bosom of his family ; indeed I believe I saw more of him than any other individual had occasion to see, after he became an Excise- officer ; and I never beheld anything like the gross enormities with which he is now charged. That when set down in an evening with a few friends whom he liked, he was apt to prolong the social hour beyond the bounds which prudence would dictate, is unquestionable; but in his family, I will venture to say, he was never seen otherwise than attentive and affec- tionate to a high degree. Upon the whole, it is much to be lamented that there has been so much broad unqualified assertion as has been displayed in Burns's history; the virulence indeed with which his memory has been treated, is hardly to be paralleled in the annals of literature. Wishing every success to the laudable attempt of rescuing it from the in- discriminate abuse which has been heaped upon it,— I remain, &c., A. Findlateb. To Me Alex. Peterki^, Edimbubgh. LETTER FROM MR JAMES GRAY* TO GILBERT BURNS, CONTAINING OBSERVATIONS ON THE LAST THREE TEARS OP THE POET'S LIFE. It was my good fortune to be introduced to the poet soon after I went to Dumfries. This was early in 1794, and I saw him often and ♦ Mr Gray was master of the High School of Dum- fries in Burns's day. He latterly became a chaplain in the Hon. East India Company's service, and died at Cutch in 1830. intimately during the remainder of his life. I have often been with him in his scenes of merriment, passing with him the social hour. I have been delighted by the constant flashes of a brilliant wit, playful or caustic, as the oc- casion required ; but never disgusted by any- thing coarse, vicious, or vulgar. I have not unfrequently enjoyed with him the morning walk — seen him clear and unclouded. I wa* astonished by the extent and promptitude of his information — by his keen inspection into human character — by the natural, warm, and energetic flow of his eloquence — and by the daring flights of his imagination. I have often seen him portra}'', with a pencil dipped in the colours of the rainbow, everything fair, great, or sublime, in human character or nature at large ; and along with those, I ever heard him the zealous advocate of humanity, reli- gion, virtue, and freedom. On these occasions I have heard him quote the English poets, from Shakespeare down to Cowper; while their finest passages seemed to acquire new beauty from his energetic recitation. His counte- nance, on these occasions, would brighten, and his large dark eyes would sparkle with delight. At other times he would roll them over the purple tints of the morning sky, or the varied beauties of a fine landscape ; while he would burst out into glowing descriptions, or enthu- siastic strains of adoration, worthy of the royal Hebrew bard. He seemed to me to frequent convivial par- ties from the same feelings with which he wrote poetry, because nature had eminently quahfied him to shine there, and he never ou any occasion indulged in solitary drinking. He was always the living spirit of the company, and, by the communications of his genius, seemed to animate every one present with a portion of his own fire. He indulged in the sally of wit and humour, of striking originality, and sometimes of bitter sarcasm, but always free from the least taint of grossness. I was, from the commencement of my acquaintanco with him, struck with his aversion to all kinds of indelicacy, and have seen him dazzle and delight a party for hours together by the brilliancy and rapidity of his flashes, without even an allusion that could give offence to vestal purity. I often met hira at breakfast parties, which were then customary at Dumfries ; and on these occasions, if he had been suffering from midnight excesses, it must have been apparent. But his whole air was that of one who had en- joyed refreshing slumbers, and who arose happy in himself, and to diffuse happiness on all around him ; his complexion was fresh and clear, his eye brilliant, his whole frame vigor- ous and elastic, and liis imagination ever on the wing. His morning conversations were marked by an impassioned eloquence that seemed to flow from immediate inspiration, and shed an atmosphere of light and beauty around everything it touched, alternately melting and elevating the souls of all who heard him. In our solitary walks on a summer morning, the simplest floweret by the way- side, every sight of rural simplicity and hap- APPENDIX TO BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. Ixxvii piness, every creature that seemed to drink : the joy of the seasons, awakened the sympathy ■ of his heart, which flowed in spontaneous ' music from his lips ; and every new opening of the beauty or the magnificence of the scene J before him called forth the poetry of his soul. i As a friend, no views of selfishness ever made him faithless to those whom he had once honoured with that name — ever ready to aid them by the wisdom of his counsels, when his means were inadequate to their relief ; and, by a delicate sympathy, to soothe the sufferings and the sorrows he could not heal. As a citizen he never neglected a single professional duty ; and even on the slender income of an Excise officer, he never contracted a single debt he could not pay. He could submit to privations, but could not brook the dependence of owing anything to any man on earth. To the poor he was liberal beyond his limited means, and the cry of the unfortunate was never addressed to him in vain ; and when he could not himself relieve their necessities, he was often known, by a pathetic recital of their misfortunes, to draw the tear and open the purse of those who were not famed either for tenderness of heart or charity ; on such occa- sions it was impossible to resist his solicita- He was a kind and an attentive father, and took great delight in spending his evenings in the cultivation of the minds of his children. Their education was the grand object of his life, and he did not, hke most parents, think it sufficient to send them to public schools ; he was their private instructor ; and even at that early age, bestowed great pains in training their minds to habits of thought and reflection, and in keeping them pure from every form of vice. This he considered a sacred duty, and never, to his last illness, relaxed in his diligence. With his eldest son, a boy of not more than nine years of age, he had read many of the favourite poets, and some of the best historians, of our language ; and, what is more remarkable, gave him considerable aid in the study of Latin. This boy attended the grammar school of Dumfries, and soon attracted my notice by the strength of his talent, and the ardour of Lis ambition. Before he had been a year at Bchool, I thought it right to advance him a form ; and he began to read Cajsar, and gave me translations of that author of such beauty r.s, I confessed, surprised me. On inquiry, I found that his father made him turn over his dictionary till he was able to translate to him the passage in such a way that he could gather the author's meaning, and that it was to him he owed that polished and forcible English with which I was so greatly struck. I have mentioned this incident merely to show what minute attention he paid to this important branch of parental duty. Many insinuations have been made against Lis character as a husband ; but I am happy ta Eay that I have in exculpation the direct evidence of Mrs Burns herself, who, among many amiable and respectable qualities, ranks a veneration for the memory of her departed husband, whom she never names but in terms of the profoundest respect and the deepest re- gret, to lament his misfortunes, or to extol his kindnesses to herself, not as the momentary overflowings of the heart, in a season of peni- tence for ofiences generously forgiven, but an habitual tenderness that ended only with his life. I place this evidence, which I am proud to bring forward on her own authority, against a thousand anonymous calumnies. To the very end of his existence, all the powers of his mind were as vigorous as in the blossom of their spring and it may be asked, if the numerous songs written for Mr Thomson's collection, which were his last compositions, and by many considered the glory of his genius, indicate any intellectual decay? I saw him four days before he died, and though the hand of death was obviously upon him, he repeated to me a little poem he had composed the day before, full of energy and tenderness. Your brother partook, in an eminent degree, of the virtues and the vices of the poetical temperament. He was often hurried into error by the impetuosity of his passions, but he was never their slave; he was often led astray by the meteor lights of pleasure, but he never lost sight of the right way, to which he was ever eager to return ; and, amid all his wanderings and his self- conflicts, his heart was pure and his principles untainted. Though he was often wellnigh broken-hearted by the severity of his fate, yet he Avas never heard to complain ; and, had he been an un- connected individual, he would have bid de- fiance to fortune ; but his soitows for his wife and children, for whom he sufiered much, and feared more, were keen and acute : yet un- mingled with selfishness. All his life he had to maintain a hard struggle with cares ; and he often had to labour under those depressions to which genius is subject : yet his spirit never stooped from its lofty career, and, to the very end of his warfare with himself and with for- tune, he continued strong in its independence. The love of posthumous fame was the master passion of his soul, which kept all others iu subordination, and prevented them from run- ning into that disorder which his great sus- ceptibility to all those objects which pleased his fancy or interested his heart, and the vivacity of all his emotions might, without this regulating principle, have produced. Amidst the darkest overshadowings of his fate, or the most alluring temptations of pleasure, it was his consoling and leading star; and, as it directed his eye to distant ages, it was often his only support in the one, and the most powerful check against the dangerous indul- gence of the other. Possessing an eloquence that might have guided the councils of nations, and which would have been eagerly courted by any party, he would have perished by famine rather than submit to the degradation of be- coming the tool of faction. It is a known fact that he rejected a sum equal to his whole annual iacome, for the support of those mea- 6ur<-s which he thought most for the interests- of the country. He had a loftiness of sentiment that raised him above making his genius a hireling even in a good cause, and his laurels were never stained by a single act of ven- ality. Though his chosen companions were not more remarkable for talent than for the respec- tability of their character, and the purity of their lives, and many ladies, of the most deli- cate and cultivated minds and elegant manners, • were numbered among his friends, who clung' to him through good and through bad report, and still cherish an affectionate and enthusiastic regard for his memory, yet has he been accused of being addicted to low company. Qualified for the noblest employments, he was con- demned to drudge in the lowest occupations — often in scenes where to avoid contamination was an effort of virtue. Accumulated misfor- tunes, and the cruelty of mankind, actually broke his heart, and hurried him to a premature gr?.ve, which to him has been no sanctuary, for the voice of calumny has been heard even there ; but prejudices will pass away, and pos- terity will do him justice. I shall deem it the proudest work of my life, if my feeble efforts shall be in the slightest degree instrumental in correcting erroneous opinions, which have been too long and too widely circulated. LETTER FROM MR GEORGE THOMSON. The follow ing letter was sent to Messrs Blackie, and first appeared in their very valuable edition of the poet's works. .... Much has it vexed me that Mr [Allan] Cunningham in his immensity of notes has given circulation to so many on dits, surmises, and innuendos about the irregularities and dissipa- tion of the poet ; hearsay tales, resting upon very doubtful authority; some of them per- haps true, and others exaggerated or un- founded. I am far from thinking that he was not guilty of many follies, remembering his own memorable and candid confession of these, which methinks might have served to prevent biographers from prying into holes and corners in search of gossiping details to prove the truth of what he had himself admitted I Mark his contrition and humility : — " The poor inhabitant below Was quick to learn and wise to know, And keenly felt the friendly glow, A nd softer flame ; But thoughtless follies laid him low, And stain'd his name." But if we are forced to go into evidence, I would say that I think the detailed allegations of the Herons and Cunninghams are neutra- lised by the statements of the Grays, Find- laters, and Lockharts. Gilbert Burns told me that hia brother's frailties and errors had been considerable, although hy no means so great as they were called. In this Mr Lockhart, after due inquiry and consideration, decidedly con- curs with him. Mr Lockhart in his biography Bays — "that Bums ever sunk into a toper — that he ever was addicted to solitary drinking — that his bottle ever interfered with his dis- charge of his duties as .in exciseman — or that, iu spite of some transitory follies, h© ever ceased to be a most affectionate husband — aU these charges have been insinuated, and they are all false. His intemperance was, as Heron says, in fits : his aberrations of all kinds were occasional, not systematic : they were all to himself the sources of exquisite misery in the retrospect : they were the aberrations of a man ^vhose moral sense was never deadened — of one who encountered more temptation froin without and from within, than the immense majority of mankind, far from having to con- tend against, or evfen able to imagine." Here I take my stand in vindication of Burns, and I contend that Mr James Gray, and Collector Findlater, his superior in of&ce, both resident in Dumfries, who saw him daily and knew him thoroughly, and Mr Lockhart, who was at pains to investigate the chai'ges against him, are fully as well entitled to belief in his behalf as Mr Heron, Mr Cunningham, and the gossips of Dumfries are, in their asser- tions, insinuations, and assumptions to his pre- judice. It is well known that the poet was often lite- rally dragged into society on account of his wit and humo\ir and the charms of his conver- sation, and that strangers from distant parts frequently journeyed to Dumfries on purpose to see the greatest poet of the age. Could he be insensible to the homage of those visitors ; and can we wonder at his accepting their flat- tering invitations to dinner, or that his flashes of wit should have prolonged the hours of social enjoyment beyond prudential limits on such occasions ? Poor Burns ! how cruel was his fate, doomed through life to wither at the foot of fortune's ladder, with a genius that could have carried him triumphantly to its summit, if the hand of power had been stretched out to help him to ascend. One of our witty philosophers has expressed an opinion, I am told, for I have not yet seen it, that as the public has been highly gratified by the poet's works, it is of little consequence how the poet fared ! If this be what he has said, I venture to differ from him, and to think that if the case were his own he would quite agree with me, and would scout such prepos- terous doctrine. Had Burns been promoted to the of&ce of Collector in the Excise, or placed in any situation that would have afforded him a moderate competence, and left him leisure to cultivate the Muse, instead of being left to pine in poverty and to waste his life in the drudgery of a common ganger, the public, in all probability, would have been gratified by many more invaluable productions from his pen. That a man of such original genius, of such transcendent talents, and of such independence of mind as he possessed, did not find a patron in the influential class of society, to rescue him from the situation of a drudge, is a matter ever to be lamented. Con- sidering his misfortunes, it might have been expected, when the gi-ave closed over him, that he would have been treated with far greater sympathy by biographers and reviewers, who surely have scrutinised hia conduct by too severa a test. .... G. Tiiojrsou. POEMS. TRAGIC FRAGISIENT. The following lines are thus introduced by Burns in one of his manuscripts, printed in "Cromek's Re- liques:" — 'In my early years nothing less -would serve me than courting the tragic muse. I was, I think, about eighteen or nineteen when I sketched the outlines of a tragedy, forsooth ; but the burst- ing of a cloud of family misfortunes, which had for sometime threatened us, prevented my further pro- gi'ess. In those days I never wrote down anything ; so, except a speech or two, the whole has escaped my memory. The above, which I most distinctly remember, "was an exclamation from a great charac- ter — great in occasional instances of generosity, and daring at times in villanies. He is supposed to meet with a child of misery, and exclaims to himself, as in the words of the fragment" — All devil as I am, a damned wretch, A harden'd, stubborn, unrepentiiig villain, Still my heart melts at human -wretchedness; And -with sincere, though unavailing, sighs, I vie-w the helpless children of distress. "With tears indignant I behold the oppressor Rejoicing in the honest man's destruction, ""•Vhose unsubmitting heart was all his crime. ]]ven you, ye helpless crew, I pity you ; Ye, whom the seeming good think sin to pity ; Ye poor, despised, abandon'd vagabonds. Whom -vice, as usual, has turn'd o'er to ruin. — Oh, but for kind, though ill-requited, friends, I had been driven forth like you forlorn, The most detested, worthless wretch among you ! O injured God ! Thy goodness has endow'd me Vrith talents passing most of my compeers, "V^^lich I in just jjroportion have abused As far surpassing other common villains. As Thou in natural parts hadst given me more. THE TORBOLTON LASSES. The two following poems, wiitten at different times, give a list of the eligible damsels in the poet's neigh- bourhood. According to Mr Chambers, Gilbert Burns had made advances to one of the daughters at " the Bennals," which were declined. The poet takes occasion to hint that he himself, though not unsus- ceptible, was too proud to risk a rebuff: If ye gae up to yon hill-tap, Ic e '11 there see bonny Peggy; She kens her faither is a laird. And she forsooth 's a leddy. Tnere Sophy tight, a lassie bright, Besides a handsome fortune : "WTia canna -win her in a night, Has little art in courting. Gae down by Faile, and taste the ale, And tak a look o' Mysie ; She's dour^ and din, a deil within. But aiblins'^ she may please ye. If she be shy, her sister try. Ye '11 maybe fancy Jenny, If ye '11 dispense wi' want o' sense — She kens hersel she 's boimy. As ye gae up by yon hillside, Speer^ in for bonny Bessy ; She'll gie ye a beck,^ and bid ye licht, And handsomely address ye. There 's few sae bonnie, nane sao guid. In a' King George' dominion ; If ye should doubt the truth o' this — ■ It 's Bessy^ ain opinion. ■■ In Torbolton, ye ken, there are proper yo\ing meii, I And proper young lasses and a', man ; ! But ken ye the Ronalds that live in the Bennals, j They carry the gree^ frae them a', man. j Their father 's a laird, and weel he can spare 't, j Braid money to tocher-* them a', man, j To proper young men, he '11 clink in the hand j Cfowd guineas a hunder or twa, man. ; There 's ane they ca' Jean, I 'U warrant ye 've seen I As bonny a lass or as braw, man ; I But for sense and guid taste she '11 vie Tvi' the best, And a conduct that beautifies a', man. I The charms o' the min', the langer they shine, I The mair admiration they draw, man ; ; TTliile peaches and cherries, and roses and lilies. They fade and they wither awa, man. If ye be for Miss Jean, tak this frae a frlen', i A hint o' a rival or twa, man, ] The Laird o' Blackbyre wad gang through the fire. If that wad entice her awa, man. The Laird o' Braehcad has been on his speed, i For mair than a towmond^ or twa, man; The Laird o' the Ford will straught on a board,^ If he canna get her at a', man. Then Anna comes in, the pride o' her kin. The boast of our bachelors a', man; Sae sonsy 7 and sweet, sae fully complete. She steals our affections awa, man. If I should detail tbe pick and the wale^ O' lasses that live here awa, man. The fault wad be mine, if they didna shine, The sweetest and best o' them a', man. I lo'e her mysel, but darena weel tell. My poverty keeps me in awe, man, For making o' rhymes, and working at times. Does little or naething at a', man. 1 Obstinate. s Perhaps. 1 Ask or call. 2 Bow. •* Portion. 5 Twelvemonth. 6 Die and be stretched on a board. 1 Comely. o Choice. Palm. POEMS. [1781-2. Yet I wadna choose to let her refuse, Nor hae 't in her power to say na, man ; For though I be poor, unnoticed, obscure, My stomach 's as proud as them a', man. Though I canna ride in weel-booted pride, And flee o'er the hills like a craw, man, I can hand up my head v.-ith the best o' the breed, Though fluttering ever so braw, man. My coat and my vest, they are Scotch o' the best, O' pairs o' guidAreeks I hae tvv-a, man. And stockings ai^-2 pUmps to put on my stumps. And ne'er a wrang steek in them a', man. My sarksi they are few, but five o' them new, Twal' hundred,^ as white as the snuAv, mau, A ten-shilling hat, a Holland cravat ; There are no mony poets sae braw, man. I never had frien's weel stockit in means, To leave me a hundred or twa, man ; Nae weel-tocher'd aunts, to wait on their drants,-^ And wish them in hell for it a', man. I never was cannie'* for hoarding o' money, Or claughtin't^ together at a', man, I've little to spend, and naething to lend, But deevil a shilling I awe,^ man. WINTER: A DIRGE. •'Winter: a Dirge," was copied into Burns's Com- monplace Book in April 1784, and prefaced with the following reflections : — "As I am what the men of the world, if they knew such a man, would call a ■whimsical mortal, I have various sources of pleasure and enjoyment which are in a manner peculiar to my- self, or some here and there such out-of-the-way per- son. Such is the peculiar pleasure I take in the season of Winter more than the rest of the year. This, I believe, may be partly owing to my misfor- tunes giving my mind a melancholy cast : but there is something even in the •Mighty tempest, and the heavy waste, Abrupt, and deep, stretch'd o'er the buried earth,' which raises the mind to a serious sublimity favour- able to everything great and noble. There is scarcely any earthly object gives me more— I do not know if I should call it pleasure — but something which exalts me — something which enraptures me — than to walk in the sheltered side of a wood, or high plantation, in a cloudy winter-day, and hear the stormy wind howl- ing among the trees and raving over the plain. It is my best season for devotion : my mind is wrapt up in a kind of enthusiasm to Ilim, wlio, in tlie pompous language of the Hebrew bard, 'walks on the wings of the wind.' In one of these seasons, just after a train of misfortunes, I composed the fol- lowing:" — The wintry west extends his blast, And hail and rain does blaw; Or, the stormy north sends driving forth The blinding sleet and snaw: While tumbling brown, the burn comes down, And roars f rae bank to brae ; And bird and beast in covert rest, And pass the heartless day. *' The sweeping blast, the sky o'crcast," * The joyless winter-day. Let others fear, to me more dear Than all the pride of May : 1 Shirts. « Careful « A kind of cloth. « Gathering greedily. • Dr Young. ' Humours, « Owe. The tempest's how], it soothes my soul, p- My griefs it seems to join ; /•The leafless trees my fancy please, V Their fate resembles mine ! iT'Thou Power Supreme, whose mighty scheme These woes of mine fulfil, Hei-e, firm, I rest, they must be best, Because they are Thy will ! Then all I want (oh, do Thou grant This one request of mine!) Since to enjoy Thou dost deny, Assist me to resign. A PRAYER, UNDER THE PRESSURE OF VIOLENT ANGUISH. In the Commonplace Book already alluded to the following melancholy note accompanies this Poem : — "There was a certain period of my life that my spirit was broken by repeated losses and disasters, which threatened, and indeed effected, the utter ruin of my fortune. My body, too, was attacked by that most dreadful distemper, a hypochondria, or confirmed melancholy. In this wretched state, the recollection of which makes me yet shudder, I hung my harp on the willow trees, except in some lucid intervals, in one of which I composed this Prayer:" — O Thou great Being ! what Thou art Surpasses me to know : Yet sure I am, that known to Thee Are all Thy works below. All wretched and distrest ; Yet sure those ills that wring my soul Obey Thy high behest. Sure Thou, Almighty, canst not act From cruelty or wrath ! Oh, free my weary eyes from tears. Or close them fast in death ! But if I must afflicted be. To suit some wise design ; Then man my soul with firm resolves, To bear and not repine ! THE DEATH AND DYING WORDS OF POOR MAILIE, THE author's only tet towe. {An Unco Mournfu^ Tale ) Mr Lockhart has well said that the expiring ani mal's admonitions touching the education of tlie "poortoop lamb," her son and heir, and the "yowie, silly thing," her daughter, are from the same pecu- liar vein of sly homely wit, embedded upon fancy, which he afterwards dug with a bolder hand in tlie " Twa Dogs," and perhaps to its utmost depth in liis "Deatii and Doctor Hornbook." It need scarcely be added that poor Mailie was a real personage, thoui:)i she l:m:s used as au MT. 27.] POEMS. " A bonnie lass, ye kenn'tl her name. sirs I whae'er wad hae expeckit, Some ill-brewn drink had hoved her Avame : Your duty ye wad sae negleckit, She trusts hersel, to hide the shame, Ye wha were ne'er by lairds respeckit, In Hornbook's care ; To wear the plaid, Horn sent her aff to her lang hame, But by the brutes themselves eleckit, To hide it there. To be their guide. ••That's just a swatch o' Hornbook's way ; Thus goes he on from day to day, Thus does he poison, kill, and slay. An 's weel paid for 't ; Yet stops me o' my lawf u' prey, Wi' his damn'd dirt : " But, hark ! I '11 tell you of a plot, Though dinna ye be speaking o't ; I '11 nail the self -conceited sot. As dead 's a herrin' ; Neist time we meet, I '11 wad a groat. He's got his fairin'I"! But just as he began to tell, The auld kirk-hammer strak the bell Some wee short hour ayont the twal, Which raised us baith : I took the way that pleased mysel. And sae did Death. THE TTTA HERDS ; OR, THE HOLY TULZIE. Kie Twa Herds were the Rev. John Russell, assistant minister of Kilmarnock, and afterwards minister at Stirling, and the Rev. ."Alexander iJIoodie, parish minister of Riccarton, two zealous "Auld-Licht" men, members of the clerical party to whom Burns was opposed on all occasions. They had quarrelled over some question of parish boundaries ; and in the presbytery, where the question had come up for settlement, they fell foul of each other after the manner of the wickedand ungodly. Mr Lockhartsays : — "There, in the open court, to which the announce- ment of the discussion had drawn a multitude of the country-people, and Burns among the rest, the reverend divines, hitherto sworn friends and asso- ciates, lost all command of temper, and abused each other coram populo, with a fieiy virulence of per- sonal invective such as has long been banished from all popular assemblies wherein the laws of courtesy are enforced by those of a certain unwritten code." Burns seized the opportunity, and in "The Twa Herds" gave his version of the aflair. It is only justice to the poet to mention, that he did not in- clude this poem in any of the editions of his works published during his lifetime. " Blockheads with reason wicked wits abhor ; But fool with fool is barbarous civil war." — Pope. Oh, a' ye pious godly flocks, Weel fed on pastures orthodox, Wha now will keep you frae the fox. Or worrying- tykes,^ Or wha wUl tent the waifs and crocks,^ About the dikes? The twa best herds in a' the wast, That e'er gae gospel horn a blast, These five and twenty simmers past, Oh ! dool to tell, Hae had a bitter black outcast* Atween themsel. O Moodie, man, and wordy Russell, How could you raise so vile a bustle, Ye '11 see how New -Light herds will wliistle, And think it fine : The Lord's cause ne'er gat sic a twistle Sin' I hae mia'. i Deserts. 8 Stray sheep and old ewes. 2 Dogs. * Quarr; What flock wi' Moodie's flock could rank, Sae hale and hearty every shank? Nae poison'd sour Arminian stank He let them taste. Frae Calvin's well, aye clear, they drank, — Oh, sic a feast ! The thummart,! wil'-cat, brock,^ and tod,^ Weel kenn'd his voice through a' the wood, He smelt their Uka hole and road, Baith out and in. And weel he Hked to shed their bluid, And sell their skin. What herd like Russell tell'd his tale. His voice was heard through muir and dale. He kenn'd the Lord's sheep, ilka tail. O'er a' the height, And saw gin they were sick or hale. At the first sight. He fine a mangy sheep could scrub. Or nobly swing the gospel-club. And XeV-Light herds could nicely drub. Or pay their skin ; Could shake them owre the burning dub, Or heave them in. Sic twa — oh! do I live to see't, Sic famous twa should disagreet, And names like "villain," "hypocrite," nk ither gi'en. While New-Light herds, wi' laughin' spite. Say neither 's liein' ! * A' ye wha tent the gospel fauld. There's Duncan,* deep, and Peebles,^ shaul,^ But chiefly thou, apostle Auld,:): We trust in thee, That thou wilt work them, het and cauld. Till they agree. Consider, sirs, how we're beset, There 's fecarce a new herd that we get But comes frae 'mang that cursed set I winna name ; I hope frae heaven to see them yet In fiery flame. Dalrymple § has been lang our fae, M'Gill'il has wrought us meikle wae, And that cursed rascal ca'd M'Quhne,'^ And baith the i:haws,** That aft hae made us black and blae, Wi' vengefu' paws. Auld Wodrowf + lang has hatch'd mischief. We thought aye death wad bring relief, But he has gotten, to our grief, Ane to succeed him, A cMel wha 11 soundly buff our beef ; I meikle dread him. 1 Pole-cat. * Lying. Badger. Shallow. Fox. * Dr Robert Duncan, minister of Dundonalu. + Rev. William Peebles, of Newton-upon-Ayr. X Rev. "William Auld, minister of Mauchliue. § Rev. Dr Dalrymple, one of the minist.TS of Avr. II Rev. William M'Gill, one of the ministers of A)T. ^ Minister of St Quivo.v. ** Dr Andrew Shaw of Craigie, ana Dr David Shaw of Covlton. I \ ; Dr Peter Wodrow, Torbolton. 8 POEMS. [1785 i. And mony a ane tliat I v;ould tell, Wha fain would openly rebel, Forbye turn-coats amang oursel ; There 's Smith for ane, I doubt he 's but a gray-nick quill, And that ye '11 fin'. Oh ! a' ye flocks o'er a' the hills, By mosses, meadows, moors, and fells, Come, join your counsel and your skills. To cowe the lairds, And get the brutes the powers themsek To choose their herds. Then Orthodoxy yet may prance, And Learning in a woody 1 dance. And that fell cur ca'd Common Sense, That bites sae sair, Be banish'd o'er the sea to France : Let him bark there. Then Shaw's and D'rymple's eloquence, M'Gill's close nervous excellence, M'Quhae's pathetic manly sense. And guid M'Math, Wi' Smith, wha through the heart can glance. May a' pack aff. HOLY WILLIE'S PEAYEE. The origin of this teiTible satire may be briefly told as follows : — Gavin Hamilton, the special friend of the poet, had been denied the benefit of the ordinances of the church, because he was alleged to have made a journey on the Sabbath, and to have made one of his servants take in some potatoes from the garden on another Sunday — hence the allusion to his "kail and potatoes " in the poem. WUliam Fisher, one of Mr Auld's elders, made himself somewhat conspicu- ous in. the case. He was a great pretender to sanc- tity, and a punctilious stickler for outward observ- ances. Poor man, he unfortunately merited the satire of the poet, as he was a drunkard, and latterly made too free with the church-money in his hands. Returning di'unk from Mauchline one night, he fell into a ditch and died from exposure. The fearfully literal exposition of the doctrine of elec- tion in the first verse makes the flesh creep. Thou, wha in the heavens dost dwell, Wha, as it pleases best thysel, Sends ane to heaven, and ten to hell, A' for thy glory, And no for ony guid or ill They've done afore thee! 1 bless and praise thy matchless might, Whan thousands thou hast left in night, That I am here, afore thy sight, For gifts and grace, A bumin' and a shinin' light To a' this place. What was I, or my generation. That I should get sic exaltation? I, wha desei-ve sic just damnation For broken laws, Five thousand years 'fore my creation, Through Adam's cause. When f rae my mither's womb I fell, Thou might hae plunged me into hell. To gnash my gums, to weep and wail, In burnin' lake, Whare damnSd devils roar and yell, Chain'd to a stake. Yet I am here a chosen sample, To show thy grace is great and ample ; 1 Halter. I'm here a pillar in thy temple, Strong as a rock, / A guide, a buckler, an example, To a' thy flock. O Lord, thou kens what zeal I bear, When drinkers drink, and swearers swearj And singing there, and dancing here, Wi' great and sma' ; For I am keepit by thy fear, Free frae them a'. But yet, O Lord ! confess I must, At times I'm fash'd^ wi' fleshly lust ; And sometimes, too, wi' warldly trust. Vile self gets in ; But thou remembers we are dust. Defiled in sin. O Lord ! yestreen, thou kens, wi' Meg — Thy pardon I sincerely beg. Oh, may it ne'er be a livin' plague. To my dishonour. And I'U ne'er lift a lawless leg Again upon her. Besides, I farther maun avow, Wi' Lizzie's lass, three times I trow — • But, Lord, that Friday I was fou' When I came near her, Or else, thou kens, thy servant true Wad ne'er hae steer'd her. Maybe thou lets this fleshly thorn Beset thy servant e'en and mom, Lest he owre high and proud should turn, 'Cause he 's sae gifted ; If sae, thy han' maun e'en be borne Until thou lift it. Lord, bless thy chosen in this place. For here thou hast a chosen race : But God confound their stubborn face. And blast their name, Wha bring thy elders to disgrace And public shame. Lord, mind Gawn Hamilton's deserts, He drinks, and swears, and plays at cartes, Yet has sae mony takin' arts, Wi' grit and sma', Frae God's ain priests the people's hearts He steals awa'. And whan we chasten'd him therefore. Thou kens how he bred sic a splore,^ As set the world in a roar O' laughin' at us ;— Curse thou his basket and his store, Kail and potatoes. Lord, hear my earnest cry and prayer Against the presbyt'ry of Ayr ; Thy strong right hand, Lord, mak it bare XJpo' their heads. Lord, weigh it down, and dinna spare. For their misdeeds. O Lord, my God, that glib-tongued Aiken,* My very heart and saul are quakin', To think how we stood groanin', shakin'. And swat wi' dread, "\Miile he, wi' hingin' lip and snakin',' Held up his head. Lord, in the day of vengeance try him, Lord, visit them wha did emi>loy him, 1 Troubled. 2 Disturbance. 8 Sneering. • William Aiken, a lawyer, a friend of the poet's. ^T. 27.] POEMS. And pass not in thy mercy by 'em, Nor hear their prayer ; But for thy people's sake destroy 'em, And dinna spare. But, Lord, remember me and mine, ■■ Wi' mercies temp'ral and divine, That I for gear and grace may shine, Excell'd by nane, And a' the glory shall be thine. Amen, Amen! EPITAPH 02T HOLY WILLIE. Heee Holy TVillie's sair worn clay Taks up its last abode ; His saul has ta'en some other "way, I fear the left-hand road. Stop ! there he is, as sure's a gun. Poor silly body, see him ; Nae wonder he 's as black 's the grun, - Observe wha 's standing wi' him ! Your brunstane devUship, I see, Has got him there before ye ; But hand your nine-tail cat a wee,^ Till ance ye 've heard my story. Your pity I will not implore. For i)ity ye hae nane ! Justice, alas ! has gien him o'er, And mercy's day is gane. But hear me, sir, deil as ye are, Look something to your credit ; A coof 2 like him wad stain your name, If it were kent ye did it. TO A MOUSE, ON TURNING UP HEK XEST WITH THE PLOUGH, NOVEMBER 17S5. *' The verses to the 'Mouse' and 'Mountain Daisy,'" Gilbert Bams says, " were composed on the occasions mentioned, and while the author was holding the plough : I could point out the particular spot where each was composed. Holding the plough was a favourite situation with Robert for poetic composi- tions, and some of his best verses were produced while he was at that exercise." "John Blane," says Mr Chambers, "who was farm- seivant at Mossgiel at the time of its composition, •till (1838) lives at Kilmarnock. He stated to me that he recollected the incident perfectly. Burns was holding the plough, with Blane for his driver, when the little creature was observed running ofif across the field. Blane, having the pe«Ze, or plough- cleaning utensil, in his hand at the moment, was thoughtlessly running after it, to kill it, when Bums checked him, but not angrily, asking what ill the poor mouse had ever done him. The poet then seemed to his driver to grow very thoughtful, and, during the remainder of the afternoon, he spoke not. In the night time he awoke Blane, who slept with him, and, reading the poem which had in the mean- time been composed, asked what he thought of the mouse now." Wee, sleekit, cowrin', tim'rous beastie, Oh, what a panic 's in thy breiistie ! Thou needna start awa' sae hasty, Wi' bickering brattle ! 3 I wad be laith. to rin and chase thee, "Wi' murd'ring pattle ! ■* 1 Little. 2 Fool. « Harrying run. * Pattle or pettle, the plough spade. I 'm truly sorry man's dominion Has broken nature's social union, And justifies that ill opinion Which maks thee startle At me, thy poor earth-born companion. And fellow-mortal ! I doubt na, whyles,i but thou may thieve ; What then ? poor beastie, thou maun live ! A daimen icker in a tlirave * 'S a sma' request : I '11 get a blessin' wi' the lave,^ And never miss 't ! Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin ! Its silly wa's the win's are stre\vin' ! And naething now to big ^ a new ane O' foggage green ! And bleak December's winds ensuin', Baith snell ■* and keen ! Thou saw the fields laid bare and waste, And weary winter comin' fast. And cozie ^ here, beneath the blast. Thou thought to dwelL Till, crash ! the cruel coulter past Out through thy cell. That wee bit heap o' leaves and stibble Has cost thee mony a weary nibble ! Now thou's tum'd out for a' thy trouble, But ^ house or hauld,^ To thole 8 the winter's sleety dribble, And cranreuch ^ cauld ! But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane. In pi"oving foresight may be vain : The best-laid schemes o' mice and men Gang aft a-gley. And lea'e us nought but grief and pain Por promised joy. Still thou art blest, compared wi' me ! The present only toucheth thee : But, och ! I backward cast my ee On prospects drear ! And forward, though I canna see, I guess and fear. HALLOWEEN. The following poem will, by many readers, be well enough imderstood ; but for the sake of those who are unacquainted with the manners and traditions of the country where the scene is cast, notes are added, to give some account of the principal charms and spells of that night, so big with prophecy to the peasantry in the -vyest of Scotland. The passion of prying into futurity makes a striking part of the history of human nature in its rade state, in all ages and nations ; and it may be some entertainment to a philosophic mind, if any such should honour the author with a perusal, to see the remains of it among the more unenlight^ ened in our own. — B. Fortunately Burns has left us. little to say in explana- tion of his '•Halloween:" his own notes supply the key to unlock all its forgotten mysteries. While each district had its peculiar rites and superstitions, the poem may be taken as an accurate picture of a Scottish Halloween during the last century. The present writer has witnessed many of the observances here chronicled, and one unchronicled, not less ter- rible than any here given. On Halloween he that went three times round the town (farm buildings) astride a broom would be favoured with a sight of the 1 Sometimes. 2 Remainder. s Build. * Sharp. s Comfortable. 6 Without. " Holding. 8 Endure. » Hoar-frost. * An ear of com in a thrave— that is, twenty-fom sheaves. 10 POEMS. [1785. devil. So strong was the dread, and as there was no personal inducement in the venture, the writer never heard of any one making the attempt. A couplet is still current iu the country districts with servants who are wearied of their service : — , »' This is Halloween, Tlie morn 's hallowday ; Nine nichts to Martinmas* ■Will soon v/ear away." " Tes ! let the rich deride, the proud disdain. The simple pleasures of the lowly train ; To me more dear, congenial to my heart, One native charm, than all the gloss of art." — Goldsmith. IJPOlf that niglit, -when fairies light On, Cassilis Downans + dance, Or owre tlie lays,"^ in splendid blaze, On sprightly coursers prance ; Or for Colean the route is ta'en, Beneath the moon's pale beams ; There, up the cove,:J: to stray and rove, Among the rocks and streams To sport that night. Among the bonny winding banks "Wliere Doon rins, wimplin', clear, Where Bruce § ance ruled the martial ranks, And shook his Carrick spear, Some merry, friendly, country-folks Together did convene, To burn their nits, and pou ^ their stocks, And haud their Halloween Fu' blithe that night. The lasses feat,^ and cleanly neat, Mair braw than when they 're fine ; Their faces blithe, fu' sweetly kythe,* Hearts leal,^ and warm, and kin' : The lads sae trig,'' wi' wooer-babs/ Weel knotted on their garten, Some unco blate,^ and some wi' gabs,® Gar lasses' hearts gang startin' AVhiles fast at night. Til en, first and foremost, through the kail. Their stocks || maun a' be sought ance ; Theysteek^" their een, and graip^^ andwale,^^ For muckle anes and straught anes. Poor hav'rel 13 Will fell aff tlie drift. And wander'd through the bow-kail, 3 Trim, 6 Spruce. Tiilk. " Choose. * Martinmas Is one of the removing terms. t Certain little, romantic, rocky, green hills, in the neighbourhood of the ancient seat of the Earls of Cas- silis,— jB. X A noted cavern near Colean-house, called the Cove of Colean ; whicli, as well as Cassilis Downan.s, is famed in countrv story for being a favoui'ite haunt of fairies. —B. § The famous family of that name, the ancestors of Hobert Bruce, the great deliverer of his country, were Earls of Carrick.— if. II The first ceremony of Halloween is pulling each a stock or plant of kail. They must go out, hand in hand, with eyes shut, and pull the first they meet with : its being big or little, straight or crooked, is prophetic of the size and shape of the grand object of all their spells— the husband or wife. If any yird, o r cart lu-, stick to the root, that is tocher, or fgxtmie, arid the tas te of the c ustoc. that is, the hcartofthe stem, is in- dicatlveortitc natural temper and disposition. Ijastly, the stems, or, to giv«TTi5ffi "their ordinary appellation, the runts, are placed somewhere above the head of the door; and tho Christian names of the people whom chance brings into tho house, are, according to the priority of placing the runts, the names in question. — 1 Fields. 2 Pull. 4 Show. 5 True. 7 Double loops. 8 Bashful. 10 Close. 11 Grope. 13 Ualf-witted. And pou't, for want o' better shift, A runt was like a sow-tail, Sae bow't ^ that night. Then, straught or crooked, yird or nana. They roar and cry a' throu'ther ; The very wee things, toddlin',^ rin, Wi' stocks out-owre their shouther ; And gif the custoc 's sweet or sour, Wi' joctelegs3 they taste them ; Syne cozily,^ aboon the door, Wi' cannie ^ care, they 've placed them To lie that night. The lasses staw ^ f rac 'mang them a' To pou their stalks o' corn : * But E.ab slips out, and jinks about, ^ Behint the muckle thorn : Ee grippet Xelly hard and fast ; Loud skirl'd 7 a' the lasses ; But her tap-pickle maist was lost. When kitlin' 8 in the fause-house f Wi' him that night. The auld guidwife's weel-hoordit nits % Are round and round divided. And monie lads' and lasses' fates Are there that night decided : Some kindle coothie,^ side by side. And burn thegither trimly ; Some start awa' wi' saucy pride. And jump out-owre the chimlie Fu' high that night. Jean slips in twa wi' tentie ee ; Wha 'twas she wadna tell ; But this is Jock, and this is me, She says in to hersel : He bleezed owre her, and she owre liim. As they wad never mair part ; Till, fuff ! he started up the lum,io And Jean had e'en a sair heart To see 't that night. Poor Willie, wi' his bow-kail runt, Was brunt wi' primsie MaUie ; And Mallie, nae doubt, took the drunt,^ To be compared to Willie ; Mall's nit lap out wi' pridefu' fling. And her ain fit it brunt it ; Wliile Willie lap, and swore, by jing, •Twas just the way he wanted To be that night. Nell had the fause-houso in her min'. She pits hersel and Rob in ; In loving bleeze tliey sweetly join. Till white in ase they're sobbin' ; Nell's heart was dancin' at the view. She whisper'd Rob to leuk for 't : Rob, stowlins, i)rie'd^^ her bonny mou', Fu' cozie ^'^ in the neuk for 't. Unseen that night. ^ Crooked. 2 Tottering. s Clasp-knives. 4 Comfortably. « Gentle. « stole. 1 Screamed. 8 Cuddling. » Agreeably. "Chimney. "Pet. la Stealthily kissed. 18 Snugly. * They go to the barn-yard and pull each, at three several times, a stalk of oats. If tlie third stalk wants the top-pickle, that is, the grain at the top of the stalk, the jiarty in question will come to the marriage-bed anything but a maid.— B. t When the corn is in a doubtful state, by being too green or wet, the stack-builder, by means of old tim- ber, Ac, makes a largo apartment In his stack, witli an opening in the side whicli is fairest exposed to tho wind : this he calls a fause-house.- iJ. { Burning the nuts is a famous charm. They namo the lad and lass to each particular nut, as they lay; them in the fire, and, accordingly as they burn quietly; together, or start from beside one another, the courso; and issue of the courtship will be.— J5. ^T. 27.] POEMS. II But IMerran sat behint their backs, Her thoughts on Andrew Bell ; She lea'es them gashin' ^ at their cracks, And slips out by hersel : She through the yard the nearest taks, And to the kiln she goes then, And darklius graipit for the bauks,^ And in the blue-clue * throws then. Eight fear't that night. And aye she win't,^ and aye she swat,- I wat she made nae jaukin',-* Till something held within the pat, Guid Lord ! but she was quakiu' ! But whether 'twas the deil himsel, Or whether 'twas a bauk-en'. Or whether it was Andrew Bell, She didna wait on talkin' To spier 5 that night. "Wee Jenny to her grannie says, " Will ye go wi' me, grannie ? I '11 eat the applet at the glass I gat frae Uncle Johnnie : " She fuff' t her pipe wi' sic a lunt,* In wrath she was sae vap'rin', She notice't na, an aizle ^ brunt Her braw new worset apron Out through that night. *' Ye little skelpie-limraer's face ! I daur you try sic sportin', As seek the foul thief ony i^lace. For him to spae^ your fortune ; Nae doubt but ye may get a sight ! Great cause ye hae to fear it ; For mony a ane has gotten a fright, And lived and died delcerat On sic a night. *' Ae hairst afore the Sherramoor, — I miud't as weel's yestreen, I was a gilpey^ then, I 'm sure I wasna past fifteen ; The simmer had been cauld and wat, And stuff was unco green; And aye a rantin' kirn ^^ we gat, And Just on Halloween It fell that night. *' Our stibble-rig was Rab M'Graen, A clever, sturdy fallow : His son gat Eppie Sim wi' wean, That lived in Achmacalla : He gat hemp-seed, 1 1 mind it weel, And he made unco light o't ; 1 Talking. * Dallying. T Cinder. 10 Harvest home. 2 Cross-beams. 6 Inquire. 8 Toretell, 8 Winded. « Smoke. 9 Young girl. * Whoever would, with success, try this spell, must strictly observe these directions :— Steal out, all alone, to the kiin, and darkling, throw into the pot a clue of blue yarn ; wind it in a new clue off the old one ; and, towards the latter end, somethinf!^ will hold the thread, demand " Wha bauds?" — i.e., who holds. An answer will be returned from the kiln-pot, -by naming the •Christian and surname of your future spouse. — B. t Take a candle, and go alone to a looking-glass ; eat an apple befoj-e it. and, some traditions say, you should comb your hair all the time ; the foce of your conjugal companion to be will be seen in the glass, as if peep- ing over your shoulder. — B. X Steal out unperceived, and sow a handful of hemp- seed, harrowing it with anything you can conveniently draw after you. Repeat now and then, " Hemp-seed, I saw thee ; hemp-seed, I saw thee ; and him (or her) that is to be my true love, come after me and pou thee." Xook over your left shoulder, and you will see the ap- pearance of the person invoked, in the attitude of pull- But mony a day was by himsel, He was sae sairly frighted That very night." Then up gat fechtin' Jamie Fleck, And he swore by his conscience, That he could saw hemp-seed a peck ; For it Wiis a' but nonsense. The auld guidman raught^ down the pock, And out a handf u' gied him ; Syne bade him slip fi-ae 'mang the folk, Some time when nae ane see'd him, And try 't that night. He marches through amang the stacks, Though he was something sturtin ; 2 The graip 3 he for a harrow taks, And haurls ^ it at his curpin ; ^ And every now and then he says, "Hemp-seed, I saw thee, And her that is to be my lass, Come after me, and draw thee As fast this night,** He whistled up Lord Lennox* march To keep his courage cheery ; Although his hair began to arch. He was say fley'd <> and eerie : \ Till presently he hears a squeak. And then a gi-ane and gruntle ; He by his shouther gae a keek. And tumbled wi' a wintle "^ Out-owre that night. He roar'd a horrid murder-shout. In dreadfu' desperation ! And young and auld cam rinnin' out To hear the sad narration : He swore 'twas hilchin^ Jean M'Craw, Or crouchie^ MeiTan Humphie, Till, stop ! she trotted through them a* — And wha was it but grumphie'^o Asteer tiiat ni^ht ! Meg fain wad to the barn hae gaen, To win three wechts ^^ o' naething ;* But for to meet the deil her lane, She pat but little faith in : She gies the herd a pickle ^^ nits, And twa red-cheekit apples. To watch, while for the barn she sets. In hopes to see Tam Kipples That very nicht. She turns the key wi' cannie^^ thraw. And owre the threshold ventures; But first on Sawnie gies a ca*. Syne bauldly in she enters : 1 Reached. 2 Timorous. s Dung-fork. * Drags. 's Rear. « Friglitened. 1 Stagger. 8 Halting. o Crookbacked. 30 The pig. 11 Corn-baskets. 12 few. 13 Gentle. ing hemp. Some traditions say, "Come after me and shaw thee," that is, show thyself; in which case it simply appears. Others omit the harrowing, and say, '•'Come after me, and harrow thee." — B. * This charm must likewise be performed unper- ceived and alone. You go to the barn, and open both doors, taking them off the hinges, if possible ; for there is danger that the being about to appear may shut the dooi-3, and do you some mischief. Then take that instrument used in winnowing the corn, which in our countiy dialect we call a wecht ; and go through all the attitudes of letting down corn against the wind. Re- peat it three times ; and the third time an apparition will pass through the barn, in at the windy door, and out at the other, having both the figure in question, and the appearance or retinue marking the employment or station in life.— .B. 12 POEMS. [1785. A ratton rattled up the wa', And she cried, Lord, preserve her! And ran through midden-hole and a', And pray'd wi' zeal and fervour, Fu^ fast that night. They hoy't -^ out Will, wi' sair advice ; They hecht^ him some fine braw ane; It chanced the stack he faddom't thrice,* AVas tinimer-propt for thrawin'; He taks a swirlre,<^ auld moss -oak, For some black, grousome^ carUn; And loot a winze, ^ and di-ew a stroke, Till skill in blypes^ cam haurlin' Aff 's nieves '' that night. A wanton widow Leezie was. As canty as a kittlin ; But, och ! that night, amang the shaws, ^ She got a fearfu' settlin'! She through the whins,^ and by the cairn, And owre the hill gaed scrievin, "Whare three lairds' lands met at a burnji* To dip her left sark-sleeve in. Was bent that night. Whyles owre a linn the burnie plays, As through the glen it wimpl't ;^" Whyles round a rocky scaur^^ it strays ; Whyles in a wiel^^ i^ dimpl't; Whyles glitter'd to the nightly rays, Wi' bickering, dancing dazzle ; Whyles cookit underneath the braes. Below the spreading hazel, Unseen that night. Amang the brackens, on the brae, Between her and the moon. The deil, or else an outler quey,^^ Gat up and gae a croon :!■* Poor Leezie's heart maist lap the hool 1^5 Near lav'rock-height she jumpit; But mist a fit, and in the pool Out-owre the lugs she plumpit, Wi' a plunge that night. In order, on the clean hearth-stane, The luggies three J are ranged, And every time great care is ta'en To see them duly changed : 4uld Uncle John, wha wedlock's joys Sin' Mar's year did desire. Because he gat the toom^^ dish thrice. He heaved them on the fire In wrath that night. 1 Urged. 2 Promised. 8 Knotty. * Hideous. s Oath. 6 Shreds. f Hands. 8 Woods. » Gorse. 10 Wheeled. 11 Cliflf. 12 Eddy. 13 Unhoused hei fer. " 3Ioan. 15 Burst ita case. Wi' merry sangs, and friendly cracks, I wat they didna wear}^; And unco tales, and funny jokes. Their sports were cheap and cheery ; Till butter'd so'ns,* wi' fragrant lunt,^ Set a' their gabs 2 a-steerin'; Syne, wi' a social glass o' strunt,^ They parted aJS careerin' Fu' blythe that night. 18 Empty. * Take an opportunity of going unnoticed to a bean- slack, and fathom it three times round. The last fathom of the last time, you will catch in your arms tlie appearance of your future conjugal yoke-tellow. — B. + You go out, one or more, for this is a social spell, to a south-running sjiring or rivulet, wlicre "three lairds' lands meet," and dip your left shirt-sleeve. Go to bed in sight of a fire, and hang your wet sleeve before it to dry. Lie awake ; and, some time near midnight, an apparition having the exact figure of the grand object in question, will come and turn the sleeve, as if to diy the other side of it.— .B. X Take three dislies ; put clean water in one, foul water in anotlicr, leave tlie tliird empty : blindfold a person, and lead him to tiie hearth where the dishes are ranged ; he (or 8he)dips the left hand : if by chance in the clean water, tlie future husband or wife will come tothe bar of matrimony a maid; if in the foul, a widow; if in the empty dish, it foretells, with equal certainty, no marriage at all. It is repeated three times, and every time the arrangement of the dishes is altered. MAN WAS MA.DE TO MOUEK A DIRGE. "Several of the poems," says Gilbert Burns, "were produced for the purpose of bringing forward some favourite sentiment of the authoi-'s. He used to re- mark to me that he could not well conceive a more mortifying picture of human life than a man seeking work. In casting about in his mind how this senti- ment might be brought forward, the elegy, ' Man was Made to Mourn,' was composed." An old Scottish ballad had suggested the foi-m and spirit of tliis poem. "I ha4""an old grand-uncle," says the poet to Mrs Dunlop, "with whom myniotlxer lived a while in her girlish years. The good old man was long blind ere he died, during which time his highest enjoyment was to sit down and ciy, while my motlier would sing the simple old song of ' The Life and Age of Man.'" From the poet's mother, Mr Cromek procured a copy of this composition ; it com- mences thus : — " Upon the sixteen hundred year Of God and fifty-three Frae Christ was born, who bought us dear, As writings testifie ; On January the sixteenth day, As I did lie alone, With many a sigh and sob did say Ah 1 man was made to moan ! " When chill November's surly blast Made fields and forests bare, On e evening, as I wander'd forth Along the banks of Ayr, I spied a man whose aged step Seem'd weaiy, worn with care ; His face was furrow'd o'er with years, And hoary was his haii*. "Young stranger, whither wanderest thou ?'* Began the reverend sage ; " Does thirst of wealth thy step constrain, Or youthful pleasures rage? I Or haply, prest with cares and woes, I Too soon thou hast began ' To wander forth with me to mourn ' The miseries of man. ** The sun that overhangs yon moors. Outspreading far and wide, Where hundreds labour to support A haughty lordling's pride : I 've seen yon weary winter sun Twice forty times return, And every time has added proofs That man was made to mourn. " O man ! while in thy early years. How prodigal of time ! Misspending all thy precious hours, Thy glorious youthful prime ! Alternate follies take the sway ; Licentious passions burn ; Which tenfold force gives nature's law. That man was made to mourn. 1 Smoke. 3 Mouth*. » Spirits. ♦ SowENs.— The shell of the corn (called, in the runU districts, shellings,) is steeped in water until all tlie fine meal particles are extracted ; the liquid is tlieu strained off, and boiled with milk and butter until it thickens. ^T. 27.] POEMS, 13 *' Look not alone on youtbfnl prime, Or nianliood's active miglit ; Man then is useful to his kind, Supported is his right : But see him on the edge of life, "V\'ith cares and sorrows worn ; Then age and want— oh! ill-match'd pair I - Show man was made to mom-n. " A few seem favovirites of fate. In pleasure's lap carest ; Yet think not all the rich and great Ai'e likewise truly I'lest. But, oh ! what crowds in every land Ai'e wretched and forlorn ! Through weary life this lesson learn — That man was made to mourn. " Many and sharp the numerous ills Inwoven with our frame ! More pointed still we make ourselves — Regret, remorse, and shame ! And man, whose heaven-erected face The smiles of love adorn, Man's inhumanity to man Makes countless thousands monm ! " See yonder poor, o'erlabonr'd wight. So abject, mean, and vile, "Who begs a brother of the earth To give him leave to toil ; And see his lordly fellow- worm The poor petition spurn. Unmindful, though a weeping wife And helpless offspring mourn. *' If I'm design'd yon lordling's slave — By nature's law design'd— "Why was an independent wish E er planted in my mind? If not, why am I subject to His cruelty or scorn ? Or why has man the will and power To make his fellow mourn ? *' Yet let not this too much, my son, Disturb thy youthful breast ; This partial view of humankind Is surely not the last ! The poor, oppress'd, honest man, Had never, sure, been born. Had there not been some recompense To comfort those that mourn. " O Death! the poor man's dearest friend - The kindest and the best ! Welcome the hour my aged limbs Are laid with thee at rest ! The great, the wealthy, fear thy blow, From pomp and pleasure torn ; But, oh ! a blest relief to those That weary-laden mourn!" THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT. INSCRIBED TO EGBERT AIKEN, ESQ. vrilbert Bums gives the following distinct account of the origin of this poem :— "Robert had frequently- remarked to me that he thought there was something . peculiarly venerable in the phrase, ' Let us worship God ! ' used by a decent, sober head of a family, in- troducing family worship. To this sentiment of the author, the world is indebted for 'The Cotter's Sa- turday Night.' When Robert had not some pleasm-e in view in which I was not thought fit to partici- pate, we used frequently to walk together, when the weather was favourable, on the Sunday afternoons — those precious breathing times to the laboui-ing part of the community— and enjoyed such Sundays as would make one regret to see their number abridged. It was in one of these walks that I first had the pleasure of hearing the author repeat 'The Cottei-'s Saturday Night.' I do not recollect to have read or heard auythinff bv which I was more highly electri- fied. The fiftli'and sixth stanzas, and the eighteenth, thrilled with peculiar ecsUisy through my soul. The cottpr. in the 'Saturday Night,' is an exact copy of my 3. ther in his manners, his family devotion, and ex'hortations ; yet the other parts of the description do not apply to our family. None of us were ' at ser- vice out among the farmers roun' .' Instead of our depositing our 'sair-won penny-fee' with our parents, my father laboured hard, and lived with the most rigid economy, that he might be able to keep his children at home, thereby having an opportunity of watching the progress of our young mind^, andform- ing in them early habits of piety and virtue ; and from this motive alone did he engage in farming, the source of all his difficulties and distresses." "Let not ambition mock their useful toil, Their homely joys, and destiny obscure ; Nor grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile, The short but simple annals of the poor."— Geat. Mt loved, my honour'd, mucb-respected friend ! No mercenary bard his homage pays ; With honest pride, I scorn each selfish end : My dearest meed, a friend's esteem and praise : To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays. The lowly train in life's sequester'd scene ; The native feelings strong, the guileless ways : What Aiken in a cottage would have been ; Ah ! though his worth unknown, far happier there, I ween ! November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh ;i The short'niTig winter-day is near a close; The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh ; The black'ning trains o' craws to their re- pose ; The toil- worn cotter frae his labour goes, This night his weekly moil is at an end. Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes, Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend. And, weary, o'er the moor his course does hameward bend. At length his lonely cot appears in view, Beneath the shelter of an aged tree ; Th' expectant wee things, toddlin', stacher through To meet their dad, wi' flichterin' noise and glee. His wee bit ingle, blinking bonnily. His clean hearthstane, his thrifty "wifie's smile, Tlie lisping infant prattling on his knee. Does a' his wearj' carking cares beguile. And makes him quite forget his labour and his toiL Belyve,2 the elder bairns come drapping in, At service out, among the farmers roun' : Some ca' the pleugh, some herd, some tentie rin A canny errand to a neibor town : Their eldest hope, their Jennj"-, woman grown, In youthfu' bloom, love sparkling in her ee. Comes hame, perhaps to show a braw new gown. Or deposit her sair-won penny-fee. To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be. Wi' joy unfcign'd, brothers and sisters meet, And each for other's weelfare kindly spiers : ^ I Moan. 2 By and by. s Inquires. H POEMS. [1785. The social liours, swift-wing'd, unnoticed, fleet ; Each tells the uncos'^ that he sees or hears; The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years ; Anticipation forward jioints the view. The mother, v/i' her needle and her shears, Gars auld claes look amaist as weeL's the new — The father mixes a' wi' admonition due. Their master's and their mistress's command, The younkers a' are warned to obey; And mind their labours wi' an eydent^ hand. And ne'er, though out o' sight, to jauk^ or play : *' And oh ! be sure to fear the Lord alway ! And mind your duty, duly, morn and night! Lest in temptation's path ye gang astray, Implore His counsel and assisting might : They never sought in vain that sought the Lord aright ! " But, hark ! a rap comes gently to the door, Jenny, wha kens the meaning o' the same, Tells how a neibor lad cam o'er the moor, To do some errands, and convoy her hame. The wily mother sees the conscious flame Sparkle in Jenny's ee, and flush her cheek, Wi' heart-struck anxious care, inquires his name, "Wliile Jenny hafflins is afraid to speak; "Weel pleased the mother hears it 's nae wild, worthless rake. "Wi' kindly welcome, Jenny brings him ben ; A strappin' youth; he taks the mother's eye; Ehthe Jenny sees the visit 's no ill ta'en ; The father cracks of horses, pleughs, and kye. The youngster's artless heart o'erflows wi' joy. But blate* and lathe iu',s scarce can weel behave ; The mother, wi' a woman's wiles, can spy What makes the youth sae bashfu' and sae grave ; Weel i)leased to think her bairn 's respected like the lave.*' happy love ! — where love like this is found ! — O heart-felt raptures ! — bliss beyond com- pare ! 1 've paced much this weary, mortal round. And sage experience bids me this declare — "If Heaven a draught of heavenly j)leasure Bi)are, One cordial in this melancholy vale, 'TIS when a youthful, loving, modest pair. In other's arms, breathe out the tender talc, Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the evening gale." Is there, in human form, that bears a licart, A wretch ! a villain ! lost to love and truth ! That can, with studied, sly, ensnaring art. Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting youth? Curse on his perjured arts ! dissembling smooth ! Are honour, virtue, conscience, all exiled ? Is there no pity, no relenting ruth. Points to the parents fondling o'er their child? Then paints the ruin'd maid, and their distrac- tion wild 1 But now the supper crownr. ili. ir si!ii])lo board, The halcsomc i)arritch,7 chic-I oi iScotia'a food : 1 Stranpo things, a Dilipont » Dally. « Bashful. 6 Ucsitallng. • Other people. ' Porridge. 1 Milk. 4 01i(!C.se. T Gmy temple.?. 2 Cow. c JJitinp. 8 Selects. Porch. Twelvemonth. The soupei their only hawkieS does afford, That 'yont the hallan^ snugly chows her cood : The dame brings forth, in complimental mood, To grace the lad, her weel-haiu'd kebbuck> fell,5 And aft he 's prest, and aft he ca's it guid : The frugal wifie, garruhnis, will telJ, How 'twas a towmond'' auld, sin' 1 ut was 1' the bell. The cheerfu' supper done, v,i' serious face, They, round the ingle, form a circle wide ; The sire turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace, The big ha' Bible, ance his father's pride ; His bonnet rev'rently is laid aside. His lyart haffets^ wearing thin and bare; Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide, He wales ^ a portion with judicious care ; And ' ' Let us worship GoD ! " he says, with solemn air. They chant their artless notes in simple guise; They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim: Perhaps "Dundee's" wild- warbling measiires rise. Or ]>laintive ' ' Martyrs," worthy of the name ; Or noble "Elgin" beets the heaven--\vard flame, The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays : Compared with these, Italian trills are tame ; The tickled ear no lieartfelt raptures raise; Nae unison hae tliey with our Creator's praise. \ The priest-like father reads the sacred page. How A.bram was the fi'iend of God on high; Or, Moses bade eternal warfare wage With Amalek's ungraciovis progeny : Or how the royal bard did groaning lie Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire ; Or Job's pathetic plaint, and Availing ciy ; Or rapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic Are ; Or other holy seers that tune the sacred l}Te. Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme, How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed; HoAV He, who bore in heaven the second name, Had not on earfch whereon to lay His head : How His first followers and servants sj^ed. The precepts sage they wrote to many a land : How he, who lone in Patmos banished. Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand ; And heard great Bab'lon's doom i)ronounced by Heaven's command. Then kneeling down, to Heaven's eternal King, Tlie saint, the father, and the husband prays : II()I)e "springs exulting on triumphant wing,"* Tliat thus they all shall meet in future days: There ever bask in uncreated rays, No more to sigh or shed the bitter tear, Together hymning their Creator's praise, In such society, yet still more dear ; I Wliile circling time moves round in an eternal sidiere. | Comimrcd with this, how poor religion's pride, In all the pomp of method, and of art. When men display to congregations wide Devotion's every grace, except the heart ! The Power, incensed, the pageant will desert, The pomiJous strain, the sacerdotal stole: Tope's " Windsor rorest." MT. 27.] POEMS. IS ^ But, haply, in some cottage far apart, May liear, well pleased, the language of the soul ; And in His book of life the inmates poor enrol. Then homeward all take off their several way; The youngling cottagers retire to rest : The parent-pair their secret homage pay. And proffer up to Heaven the warm request That He, who stills the raven's clamorous nest, And decks the lily fair in flowery pride, "Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best, For them and for their little ones provide; But, chiefly, in their hearts with grace divine preside. From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs. That makes her loved at home, revered f abroad : Princes and lords are but the breath of kings, "An honest man 's the noblest work of God ; " And certes, in fair virtue's heaveuly i-oad, The cottage leaves the palace far behind. "What is a lordling's pomp?— a cumbrous load, Disguising oft the wretch of human kind. Studied in arts of hell, in wickedness refined! O Scotia ! my dear, my native soil ! For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent ! Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content ! And, oh ! may Heaven their simple lives pre- vent From luxury's contagion, weak and vile! Then, howe'er crown and coronets be rent, A virtuous populace may rise the while. And stand a wall of fire around their much-loved isle. O Thou ! who pour'd the patriotic tide That stream'd through "Wallace's undaunted (heart; Who dared to nobly stem tyrannic pride, Or nobly die, the second glorious part, ■ (Tlie patriot's God, peculiarly Thou art. His friend, inspirer, guardian, and reward !) Oh, never, never, Scotia's realm desert ; But still the patriot, and the patriot-bard. In bright succession raise, her ornament and ffuard ! ADDRESS TO THE DEIL. Crilberfc Burns says :— " It was, I think, in the -winter of 1784, as vre were going with carts for coals to the family fire, (and I could yet point out the particular spot,) that Robert first repeated to me the 'Address to the Deil.' The curious idea of such an address •was suggested to him by i-unning over in his mind the many ludicrous accounts and representations we have from various quarters of this august per- sonage." '•Burns," says Carlyle, "even pities the very devil, without knowing, I am sure, that my uncle Toby had been beforehand there with him 1 ' He is the father of curses and lies,' said Dr Slop, 'and is cursed and damned already.' ' I am sorry for it,' said my uncle Toby. A poet without love were a physical and metaphysical impossibility." This tenderness towards the devil is not uncommon among the poet's countrymen, and is even to be met ■with in the pulpit. "We have heard of a Fifeshire minister, of the last century, who used occasionally to pray for the devil in this wise : — " And, Lord, gin it be Thy will, hae mercy on the puir deil;" and of anotiier minister, who both spoke and preached in the vernacular, who, when the devil was men- tioned, would remonstrate thus :— '• Nae doot, devil is pL^ correct eneuch ; but ca him the deil, it soonds mair freendly like." " prince ! chief of many throned powers, That led th' embattled seraphim to war!" —Milton. THOU ! whatever title suit thee, Auld Hornie, Satan, Nick, or Clootie,* "Wha in yon cavern grim and sootie. Closed under hatches, ^^^ Spairgest about the brnnstane cootie,. J 'kaoX I To scaud poor wretches ! I Hear Hie, auld Hangie, for a wee, I And let poor damned^bodies be ; 1 'm sure sma' pleasure it can gie, 1 E'en to a deil. To skelp and scaud poor dogs like me, j And hear us squeel ! . '■ Great is thy power, and great thy fame ; ^^^A/*i^ Far kenn'd and noted is thy name ;.> ^j<^^^^^ ^ And though yon lowin' heugh 's*^hy hame, Thou travels far y And, faith ! thou's neither lag nor lame, Nor blate nor scaur. ^ ^dikjui^ "Whyles ranging like a roaring lion. For prey a' holes and corners tryiu'": \ "Whyles on the strong- wing'd tempest flj'^ia*, ' '-t^-^^'^^^^^'^'^l^in'^lilie kirks j "Whyles in the human bosom pryin', Unseen thou lurks. I 've heard my reverend grannie say, In lanely glens ye like to stray : Or where auld ruiii'd castles, gray. Nod to the moon. Ye fright the nightly wanderer's way Wi' eldritch croon.^ "When twilight did my grannie summon, To say her prav&rs,^louce, honest woman ! Aft yont the diE^ifrc^ heartl you bumniiu', ^^ . ^ ir^f^X^^ *tKrai7yi?ew/ejc,l)y its able editor, Mr J. B. Manson, it would appear that the poem was issued in 1798 as a chap-book, and circulated nlong with " Wise Willie and Wittie Eppie," "Georcre Buchanan, the King's Fool," "Leper the Tailor," Innermost. Tune—" Auld Sir Symon." Sir "Wisdom's a fool when he's fou. Sir Knave is a fool in a session ; He 's there but a 'pi'entice, I trow, But I am a fool by profession. My grannie she bought me a beuk. And I held awa' to the school ; I fear I my talent misteuk. But what will ye hae of a fool? For drink I would venture my neck, A hizzie's the half o' my craft. But what could ye other expect. Of ane that 's avowedly daft ? I ance was tied up like a stirk,i For civilly swearing and quaffing! I ance was abused in the kirk. For touzling2 a lass i' my daffin.3 Poor Andrew that tumbles for sport. Let naebody name wi' a jeer : There 's even, I'm tauld, i' the court A tumbler ca'd the Premier. Observed ye yon reverend lad Mak faces to tickle the mob ? He rails at our mountebank squad — It 's rivalshij) just i' the job. And now my conclusion I 'il tell. For faith I 'm confoundedly dry ; The chiel that's a fool for himsel, Gude Lord ! he 's far daf ter than I. EECITATIVO. Then neist outspak a raucle carlin,* "Wha ken't fu' weel to cleek the sterling. For monie a pursie she had hookit. And had in monie a well been doukit. Her dove had been a Highland laddie, liut weary fa' the waefu' woodie !^ "Wi' sighs and sobs she thus began To wall her braw John Highlandman : — Tune— "Oh, an ye were Dead, Guidman !" A Highland lad my love was born. The Lawland laws he held in scorn ; But he still was faithfu' to his clan, My gallant braw John Highlandman. CHORUS. Sing, liey my braw John Highlandman! Sing, ho my brav/ Jolm Highlandman! Tiiero's not a lad in a' the Ian' AVas match for my John Highlandman. "With his philabeg and tai-tan plaid, And guid claymore down by his side, Tiio ladies' hearts he did trepan, BIy gallant braw John Highlandman. Sing, hey, &:c. "We rangfid a' from Tweed to Spey, ^ And lived like lords and ladies gJiy; ; For a Lawland face he feared none. My gallant braw John Highlandman. Sing, hey, kc. They banish'd him beyond the sea. But ere the bud was on the tree, 1 riillock. « Siout Bc-ldom. " Rumpling. 6 The gallows. 8 Menimenu JET 27.] POEMS. 19 Adown my clieeks the pearls ran, Embracing my Jolm Highlandman. Sing, bey, &o. i But, ob ! they catchM him at the last, i And bound him in a dungeon fast; \ My curse upon them every one, i They 've hang'd my braw John Highlandman. \ Sing, hey, kc. And now a widow, I must mourn The pleasures that will ne'er return ; Xae comfort but a heai-ty can, "When I think on John Highlandman. Sing, hey, &c. EEClTAnVO. A pigmy scraper, wi' his fiddle, "Wha used at trysts and fairs to driddle,^ Her strappiu' limb and gaucy middle (He reach'd nae higher) Had holed his heartie like a riddle, And blawn't on fire. Wi' hand on haunch, and upward ee, He croon'd his gamut, one, two, three. Then in an arioso key, The wee Apollo, Set off wi' allegretto glee His giga solo. Am. TiiNE—" Whistle owre the lave o't." Let me ryke^ up to dight^ that tear. And go wV me and be my dear. And then your every care and fear May whistle owre the lave o't. CHOEUS. I am a fiddler to my trade, And a' the tunes that e'er I play'd. The sweetest still to wife or maid. Was whistle owre the lave o't. At kiras and weddings we'se be there, And oh ! sae nicely 's we will fare ; We '11 bouse about till Daddy Care Sings whistle owre the lave o't. I am, &c Sae merrily the banes we 'U pyke. And sun oursels about the dike. And at our leisure, when ye like, We'll whistle o^vre the lave o't. I am, &c. But bless me wi' your heaven o' charms, And while I kittle hair on thairms, Hunger, cauld, and a' sic harms. May whistle owre the lave o't. I am, (S:c. EECITATIVO. Her charms had struck a sturdy caird,* As weel as poor gut-scraper; He taks the fiddler by the beai-d. And draws a roosty rapier — He swore by a' was swearing worth, To speet him like a plivei-,* Unless he wad from that time forth Eelinquish her for ever. 1 Plav. 3 Wipe 2 R?ach. •i Tinker. :o spit him 15k2 a plover. Wi' ghastly ee, poor Tweedle-dee LTpou his hunkers^ bended. And pray'd for grace wi' ruefu' face. And sae the quarrel ended. But though his little heart did grieve When round the tinkler press'd her, He feign'd to snirtle^ in his sleeve. When thus the caird addi-ess'd her : Tune— "Clout the Caudron.'* My bonny lass, I work in brass, A tinkler is my station : I've travell'd roimd all Chi'istian ground In this my occupation. I've tu'eu the gold, I've been enroll'd In many a noble squadron : But vain they search d, when off I march'ct To go and clout^ the caudi'on. I've ta'en the gold, &c. Despise that shrimp, that wither'd imp, Wi' a' his noise and ca'prin', And tak a share wi' those that bear The budget and the apron. And by that stoup, my faith and houp. And by that dear Kilbagie, If e'er ye want, or meet wi' scant, ]\Iay I ne'er weet my craigie.'^ And by that stoup, &c. EECITATIVO. The caird prevail'd— the unblushing fair In his embraces sunk. Partly wi' love, o'ercome sae sair. And partly she was drunk. Sir Yiolino, -with an air ~ That show'd a man of spunk, Wish'd imison between the pair, And made the bottle clunk To their health that night.. But urchin Cupid shot a shaft That play'd a dame a shavie,^ The fiddler rakfed her fore and aft, Ahint the chicken cavie. Her lord, a wight o' Homer's craft,** Though limping wi' the sjjavie. He hirpled up, and lap like daft, And shored ^ them Dainty Davie O' boot that night. He was a care-defying blade As ever Bacchus listed, Though Fortune sair upon him laid. His heart she ever miss'd it. He had nae wish but — to be glad, Nor want but — when he tlm-sted; He hated nought but— to be sad. And thus the Muse suggested His sang that night : — Tune- "For a' that, and a' that." I am a bard of no regard, AVi' gentle folks, and a' that ; But Homer-like, the glo\vrin' byke,^ Frae town to town I di-aw that. CHOEUS. For a' that, and a' that. And twice as muckle 's a' that ; 1 rrams. * Throat, r OHered. 2 Laush. 5 A trick. s Patcli. c A ballad-singer. 8 The staring crowd 20 POEMS. [1785. I've lost but ane, I've twa behin', I 've wife eneugh for a' that. I never drank the Muses' stank,i Castalia's burn, and a' that ; But there it streams, and richly reams, My Helicon I ca' that. For a' that, &c. Great love I bear to a' the fair, Their humble slave, and a' that ; But lordly will, I hold it still A mortal sin to thraw that. For a' that, &c. In raptures sweet, this hour we meet, Wi' mutual love, and a' that : But for how lang the flee may stang, j Let inclination law that. ! For a' that, &c. I j Their tricks and craft hae put me daft, j They've ta'en me in, and a' that ; But clear your decks, and here's the sex ! I»like the jads for a' that. CHOEUS. For a' that, and a' that. And twice as muckle 's a' that ; My dearest bluid, to do them guid, They're welcome till 't for a' that. EECITATIVO. So sang the bard— and Nansie's wa's Shook wi' a thunder of applause, Re-echoed from each mouth ; They toom'd their pokes and pawn'd their duds, They scarcely left to co'er their fuds, To quench their lowin' drouth.^ Then owre again, the jovial thrang, The poet did request, To loose his pack and wale^ a sang, A ballad o' the best ; He, rising, rejoicing, Between his twa Deborahs, Looks round him, and found them Impatient for the chorus. Tune—" Jolly Mortals, fill your Glasses. See ! the smoking bowl before us, Mark our jovial ragged ring ! Bound and round take up the chorus, And in raptures let us sing. CHOBTIS. A fig for those by law protected ! Liberty 's a glorious feast ! Courts for cowards were erected, Churches built to please the priest. "What is title ? what is treasure ? What is reputation's care ? If we lead a life of pleasure, 'Tis no matter how or where ! A fig, &C. With the ready trick and fable, Round we wander all the day ; And at night, in bam or stable, Hug our doxies on the hay. A fig, &c. Does the train-attended carriage Through the country lighter rove ? Does the sober bed of marriage Witness brighter scenes of love? A fig, &c. Life is all a variorum. We regard not how it goes ; Let them cant about decorum Who have characters to lose. A fig, &c Here 's to budgets, bags, and wallets ! Here 's to all the wandering train ! Here 's our ragged brats and callets ! One and all cry out — Amen ! A fig for those by law protected ! Liberty 's a glorious feast ! Courts for cowards were erected, Churches built to please the priest. THE VISION. This beautiful poem depicts, in the highest strain of poetical eloquence, a struggle which was constantly going on in the poet's mind between the meanness and poverty of his position and his higher aspirations and hopes "of independence, which he founa it im- possible ever to realise. It must have been evident to his njind that poetry alone wJls not to elevate him above the reach of worldly cares ; yet in this poem, as in many others, he accepts the poetical calling as its own sweet and sufficient reward. In the appear- ance of the Muse of Coila, the'matter is settled after a fashion as beautiful as poetical. In the Kilmar- nock edition of his poems, the allusion to his Jean in his description of the Muse's appearance — " Down flow'd her robe, a tartan sheen, Till half a leg was scrimply seen, And such a leg ! my bonny Jean Could only peer it ; Sae straught. sae taper, tight, and clean, Kane else cam near it — ^" was replaced by the name of another charmer, in con- sequence, it is presumed, of his quarrel with her father. When the Edinburgh edition appeared, his old affections had again asserted their sway, and her name was restored. In a letter to Mrs Dunlop, dated February 1788, the poet, in allusion to Miss Rachel Dunlop, one of her daughters, being engaged on a painting representing " The Vision," says : — "I am highly flattered by the news you tell me of Coila. I may say to the fair painter who does me so much honour, as Dr Beattie says to Ross, the poet, of his Muse Scota, from which, by the by, I took the idea of Coila ; ('tis a poem of Beattie's in the Scot tish dialect, which perhaps you have never seen) : — ' Ye shake your head, but 0' my fegs, Yo've set auld Scota on her legs ; Lang had she lien wi' buffs and flegs, Bumbazed and dizzie ; Her fiddle wanted strings and pegs— Wae's me, poor hizzie ! ' " DUAN FIRST.* The sun had closed the winter day. The curlers quat their roai'ing play,*!* And hunger'd maukin ta'en her way To kail-yards gi'een, iPooL * Burning thirst 8 Choose. * Diian, a term of Ossian's for the different divisions of a digressive poem. Sec his "Catliloda," vol. ii. of JIacpherson's translation.— 2f, t Curling is a wintry game peculiar to the southern counties of Scotland. When the ice is sufficiently strong on the lochs, a number of individuals, each pro- vided with a large stone of the shape of an oblato spheroid, smoothed at the bottom, range themselves on two sides, and being furnished with handles, play against each other. 'The game resembles bowls, but is jiiucli more animated, and keenly enjoyed. It is well cliaracteriscd by the poet as a roariny^lay. iET. 27.] POEMS. 21 "\^Tiile faitliless snaws ilk step betray AVliare she lias been. The thrasher's weary flingin'-tree^ The lee-lang day had tired me ; And when tlie day had closed his ee, Far i' the west, Ben i' the spence, * right pensivelie, I gaed to rest. There, lanely, by the ingle-cheek,3 I sat and eyed the spewing reek,*^ That fill'd, wi' hoast-provoking smeek,^ The aidd clay biggin' ; .^d heard the restless rattons ^ squeak All in this mottie,<5 misty clime, I backward mused on wasted time, How I had spent my youthfu' prime, And done naething, But stiingin' blethers '' up in rhyme, For fools to sing. Had I to guid advice but harkit, I might by this hae led a market. Or strutted in a bank, and clerkit My cash-account : While here, half -mad, half -fed, half-sarkit, Is a' th' amount. I started, muttering. Blockhead! coof ! ^ And heaved on high my waukit loof,^ To swear by a' yon starry roof, Or some rash aith, That I henceforth would be rhyme-proof Till my last breath — "When, click! the string the sneck^o did draw And, jee ! the door gaed to the wa' ; And by my ingle-lowe I saw, Kow bleezin' bright, A tight, outlandish hizzie, braw, Come full in sight. Ye needna doubt, T held my whisht ; The infant aith, half-form'd, was crusht ; I glower'd as eerie 's I 'd been dusht ^^ In some wild glen ; When sweet, like modest Worth, she blusht, And stepped ben.^ Green, slender, leaf-clad holly -boughs Were twisted gracefu' rouud iier brows — I took her for some Scottish Muse, By that same token : And come to stop those reckless vows. Would soon be broken. A ' hare-brain'd, sentimental trace' Was strongly marked in her face ; A wildly -witty, rustic gi-ace Shone full upon her ; Her eye e'en turn'd on empty sj)ace, Beam'd keen with honour. Down flow'd her robe, a tartan sheen, TiU half a leg was scrimply seen ; And such a leg ! my bonny Jean Could only peer it ; Sae straught, sae taper, tight, ^^ and clean, Nane else cam near it. 1 The flaU. 2 Fireside. •t Smoke. 5 Rats. 7 Nonsense. s pool. JO Latch. 11 Frightened. 13 Handsome, Tvell-formed. * The parlour of the fann-house of Mossgiel — ^the only aparcmeufc besides the kitchen. 3 Smoke. c Hazy. Hardened palm. 12 Into the room. Her mantle large, of greenish hue, 3Iy gazing wonder chiefly drew ; Deej) hghts and shades, bold-mingling threw A lustre grand ; And seem'd, to my astonish'd view, A well-known land. "^Tere, rivers in the sea were lost ; There, mountains to the skies were tost : Here, tumbling billows mark'd the coast, With sui'ging foam ; There, distant shone xVrt's lofty boast, The lordly dome. Here, Doon pour'd down his far-fetched floods; There, well-fed Irwine stately thuds : ^ Auld hermit Ayr staw^ thi-ough his woods. On to the shore ; And many a lesser torrent scuds. With seeming roar. Low, in a sandy valley spread, An ancient borough * rear'd her head : Still, as in Scottish story read. She boasts a race To every nobler virtue bred. And poHsh'd grace. By stately tower or palace fair, Or ruins pendent in the air, Bold stems of heroes, here and there, I could discern ; Some seem'd to muse, some seem'd to dare. With features stern. 3ry heart did glowing transport feel, To see a race t heroic wheel, And brandish round the deep-dyed steel In sturdy blows ; While back-recoiling seem'd to reel Their suthron foes. His country's saviour, J mark him well ! Bold Bichardton's § heroic swell ; The chief on Sark || who glorious fell. In high command ; And he whom ruthless fates expel His native knd. There, where a sceptred Pictish shade TT Stalk'd round his ashes lowly laid, I mark'd a martial race, portray'd In colours strong ; Bold, soldier-featured, undismay'd They strode along. Through many a wild romantic grove,** Near many a hennit-fancied cove, (Fit haunts for friendship or for love,)' In musing mood, An aged judge, I saw him rove. Dispensing good. 1 Sounds 2 Stole. * The town of Ayr. f The Wallaces.— 5, \ Sir William Wallace.— 5. \ Adam Wallace of Richardton, cousin to the im- mortal preserver of Scottish independence. — B. \ Wallace, Laird of Cmigie, who was second in com- mand, under Douglas, Earl of Ormond, at the famous r)attle on the banks of Sark, fought in 1448. That glo- rious victory was principally owing to the judicious conduct and intrepid valour of the gallant Laird ot Craigie, who died of his wounds after the action.— i?. •T CoUus, king of the Picts, from whom the district of Kyle is said to take its name, lies buried, as ti-adition says, near the family seat of the Montgomeries of Coils- field, where his burial-place is still shown. — B. ** Barskimming, the seat of the late Lord Justice- Clerk.— A (Sir Thomas ililler of Glenlee, afterwards President of the Court of Session,) 22 POEMS, [1785. With deep-struck reverential awe The learned sire and son I saw,* To nature's God and nature's law They gave their lore, This, all its source and end to draw ; That, to adore. Brydone's hrave wardf I well coxild spy, Beneath old Scotia's smiling eye : Who caU'd on Fame, low standing by. To hand him on, Where many a patriot name on high And hero shone. DUAN SECOND. With musing-deep, astonish'd stare, I view'd the heavenly seeming fair ; A whispering throb did witness bear Of kindred sweet, When with an elder sister's air She did me greet : — *' All hail ! my own inspired bard I In me thy native Muse regard ; Nor longer mourn thy fate is hard, Thus poorly low ! I come to give thee such reward As we bestow. " Know, the great genius of this land Has many a light, aerial band, Who, all" beneath his high command. Harmoniously, As arts or arms they undei'stand, Their labours ply. "They Scotia's race among them share; Some fire the soldier on to dare : Some rouse the patriot up to bare Corruption's heart: Somerteach the bard, a darling care. The tunefu' art, *' 'Mong swelling floods of reeking gore, They ardent, kindling spirits, pour; Or, 'mid the venal senate's roar, They, sightless, stand. To mend the honest patriot-lore. And grace the hand. "And when the bard, or hoary sage, Charm or instruct the future age. They bind the wild, poetic rage, In energy, Or point the inconclusive page Pull on the eye. "Hence Fullarton, the brave and young; Hence Dempster's zeal-inspired tongue; Hence sweet harmonious Beattie sung His Minstrel lay ; Or tore, with noble ardour stung, The sceptic's bays. "To lower orders are aasign'd Tlie humbler ranks of humankind, The rustic bard, the labouring hrad. The artisan; AU choose, as various they're inclined, The various man. "When yellow waves the heavy grain, The threatening storm some, strongly, rein ; * The Rev. Dr Matthew Stewart, the celcbmtcd mathematician, and his son Mr Du'rald Stewart, the elegant expositor of tl»e Scottish scliool of metiiphy- Bics, are here meant, tlieir villa of Catrine being situ- ated on the Ayr. t Colonel Fullarton.— I?. Some teach to meliorate the plain. With tillage skill ;_ And some instruct the sheplierd-train. Blithe o'er the hill. "Some hint the lover's harmless wile; Some grace the maiden's artless smile ; Some soothe the labourer's vvreary toil, For humble gains. And make his cottage-scenes beguile His cares and pains. " Some, bounded to a district-space. Explore at large man's infant race, To mark the embryotic trace Of rustic bard : And careful note each opening grace, A guide and giiard. "Of these am I— Coila my name, And this district as mine I claim, Where once the Campbells,* chiefs of fame. Held ruling power, I mark'd thy embryo tuneful llame. Thy natal hour. "With future hope, I oft would gaze. Fond, on thy little early ways, Thy rudely-caroU'd, chiming phrase. In uncouth rhymes, Fired at the simple, artless lays, Of other times. " I saw thee seek the sounding shore. Delighted with the dashing roar ; Or when the north his fleecy store Drove through the sky, I saw grim nature's visage hoar Struck thy young eye. " Or when the deep green-mantled earth Warm cherish'd every floweret's birth, And joy and music pouring forth In every grove, I saw thee eye the general mirth With boundless love. " Wlien ripen'd fields, and azure skies, Call'd forth the reaper's rustling noise, I saw thee leave their evening joys. And lonely stalk. To vent thy bosom's swelling rise In i^ensive walk. "When youthful love, warm-blushing, strong Keen-shivering shot thy nerves along. Those accents, gi-ateful to thy tongue, Th' adored Name, I taught thee how to pour in song, To soothe thy flame. "I saw thy pulse's maddening play, Wild, send thco Pleasure's devious way. Misled by Fancy's meteor-i'ay, By passion driven; But yet the light that led astray Was light from Heaven. " I taught thy manners painting strains. The loves, the ways of simple swains, Till now, o'er all my wide domains Tliy fame extends ; And some, the pride of Cuila's plains, Become thy friends. "Tliou canst not leani, nor can I show, To paint with Thomson's landscape glow; • The Loudonn brunch of the Campbells is here meant. Mosspiel, and much of tlie neiplibouring grouud, was then the property of the Earl of Loudon. JET. 27.] POEMS. 23 Or Avake the bosom-melting tliroe, With Shenstone's art ; Or pour, with Gray, the moving flow "W^arm on the heart. " Yet all beneath the nnrivall'd rose, The lowly daisy sweetly blows; Though large the forest's monarch throws His army shade, Yet green the juicy hawthorn grows Adown the glade. "Tlien never murmur nor repine; Strive in thy humble sphere to sMne : And, trust me, not Potosi's mine, Nor kings' regard, Can give a bliss o'ermatching thine — A rustic bai-d. "To give my counsels all in one. Thy tuneful flame still careful fan; Preserve the dignity of man, With sovil erect; And trust the universal plan "Will all protect. "And wear thou this," she solemn said, And bound the holly round my head : The XJolish'd leaves,'and berries red, Did rustling play; And, like a passing thought, she fled In light away. A WINTEPv NIGHT. This poem was first printed in the second, or first Edinbunrh, edition of the poet's works. Carlyle says of it — "How touching is it, amid the gloom of per- sonal misery that broods over and around him, that, amid the storm, he still thinks of the cattle, the silly sheep, and the wee harmless birdies! — yes, the tenant of the mean lowly hut has the heart to pity all these. This is worth a whole volume of homilies on mercy, for it is the voice of mercy itself. Burns lives in sympathy : his soul rushes forth into all the realms of being : nothing that has existence can be indifi'erent to him." " Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are, That bide the pelting of the pitiless storm ! Tlow shall your houseless heads, and unfed sides. Your loop'd andwindow'd raggedness, defend you, From seasons such as these ?" — SnAKESPEAEE. "Whex biting Boreas, fell^ and doure,^ Sharp shivers through the leafless bower ; When Phoebus gies a short-lived glower 3 Far south the lift,-* Dim-darkening through the flaky shower, Or whirling diift: Ae night the storm the steeples rocked. Poor labour sweet in sleep was locked, "While burns, wi' snawy wreaths up-choked, Wild-eddying swirl, Or through the mining outlet bocked,^ Down headlong hurl. Listening the doors and Avinnocks** rattle, I thought me on the ourie^ cattle, Or silly sheep, wha bide this brattle 8 O' winter war, And through the drift, deep-lairing sprattle,^ Beneath a scaur. ^'^ 1 Keen. * Sky. f Shiverinir. » Sti-uggler 2 stem. 3 stare. 6 Belched. « WindOTs 8 Dashing storm. w Cliff. Ilk happing 1 bird, Avee, helpless tiling. That, iu the merry months o' spring, Delighted me to hear thee sing. What comes o' thee? Whare wilt thou cower thy chifctering wing, And close thy ee ! Even you, on murdering errands toil'd, Lone from your savage homes exiled, The blood-stain'd roost, and sheep-cot spoil'd. My heart forgets, While pitiless the tempest wild Sore on you beats. Now Phoebe, in her midnight reign. Dark muffled, AdeAv'd the dreary plain; Still crowding thoughts, a pensive train, Kose in my soul. When on my ear this plaintive strain. Slow, solemn, stole '.--^^^ " Blow, blow, ye winds, with heavier gust! And freeze, thou bitter-biting frost! Descend, ye chilly, smothering snows! Not all your rage, as now united, shows More hard unkindness, unrelenting. Vengeful malice unrepenting. Than heaven-illumined man on brother man bestows ! ^^^^ " See stem Oppression's iron grip, Or mad Ambition's gory hand, Sending, like blood-hounds from the slip, Woe, Want, and Murder o'er a laud ! Even in the peaceful rural vale. Truth, weeping, tells the mournful tale, HoAV pamper'd Luxury, Flattery by her side, The parasite empoisoning her ear, With all the serAdle Avretches in the rear. Looks o'er proud Property, extended wide; And eyes the simple rustic hind. Whose toil upholds the glittering show, A creature of another kind, Some coarser substance unrefined. Placed for her lordly use thus far, thus A'ile, below. " Where, where is Love's fond, tender throe, With lordly Honour's lofty brow. The powers you proiidly own? Is there, beneath Love's noble name, Can harbour dark the selfish aim. To bless himself alone ! Mark maiden innocence a prey To love-pretending snares, This boasted Honour turns away, Shunning soft Pity's rising sway, Eegardless of the tears and unaA'ailing prayers! Perhaps this hour, in misery's squalid nest. She strains your infant to her joyless breast, And with a mother's fears shrinks at the rocking blast! " O ye who, sunk in beds of down, Feel not a want but what yourseh'es create, Think for a moment on his wretched fate AVhoni friends and fortune quite disown! Ill satisfied keen nature's clamorous call, Stretch'd on his straw he lays himself to sleep, Wliile through the ragged roof and chinky wall, Cliill o'er his slumbers piles the drif ty heap ! Think on the dungeon's grim confine. Where Guilt and poor Misfortune pine ! Hopping 24 POEMS. [1785. Guilt, erring man, relenting view! But shall thy legal rage pursue The wi-etch, already cruslied low- By cruel Fortune's undeserved blow? Affliction's sons are brothers in distress, A brother to relieve, how exquisite the bliss ! ' I heard na mair, for chanticleer Shook off the pouthery snaw, And hail'd the morning with a cheer, A cottage-rousing craw. But deep this truth impress'd my mind-— Through all His works abroad, The heart benevolent and kind The most resembles God. SCOTCH DRINK. This poem, writlen after the manner of Fergusson's •' Caller Water," is not to be taken as evidence of the poet's feelings and practices. It was suggested, along with the following poem, by the withdrawal of an Act of Parliament empowering Duncan Forbes of Culloden to distil whisky on his barony of Ferintosh, free of duty, in return for services rendered to the (government. This privilege was a source of great revenue to the family ; and as Ferintosh whisky was cheaper than that produced elsewhere, it became very popular, and the name Ferintosh thus became something like a synonyme for whisky over the country. Compensation for the loss of privilege, to the tune of £21,580, was awarded to the Forbes family by a jury. Attention was further drawn to " the national beverage ^ at this-time by the vexatious and oppressive way in which the Excise laws were enforced at the Scotch distilleries. Many distillers abandoned the business ; and as barley was be- ginning to fall in price in consequence, the county gentlemen supported the distillei's, and an act was passed relieving the trade from the obnoxious super- vision. These circumstances gave the poet his cue ; and the subject was one calculated to evoke his wildest humour. Writing to Robert Muir, Kilmarnock, he says, " I here enclose you my ' Scotch Drink,' and may the follow with a blessing for your edi- fication. I hope some time before we hear the gowk, [cuckoo,] to have the pleasure of seeing you at Kilmarnock, when I intend we shall have a gill between us in a mutchkin stoup, which will be a great comfort and consolation to your humble ser- vant, R. B." " Gie him strong drink, until he wink. That's sinking in despair ; And liquor guid to fire his bluid, That 's prest wi' grief and cai*e ; There let him bouse, and deep carouse, Wi' biimpere flowing o'er, Till he forgets his loves or debts, Anfl minds his griefs no more." — Solomon's PaoTEBJss xxxi. 6, T. Let other poets raise a fracas ^ 'Bout vines, and wines, and druckcn Bacchus, And crabbit names and stories wrack ^ us, And grate our lug,^ I sing the juice Scotch beare can mak us. In glass or jug. O thou, my Muse ! guid auld Scotch drink. Whether through wimplin'^ worms thou jink,5 Or, richly brown, ream o'er the brink, In glorious faem, Inspire me, till I lisp and wink. To sing thy name I Let husky wheat the haughs adorn. And aits set up their awnie horn," And peas and beans, at e'en or morn, Perfume the plain, Leeze me on thee, John Barleycorn, Thou king o' grain ! On thee aft Scotland chows her cood. In souple scones,^ the wale o' food ! Or tumblin' in the boilin' flood Wi' kail and beef ; But when thou poars thy strong heart'; blood. 1 Arow. ^ Crooked. a Mother. Awkwai-d fools. " Midwife. " Coin. ♦ Alo is meant, which is frequently mixed with por- ridge instead of milk. t The tents for refreshment at out-of-door com- muu iona. (See « ' Holy Fair.") \ 7ET„ 27.] POEMS. "When neibors anger at a i)lea, And just as wud as wud ^ can be, How easy can the barley-bree ' Cement the quarrel I It's aye the cheapest lawyer's fee To taste the barrel. Alake ! that e'er my Muse has reason To wy te ^ her countrymen wi' treason ! But mony daily weet their weasou"^ "Wi' liquors nice, And hardly, in a winter's season. E'er spier ^ her price. TTae worth that brandy, burning trash ! Fell source o' many a pain and brash ! ^ 'Twins mony a poor, doylt, drucken hash*^' O' half his days ; And sends, beside, auld Scotland's cash To her worst faes. Ye Scots, wha wish auld Scotland well ! Ye chief, to you my tale I tell. Poor plackless devils like mysel. It sets you ill, Wi' bitter, dearthfu' wines to mell,^ Or foreign gQl. May gravels round his blether wrench. And gouts torment him inch by inch, Wha twists his gruntle wi' a glunch ^ O' sour disdain, Out-owre a glass o' whisky punch Wi' honest men. O whisky ! soul o' plays and pranks ! Accept a Bardie's gratefu' thanks ! When wanting thee, what tuneless cranks Are my poor verses ! Thou comes — ^they rattle i' their ranks At ither's a — es. Thee, Ferintosh ! oh, sadly lost I Scotland lament frae coast to coast ! Xow cohc grips, and barkin' hoast,^ May kiU us a' ; For loyal Forbes's charter'd boast, Is ta'en awa' ! Tliae curst horse-leeches o' th' Excise, Wha mak the wliisky-stells their prize ! Hand up thy han', deil ! ance, twice, thrice ! There, seize the blinkers ! ^^ And bake them up in brunstane pies For poor damn'd drinkers. Fortune ! if thou'H but gie me still Hale breeks, a scone, and whisky gill, And rowth ^^ o' rhyme to rave at will, Tak a' the rest. And deal't about as thy blind skill Directs the best. EEMOKSE. A riL^GlIENT. The followmg lines occur in an early Commonplace- book of the poet's, and probably relate to the conse- quences of his first serious error :— ' Of aU the numerous ills that hurt our peace. That press the soul, or wring the mind with an- guish, 1 Mad. - Charge. s Throat. * Ask. 5 Sickness. c Rough fellow, y Meddle. 8 Face with a grin. » Cough. 10 A contemptuotis term. 11 Abundance. Beyond comparison, the worst are those That to our folly or our guilt we n]]^- In every other ch-cumstance, the mmd Has this to say — " It was no deed of mine ; ■' But when, to all the evU of misfortune. This sting is added — " Blame thy foolish self," Or, worser far, the pangs of keen remorse- - The toi-turing, gnawing consciousness of guilt — Of guilt perhaps where we've involved others, The young, the innocent, who fondly lo'ed us, !Nay, more — that very love their cause of ruin ! O burning hell ! in aU thy store of torments, There's not a keener lash ! Lives there a man so firm, who, while his heart Feels all the bitter horrors of his crime, Can reason down its agonising throbs ; And, after proper purpose of amendment. Can firmly force his jarring thoughts to peace? Oh, happy, happy, enviable man ! ' Oh, glorious magnanimity of soul ! ANSWER TO A POETICAL EPISTLE, SEST TO THE AUTHOR BY A TAILOK. A tailor in the neighbourhood of Slauchline having taken it upon him to send the poet a rhymed homily on his loose conversation and in-egular behaviour, re- ceived the following lines in reply to his lecture : — What ails ye now, ye lousie bitch, To thrash my back at sic a pitch ? Losh, man ! hae mercy wi' your natch,i Your bodkin's bauld, I didna suffer half sae much Frae Daddie Auld. What though at times, when I grow crouse,^ I gie the dames a random pouse. Is that enough for you to souse '^ Your servant sae ? Grae mind your seam, ye prick-the-louse And jag-the-flae. King David, o' poetic brief. Wrought 'mang the lasses sic mischief As fill'd his after life wi' grief And bluidy rants. And yet he 's rank'd among the chief O' lang-syne saunts. And maybe, Tarn, for a' my cants,* My wicked rhymes, and drucken rants, I'll gie auld cloven Clootie's haunts An unco sHp yet, And snugly sit among the saunts At Davie's hip yet. But fegs,^ the session says I maun Gae fa' upon anither plan, Than garrin' lasses cowp the cran Clean heels o^v^e gowdy. And sairly thole ^ their mither's ban Afore the howdy. ^ This leads me on, to tell for sport. How I did wi' the session sort : Auld Clinkum at tlie inner port Cried three times— "Eobin! Come hither, lad, and answer for 't. Ye 're blamed for jobbin'.'' 1 Grip. 4 Tricks. 7 Midwife. 2 Happy. 'Faith. 3 Scold. cBear. 26 POEMS. [17S6. Wi' pinch I imt a Sunday's face on, And snooved^ awa' before the session; I made an oi)en, fair confession — I scorn'd to lie ; And syne Mess John, beyond expression, Fell foul o' me. A furni'jator-loon he call'd me, And said my faut frae bliss expell'd me ; I owu'd the tale was true he tell'd me, •' But what the matter? " Quo* I, " I fear unless ye geld me, I'll ne'er be better." " Geld you ! " quo' he, "and what for no' If that your right hand, leg, or toe, Should ever j)rove your spiritual foe, You should remember To cut it aff — and what for no Your dearest member?" ** Na, na," quo' I, " I 'm no for that, Gelding's nae better than 'tis ca't ; I 'd rather suffer for my faut, A hearty flewit, As sair owre hip as ye can draw 't, Though I should rue it. •' Or gin ye like to end the bother. To please us a', I 've just ae ither — When next wi' yon lass I forgather, "Whate'er betide it, I '11 frankly gie her 't a' thegither. And let her guide it." But, sir, this pleased them warst ava, And therefore, Tam, when that I saw, I said, "Guid night," and cam awa', And left the session ; I saw they were resolved a' On my oppression. THE AUTHOR'S EAEXEST CRY AND PRAYER TO THE SCOTCH KEPRESENTATIVES IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, Tor an account of the circumstances which pave rise to the following lines, see the introductioa to tlie poem entitled "{Scotch Drink," p. 2-i. " Dearest of distillations ! last and best I How art thou lost ! " — Parody on Milton. Ye Irish lords, ye knights and squires, Wha represent our brughs and shires, And doucely^ manage our affairs In parliament, To you a simi)le Bardie's prayers Are humbly sent. Alfls ! my roopib * Muse is hearse ! 3 Your honours' heart wi' grief *twad pierce, To see her sittin* on her a— e Low i' the dust, And scraichin' ^ + out prosaic verse, And like to burst I J Sneaked. 2 Soberly. a Hoarse. 4 Screaming hoarsely— the cry of fowls when displeased. * A person with a sore throat and a dry, tickling cough, is said to be roopy. t Some editors give this 'scrccchin', (screaming); but, fciken in connexion with the honrseness, everyone v.lio has heard the word used wUl endorse our iwading. Tell them wha hn.8 the chief direction, Scotland and me 's in gi-eat affliction. E'er sin' they laid that curst; restriction On aqua vit?e ; And rouse them up to strong conviction. And move their pity. Stand forth and tell yon Premier youth,* The honest, open, naked truth : TeU him o' mine and Scotland's drouth,i His servants humble : The muckle devil blaw ye south. If ye dissemble ! Does ony great man glunch 2 and gloom ? Speak out, and never fash your thoom ! ^ Let posts and pensions sink or soom ** Wi' them wha grant 'em : If honestly they canna come. Far better want 'em. In gath'riu' votes you werena slack ; Now stand as tightly by your tack ; Ne'er claw your lug,^ and fidge" your back, And hum and haw ; But raise your arm, and tell your crack ^ Befox'e them a'. Paint Scotland greetin' 8 owre her thi-issle, Her mutchkin stoup as toom 's " a whissle ; And damn'd excisemen in a bussle, Seezin' a stell, Triumphant crusliin' 't like a mussle Or lampit shell. Tlien on the tither hand present her, A blackguard smuggler, right behint her, And cheek-for-chow a chuffie*'' vintner, Colleaguing join, Picking her pouch as bare as winter Of a' kind coin. Is there, that bears the name o' Scot, But feels his heart's-bluid rising hot, To see his poor auld mifcher's pot Thus dung in staves. And j)lunder'd o' lier hindmost groat By gallows knaves ? Alas ! I 'm but a nameless wight, Trod i' the mire and out o' siglit ! But could I like Montgomeries fight, f Or gab like Bos well,:;: There 's some sark-necks I wad draAv tight, And tie some hose well. God bless your honours, can ye see 't. The kind, auld, cantie carlin greet,ii And no get warmly to your feet. And gar them hear it, And tell them wi' a j^atriot heat. Ye winna bear it? Some o* you nicely ken the laws. To round the period and pause. And wi' rhetoric clause on clause To make harangues ; Then echo through St Stephen's wa's Auld Scotland's wrangs. » Thirst. 2 Frown. • Trouble, your thumb. < Swim. » Eur. c Slinig. 7 Tale. 8 Weeping. Empty, 10 Fat-faced. " The cheerful old wife cry. (Scotland pcrsoniiicd.) * "William Pitt. t Colonel Hugh Montgomery, who had served in the American war, and was then representing Ayrshire. X James Boswell of Auchinleck, the biographer of Dr Samuel Johnson. ^T 28. POEMS. 27 Dempster,* a true-blue Scot I'se warran'; Thee, aith-iletesting, chaste Kilkerranjf Aiid that glib-gabbet^ Highland baron. The Laird o' Graham -X And ane, a chap that 's damn'd auldfarran,^ Dundas his name. § Ei-sliine,!! a spunkie'^ Norland billie; True Campbells, Fi-ederick and Hay ; ^ And Livingstone, the bauld Sir "SVillie; And mony ithers, "Whom auld Demosthenes or Tully Might own for brithers. Thee, Sodger Hugh, my watchman stented,** If bai'dies e'er are re^jresented ; I ken if that youi* sword Avere wanted. Ye 'd lend j^our hand : But "when there 's ought to say anent it, Ye 're at a stand. 'I"!* Arouse, my boys; exert your mettle. To get auld Scotland back her kettle ; Or, faith ! I'll wad my new pleugh-pettle,* Ye 11 see 't or lang, She '11 teach you, wi' a reekin' whittle,^ Anither sang. This while she 's been in crankous*^ mood, Her lost militia fired her bluid ; (Deil na they never mair do good, Play'd her that pliskie ! '" And now she's like to rin red-wud^ About her whisky. And, Lord, if ance they pit her till 't, Her tartan petticoat she 11 kilt. And durk and pistol at her belt, She '11 tak the streets, And rin lier whittle to the hilt I' th' first she meets ! For God's sake, sirs, then spe.ak her fair, And straik^ her cannie "wi' the hair. And to the muckle House repair AYi' instant speed. And strive, wi' a' your wit and lear, To get remead. Yon ill-tong-ued tinkler, Charlie Fox, May taunt you wi' his jeers and mocks ; But gie him 't het, my hearty cocks ! E'en cowe the caddie !-^^ And send him to his dicing-box And sportin' lady. Tell yon guid bluid o' auld Boconnock's J;|: I '11 be his debt twa mashlum bannocks, ^§ And drink his health in auld NanseTinnock's IHJ Nine times a week. 1 Ready-tongued. - Sagacious. * Plough-staff. 5 Knife. « Ill-tempered, restless. 8 Mad- 9 SU-oke. 3 Plucky. 7 Trick. 10 Fellow. * George Dempster of Dunnichen, rorfarsliire. t Sir Adam Fergusson of KilkeiTun, then member for Edinburgh. X The Marquis of Graham. § Henry Dundas, afterwards Viscount Melville. I Thomas Erskine, afterwards Lord Erskine. \ Lord Frederick Campbell, brother to the Duke of Argyle, and Hay Campbell, then Lord Advocate. ** Being member for Ayrshire, the poet speaks of him as his stented or vanguard watchman. tt This stanza alludes to Hugh Montgomery's im- perfect elocution. XX "William Pitt was the grandson of Robert Pitt of Boconnock, in Cornwall. §§ Cakes made of oats, beans, and peas, with a mix- tm*e of wheat or barley Hour. \ \ A worthy old hostess of the author's in Mauch- line, where he sometimes studied politics over a glass If ho some scheme, like tea and winnocks,^ Wad kindly seek. Could he some commutation broach, I '11 pledge my aith in guid braid Scotch, He needna fear their foul reproach Nor erudition. Yon mixtie-maxtie, queer hotch-potch, The coalition. + ■ Auld Scotland has a raucle^ tongue; She 's just a devil wi' a rung ;2 And if she promise auld or young To tak their part, Though by the neck she should be strung, She '11 no desert. And now, ye chosen Five-and-Forty, % !Ma3^ still your mother's heart support ye ; Then though a minister grow dorty,^ And kick your place, ' Ye '11 snap your fingers, poor and hearty, Before his face. God bless your honours a' your days Wi' sowps^ o' kail and brats o' claise,^ In spite o' a' the thie'vish kaes ^ That haunt St Jamie's ! Your humble poet sings and prays While Kab his name is. POSTSCKIPT. Let half-starved slaves in warmer skies See future wines, rich clust'ring, rise; Their lot auld Scotland ne'er envies, But blithe and frisky, She eyes her free-born, martial boys, Tak aff their whisky. 1 Rougli. 4 Spoonfuls. 2 Cudgel. 3 Sulky. « Rags 0' clothes. ^ Jackdaws. of guid auld Scotch drink.— 27. "Xanse Tinnock is long deceased, and no one has caught up her mantle. She is described as having been a triio a'.e-ioife, in the proverbial sense of the word — close, discreet, civil, and no tale-teller. "When any neighbouring wife eume, asking if Tier Jdlin was here, ' Oh no,' Nanse would re- ply, shaking money in her pocket as she spoke, 'he's uo here,' implying to the querist that the husband was not in the house, while she meant to herself that he was not among her half-pence— thus keeping the word of promise to the ear, but breaking it to the hope. Her house was one of two stories, and had a front towai'ds the street, by which Burns must have entered Mauch- line from Mossgiel. The date over the door is 1744. It is remembered, however, that Nanse never could understand how the poet should have talked of enjoy- ing himself in her house ' nine times a-week.' ' Tile lad' she said, ' hardly ever drank three half-mutchkins under her roof in his life.' Nanse, probably, had never heard of the poetical licence. In truth, Nanse's hos- telry was not the only one in Mauchline which Burns resorted to : a rather better-looking house, at the open- ing of the Cowgate, kept by a person named John Dove, | and then and still bearing the arms of Sir John White- ford of Ballochmyle, was also a haunt of the poet's hav- ing this high recommendation, that its back windows surveyed those of the house in which his 'Jean' re- sided. The reader will find in its proper place a droll epitaph on John Dove, in which the honest landlord's religion is made out to be a mere comparative appreci- ation of his various liquors." — Chambers. * Pitt, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, had gained some credit by a measure introduced in 1784 for pre- venting smuggling of iea by reducing the duty, the revenue being compensated by a tax on windows. t Mixtie maxtie is Scotch for a mixture of incongru- ous elements. Hotch-potch is a dish composed of aU. sorts of vegetables. This coalition, like many others since, was in the poet's eyes an unnatural banding to- gether of men of different opinions. I The number of Scotch representatives. 28 POEMS. [1786. "What though their Phoebus kinder warms, "WTiile fragi-ance blooms and beauty charms! "Syiien wretches range, in famish'd swarms. The scented groves, Or, hounded forth, dishonour arms In hungry droves. Their gun's a burthen on their shouther; They downa bide^ the stink o' pouther; Their bauldest thought 's a hank'ring swither^ To stan' or rin, Till skelp— a shot— they're aff, a' throu'thcr,^ To save their skin. But bring a Scotsman fra his liill, Clap in his cheek a Highland gill, Say, such is royal George's will. And there's the foe; He has nae thought but how to kill Twa at a blow. Nae cauld, faint-hearted doubtings tease him ; Death comes— wi' fearless eye he sees him ; Wi' bluidy han' a welcome gies himj And when he fa's. His latest draught o' breathin' lea'es him ; In faint huzzas ! Sages their solemn een may steek,^ And raise a philosophic reek,^ And physically causes seek, In clime and season; But tell me whisky's name in Greek, I'll tell the reason. Scotland, my auld, respected mither ! Thi)ugh whiles ye moistify your leather, TUl whare ye sit, on craps o' heather. Ye tine 6 your dam ; Freedom and whisky gang thegither! — Tak ail your dram! THE AULD FARMER'S NEW-YEAR MORNING SALUTATION TO HIS AULD MARE MAGGIE, OS" GIVING HEE THE ACCUSTOMED KIP OP CORN TO HANSEL T& THE NEW TEAS. Most editors have alluded to the tenderness of Burns towards the lower animals ; tliis is a true poetic in- stinct, and with him was unusually Btroup. The Ettrick Shepherd says, in a note to this poem: — "Bonn anOEt have been an exceedingly Rood and kind-hearted beinj^ ; for whenever he has occasion to address or mention any Bubordinate being, however mean, even a mouse or a flowei*, then there is a gentle pathos in his hinguage that awakens the finest feelings of the heart." A GUID New- Year I wish thee, Maggie ! Hae, there 's a rip ^ to thy auld baggie : Though thou's hovve-backit now and knaggie,^ I 've seen the day Thou could hae gaen like ony staggie Out-owre the lay.^ Though now thou's dowie,^"^ stiff, and crazy, And thy auld hide 's as white 's a daisy, I 've seen thee dappl't, sleek, and glazie," A bonny gi"ay : He should been tight that daur't to raize ^ thee, Ance in a day. 1 They dare not stand. « Uncertainty. 3 I'cU mell. * Eyes may shut. « Smoke, fl Lose. 7 A hundlul of corn in the stalk. 8 Bent-backed and ridged. » Grass-field. 10 Low-spirited. n Shining. 12 Excite. Thou ance was i' the foremost rank, A filly buirdly, steeve, and swank,i And set weel down a shapely shank, As e'er tread yird ; ^ And could hae flown out-owre a stank, ^ Like ony bird. It 's now some nine-and-twenty year. Sin' thou was my guid father's meer : He gied me thee, o' tocher ^ clear, And fifty mark ; Though it was sma', 'twas weel- won gear. And thou was stark. ^ When first I gaed to woo my Jenny, Ye then was trottin' wi' your minnie : ^ Though ye was trickie, slee, and funnie. Ye ne'er Avas donsie ; T' But hamely, towie, quiet, and cannie,^ And unco sonsie.^ That day ye pranced wi' muckle pride When ye bure hame my bonny biide : And sweet and gracefu' she did ride, Wi' maiden air ! Kyle-Stewart * I could hae bragged i<^ wide, For sic a pair. Though now ye dow but hoyte and hoLle,^^ And Avintle like a saumont-coble,i2 That day ye was a jinker ^^ noble. For heels and win' ! And ran them till they a' did wauble,^* Far, far, beliin' ! When thou and I were young and skeigh,^5 And stable-meals at fairs were dreigh,^'* How thou would prance, and snore and skreigh, And tak the road ! Town's bodies ran, and stood abeigh,!' And ca't thee mad. When thou was com't, and I was mellow, We took the road aye like a swallow : At Brooses ^^ thou had ne'er a fellow. For pith and speed ; But every tail thou pay't them hollow, Whare' er thou gaed. The sma' droop-rumpl't,^^ hunter cattle. Might aiblins waur't thee for a brattle ; -^ i But sax Scotch miles thou try't thek mettle, And gar't them whaizle ^^ Nae whup nor spur, but just a wattle ^^ O' saugh or hazle. Thou was a noble fittle-lan',23 As e'er in tug or tow was drawn 1 Aft thee and I, in aught liours' gaun, In guid March weather, Hae tum'd sax rood beside our han'. For days thegither. Thou never braindg't, and fech't, and flisklt,^* But thy auld tail thou wad hae vvhiskit,'* And spread abreed thy well-fill'd brisket, ^^ Wi' pith and pow'r, 1 Stately, strong, active. 2 Earth. •" Ditch. < Dowiy. 6 Strong. « Mother. 7 MiHchievoas. 8 Good-natured. » Engaging. . JO Cliallenged. 11 Can but limp and totter. i« Twi.st like the UAgainly boat used by salmon fishers. " Runner. 14 Stagger— exhausted. 15 Mettlesome. »6 Scarce. i? Aside. '8 Wedding races. 19 Slojjing-backed. 20 Might perhaps have beaten thee for a short race. 21 Wheeze. 22 a .switch. 23 The near horse of the hindmo.st pair in the plough. 2« NeviT imlled by fits or staits, or fretted. » Shalien. 26 Breast. • The district between the Ayr and the Boon. ^T. 28.] POEMS. 29 'Till spritty knowes wad rair't and risket,i And slypet owTe. "Wlien frosts lay lang, and snaws -were deep, And tbreaten'd labour back to keep, I gied tb}' cog ^ a wee bit heap Aboon the timmer ; I kenn'd my Maggie wadna sleep For that, or simmer. In cart or car thou never reestit ; 3 The steyest * brae thou wad hae faced it ; Thou never lap, and sten't, and breastit,^ Then stood to blaw ; But just thy step a wee thing hastit,^ Thou snoov't awa. jNIy pleugh is now thy bau-n-time a' ; ^ Four gallant brutes as e'er did draw ; Forbye sax mae, I 've sell 't awa', That thou hast nurst : They di-ew me thretteen jjund and twa, The vera warst. Mony a sair darg ^ we twa hae wrought. And wi' the weary warl' fought ! And mony an anxious day I thought "We wad be beat ! Yet here to crazy age we 're brought, Wi' something yet And think na, my atdd trusty servan*, Tliat now perhaps thou's less deservin'. And thy auld days may end in starvin , For my last fou, A heapit stimpart,^ I '11 reserve ane Laid by for you. "We 've worn to crazy j-ears thegither ; "We '11 toyte ^^ about wi' ane anither ; Wi' tentie care I '11 flit thy tether To some hain'd rig,ii "Whare ye may nobly rax ^2 your leather, Wi' sma' fatigue. THE TWA DOGS: A TALK. Gilbert Bums says.— "The tale of ' The Tvra Dogs' was composed after the resolution of publishing was nearly taken. Robert had a dog, which he called Luath, that ■was a great favourite. The dog had been killed by the •wanton cruelty of some person, the night before my iiithei-'s death. Robert said to me that he should like to confer such immortality as he could bestow on his old friend Luath, and that he had a great mind to introduce something into the book under the title of 'Stanzas to the Memory of a Quadruped Friend:' but this plan was given up for the poem as it now stands. Caesar was merely the creature of the poet's imagination, created for the purpose of holding chat with his favourite Luatli." The factor who stood for his portrait here was the same of whom he writes to Dr Moore in 1787 : — " My indignation yet boils at the scoundrel factoi-'s insolent threatening letters, which used to set us all in tears." All who have been bred in country districts will have no difiBculty in finding parallels to the factor of the poem. Often 1 Till hard, dry hillocks would open with a cracking sound, the eartli falling gently over. 2 Wooden measure. ' Stopped. * Steepest. *> Never leaped, reared, or started forward. « Quickened. t My plough team are all thy children. s Day's labour. » A measure of com, the eighth part of a bnsheL 10 Totter. 11 Saved ridge of grass. 12 Stretch. illiterate and unfeeling, they think to gain the favour of the laird by an over-zealous pressure on poor but honest tenants, who, if gently treated, would strag- gle through their difficulties. 'TwAS in that place o' Scotland's isle, That bears the name o' auld King Coil,i Upon a bonny day in June, When wearing through the afternoon, Twa dogs that werena thrang^ at hame, Forgather'd ance ui)on a time. The first I '11 name, they ca'd him Caesax, Was keepit for his honour's pleasui-e ; His hair, his size, his mouth, his lugs,^ Show'd he was nane o' Scotland's dogs ; But whalnit some place far abroad, AVhere sailors gang to fish for cod. His locked, letter'd, braw brass collar Show'd him the gentleman and scholar ; But though he was o' high degree, The fient-* a imde — nae pride had he ; But wad hae spent an hour caressin', Even wi' a tinkler-gypsy's messan:^ At kirk or market, mill or smiddie, Nae tawted ^ tyke, though e'er sae duddie,'' But he wad stan't, as glad to see him, _ And stroan't® on stanes and hillocks wi' him. The tither was a ploughman's collie, A rhyming, ranting, roving billie, Wha for his friend and comrade had himi. And in his freaks had Luath ca'd him, After some dog in Highland sang,* Was made lang syne — Lord knows how lang. He was a gash^ and faithfu' tyke, As ever lap a sheugh ^^ or dike. His honest, sonsie, baws'nt face,'i Aye gat him friends in ilka place. His breast was white, his touzie ^^ back Weel clad wi' coat o' glossy black ; His gaucie^^ tail, wi' upward curl. Hung o'er his hurdies^** wi' a swirL Kae doubt but they were fain o' ither,^^ And unco pack and thick ^^ thegither ; Wi' social nose whyles snuff'd and snowkit,^^ Whyles mice and moudie worts they howkit;i8 Whyles scour'd awa' in lang excursion. And worried ither in diversion ; Until wi' daflSn'^'* weary grown, L^pon a knowe^o they sat them down. And there began a lang digression About the lords o' the creation. C^SAE. I 've often wonder'd, honest Luath, What sort o' life poor dogs like you have ; And when the gentry's life I saw, AVhat way poor bodies lived ava. Our laird gets in his racked rents. His coals, his kain, and a' his stents ;S1 He rises when he likes himsel ; His flunkies answer at the bell; 1 The middle district of Ayrshire. 2 Busy. 3 Eai-s. ■* A petty oath = " the devil a bit o'." 5 Cur. « Matted and dirty. 7 Ragged, fi Pissed. 9 Knowing. W DiiCh. 11 His honest, comely, white-striped face. 12 Shaggy. 1- 'Bushy. i* Hips, 15 Fond of each other. 16 Very interested and friendly. i? Scented. 18 Sometimes for mice and moles they dug. 19 Sporting. 20 Hillock. 21 His corn rents and assessments. * Cuchullin's dog in Ossian's " Fingal."— if. 30 POEMS, [1786. He ca'j his coach, he ca's his horse ; He df aws a bonny silken purse As lang 's my tail, whare, through the steeks,i The yeUow-letter'd Geordie keeks.^ Frae mom to e'en it's nought hut toiling, At baking, roasting, frying, boiling ; And though the gentry first are stechin,^ Yet e'en the ha' folk fill their pechan-^ Wi' sauce, ragouts, and siclike trashtrie, That 's little short o' downright wastrie. Our whipper-in, wee, blastit wonner,^ Poor worthless elf, it eats a dinner Better than ony tenant man His honour has in a' the Ian' ; And what poor cot-folk pit their painch^ in, I own it 's past my comprehension. Trowth, Csesar, whyles they're fashf eneugh A cotter howkin' in a sheugh,s Wi' dirty stanes biggin' a dike, Baring a quarry, and siclike ; Himsel, a wife, he thus sustains, A smytrie o' wee duddie weans,^ And nought but his han' darg ^^ to keep Them right and tight in thack and rape.^^ And when they meet wi' sair disasters, Like loss o' health or want o' masters. Ye Hiaist wad think, a wee touch langer, And they maun starve o' cauld and hunger : But how it comes I never kenn'd yet, They 're maistly wonderfu' contented : And buirdly chiels, and clever hizzies,'^ Are bred in sic a way as this is. CiESAR. But then to see how ye 're negleckifc. How huff' d, and cuff'd, and disrespeckit ! Lord, man, our gentiy care as little For delvers, ditchers, and sic cattle; They gang as saucy by poor folk As i wad by a stinkin' brock. ^-^ I've noticed, on our laird's court-day. And mony a time my heart's been wae. Poor tenant bodies, scant o' cash. How they maun thole a factor's snash :^* He'll stamp and threaten, curse and swear, He'll apprehend them, poind their gear; While they maun stan', wi' aspect humble, And hear it a', and fear and tremble! I see how folk live that hae riches ; But surely poor folk maun be wretches ! LUATH. They're no sae wretched 's ane wad think; Though constantly on poortith's^^ brink: They're sae accustom'd wi' the sight, The view o't gies them little fright. Then chance and fortune are sae guided, They're aye in less or mair provided; And though fatigued wi' close employment, A blink o' rest's a sweet enjoyment. I Stitches. 2 Glances. » StufTm?. * Stomach. 6 "VVonder, a contemptuous appellation. « Paunch. ' Troubled. 8 Digging;; in a ditch. » A number of nigged children. 10 Day's work. II Under a roof-tree— litemlly, thatch and rope. 1' Stalwart men and clever women. is iJadgcr. 1* Bear a factor's abuse. 1* Poverty. The dearest comfoi-t o' their lives, Their grushie^ weans and faithfu' wives; The prattling things are just their pride. That sweetens a' their fire-side ; And whyles twalpennie worbh o' nappy ^^ Can mak the bodies unco happy ; They lay aside their private cares. To mind the Kirk and State affairs : They '11 talk o' patronage and priests, Wi' kindling fu^ry in their breasts ; Or tell what new taxation's comin'. And ferlie '^ at the folk in Lon'on. As bleak-faced Hallowmas returns. They get the jovial ranting kirns,* When rural life o' eveiy station Unite in common recreation ; Love blinks. Wit slajis, and social Mirth Forgets there 's Care upo' the earth. That merry day the year begins They bar the door on frosty win's ; The nappy reeks wi' mantling ream. And sheds a heart-inspiring steam ; The luntin pipe and sneeshin mill^ Are handed round wi' right guid will ; The cantie ^ auld folks crackin' crouse,'^ The young anes rantin' through the house> My heart has been sae fain to see them, That I for joy hae barkit wi' them. Still it 's owre true that ye hae said. Sic game is now owre aften play'd. There 's mony a creditable stock O' decent, honest, fawsont ^ folk. Are riven out baith root and branch. Some rascal's pridefu' greed to quench, Wha thinks to knit himsel the faster In favour wi' some gentle master, "Wha aiblins ^ thrang a parliamentin' For Biitain's guid his saul indentiii' — Haith, lad, ye little ken aboiit it ; For Britain's guid! guid faith, I doubt it. Say rather, gaun as Premiers lead him ; And saying Ay or No's they bid him : At operas and plays parading, Mortgaging, gambling, masquerading; Or maybe, in a frolic daft. To Hague or Calais tales a waft,^* To mak a toui-, and tak a Avhirl, To learn hon ton, and see the worl'. There, at Vienna or Versailles, He rives his father's auld entails ;ii Or by Madrid he takes the route, To thrum guitars, and fccht wi' nowte;^^ Or down Italian vista startles. Whore-hunting among groves o' myrtles, Then bouses drumly German water, To mak himsel look fair and fattei', And clear the consequential sorrows, Love-gifts of Carnival signoras. For Britain's guid!— for her destniction I Wi' dissipation, feud, and faction! LUATH. Hech man! dear sirs! is that the gate They waste sae mony a braw estate ! 1 Thriving. s Ale or whisky, s Wonder. * Harvest-homes 6 The smoking pipe and snuff-box. « Cheerful. " Talking briskly. 8 Seemly. • Perhaps. w A trip. 11 Breaks the entail on hia estate. " See bull-fighta ^T. 28.] POEMS. 31 Are we sae foughten and harass'd For gear to gang that gate at last ! Oh, would they stay aback fra courts, And please themsels wi' country sports, It wad for every ane be better. The Lah'd, the Tenant, and the Cotter! For thae frank, rautm', ramblin' billies, Fient haet o' them's ill-hearted fellows; Except for breakin' o' their timnier, Or speakin' lightly o' their limmer, Or shootin' o' a hare or moorcock. The ne'er a bit they're ill to poor folk. But will ye tell me, Master Csesar, Sure great folk's life's a life o' jileasure? Nae cauld nor hunger e'er can steer them, The very thought o't needna fear them. C^SAE. Lord, man, were ye but whyles whare I am, The gentles ye wad ne'er envy 'em. It 's true they needna starve nor sweat, Through winter's cauld, or simmer's heat ; They 've nae sair wark to craze their banes, xVnd fill auld age wi' grips and granes : ^ But human bodies are sic fools, For a' their colleges and schools. That when nae real ills pei-plex them. They mak enow themsels to vex them ; And aye the less they hae to sturt^ them. In like proportion less will hurt them. A country fellow at the pleugh. His acres tiU'd, he 's right eueugh ; A country girl at her wheel, Her dizzens done, she's unco weel: But Gentlemen, and Ladies warst, Wi' evendown want o' wark are curst. They loiter, lounging, lank, and lazy; Though deil haet** ails them, yet imeasy; Their days insipid, dull, and tasteless; Their nights unquiet, lang, and restless ; And e'en theu* sports, their balls and races, Their galloping through public places, There 's sic parade, sic pomp and art. The joy can scarcely reach the heart, The men cast out in party matches, Then sowther'* a' in deep debauches; Ae night they're mad wi' drink and whoring Neist day their life is past enduiing. The Ladies arm-in-arm in clusters, As great and gracious a' as sisters ; But hear their absent thoughts o' ither. They're a' run deils and jads^ thegither. Whyles, o^vl•e the wee bit cup and platie, They sip the scandal potion pretty : Or lee-lang nights, wi' crabbit leuks. Pore owre the devil's pictured beuks ; Stake on a chance a farmer's stackyard, And cheat like ony unhang'd blackguard. There's some exception, man and woman; But this is Gentry's life in common. By this, the sun was out o' sight. And darker gloaming brought the night : The bum-clock 6 humm'd wi' lazy drone; The kye stood rowtin^ i' the loan : When up they gat, and shook their lugs, Kejoiced they werena men, but dogs; And each took aff his several way. Resolved to meet some ither day. 1 Pains and groans. 2 Ti-ouble. 3 Devil a thing. < Solder. » A giddy girl. « Beetle. f Lowing. TO A LOUSE, ON SEEING ONE ON A LADY'S BONNET AT CHUKCH> Burns's fastidious patrons and patronesses sometimes ventured to lecture him on the homeliness and vul- garity of some of his themes. " The Address to a Louse" was a notable instance. The poet defended it on account of the moral conveyed, and he was. right, we think. He was ever impatient of criticism and suggestions ; and, judging from the kind of criticisms and suggestions frequently ofl'ered to him, we may be glad that he so frequently followed hi* own judgment. Ha ! whare ye gaun, ye crowlin' ferlie ! ^ Your impudence protects you sairly : I canna say but ye strunt ^ rarely, Owre gauze and lace ; Though, faith, I fear ye dine but sparely On sic a place. Ye ugly, creepin', blastit wonner. Detested, shunn'd, by saunt and sinner. How dare ye set your fit upon her, Sae fine a lady ? Gae somewhere else, and seek your dumer On some poor body. Swith, in some beggar's haffet squattle ; ^ There ye may creep, and sprawl, and sprattle * Wi' ither kindred, jumping cattle. In shoals and nations ; Whare horn nor bane ne'er daur unsettle^ Your thick plantations. Now hand you there, ye 're out o' sight. Below the fatt'rils,*^ snug and tight ; Xa, faith ye yet ! ye '11 no be right Till ye've got on it. The very tapmost, towering height O' Miss's bonnet. * My sooth ! right bauld ye set your nose out,. As plumi^ and gray as ony grozet : "^ Oh for some rank, mercurial rozet,^ Or fell, red smeddum,^ I'd gie you sic a hearty doze o't. Wad di-ess your droddum ! ^* I wadna been surprised to spy You on an auld wife's flannen toy : ^^ Or aiblins some bit duddie boy, On's wyliecoat ; ^* But Miss's fine Lunardi ! * fie ! How daur ye do 't ? O Jenny, dinna toss your heaci, And set your beauties a' abread ! Ye little ken what cursed speed , The blastie's makin* t Thae winks and finger-ends, I dread. Are notice takin' ! Oh wad some power the giftie gie us To see oursels as others see us ! It wad frae mony a blunder free us, And foolish notion : What airs in dx-ess and gait wad lea'e us, And even devotion! 1 Wonder. 2 Strut. s Swift crawl in some beggar's hair. •* Scramble. '' Where the hair is never combed. 6 The ribbon-ends. 7 Goosebeny. 8 Rosin. 9 Powder. 10 Breech. " Flannel cap . 1- Flannel waistcoat. * A kind of bonnet, at one time fashionable, caUsdl after an Italian aeronaut. 32 POEMS. C1786. THE ORDIl^ATIOK "The Ordination" Tvas written on the occasion of the admission of the Rev. James Mackinlay as one of the ministers of the Laigh or parochial kirk of Kil- marnock. Mackinlay was a member of the "Auld- Licht" or orthodox "school, to which the poet was opposed. The following by Mr Chambers will show how small a hold the moderate or liberal party had on the sympathies of the bulk of the people : — " This note by Burns (see note J) is far from sufficient to explain his Rllusiou to a modern reader. Mr Lindsay, ordained to the Laigh Kirk in 1764, was tlie first moderate clergy- man known in the place. He was supposed to have obtained the appointment through the interest of his wife, whose maiden name was Margaret Lauder, who had been housekeeper to the Earl of Giencairn, pa- tron of the kirk — hence the scoffing ballad to which the poet refers. The general meaning of the stanza is, that Common Sense, in other words, Arminian doctrine, was introduced into the church of Kilmar- nock by Mr Lindsay; that Oliphant and Russell, two zealous Calvinists, had often attacked her ; but that now ]Mr Mackinlay, the new entrant was likely to effect her complete extrusion. We obtain a notion of the general feeling of Kilmarnock respecting the moderate doctrine, from the fact that Mr Lindsay's induction had to be effected by the use of force, and that his friends of the Presbytery were on that occa- sion so pelted as to be obliged to fly from the town." "For sense they little owe to frugal Heaven — To please the mob, they liide the little given." KiLMAENOCK waljsters,! fidge and claw, And pour your creeshie nations ; ^ And ye wha leather rax^ and draAV, Of a' denominations,* Switli to the Laigli Kirk, ane and a', And there tak up your stations ; Then alf to Begbie s f in a raw. And pour divine libations For joy this day. Curst Common Sense, that imj) o' hell, Cam in wi' Maggie Lauder ; J But Oliphant aft made her yell, And llussell sair misca'd her ; § This day Mackinlay taks the flail. And he 's the boy will blaud ^ her ! He '11 clap a shangan ^ on her tail, And set the bairns to daud ^ her "Wi' dirt this day. Mak haste and turn king David owre, And lilt wi' holy clangor ; 0' double verse come gie us four, And skirl up the Bangor : This day the Kirk kicks u]) a stoure,'' Nae mair the knaves shall wrang her, For Heresy is in her power, And gloriously she '11 whang ^ her Wi' pith this day. Come, let a proper text be read, And touch it afl! wi' vigour, 1 Weavers. 4 Slap. 7 A dust. 2 Grea-sy crowds. 6 A cleft stick. 8 Lash. 8 Stretch. Bespatter. * Kilmai-nock was then a town of between three and four tliou.siiud inliabitants, most of whom were en- gaged in the manufacture of car]iets and other coarse woollen goods, or in the preparation of leather. t A tavern near tlio church kept by a person of this name. \ Alluding to a scofTlng ballad which was made on the admission of the late reverend and wortliy Mr Lind- say to the I>aiph Kirk.— ». § Oliphant and Russell ircre ministers of the Auld- Llcht party. How graceless Ham ■'"' leugli at his dad, Which made Canaan a nigger ; Or Phinehast drove the murdering blade, Wi' whore-abhorring rigour ; Or Zipporah,:j: the scauldin' jade. Was like a bluidy tiger I' the inn that day. There, try his mettle on the creed, And bind him down wi' caution, That stipend is a carnal weed He taks but for the fashion ; And gie him owre the flock to feed, And pmiish each transgression ; Especial, rams that cross the breed, Gie them sufficient threshin', Spare them nae day. Now, auld Kilmarnock, cock thy tail. And toss thy horns f u' canty : ^ Nae mair thou 'It rowte ^ out-owre the dale, Because thy pasture's scanty j For lapf u's large o' gospel kail Shall till thy crib in plenty, And runts 3 o' grace the pick and wale, No gien by way o' dainty. But ilka day. Nae mair by Babel's streams we '11 weep, To think upon our Zion ; And hing our fiddles up to sleep, Like baby-clouts a-dryin' ; Come, screw the pegs, wi' tunefu' cheep, And o'er the thairms ^ be tryin' ; Oh, rare ! to see our elbucks wheep, ^ And a' like lamb-tails flyin' Fu' fast this day ! ' Lang, Patronage, wi' rod o' aim. Has shored^ the Kirk's undoin', As lately Fenwick,§ sair forfaim,-^ Has proven to its ruin : Our patron, honest man ! Glencaim, He saw mischief was brewin' ; And, like a godly elect bairn. He 's waled ^ us out a true ane, And sound this day. Now, Eobinson, || harangue nae mair, But steek your gab^ for ever : Or try the wicked town of Ayr, For there they '11 think you clever ! Or, nae reflection on your lear, Ye may commence a shaver ; Or to the Netherton^ repair. And turn a carpet- weaver Aif-hand this day. Mutrie ** and you were just a match, We never had sic twa drones : Auld Horiiic did the Laigh Kirk watch. Just like a winkin' baudrons : ^ i Meriy. 2 Low. * Strings. " Elbows jerk. 1 Menaced. & Chosen. 10 A cat 3 Cabbage stems. 6 Tlireatened. Shut your mouth. t Numbers xxv. ■'■ Genesis ix. 22. X Exodus iv. 25. § llev. William Boyd, minister of Fenwick, whose settlement liad been disputed. II Tlie colleague of the newly-ordained clergjTnan— a moderate. •^ A part of the town of Kilmarnock. *^ The deceaaed clergyman, whom Mr Mackinay suc- ceeded. ^T. 28.] And aye he catch'd the tither wretch, To fiy them in his caudrons : But now his honour maun detach, Wi' a' his brimstone squadrons. Fast, fast this day. See, see auld Orthodoxy's faes She 's swingein' ^ through the city ; Hark, how the nine-tail'd cat she jilays! I vow its unco pretty : There, Learning, with his Greekish face, Grunts out some Latin ditty ; And Common Sense is gaun, she says, To mak to Jamie Beattie * Her plaint this day. But there 's Morality himsel. Embracing all opinions ; Hear how he gies the tither yell. Between his twa companions ; See how she peels the skin and fell,3 As ane were peelin' onions ! Xow there — they 're packed aff to hell, And banish'd our dominions Henceforth this day. O happy day ! rejoice, rejoice ! Come bouse about the porter ! Morality's demure decoys Shall here nae mair find quarter : Mackinlay, Russell, are the boys. That Heresy can torture. They 11 gie her on a rape a hoyse,^ And cowe "* her measure shorter By the head some day. Come, bring the tither mutchkin in. And here 's, for a conclusion. To every X ew-Light t mother's son. From this time forth. Confusion : If mair they deave ^ us wi' their din, Or patronage intnision, "We Tl light a spunk,^ and, every skin, "We Tl rin them aff in fusion. Like oil some day. POEMS. 33 ADDRESS TO THE UNCO GUID, OR THE RIGIDLY RIGHTEOUS. This fine poem is a protest against a too ready judging of one's neighbour, and was no doubt suggested by the worrying attacks of petty minds who were incapable of going below the surface, or of undei-standing his many-sided character. The Ettrick Shepherd, in speaking of it, says, ''Bui-ns has written more from his own heart and his own feelings than any other poet, of which this poem is an instance. With the secrcv fountains of pjission in the human soul he was well acquainted, and deeply versed in their mysteries. The last two verses ai-e above all praise." " My son, these maxims make a rule, And lump them aye thegither : The rigid righteous is a fool, The rigid wise anither ; The cleanest com that e'er was dight May hae some pyles o' caflf in ; So ne'er a fellow-creature slight Tor random fits o' duflBn." — SoLOMOK.— Eccles. vii. 16. 1 WLIi-piHg. 3 A swing in a rope. 5 Deafen. 2 The flesh imder the skin. * Cut. , <5 A match. * The well-known author of the "Essay on Truth." t " New Liglit" is a cant phi-ase, in the west of Scot- land, for those religious opinions which Dr Taylor of Nonvich has defended so strenuously. — B. O YE wha are sae guid yoursel, Sae pious and sae holy. Ye 've nought to do but mark and tell Your neibour's fauts and f oUy ! Whase life is like a weel-gaun niill, SuppUed wi' store o' water. The heapet hapi>er's ebbing still. And still the clap plays clatter. Hear me, ye venerable core. As counsel for poor mortals. That frequent pass douce ^ Wisdom's door For glaikif^ FoUy's portals ; I, for their thoughtless, careless sakes. Would here propone defences. Their donsie^ tricks, their black mistakes, Their failings and mischances. Ye see your state wi' theu*s compared. And shudder at the niffer,^ But cast a moment's 'fair regard, What maks the might}' differ ? Discount what scant occasion gave. That purity ye pride in, And (what's aft mair than a' the lave) Your better art o' hiding. Tliink, when your castigated pulse Gies now and then a wallop, What ragings must his veins convulse. That stiU eternal gallop : Wi' wind and tide fair i' your tail, Right on ye scud your sea-way; But in the teeth o' baith to sail. It makes an iznco lee-way. See social life and glee sit down. All joyous and unthinking. Till, quite transmugrified,^ they 're grown Debauchery and drinking: Oh would they stay to calculate The eternal consequences : Or your more dreaded hell to state, Damnation of expenses ! Ye high, exalted, virtuous dames. Tied up in godly laces, Before ye gie poor frailty names. Suppose a change o' cases ; A deai'-loved lad, convenience snug, A treacherous inclination — But, let me whisper i' yom- lug,^ Ye 're aiblins^ nae temptation. Then gently scan your brother man. Still gentler sister woman ; \ Though they may gang a kennin'^ wrang^ To step aside is human : j One point must still be greatly dark, j The moving why they;>do it : I And just as lamely can ye mark | How far perhaps they rue it. i "Wlio made the heart, 'tis He alone Decidedly can try us ; He knows each chord — its various tone. Each spring— its various bias : Then at the balance let 's be mute. We never can adjust it ; What 's done we partly may compute. But know not what 's resisted. 1 Thoughtful. ■* Comparison. "i Perhaps. - Senseless. « Transfoi-med, 8 A litUe bil. s Unlucky. 6 Ear. 34 POEMS. [1786. TIIE IXVENTOllY. IN ANSWER TO A MANDATE BY THE SURVEYOR OF T^VXES. Mr Chambers says : — "The 'Inventory' was written in answer to a mandate sent by Mr Aiken of Ayr, the surveyor of windows, carriages, &c., for the dis- trict, to each farmer, ordering him to send a signed list of his horses, servants, wheel-carriages. &c., and to state whether he was a mai'ried man or a bachelor, and also the number of his children. The poem is chiefly remarkable for the information it gives con- cerning the farm, the household, and the habits of Bui-ns." Sir, as yotir mandate did request, I send you here a faitbfu' list; O' guids and gear, and a' my graitb. To which I 'm clear to gie my rath. Tmiprimis^ then, for carriage cattle, I hae four brutes o' gallant mettle, As ever drew afore a pettle.^ My han'-afore's^ a guid auld has-heen. And wight and wilfu' a' his days been. My han'-ahin's^ a weel-gaun iilly. That aft has borne me hame frae Killie,* And your auld burro' mony a time, In days when riding was nae crime — • But ance, when in my wooing pride, I, like a blockhead boost ^ to ride, The wilfu' creature sae I pat to, (Lord, pardon a' my sins, and that too !) I play'd my filly sic a shavie,^ She 's a' bedevil'd wi' the spavie. My fur-ahin's^ a worthy beast, As e'er in tug or tow was traced. The fourth's a Highland Donald hastie, A damn'd red-wud Kilburnie blastie ! Forbye a cowte,^ o' cowte's the wale,^ As ever ran afore a tail : If he be spared to be a beast, He '11 draw me fifteen pun' at least. Wheel-carriages I hae but few. Three carts, and twa ai-e feckly^ new; An auld wheelbarrow, mair for token Ae leg and baith the trams are broken ; I made a poker o' the spin'le, And my auld mither brunt the tria'le. For men, I 've three mischievous boys, Run-deils for rantin' and for noise; A gaudsman ane, a thrasher t'other ; Wee Davoc hands the nowte in fotlier.^^ I rule them, as I ought, discreetly, And af ten labour them completely ; And aye on Sundays duly, nightly, I on the question targe ^^ them tightly, Till, faith, wee Davoc's turu'd sae gleg,^^ Though scarcely langer than my leg, He'll screed you aff Effectual (Mliugf As fast as ony in the dwalUng. I've nane in female servan' station, (Lord, keep me aye frae a' temptation !) 1 A ploufrh spade. 2 The ff)remost horse on the left-hand In the plough. 8 The liiiidmost horse on the left-hand in the plough. < Must needs. ' A trick. « The hindmost horse on the right-hand In the plough. 7 A colt. 8 Choice. » Nearly. 10 Keeps the cattle in fodder. 11 Tusk. 12 So sharp. * Kilmarnock. t A leading question in the Shorter Catechism of the Wu3tmiu*t«r Assembly of divines. I hae nae wife, and that my bliss is, And ye hae laid nae tax on misses ; And then, if kirk folks dinna clutch me, I ken the devils darena touch me. Wi' weans I'm mair than v/eel contented. Heaven sent me ane mair than I wanted. My sonsie,^ smirking, dear-bought Bess,* She stares the daddy in her face. Enough of ought you like but grace ; But her, my bonny sweet wee lady, I 've ijaid enough for her already, And gin ye tax her or her mither, B' the Lord I ye'se get them a' thegither. And now, remember, Mr Aiken, In ae kind of licence out I 'm takin' ; Frae this time forth I do declare, I 'se ne'er ride horse nor hizzie mair; Through dirt and dub for life I '11 paidle,^ Ere I sae dear pay for a saddle; My travel a' on foot I '11 shank ^ it, I 've sturdy bearers, Gude be thankit The kirk and you may tak you that, It puts but little in your pat ; Sae dinna put me in your buke, Nor for mj' ten white shillings luke. This list wi' my ain hand I 've wrote it. The day and date as under noted; Then know all ye whom it concerns, Subscripsi huic, Hobert Burns MOSSGIEL, February 22, 1783. TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY, ON TURNING ONE DOWN WITH THE PLOUGH IN APRIL 1786. BIr Chambers says:— "The 'Mountain Daisy' was composed, as the poet lias related, at the plough. The field where lie crushed the 'Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flower' lies next to that in which he turned up the nest of the mouse, and both are on the farm of Mossgiel, and still shown to anxious in- quirers by the neighbouring peasantry." Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flower, Thou 's met me in an evil hour; For I maim crush amang the stoiire* Thy slender stem : To spare thee now is past my power, Thou bonny gem. Alas ! it 's no thy neibor sweet, The bonny lark, companion meet, Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet, Wi' si)eckled breast. When upward springing, blithe, to greet, The puri)ling east. Cauld blew the bitter-biting north Upon thy early, humble, birth; Yet cheerfully thou glinted ^ forth Amid the storm. Scarce rear'd above the i)arent earth Thy tender form. The flaunting flowers our gardens yield. High sheltermg woods and wa's maun shield ; 1 Comclv. * Dust. ' 2 Tramp. 5 Peeped. * A child born to the i)Oct by a female servant of hi* mother's. 55= =• I m .«««T7 ^^I'rsnBiTT /ET. 28.] POEMS. 03 But thou, beneath the random bield ^ O' clod or staue, Adomsthe histie^ stibble-field, Unseen, alane. There, in thy scanty mantle clad. Thy snawie bosom sun-ward sijread. Thou lifts thy unassuming head In humble guise ; But now the share uptears thy bed, And low thou lies ! Such is the fate of artless maid, Sweet floweret of the rural shade ! By love's simplicity betray'd, And guileless trust, Till she, like thee, all soil'd, is laid Low i' the dust. Such is the fate of simple bard. On life's rough ocean luckless starr'd ! Unskilful he to note the card Of prudent lore. Till billows rage, and gales blow hard. And whelm him o'er ! Such fate to suffering worth is given, "Who long with wants and woes has striven. By human pride or cunning driven. To misery's brink, Till, wrench'd of every stay but Heaven, He, rmn'd, sink! Even thou who mourn' st the Daisy's fate. That fate is thine — no distant date ; Stern Ruin's ploughshare drives, elate. Full on thy bloom. Till, ci'ush'd beneath the furrow's weight. Shall be thy doom ! LAMENT, OCCASIONED BY THE UNFORTUNATE ISSUE OF A FEIEND'S AMOUR. After mentioning the appearance of "Holy Willie's Prayer," -which alarmed the kirk-session so much that they held several meetings to look over their spiritual artillery, if haply any of it might be pointed against profane rhymers, Burns states : — "Unluckily for me, my wanderings led me on another side, within point-blank shot of their heaviest metal. This is the unfortunate story that gave rise to my printed poem ' The Lament.' This was a most melan- choly affair, which I cannot yet bear to reflect on, and had veiy nearly given me one or two of the principal qualifications for a place among those who have lost the charter, and mistaken the reckoning of ration- ality. I had been for some days skulking from covert to covert, under all the terrors of a jail ; as some ill-advised people had uncoupled the merciless pack of the law at my heels. I had taken the last farewell of my few friends ; my chest was on the road to Greenock ; I had composed the last song I should ever measure in Caledonia, ' The Gloomy Night is Gathering Fast,' when a letter from Dr Blacklock to a friend of mine overthrew all my schemes, by open- ing new prospects to my poetic ambition." "It is scarcely necessary," Gilbert Burns says, "to mention that 'The Lament' was composed on that unfortunate passage in his matrimonial history which I have mentioned in my letter to Mrs Dun- lop, [alluding to his connexion with Jean Armour.] After the first distraction of his feelings had sub- sided, that connexion could no longer be concealed. Robert dui-st not engage with a family in his poor un- settled state, but was anxious to shield his partner by every means in his power, from (he consequences 1 Shelter. 2 Barren. of their imprudence. It was agree J, therefore, be- tween them, that they should make a legal aclmow- ledgment of an irregular and private marriage : that he should go to Jamaica to push his fortune ; and that she should remain with her father till it might please Providence to put the means of sup- porting a family in his power.'* "Alas ! how oft does goodness wound itself, And sweet affection prove the spring of woe ! " — IIoitB. THOU pale orb, that silent shines, "While care-untroubled mortals sleep ! Thou seest a wretch that inly pines. And wanders here to wail and weep ! "With woe I nightly vigils keep Beneath thy wan, unwarming beam ; And mourn, in lamentation deep. How life and love are all a dream. 1 joyless view thy rays adorn The faintly-marked distant hill : I joyless view thy trembling horn. Reflected in the gurgling rill : My fondly -fluttering heart, be still ! Thou busy power, remembrance, cease ! Ah ! must the agonising thrill For ever bar returning peace ! No idly-feign'd poetic pains iMy sad, love-lorn lamentings claim ; No s'heplierd's pipe — Arcadian strains ; No fabled tortures, quaint and tame : The plighted faith ; the mutual flame ; The oft-attested Powers above ; The promised father's tender name ; These were the pledges of my love ! Encircled in her clasping anns. How have the raptured moments flown. How have I wish'd for fortune's charms. For her dear sake, and hers alone ! And must I think it ! — is she gone. My secret heart's exulting boast ? And does she heedless hear my gi-oan ? And is she ever, ever lost ? Oh ! can she bear so base a heart, So lost to honour, lost to truth. As from the fondest lover part, The plighted husband of her youth ! Alas ! life's path may be unsmooth ! Her way may lie through rough distress ! Then, who her pangs and pains will soothe. Her sorrows share, and make them less ? Ye winged hours that o'er us pass'd, Enraptured more, the more enjoy'd. Your dear remembrance in my breast, My fondly-treasured thoughts employ'd. That breast, how dreary now, and void, For her too scanty once of room ! Even every ray of hope destroy'd, And not a wish to gild the gloom ! The mom that warns th' approaching day, Awakes me up to toil and woe : I see the hours in long array, That I must suffer, lingering, slow. Full many a pang, and many a throe, Keen recollection's direful train, Must wring my soul, ere Phoebus, low, Shall kiss the distant, westei'n main. And when my nightly couch I try. Sore harass'd out with care and grief, My toil-beat nerves, and tear-worn eye. Keep watchings with the nightly thief : 36 POEMS, [1786. Or if I slumber, fancy, chief, Eeigns haggard- wild, in soar affright : Even day, all-bitter, brings reKef, Prom such a horror-breathing night. O thou bright queen, who o'er th' expanse, Now highest reign'st, with boundless sway ! Oft has thy silent-marking glance Observed us, fondly wandering, stray ! The time, unheeded, sped away, While love's luxurious pulse beat high. Beneath thy silver-gleaming ray, To mark the mutual kindling eye. Oh ! scenes in strong remembrance set I Scenes never, never, to return ! Scenes, if in stupor I forget, Again I feel, again I burn ! From every joy and pleasure torn, Life's weary vale I '11 wander through j And hopeless, comfortless, I '11 mourn A faithless woman's broken vow. DESPONDENCY : AX ODE. Asprrowora cross is half conquered when, by telling %, some dear friend becomes, as it were, a sharer in ft. Burns poured out his troubles in verse with T.a like result. He says, "I think it is one of the greatest pleasures attending a poetic genius, that we can give our woes, cares, joys, and loves, an em- bodied form in verse, which to me is ever immediate ease." Oppeess'd with grief, oppress'd with care, A burden more than I can bear, I set me down and sigh: O life ! thou art a galling load, Along a rough, a weary road. To wretches such as I ! Dim, backward, as I cast my view, What sickening scenes appear ! What sorrows yet may pierce me through, Too justly I may fear ! ♦ Still caring, despairing. Must be my bitter doom : My woes here shall close ne'er, ^^ But with the closing tomb ! Happy, ye sons of busy life. Who, equfd to the bustling strife, No other view regard ! Even when the wish'd end 's denied. Yet while the busy means are plied, They bring their own reward : Whilst I, a hope-abandon'd wight. Unfitted with an aim. Meet every sad returning night And joyless mom the same ; You, bustling, and justling, Forget each grief and pain ; I, listless, yet restless, Find every i)rospect vain. How blest the solitary's lofc. Who, all-forgetting, all-forgot. Within his humble cell. The cavern wild with tangling roots. Sits o'er his newly gather'd fruits, Beside his crystal well I Or, haply, to his evening thought, By unfrequented stream, The ways of men are distant brought, A faint collected dream : While praising, and raising His thoughts to Heaven on high. As, wand'ring, meand'ring. He views the solemn sky. Than I, no lonely hermit placed Where never human footstep traced. Less fit to play the part ; The lucky moment to improve. And just to stop, and just to move, AYith self-respecting art : But, ah ! those pleasures, loves, and joys Which I too keenly taste. The solitary can despise, Can want, and yet be blest ! He needs not, he heeds not. Or human love or hate. Whilst I here must cry here At perfidy ingrate ! Oh ! enviable, early days. When dancing thoughtless pleasure's maze, To care, to guilt unknown ! How ill exchanged for riper times, To feel the follies, or the crimes. Of others, or my own ! Ye tiny elves that guiltless sport. Like linnets in the bush, Ye little know the ills ye court. When manhood is your wish ! The losses, the crosses. That active man engage ! The fears all, the tears all. Of dim declining age I ODE TO EUIN Currie says : — "It appears from internal evidence that the above lines were composed in 1786, when ' Hun- gry Ruin had him in the wind.' The 'dart' that ' Cut my dearest tie, And quivers in my heai't,' is evidently an allusion to his separation from his 'bonny Jean.' Burns seems to have glanced into futurity v/ith a prophetic eye : images of misery and woe darkened the distant vista : and when he looked back on his career he saw little to console him ' I have been, this morning,' he observes, 'taking a peep through, as Young finely says, " The dark pos- tern of time long elapsed." "i'was a rueful prospect I What a tissue of thoughtlessness, weakness, and folly ! My life reminded me of a ruined temple. What strength, what proportion, in some parts I What unsightly gaps, what prostrate ruins in others ! I kneeled down before the Father of mercies and said, " Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son." I rose, eased and strengthened.' " All haH ! inexorable lord ! At whose destruction-breathing word The mightiest empires fall ! Thy cruel, woe-delighted train. The ministers of grief and pain, A sullen welcome, all ! With stem-resolved, despairing eye, I see each aimfed dart ; For one has cut my dearest tie, And quivers in my heart. Then lowering and pouring, The storm no more I dread ; Though thick'ning and black'ning. Round my devoted head. And thou grim power, by life al>liorr'(L, While life a pleasure can afford, I MT. 28.] POEMS. 37 Oh ! hear a wretch's prayer ! No more I shrink appaU'd, afraid ; I court, I beg thy friendly aid To close this scene of care ! When shall my soul, in silent peace, Resign life's joyless day ; My weary heart its throbbings cease, Cold mouldering in the clay ? No fear more, no tear more. To stain my lifeless face ; Enclasped, and gi-asped Within thy cold embrace ! ADDRESS OF BEELZEBUB TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE HIGHLAND SOCIETY. The history of this poem is as follows :— " On Tuesday, May 23, there was a meeting of the Highland Society at London for the encoiu'agrement of the fisheries in the Highlands, &c. Three thousand pounds were immediately subsci-ibed by eleven gentlemen present for this particular purpose. The Earl of Breadalbane informed the meeting that five hundred persons had agreed to emigrate from the estates of Mr Macdonald of GlengaiTy ; that they had subsci-ibed money, pur- chased ships, &c., to can-y their design into efl'ect. The noblemen and gentlemen agreed to co-operate with Government to frustrate their design ; and to recommend to the principal noblemen and gentlemen in the Highlands to endeavour to prevent emigration, by improving the fisheries, agriculture, and manufac- tures, and particularly to enter into a subscription for that purpose." This appeared in the Edinburgh Advertiser of oOth May 17S6. Eememberiug the out- cry made a few years ago against Highland evictions, we cannot help being somewhat surprised at the poet's indignation. Mackenzie of Applecross, who figures in the poem, was a liberal landowner. Mr Knox, in his tour of the Highlands, written about the same time as the Address, states that he had re- linquished all feudal claims upon the labour of his tenants, paying them- for their labour. The Address first appeared in the Scot's Magazine with the follow- ing heading : — " To the Right Honourable the Earl of Breadalbane, President of the Right Honourable and Honourable the Highland Society, which met on the 23d of May last, at the Shakespeare, Covent Garden, to concert ways and means to frustrate the designs of five hundred Highlanders, who, as the Society were informed by Mr M of A s, were so auda- cious as to attempt an escape from their lawful lords and masters, whose property they were, by emigrat- ing from the lands of Mi- Macdonald of Glengarry, to the wilds of Canada, in search of that fantastic thing LlBEETT." Long life, my lord, and health be yours, Unscaith'd by hunger'd Highland boors ; 1 Lord, grant nae duddie ^ desperate beggar, Wi' dirk, claymore, or rusty trigger. May twin auld Scotland o' a life She likes — as lambkins like a knife. Faith, you and A s were right To keep the Highland hounds in sight ; I doubt na ! they wad bid nae better Then let them ance out owre the water ; Then up amang thae lakes and seas They '11 mak what noles and laws they please ; Some daring Hancock, or a Franklin, May set their Highland bluid a-ranklin' ; Some Washington again may head them. Or some Montgomery, fearless lead them, Tin God knows what may be effected When by such heads and hearts directed — Poor dunghill sons of du-t and mire May to Patrician rights aspire ! Nae sage North, now, nor sager SackviUe, To watch and premier o'er the pack vile, Clodhoppers. 2 Ragged. And whare will ye get Howes and Clintons To bring them to a right repentance. To cowe the rebel generation. And save the honour 0' the nation ? They and be damn'd ! what right hae they To meat or sleep, or light o' day ? Far less to riches, power, or freedom. But what your lordship likes to gie them ? But hear, my lord ! Glengarry, hear ! Your hand 's OAvi-e light on them, I fear ! Your factors, grieves, trustees, and baOies, I canna say but they do gaylies ; ^ They lay aside a' tender mercies. And tirl the hallions to the birses ; ^ Yet while they 're only poind't and herriet,^ They '11 keep their stubborn Highland spirit ; But smash them ! crash them a' to spalls ! ■* A.nd rot the dyvors ^ i' the jails ! The young dogs, swinge^ them to the labour ; Let wark and hvmger mak them sober ! The hizzies, if they 're aughtlins fawsont,^ Let them in Drury Lane be lesson'd ! And if the wives and dirty brats E'en thigger ^ at your doors and yetts,* Flaffan wi' duds and gray wi' beas',^" Fi'ightin' awa' your deucks and geese, Get out a horsewhii> or a jowler,^^ The langest thong, the fiercest growler. And gar ^^ the tatter'd gypsies pack Wi' a' their bastards on then- back ! Go on, my lord ! I lang to meet you. And in my house at hame to greet you ; Wi' common lords ye shanna mingle. The benmost neuk ^'^ beside the iugle,^* At my right han' assign'd your seat, 'Tween Herod's hip and Polycrate, — Or if you on your station taiTow,^^ Between Almagro and Pizarro, A seat, I 'm sure ye 're weel deservin't ; And till ye come — Your humble servant, Beelzebub. JuTiclst, Anno Mandi, 5790 [a.d. 1786.] A DREAM. The publication of "The Dream" in the Edinburgh edition of the poems, according to many, did much to injure the poet with the dispensers of Government patronage. Mrs Dunlop and others endeavoured in vain to prevent its publication. The free-spoken and humorous verses of Burns contrast oddly with the servile ode of Warton, which Burns represents him- self as having fallen asleep in reading. "Thoughts, words, and deeds, the statute blames with reason ; But surely dreams were ne'er indicted treason." On reading in the public papers the Laureate's "Ode,"* 1 Pretty well. 2 And strip the clowns to the skin. 3 Sold out and despoiled. •* Chips. 5 Bankrupts. « Whip. 7 The girls if they be at all handsome. 8 Beg. 9 Gates. 10 Fluttering in rags and gray with vermin. 11 A dog. 12 Make. IS The innermost comer. i* Fire-place. 15 Complain. * Thomas Warton then filled this oflBce. His ode for June 4, 1786, begins as follows : — "When Freedom nursed her native fire In ancient Greece, and ruled the lyre, Her bards disdainful, from the tyrant's brow, The tinsel gifts of flatteiy tore. But paid to guiltless power their willing vow, And to the throne of virtuous kings," &c. On these verses, the rhymes of the Ayi-shire bard most be allowed to form an odd enough commentary. — Chajibers. 3^ POEMS. [1786. with the other parade of June 4, 1786, the author was no sooner dropt asleep than he imagined himself transported to the birthday levee ; and in his dream- ing fancy made the following Address. — Burns. Guid-moentn' to your Majesty !_ May Heaven augment your blisses, On every new birthday ye see, A humble j)oet wishes ! My hardship here, at your levee, On sic a day as this is, Is sure an uncouth sight to see, Among thae birthday dresses Sae fine_|ihis day. I see ye 're complimented thrang. By many a lord and lady ; " God save the king" 's a cuckoo sang That 's unco easy said aye ; The poets, too, a venal gang, Wi' rhymes weel-turn'd and ready, Wad gar ye trow ^ ye ne'er do wrang, But aye unerring steady. On sic a day. For me, before a monarch's face. Even there I winna flatter ; For neither pension, post, nor place, Am I your humble debtor : So, nae reflection on your grace, Your kingship to bespatter ; There 's mony waur ^ been o' the race. And aiblins^ ane been better Than you this day. 'Tis very true, my sovereign king, My skill may weel be doubted : But facts are chiels that winna ding,^ And do^vna^ be disputed : Your royal nest, beneath your wing. Is e'en right reft and clouted,^ And now the third part of the string, And less, will gang about it Than did ae day.* Far be't frae me that I aspire To blame your legislation. Or say, ye wisdom want, or fire. To rule this mighty nation! But, faith ! I muckle doubt, my sire, Ye 've trusted ministration To chaps, 7 wha, in a barn or byre, "Wad better fill'd their station Than courts yon day. And now ye 've gien auld Britain peace. Her broken shins to plaister : Your sair taxation does her fleece, Till she has scarce a tester : For me, thank God, my life 's a lease, Nae bargain wearing faster. Or, faith ! I fear that wi' the geese, I shortly boosts to pasture r the craft some day. I'm no mistrusting "Willie Pitt, When taxes he enlarges, (And Will's a true guid fallow's got,t A name not envy spairges,)^ 1 Would make you believe. 3 Perhaps. * Beat, c Broken and patched. 8 Behoved. 2 Many worse. .'. Will mir That he intends to pay your debt. And lessen a' your charges ; But, God-sake ! let nae saving fit Abridge your bonny barges * And boats this day. Adieu, my liege ! may Freedom geek ^ Beneath your high protection ; And may you rax 2 Corruption's neck, And gie her for dissection ! But since I 'm here, I '11 no neglect, In loyal, true affection, To pay your queen, with due respect, My fealty and subjection This gi-eat birthday. Hail, Majesty Most Excellent ! While nobles strive to please ye. Will ye accept a compliment A simple poet gies ye ? Thae bonnie bairn-time, ^ Heaven has lent, Still higher may they heeze^ ye In bliss, till fate some day is sent. For ever to release ye Frae care that day. For you, young potentate o' Wales, I tell your Highness fairly, Down pleasure's stream, wi' swelling sails, I'm tauld ye 're driving rarely ; But some day ye may gnaw your naUs, And curse your folly sairly. That e'er ye brak Diana's pales. Or rattled dice wi' Charlie, f By night or day. Yet aft a ragged cowte's^ been known To mak a noble aiver ;S So, ye may doucely ^ fill a throne, For a' their clish-ma-claver ; ^ There, him at Agincourt J wha shone. Few better were or braver : nd yet, wi funny, queer £ He was an unco shaver^ For mony a day. For you, right reverend Osnaburg,|| Nane sets the lawn-sleeve sweeter, Although a ribbon at your lug Wad been a dress completer : As ye disown yon paughty^^ ^q„ That bears the keys o' Peter, Then, swith ! and get a wife to hug, Or, trouth ! ye *11 stain the mitre Some luckless day. Young, royal Tarry Breeks,! I learn, Ye've lately come athwart her ; A glorious galley,** stem and stern, Weel rigg'd for Venus' barter ; \ 1 Lift her head. 2 Stretch. 5 Cliildren. 4 Raise. Colt. c Horse. 7 Wisely. 8 Idle scandal. » A humorous wag. '.J rianghty. * In this Terse the poet alludes to the immense cur- tailment of the IJriti.sh dominion at the close of \.\\'- Amf-rican war, and the cession of the territory of f/)iiisiiiiia to Spain. t tiait, i;ctt, or gyte, a homely substitute for the word child in Scotland. The above stanza is not the only testimony of admiration which Burns pays to the great Earl of Chatham. * On the supplies for the navy being voted, spring 1780, Captain Macbride counselled some changes in " ■ • '■'^rce, particularly the giving up of G4-gun shijos, "icasioned a good deal of discussion. ■ Right Hon. Charles James Fox. . .x.n- Henry v.— ii. tj Sir.liiliii Falstiiff— wide Shakespeare. — B. ' Th,' Duke of York. ■i William IV., tlxni Bnlvo of Clarence. * Alhiding to the ucw.sjiapcr account Of a certain royal sailor's amour. ^T. 28.] POEMS. 39 But first hang out, that she '11 discern, Your hymeneal charter, Then heave aboard your grapple-aim. And, large upon her quarter, Come full that day. Ye, lastly, bonny blossoms a', Ye royal lasses dainty. Heaven mak you guid as weel as braw. And gie you lads a-plenty : But sneer na British boys awa', For kings are unco scant aye ; ^ And German gentles are but sma', They're better just than want aye On ony day. God bless you a' ! consider now. Ye 're unco rauckle dautit ; ^ But ere the course o' life be through. It may be bitter sautit : ^ And I hae seen their coggie fu',* That yet hae tarrow't ^ at it ; But or the day was done, I trow, The laggen they hae clautit ^ Fu' clean that day. THE HOLY FAIR.* This is by far the ablest of the satires Burns levelled at the Church : and his worst enemies could not avoid confessing that it was as well deserved as it was clever. Scenes such as the poet describes had be- come a scandal and a disgrace to the Church. The poem was met by a storm of abuse from his old enemies ; but, amid all th^r railings, they did not fail to lay it to heart, and from that time forward there was a manifest improvement in the bearing of ministers and people on such occasions. This is not the least of its merits in the eyes of his countrymen of the present day. Notwithstanding the daring levity of some of its allusions and incidents, the poet has strictly confined himself to the sayings and doings of the assembled multitude — the sacred rite itself is never once mentioned. Open-air sacramental services, conducted in the pre- sence of huge mobs, are not uncommon, we believe, at the present day in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. The writer of this has witnessed several ' such. Twenty years ago, he remembere being pre- sent at a huge gathering of the kind, the population of half a county being collected together, many having come a distance of more than twenty miles — some on foot, others on horseback, in gigs, and carts. During the early part of the day, decorum was pretty well maintained, but towards the afternoon the crowd kept moving backwards and forwards, as if at a countiy fair. Bands of lads and lasses, and douce, sober seniors, were more intent on go>sip and en- joying the refreshments, which the great majority had brought with them in abundance, than in listen- ing to the exhausted ministers. Round the out- skirts of the great crowd, knots of people were squatted on the grass, gossiping freely about family and country matters, while "the luntin pipe" went from mouth to mouth, men and women smoking vigorously, and "the sneeshin' mill" passed from hand to hand. By the rural population, even when the services are conducted decorously in the church, the Sacramental Sabbath is looked forward to as a day when friends and acquaintances will meet who have seldom more than two or three such opportuni- ties in a year. The audience is not confined to the parish in which the celebration takes place, many people attending the communion from a dozen neighbouring pari'^hes. The preaching season, as 1 Always scarce. ' Too much flattered. » Salted. * Platter full. & Grumbled. « They have scraped out the dish. * Holy Fair is a common phrase in the west of Scot- land for a sacramental occasion.— .B. it is sometimes termed, is a period of excitement to the preachers as well as the people, many of them relishing the opportunity the season 'gives of exer- cising their eloquence in a new scene. There was no drinking observable during the services ; but in the evening the change-houses of the various villages throughout the district presented no very edifying spectacle. " A robe of seeming truth and trust Hid crafty observation ; And secret hung, with poison'd crust, The dirk of Defamation : A mask that like the gorget show'd, Dye-varying on the pigeon ; And for a mantle, large and broad, He wrapt him in Religion." —Hypocrisy d-la-Mode. Upon a simmer Sunday mom. When Nature's face is fair, I walked forth to view the com, And snuff the caller^ air. The rising sun owre Galston* muirs, Wi' glorious light was glintin' ;'^ The hares were hirplin^ down the furs,* The lav'rocke they were chantin' Fu' sweet that day. As lightsomely I glower'd^ abroad, To see a scene sae gay, Three hizzies,^ early at the road, Cam skelpin' up the way ; Twa had manteeles 0' dolefu' black. But ane wi' lyart^ lining; The third, that gaed a-wee a-back. Was in the fashion shining Fu' gay that day. The twa appear'd like sisters twin, In feature, form, and claes ; Their visage, wither' d, lang, and thin. And sour as ony slaes : The third cam up, hap-step-and-lowp, As light as ony lambie, And wi' a curchie low did stoop. As soon as e'er she saw me, Fu' kind that day. Wi' bonnet aff, quoth I, " Sweet lass, I think ye seem to ken me ; I 'm sure I 've seen that bonny face. But yet I canna name ye. " Quo' she, and laughin' as she spak. And taks me by the hands, " Ye, for my sake, hae gien the feck ^ Of a' the ten commands A screed some day. "My name is F«n — your crony dear. The nearest friend ye hae ; And this is Superstition here. And that 's Hypocrisy. I 'm gaun to Mauchline holy fair, To spend an hour in daflBn' ; ^ Gin ye '11 go there, yon runkled pair, We will get famous laughin'. At them this day." Quoth I, "With a' my heart, I 'U do't, I '11 get my Sunday's sark ^'^ on. And meet you on the holy spot ; Faith, we 'se hae fine remarkin' ! " 1 Fresh. 2 Glancing. * Furrows. 6 Looked. 7 Gray. 8 Most. 10 Shirt. 3 Limping. 6 Wenches. 9 Sport. The adjoining parish to Mauchline. 40 POEMS. [1786. Then I gaed harae at crowdie-time,^ And soon I made nie ready ; For roads were clad, f rae side to side, Wi' mony a -weary body, In droves tliat day. Here farmers gasli,^ in ridin' graith,^ Gaed hoddin'^ by their cotters ; There, swankiest* young, in braw braid claith. Are springin' owre the gutters ; The lasses, skelpin' barefit, thrang. In silks and scarlets glitter ; Wi' sweet-milk cheese, in mony a whang, ^ And farls,7 baked wi' butter, Fu' crump that day. When by the plate we set our nose, Weel heaped up wi' ha'pence, A greedy glower Black-bonnet * throws, And we maun draw our tippence. Then in we go to see the show, On every side they 're gath'rin', j Some carrying dails,^ some chairs and stools, I And some are busy bleth'rin' ^ Kight loud that day. Here stands a shed to fend the showers, And screen our country gentry. There Racer Jess,i' and twa-three whores, Are blinkin' at the entry. Here sits a raw of tittlin' ^^ jades, Wi' heaving breast and bare neck. And there a batch o' wabster lads. Blackguarding frae Kilmarnock, For fun this day. Here, some are thinkin' on their sins. And some upo' their claes ; Ane curses feet that fyled^^ his shins, Anither sighs and prays : On this liand sits a chosen swatch,^^ Wi' screw'd-up, grace-proiid faces ; On that a set o' chaps at watch, Thrang winkin' on the lasses To chairs that day. Oh, happy is that man and blest ! Nae wonder that it pride him ! Whase ain dear lass, that he likes best, Comes clinkin' down beside him ! Wi' arm reposed on the chair-back, He sweetly does compose him ; Which, by degrees, slips round her neck, An's loof ^3 upon her bosom, Unkenn'd that day. Now a' the congi-egation o'er Is silent expectation : For Moodie % speels ^* the holy door, Wi' tidings o' damnation. 1 Breakfast-time. » Sensible. » Attire. 4 Jogging. » Striplings. « Cut. 7 Calies. 8 Planks, or boards, to sit on. » Chatting. w Whispering. 11 Soiled. " Sample. i3 Hand. ^* Climbs. * A colloquial appellation bestowed on the church elders or deacons, who in landward parishes in the olden time generally wore black bonnets on Sundays, -when they ofliciated at " the plate " in making the usual collection for the poor.— Mothkrwkll. t The following notice of Racer Jess appeared in the newspapers of February 1818 :— " Died at Maucliline a few weeks since, Janet Gibson, consigned to immor- tality by Burns in his ' Holy Fair,' under the turf appel- lation of ' Racer Jess.' She was the daughter of • Poosie Nanaie,' who figures in « The Jolly Beggars.' She was remarkable for her pedestrian powers, and sometimes ran long distances for a wager." X Moodie was the minister of Riccarton, and one of the heroes of "The Twa Herds." He was a never- Should Homie, as in ancient days, 'Mang sons o' God present him, The very sight o' Moodie's face To 's aiu het hame had sent him Wi' fright that day. Hear how he clears the points o' faith Wi' rattlin' and wi' thumpin' ! Now meekly calm, now wild in wrath, He 's stampin' and he 's jumi:»in' ! His lengthen'd chin, his turn'd-up snout. His eldritch ^ squeal, and gestures. Oh, how they fire the heart devout. Like cantharidian plasters. On sic a day ! But, hark ! the tent has changed its voice ! There 's peace and rest nae langer : For a' the real judges rise. They canna sit for anger. Smith* opens out his cauld haraugues On practice and on morals ; And aff the godly pour in thrangs, To gie the jais and barrels A lift that day. What signifies his barren shine Of moral powers and reason ? His English style, and gesture fine, Are a' clean out o' season. Like Socrates or Antonine, Or some auld pagan heathen. The moral man he does define, But ne'er a word o' faith in That 's right that day. In guid time comes an antidote Against sic poison'd nostrum ; For Peebles, frae the Water-fit,t Ascends the holy rostrum : See, up he 's got the Word o' God, And meek and mim^ has view'd it. While Common Sense J has ta'en the road, 'up the Cowgate,§ Fast, fast, that day. Wee Miller II neist the guard relieves. And orthodoxy raibles,^ Unearthly. 2 Primly. » Rattles. failing assistant at the Mauchline sacraments. His personal appearance and style of oratory were exactly such as described by the poet. He dwelt chiefly on the terrors of the law. On one occasion, he told the audi- ence that they would find the text in John viii, 44, but it was so applicable to theii* case tliat there was no need of his reading it to tliem. The verse begins, '• Ye are of your father the devil." * Mr (afterwards Dr) George Smith, minister of Gal- ston— the same whom tlie poet introduces, in a different feeling, under the appellation of Irvine-side, in " The Kirk's Alarm." Burns meant on this occasion to com- pliment him on his rational mode of preaching, but the reverend divine regarded the stanza as satirical. tThe Rev. Mr (afterwards Dr) William Peebles, minister of Newton-upon-Ayr, sometimes named, from its situation, iht Waier-fit, and the moving hand in the prosecution of Dr M'Gill, on which account he is intro- duced into "The Kirk's Alarm." He was in great favour at Ayr among the orthodox party, tliough much inferior in ability to the heterodox ministers of that ancient burgh. X Dr Maclcenzie, then of Mauchline, afterwards of Irvine, had recently conducted some village controversy under the title of " Common Sense." Some local com- mentators are of opinion that he, and not the personi fled abstraction, is meant. § A street so called which faces the tent in Mauchl ina — B. The same street in wliich Jean Armour lived. II The Rev. Mr Miller, afterwards minister of Kil maurs. He was of remarkably low stature, but enor mous girth. Burns believed him at the time to lean at ^T. 28.] POEMS. 41 Though in his lieart he weel believes And thinks it auld wives' fables : But, faith ! the birkie wants a manse, So, cannily he hums them ; Although his carnal wit and sense Like hafflins-ways^ o'ercomes him At times that day. Now but and ben the change-house fills Wi' yill-caup commentators : Here 's crying out for bakes ^ and gills, And there the pint-stoup clatters ; While thick and thrang, and loud and lang, Wi' logic and wi' Scripture, They i-aise a din, that, in the end. Is like to breed a rupture O' wrath that day. Leeze me on drizik ! it gies us mair Than either school or college : It kindles wit, it waukens lair. It pangs 3 us fou o' knowledge. Be 't whisky ^iSS., or jjenny wheep. Or ony stronger potion. It never fails, on drinking deep, To kittle ^ up our notion By night or day. Tha lads and lasses, blithely bent. To mind baith saul and body, Sit round the table weel content, And steer about the toddy. On this ane's dress, and that ane's leuk, They 're making observations ; While some are cozie i' the neuk,^ And forming assignations To meet some day. But now the Lord's ain trumpet touts. Till a' the hills are rarin'. And echoes back return the shouts. Black, JB.ussell" is na sparin' ; H^ piercing words, Hke Highland swords, Divide the joints and marrow; His talk o' hell, whare devils dwell; Our vera sauls does harrow f Wi' fright that day. A vast, Tinbottom'd, boundless pit, FUl'd f u' o' lowin' brunstane, Whase ragin' flame, and scorchin' heat. Wad melt the hardest whunstane! The half -asleep start up wi' fear, And think they hear it roarin'. When presently it does appear 'Twas but some neibor snorin' Asleep that day. 'Twad be owre lang a tale to tell How mony stories past. And how they crowded to the yill When they were a' dismist : 1 Like hafflins-ways = almo&t 3 Crams. 6 Snug in the comer. 8 Biscuits. * Bouse. heart to the moderate party. This stanza, virtually the most depreciatory in the vrhole poem, is said to have retarded Miller's advancement. * The Rev. John Russell, at this time minister of the chapel of ease, Kilmarnock, afterwards minister of Stirling'— one of the heroes of "The Twa Herds." «' He •wjis," says a correspondent of Cunningham's, " the most tremendous man I ever saw : Black Hugh Mac- pherson was a beauty in comparison. His voice was like thunder, and his sentiments were such as must have shocked any class of hearers in the least more re- fined than those whom he usually addressed." t Shakespeare's " Hamlet."— J^. How drink gaed round, in cogs Knd caups. Among the forms and benches : And cheese and bread, frae women's laps, Was dealt about in lunches, And dauds^ that day. In comes a gaucie,^ gash^ guidwife. And sits down by the fire, Syne draws her kebbuck'* and her knife; The lasses they are sliyer. The auld guidmen, about the grace, Frae side to side they bother. Till some ane by his bonnet lays. And gies them 't like a tether, Fu' lang that day, Waesucks ! ^ for him that gets na« lass. Or lasses that hae naething ! Sma' need has he to say a grace, Or melvie^ his braw claitliing! O wives, be mindfu' ance yersel How bonny lads ye wanted. And dinna, for a kebbuck-heel,^ Let lasses be affronted On sic a day ! Now Clinkumbell, wi' rattlin' tow, Begins to jow and croon ;8 Some swagger hame, the best they dow,^ Some wait the afternoon. At slaps^o the biUies^^ halt a blink, Till lasses strip their shoon: Wi' faith and hope, and love and drink, They're a' in famous tune For crack that day. How mony hearts this day converts O' sinners and o' lasses ! Their hearts o' stane, gin night, axe gane, As saft as ony flesh is. There's some are fou o' love divine; ' There's some are fou o' brandy; And mony jobs that day begin -jyiay end in houghmagandy^^ Some ither day. VEESES ON A SCOTCH BAED, GONE TO THE WEST INDIES. The following playfully personal lines were written by the poet when he thought he was about to leave tha country in 1786 for Jamaica : — A' TE wha live by sowps o' drink, A' ye wha live by crambo-clink,^* A' ye wha live and never think. Come, mourn wi* me! Our billie 's gien us a' a jink,^* And owre the sea. Lament him a' ye rantin' core, Wha dearly like a random splore,^* Nae mair he'll join the merry roar In social key; For now he's taken anither shore. And oAvre the sea! The bonny lasses weel may wiss him, And in their dear petitions place him : 1 Lumps. 2 Fat. 8 Sagacious. 4 Cheese. 6 Alas. 6 Soil. 7 Cheese-cmst. ^ Sing and groan. • Can. 10 Breaches in fences. 11 Lads. 12 Fornication. 13 Vei-sifying. 1* " Our friend has eluded us." 1* FroUc. 42 POEMS. [1785. The widows, wives, and a' may bless him, Wi' tearf u' ee ; For weel I wat^ they'll sairly mins him That 's owre the sea ! O Fortune, they hae room to grumble ! Hadst thou ta'en aff some drowsy bummle ^ "Wha can do nought but fyke and fumble,^ 'Twad been nae plea; But he was gleg* as ony wumble,^ That 's owre the sea ! Auld cantie Kyle may weepers wear, And stain them wi' the saut, saut tear ; 'Twill make her poor auld heart, I fear, In flinders ^ flee ; He was her laureate mony a year, That 's owre the sea ! He saw misfortune's cauld nor' -west Lang mustering up a bitter blast; A jillet^ brak his heart at last, 111 may she be! So, took a berth afore the mast. And owre the sea. To tremble under Fortune's cummock,^ On scarce a bellyfu'o' drummock,^ Wi' his proud, independent stomach, Could ill agree ; So, row't his hurdles i" in a hammock, And owre the sea. He ne'er was gien to great misguiding, Yet coin his pouches ^^ wadna bide in ; "Wi' him it ne'er was under hiding : He dealt it free : The Muse was a' that he took pride in That 's owre the sea, Jamaica bodies, use him weel. And hap him in a cozie biel ; ^^ Ye '11 find him aye a dainty chiel,!' And f u' o' glee ; He wadna wrang the very deil, • That 's owre the sea. Fareweel, my rhyme-composing billie ! Your native soil was right ill-willie ; But may ye flourish like a lily, ^ Now boimilie ! I U toast ye in my hindmost gillie^* Though owre the sea! A BARD'S EPITAPH. Of this beautiful epitaph, which Burns wrote for him- self, Wordsworth saya,— "Here is a sincere and solemn avowal — a public declaration from his own will — a confession at once devout, poetical, and human— a history in the shape of a prophecy 1 " Is there a whi^n-inspired fool, Owre fiist for thought, owre hot for rule, Owre blate^*^ to seek, owre proud to snool? ^^ Let him draw near ; And owre this grassy heap sing dool,^'' And drap a tear. Is there a bard of rustic song, Who, noteless, steals the crowds among, 1 Well I know. * BnnRler. » " Make a fuss." ♦ Sharp. 6 Wimble. " « Shreds. 7 Jilt. 8 Rod. » Ileal and water, lo Wrapt his hams. 11 Pockets. n Warm shelter, i" Kindly fellow. i« My last gill. w Bashful. i« Be obsequious. 17 Lamentation. That weekly this area throng? Oh, pass not by ! But, with a f rater-feeling strong. Here heave a sigh. Is there a man, whose judgment clear Can others teach the course to steer. Yet runs himself life's mad career Wild as the wave ? Here pause — and, through the starting tear. Survey this grave. The poor inhabitant below Was quick to learn, and wise to know, And keenly felt the friendly glow, And softer flame ; But thoughtless follies laid him low. And stain'd his name I Reader, attend— whether thy soul Soars fancy's flights beyond the pole, Or darkling grubs this earthly hole. In low pursuit ; Know, prudent, cautious self-control Is wisdom's root. A DEDICATION TO GAVIN HAMILTON, ESQ. In the following dedication of his poems to his friend, Gravin Hamilton, the poet does not merely conline- himself to characterising that generous - natured man, but takes tlie opportunity of throwing out some parting sarcasms at orthodoxy and its partisans : — Expect na, sir, in this narration, A fleechin',1 fleth'rin'^ dedication. To roose ^ you up, and ca you guid, And sprung o' great and noble bluid. Because ye 're surnamed like his Grace; Perhaps related to the race ; Then when I'm tired, and sae are ye, Wi' mony a fulsome, sinfu' lie. Set up a face, how I stop short, For fear your modesty be hurt. This may do — maun do, sir, wi' them wha Maun please the great folks for a wamefu';* For me ! sae laigh^ I needna bow. For, Lord be thankit, I can plough ; And when I downa ^ yoke a naig. Then, Lord be thankit, I can beg ; Sae I shall say, and that 's nae flatterin'. Its just sic poet, and sic patron. The poet, some guid angel help him,^ Or else, I fear, some ill ane skelp ^ him, He may do weel for a' he 's done yet, But only — he's no just begun yet. The patron, (sir, ye maun forgie me, I winna lie, come what will o' me,) On every hand it will allow'd be, He's just — nae better than he should be. I readily and freely grant. He downa see a poor man want ; What's no his ain he winna tak it, What ance he says he winna break it ; Ought he can lend ho '11 no refus't. Till aft his guidness is abused ; And rascals whyles that do him wrang, Even that he doesna mind it lang : 1 Flattering. * Bellyful. 7 Beat. * Fawning. 6 Low. 8 Praise. • Cannot. /ET. 28.] POEMS. 43 As master, landlord, husband, father, He doesna fail his part in either. But then nae thanks to him for a' that; Nae godly symptom ye can ca' that ; It 's naething but a milder feature Of our poor sinfu', corrupt nature : Ye '11 get the best o' moral works, 'Mang black Gentoos and pagan Turks, Or hunters wild on Ponotaxi, "VVha never heard of orthodoxy. That he 's the poor man's friend in need, The gentleman in word and deed, It's no through terror of damnation; It's just a carnal inclination. INIorality, thou deadly bane, Thy tens o' thousands thou hast slain ! Vain is his hope whose stay and trust is In moral mercy, truth, and justice! N'o — stretch a point to catch a plack;^ Abuse a brother to his back ; Steal through a winnock ^ frae a whore, But point the rake that taks the door ; Be to the poor like ony whunstane, And baud their noses to the grunstane, Ply every art o' legal thieving ; No matter, stick to sound believing. Learn three-mile prayers, and half-mile graces, Wi' weel- spread looves,-* and lang, wry faces ; Grunt up a solemn, leugthen'd groan, And damn a' parties but your own ; I'll warrant then, ye 're nae deceiver — A steady, sturdy, stanch believer. ye wha leave the springs o' Calvin, For gumlie* dubs of your ain delvin'! Ye sons of heresy and error. Ye '11 some day squeel in quaking terror ! "VYhen Vengeance draws the sword in wrath, And in the fire throws the sheath ; "Wlien Ruin, with his sweeping besom, Just frets till Heaven commission gies bim ; While o'er the harp pale Misery moans. And strikes the ever-deepening tones. Still louder shrieks, and heavier groans ! Your pardon, sir, for this digression, 1 maist forgat my Dedication ; But when divinity comes 'cross me, My readers still are sure to lose me. So, sir, ye see 'twas nae daft vapour, But I maturely thought it proper. When a' my works I did review. To dedicate them, sir, to you : Because (ye needna tak it HI) I thought them something like yourseL Then patronise them wi' your favour. And your petitioner shall ever I had amaist said, ever prai/ ; But that 's a word I needna say : For prayin' I hae little skill o't ; I'm baith dead-sweer,'' and wretched ill o't; But I'se repeat each poor man's prayer That kens or hears about you, sir — *' May ne'er IMisfortune's growling bark Howl through the dwelling o' tlie Clerk ! * May ne'er his generous, honest heart For that same generous spirit smart ! 1 A coin=third part of a penny. » Palms. 4 Muddy. 2 Window. 6 Unwilling. * A term applied to Mr Hamilton from his having acted in that capacity to some of the county courts. May Kennedy's far-honour'd name Lang beat his hymeneal flame. Till Hamiltons, at least a dizen, Are frae their nuptial labours risen : Five bonny lasses round their table, And seven braw fellows stout and able To serve their king and country weel, By word, or pen, or pointed steel! May health and peace, with mutual rays, Shine on the evening o' his days ; Till his wee curlie John's * ier-oe,i When ebbing life nae mair shall flow, The last, sad, mournful rites bestow ! " I will not wind a lang conclusion Wi' complimentary effusion : But whilst your wishes and endeavours Are blest wi' Fortune's smiles and favours, I am, dear sir, with zeal most fervent, Your much indebted, humble servant. But if (which Powers above prevent ! ) That iron-hearted carl, Want, Attended in his grim advances. By sad mistakes and black mischances, While hopes, and joys, and pleasures fly him. Make you as poor a dog as I am. Your humble servant then no more ; For who would humbly serve the poor ? But by a poor man's hopes in Heaven ! While recollection's power is given, If, in the vale of humble life. The victim sad of Fortune's strife, I, through the tender gushing tear. Should recognise my master dear. If friendless, low, we meet together, Then, sir, your hand — my friend and brother ! INVITATION" TO A MEDICAL GENTLEMAN TO ATTEND A MASONIC ANNIVERSARY MEETING. St James's Masonic Lodge was wont to meet in the small back-room of a cottage-like place of entertain- ment at Mauchline, kept by a person of the name of Manson. On the approach of St John's day, the 24th of Jane, Burns sent the following rhymed note on the subject to his medical friend, Mr Mackenzie, with whom, it seems, he had just had some controversy on the subject of morals : — Friday first 's the day appointed. By our Right Worshipful anointed. To hold our grand procession ; To get a blade o' Johnny's morals. And taste a swatch 2 o' Manson's barrels, I' the way of our profession. Our Master and the Brotherhood Wad a' be glad to see you ; For me I would be mair than proud To share the mercies wi' you. If death, then, wi' skaith, then. Some mortal heai t is hechtin',^ Inform him, and storm him, That Saturday ye '11 fecht ^ him. Egbert Burns. 1 Great-grandchild. » Threatening. 2 Sample. 4 Fight. * John Hamilton, Esq., a worthy scion of a noble stock. 44 POEMS. [1786. THE FAKEWELL. ' The following touching stanzas," says Cunningham, "were composed in the autumn of 1786, when the prospects of the poet darkened, and he looked to- wards the West Indies as a place of refuge, and per- haps of hope. All who shared his affections are mentioned— his mother— his brother Gilbert— his illegitimate child, Elizabeth, — whom he consigned to his brothei-'s care, and for whose support he had ap- propriated the copyright of his poems, — and his friends Smith, Hamilton, and Aiken ; but in nothing he ever wrote was his affection for Jean Armour more tenderly or more naturally displayed." " The valiant in himself, what can he suffer? Or what does he regard his single woes ? But when, alas ! he multiplies himself, To dearer selves, to the loved tender fair, To those whose bliss, whose being hang upon him, To helpless children ! then, oh, then I he feels The point of misery festering in his heart, And weakly weeps his fortune like a coward. Such, such am I ! — undone ! " —Thomson's J5?«Jward awdUZeanora. Paeewell, old Scotia's bleak domains. Far dearer than the torrid plains Where rich ananas blow I Farewell, a mother's blessing dear ! A brother's sigh ! a sister's tear ! My Jean's heart-rending throe ! Farewell, my Bess ! though thou 'rt bereft Of my parental care ; A faithful brother I have left, My part in him thou 'It share ! Adieu too, to you too, My Smith, my bosom frien' ; When kindly you mind me, Oh, then befi-iend my Jean ! What bui-sting anguish tears my heart ! From thee, my Jeanie, must I part ! Thou, weeping, answerest, " No ! " Alas ! misfortune stares my face. And points to ruin and disgrace, I, for thy sake, must go ! Thee, Hamilton and Aiken dear, A grateful, warm, adieu ! I, with a much-indebted tear. Shall still remember you ! All hail then, the gale then. Wafts me from thee, dear shore ! It rustles and whistles — I '11 never see thee morel LINES WRITTEN ON A BANK-NOTE. The bank-note, on the back of which these charac- teristic lines were written, is of the Bank of Scot- land, and dated so far back as March 1, 1780. It came into the hands of the late Mr F. Gracie, banker in Dumfries, who knew the handwriting, and pre- served it as a curiosity :— Wae worth thy power, thou cur-sSd leaf ! Fell source o' a' my woe and grief ! For lack o' thee I 've lost my lass ! For Lack o' thee I scrimp my glass. I see the children of affliction Unaided, through thy cursed restriction. I 've seen the oppressor's cruel smile. Amid his hapless victim's spoil. And, for thy potence vainly wish'd To crush the villain in the dust. For lack o' thee, I leave this much-loved shote. Never, perhaps, to greet auld Scotland more. E. B.— Kyle. VEESES TO AN OLD S^^^ETHEART AFTER HER MARRIAGE. WBITTEN ON THE BLANK LEAF OP A COPT OP HIS POEMS PRESENTED TO THE LADY. The name of the lady to whom these verses were given has not been mentioned. Burns, it is evident, had at the time they were written no better prospect be- fore him than emigration to the West Indies. Once fondly loved, and still remember'd dear; Sweet early object of my youthful vows! Accept this mark of friendship, warm, sincere, — Friendship ! 'tis aU cold duty now allows. And when you read the simple, artless rhymes. One friendly sigh for him — he asks no more, — Who distant burns in flaming torrid climes, Or haply lies beneath th' Atlantic's f. ar. VERSES WRITTEN UNDER VIOLENT GRIEF. The following lines, which first appeared in the Sun newspaper, April 1823, appear to have been origin- ally written on a leaf of a copy of his poems pre- sented to a friend : — Accept the gift a friend sincere Wad on thy worth be pressin' ; Remembrance oft may start a tear, But oh ! that tenderness forbear. Though 'twad my sorrows lessen. My morning raise sae clear and fau-, I thought sair storms wad never Bedew the scene ; but grief and care In wildest fury hae made bare My peace, my hope, for ever ! You think I 'm glad ; oh, I pay weel For a' the joy I borrow, In solitude— then, then I feel I canna to myself conceal My deeply-ranklin' sorrow. Farewell ! within thy bosom free A sigh may whiles awaken ; A tear may wet thy laughin* ee. For Scotia's son — ance gay like thee — Now hopeless, comfortless, forsaken ! THE CALF. TO THE REV. MR JAMES STEVEN. The Rev. James Steven was aftenvards one of the Scottish clergy in London, and ultimately minister of Kilwinning in Ayrshire. It appears that tlie poet, while proceeding to church at Mauchline, one day, called on his friend Mr Gavin Hamilton, wlio, being unwell, could not accompany him, but desired him, as parents were wont to do with children, to bring home a note of the text. Burns called on his return, and sitting down for a minute ut Mr Hamil- ton's business table, wrote tlie following lines as an answer to his request. It is also said that the poet had a wager with his friend Hamilton, that he would produce a poem within a certain time, and that he gained it by producing " The Calf." On his text, Malachi iv. 2.—" And they shall go forth, and grow up, like calves of the stall" RittHT, sir ! your text I '11 prove it true, Though heretics may laugh ; For instance ; there 's yoursel just now, God knows, an unco calf 1 xrc. 28.] POEMS. 45 And should some palsron. be so kind As bless you wi' a kirk, I doubt na, sir, but then we '11 find Ye 're still as great a stirk.^ But if the lover's raptxired hour Shall ever be your lot. Forbid it, every heaveoly power, You e'er should be a stot ! ^ Though, -when some kind connubial dear Your but-and-ben** adorns, The like has been that you may wear A noble head of horns. And in your lug, most reverend James, To hear you roar and rowte,^ Few men o' sense will doubt your claims To rank amang the nowte.^ And when ye 're number'd wi' the dead, Below a grassy hillock, Wi' justice they may mark your head — " Here lies a famous bullock ! '* WILLIE CHAL3IEKS. Mr W. Chalmers, a gentleman in Ayrshire, a particu- lar friend of mine, asked me to write a poetic epistle to a young lady, his dulcinea. I had seen her, but was scarcely acquainted mth her, and wrote as fol- lows :— R. B, Madam, "Wi' braw new branks,^ in mickle pride, And eke ^ a braw new brechan,^ My Pegasus I 'm got astride, And up Parnassus pechiu ; ^ "Whiles owre a bush, wi' downward crush, The doited beastie ^^ stammers ; Then up he gets, and off he sets. For sake o' Willie Chalmers. I doubt na, lass, that weel-kenn'd name May cost a pair o' blushes ; I am nae stranger to your fame. Nor his warm-urged wishes. Your bonny face, sae mild and sweet, His honest heart enamours, And faith ye '11 no be lost a whit. Though waired^ on Willie Chalmers. . Auld Truth hersel might swear ye 're fair. And Honoui* safely back her. And Modesty assume your air, And ne'er a ane mistak' her : And sic twa love-inspiring een Might fire even holy palmers ; Nae wonder then they've fatal been To honest Willie Chalmers. I doubt na Fortune may you shore ^ Some mim-mou'd ^^ pouther'd ^^ priestie, Fu' lifted up wi' Hebrew lore, And band upon liis breastie : But oh ! what signifies to you His lexicons and grammars : The feeling heart 's the royal blue, And that 's wi' Willie Chalmers. 1 A one-year-old bullock, s Kitchen and parlour. 2 Cattle. 6 Bridle. 8 Collar. 9 Pantinfr. 11 Spent. 12 Promise 14 Powdered- 2 Ox. 4Bell'S HOUSE, IN THE EOOM WHEEE HE SLEPT. " The first time," says Gilbert Burns, "Robert heard the spinnet played upon was while on a visit at the house of Dr Lawrie, then minister of the parish of Loudon, a few miles from Mossgiel, and with whom he was on terms of intimacy. Dr Lawrie had several daughters — one of them played ; the fatlier and the mother led down the dance ; the rest of the sisters, the brother, the poet, and the other guests mixed in it. It was a delightful family-scene for our poet, then lately introduced to the world. His mind was roused to a poetic enthusiasm, and the stanzas were left in the room where he slept." O Thou dread Power, who reign'st above ! I know Thou wilt me hear. When for this scene of peace and love I make my prayer sincere. The hoary sire — the mortal stroke. Long, long, be pleased to spare ! To bless his filial little floolc. And show what good men are. She, who her lovely offs})ring eyes t With tender hopes and fears,' Oh, bless her with a mother's joys. But spare a mother's tears ! Their hope — their stay — their darling youth. In manhood's dawning blush — ^ Unharmed. : Sharp knife. * Killie is a phrase the country-folks sometimes use for the name of a certain town in the west [Kilmar- nock.]— 2?. ^T. 28.] POEMS. 47 Bless him, Thou GOD of love and truth, Up to a parent's wish ! The beauteous seraph sister-band, With earnest tears I pray, Thou know'st the snares on every hand- Guide Thou their steps alway 1 When soon or late they reach that coast, O'er life's rough ocean driven, May they rejoice, no wanderer lost, A family in heaven ! THE BRIGS OF AYE. INSCRIBED TO JOHN BALLAXTYNE, ESQ., ATB. In the autumn of 1786, a new bridge was begun to be erected over the river at Ayr, in order to supersede an old structure which had" long been found unsuit- able, and was then becoming dangerous ; and while the work was being proceeded with, under the chief magistracy of Mr Ballantyne, the poet's generous patron, he seized the opportunity to display his gratitude by inscribing the poem to him. The idea of the poem appears to have been taken from Fer-' gusson's "Dialogue between the Plainstanes and the Causeway ; " the treatment of the subject is, how- ever, immeasurably superior to the older piece, and peciiliarly Bui'ns's own. The simple bard, rough at the rustic plough, Learning his tuneful trade from every bough ; The chanting linnet, or the mellow thrush, Hailing the setting sun, sweet, in the green- thorn bush ; The soaring lark, the perching redbreast shrill, Or deep-toned plovers, gi-ay, wild-whistling o'er ^ the hill; Shall he, nurst in the peasant's lowly shed, To hardy independence bravely bred, By early poverty to hardship steel'd. And train'd to arms in stern Misfortune's field — Shall he be guilty of their hireling crimes, The servile, mercenary Swiss of rhymes ? Oi' labour hard the panegyric close, "With all the venal soul of dedicating prose ? No ! though his artless strains he rudely sings. And throws his hand uncouthly o'er the strings. He glows with all the spirit of the bard, Fame, honest fame, his great, his dear reward ! Still, if some patron's generous care he trace, Skill'd in the secret, to bestow with grace ; When Ballantyne befriends his humble name. And hands the rustic stranger up to fame. With heart-felt throes his greatful bosom swells, The godlike bliss, to give, alone excels. 'Twas when the stacks get on their winter-hap,^ And thack " and rape secure the toil -won crap ; Potato-bings ^ are snugged up f rae skaith ^ O' coming Winter's biting, frosty breath ; The bees, rejoicing o'er their summer toils, TJnnumber'd buds' and flowers' delicious spoils Seal'd up with frugal care in massive waxen piles, Are doom'd by man, that tyrant o'er the weak, The death o' devils, smoor'd^ wi' brimstone reek : The thundei-ing guns are heard on every side. The wounded coveys, reeling, scatter wide ; The feather'd field-mates, bound by Nature's tie, Sires, mothers, childi-en, in one caraage lie : (What warm, poetic heart, but inly bleeds. And execrates man's savage, ruthless deeds !) Xae mair the flower in fiehl or meadow springs, Xae mjiii- the grove with airy concert rings. Except, perhaps, the robin's whistling glee. Proud o' the height o' some bit half-lang tree : The hoary morns precede the sunny days, jMild, cairn, serene, wide spreads the noontide blaze, WTuIe thick the gossamer waves wanton in the rays. 'Twas in that season, when a simple bard, Unknown and poor, simplicity's reward, Ae night, within the ancient brugh of Ayr, By whim inspired, or haply prest "\vi' care, He left his bed, and took his wayward route, And down by Simpson's* wheel'd the left about: (Whether impell'd by all-du-ecting Fate, To witness what I after shall narrate ; Or penitential pangs for former sins, Led him to rove by quondam Merran Dins ; Or whether, rapt in meditation high, He wander'd out, he knew not where nor why) The drowsy Dungeon clock f had number'd two, And Wallace Tower X tad sworn the fact was true : The tide-swoln Firth, wi' sullen sounding roai-, Through the still night dash'd hoarse along the shore. All else was hush'd as Nature's closed ee : The silent moon shone high o'er tower and tree : The chilly frost, beneath the silver beam, Crept, gently - crusting, o'er the glittering stream : ■\;\lien, lo ! on either hand the listening bard, The clanging sugh of whistling wings is heard ; Two dusky forms dart through the midnight air, Swift as the gos § drives on the wheeling hare ; Ane on the Auld Brig his airy shape uprears. The ither flutters o'er the rising piers : Our warlock rhymer instantly descried The sprites that owre the Brigs of Ayr preside. (That bards are second-sighted is nae joke. And ken the lingo of the spiritual folk ; Fays, spunkies, kelpies, a', they can explain them. And even the very deils they brawly ken^ them.) Auld Brig appear'd o' ancient Pictish race. The veiy wrinkles Gothic in his face : He seem'd as he wi' Time had warstled lang. Yet, teughly doure,^ he bade an unco bang.^ New Brig was buskit in a braw new coat, That he at Lon'on frae ane Adams got ; In 's hand five taper staves as smooth 's a bead, Wi' virls and whirlygigums at the head. The Goth was stalking round with anxious search. Spying the time-worn flaws in eveiy arch ; — It chanced his new-come neibor took his ee. And e'en a vex'd and angry heart had he !^ Wi' thieveless'^ sneer to see his modish mien. He, do\vn the water, gies him this guid e'en :-- AULD BRIG. I doubt na, frien', ye'U think ye 're nae sheep- shank,^ Ance ye were streekit^ owre frae bank to bank I 1 Well know. 8 He endured a mighty blow. 5 No worthless thing. 2 Touehly obdurate. 4 Spited. 6 Stretched. 1 Covering. " Thatch. 4 Harm. 3 Heaps. * Smothered. • A noted tavern at the Auld Brig end.— P. t A clock in a steeple connected with the old jail of Ayr. X The clock in the Wallace Tower — an anomalous piece of antique masonry, surmounted by a spire, which formerly stood in the High Street of Ayr. § The goshawk, or falcon.— 2?. AS POEMS. [1786 i But gin ye be a brig as attlcl as me — Though, faith, that date I doubt ye '11 never see- There '11 be, if that date come, I'll wad a boddle,i Some fewer whigmaleeries in your noddle. NEW BEIG. Auld Yandal, ye but show your little mense,^ Just much about it, wi' your scanty sense ; Will your poor narrow footjiath of a street — Where twa wheelbarrows tremble when they meet — Your ruin'd, formless bulk o' stane and lime. Compare wi' bonny brigs o' modern time ? There 's men o' taste would tak the Ducat Stream,* Though they should cast the very sark and swim, Ere they would grate their feelings wi' the view O' sic an ugly Gothic hulk as you. AULD BRIG. Conceited gowk l^ puff'd up wi' windy pride ! This mony a year I 've stood the flood and tide ; And though wi' cra2y eild"^ I 'm sair forfairn,^ I'll be a brig when ye 're a shapeless cairn ! As yet ye little ken about the matter, But twa-three winters will inform ye better. When heavy, dark, continued, a'-day rains, Wi' deepening deluges o'erflow the plains ; "When from the hills where springs the brawling Coil, Or stately Lugar's mossy fountains boil, Or where the Greenock winds his moorland course, Or haunted Garpalf draws his feeble source. Aroused by blusteringwinds and spotting thowes. In mony a torrent down his snaw-broo rowes ; "While crashing ice, borne on the roaring spate,^ Sweeps dams, and mills, and brigs, a' to the gate f And from Glenbuck, J down to the Katton-key,§ Auld Ayr is just one lengthen'd tumbling sea — Then down ye '11 hurl, deil nor ye never rise ! And dash the gumlie jaups^ up to the pouring skies. A lesson sadly teaching, to your cost, That Architecture's noble art is lost ! NEW BEIG. Fine Architecture, trowth, I needs must say o't. The Lord be thankit that we've tint^ the gate o't ! Gaunt, ghastly, ghaist-alluring edifices, Hanging with threatening jut, like precipices; O'erarching, mouldy, gloom-inspiring coves, Supporting roofs fantastic, stony groves ; Windows and doors, in nameless sculpture drest, With order, symmetry, or taste unblest ; Forms like some bedlam statuary's dream. The crazed creations of misguided whim ; Forms might be worshipped on the bended knee, And stUI the second dread command be free, Their likeness is not found on eartli, in air, or sea. Mansions that would disgrace the building taste Of any mason reptile, bird, or beast ; Fit only for a doited^" monkish race. Or frosty maids forsworn the dear embrace ; Or cuifs^i of later times wha held the notion That sullen gloom was sterling true devotion ; 1 Bet a dolt. «AKe. 7 Way. 10 Stupid. 2 Civility. 8 Enfeebled. 8 Muddy spray. 3 Fool. 6 Flood. " Fools. * A noted ford, just above the Auld Brlp.— B. t The banks of Garpal Water— one of the few places In the West of Scotland where those fancy-scaring beings known by the name of ghaista still continue pertinaciously to inhabit. — B. X Tlie source of the river Ayr. — B. § A small landing-place above the large key. — B. Fancies that our guid brugh denies protection ! And soon may they expire, imblest with resur- rection ! AULD BRIG. O ye, my dear-remember'd ancient yealings,i Were ye but here to share my wounded feelings! Ye worthy proveses, and mony a bailie, Wha in the paths o' righteousness did toil aye ; Ye dainty deacons, and ye douce conveeners. To whom our moderns are but causey-cleaners ! Ye godly councils wha hae blest this town; Ye godly brethren o' the sacred goAvn, Wha meekly gae your hurdies to the smiters ; And (what would now be strange) ye godly writers ; A' ye douce folk I 've borne aboon the broo,2 Were ye but here, what would ye say or do ! How would your spirits groan in deep vexation To see each melancholy alteration ; And, agonising, curse the time and place When ye begat the base, degenerate race ! Nae langer reverend men, their country's glory, In plain braid Scots hold forth a plain braid story ! Nae langer thrifty citizens and douce. Meet owre a pint, or in the council-house ; But staumrel,3 corky-headed, graceless gentry, The henyment and ruin of the country ; Men three parts made by tailors and by barbers, Wha waste your weel-hain'd gear on damn'd new brigs and harbours ! NEW BRIG. Now baud you there I for faith ye've said enough, And muckle mair than ye can mak to through;* That's aye a string auld doited gray -beards harp on, A topic for their peevishness to carp on. As for your priesthood, I shall say but little, Corbies and clergy are a shot right kittle : But, under favour o' your langer beard. Abuse o' magistrates might weel be spared : To liken them to your auld-warld squad, I must needs say comparisons are odd. In Ayr, wag-wits nae mair can hae a handle To mouth "a citizen," a term o' scandal; Nae mair the coimcil waddles down the street. In all the pomp of ignorant conceit ; No difference but bulkiest or tallest, With comfortable dulness in for ballast ; Nor shoals nor currents need a pilot's caution, For regularly slow, they only witness motion ; Men wha grew wise priggin' owre hops and raisins. Or gather'd liberal views in bonds and seisins, If haply Knowledge, on a random tramp. Had shored" them vi'i' a glimmer' of his lamp, And would to Common Sense for once betray'd them, Plain, dull Stupidity stept kindly in to aid them. What further clishmaclaver*' might been said, What bloody wars, if sjirites had blood to shed, No man can tell ; but all before their sight, A fairy train appear'd in order bright : A down the glittering stream they fcatly danced ; Bright to the moon their various dresses glanced : Tliey footed o'er the watery glass so neat, The infant ice scarce bent beneath their feet ; While arts of minstrelsy among them rung, And soul-ennobling bards heroic ditties sung. 1 Coevals. 2 Water. 8 Half-witted. < Make good. 6 Exposed. « Palaver. ^T. 28.] POEMS. 49 Oh, had M'Lachlan,* thairm^ -inspiring sage, Been there to hear this heavenly baud engage, AVhen through his dear strathspeys they bore with Highland rage ; Or when they struck old Scotia's melting airs, The lover's raptured joys or bleeding cares ; How would his Highland lug^ been nobler fired. And even his matchless hand with finer touch inspired ! No guess could tell what instrument appear'd, But all the soul of Music's self was heard ; Harmonious concert rung in every part, "While simple melodj'- pour'd moving on the heart. The Genius of the stream in front appears, A venerable chief advanced in years ; His hoary head with water-lilies crown'd, His manly leg with garter-tangle bound. Next came the loveliest pair in all the ring, Sweet Female Beauty hand in hand with Spring; Then, crown'd with flowery hay, came Rural Joy, And Summer, with his fervid-beaming eye : All-cheeruig Plenty, with her flowing horn, Led yellow Autumn, wreathed with nodding com; Then Winter's time-bleach'd locks did hoary show, By Hospitality with cloudless brow. Next follow'd Courage, with his martial stride, From where the Fealf \VLld- woody coverts hide; Benevolence, \vith mild, benignant air, A female form came from the towers of Stair : % Learning and Worth in equal measures trode From simple Catrine, their long-loved abode : § Last, white-robed Peace, cro^vned with a hazel wieath, To rustic Agriculture did bequeath The broken iron instruments of death ; At sight of whom om- sprites f orgat their kind- ling wrath. LINES ON MEETIXG AVITH LOKD DAEB. In 1786, Professor Ihig'akl Stewart, the well-known ex- pounder of the Scottish system of metaphysics, re- sided in a villa at Catrine, on the Ayr, a few miles from the poets farm ; and having heard of his as- tonishing poetical pi-oductions, through Mr Mac- kenzie, a talented and generous surgeon in Mauchline, he invited Burns to dine with him, accompanied by his medical friend. Tlie poet seems to have been somewhat alarmed at the idea of meeting so distin- guished a member of the literary world ; and, to in- crease his embarrassment, it happened that Lord Daer, (son of the Earl of Selkirk,) an amiable young nobleman, was on a visit to the professor at the time. The result, however, appears to have been rather agreeable than otherwise to the poet, who has re- corded his feelings on the subject in the following lines :— This wot ye all whom it concerns, I, Ehymer Robin, alias Bums, October twenty-third. 1 Cat-gut. 2 Ear. * A well-known performer of Scottish music on the violin.— J?. t The poet here alludes to Captain Montgomery of Coilsfield— soger Hugh— afterwards twelfth Earl of Eglinton, whose seat of Coilsfield is situated on the Feal, or Faile, a tributary stream of the Ajt. X A compliment to his early patroness, Mrs Stewart of Suir. 5 A wen-merited tribute to Professor Dugald Stewart. A ne'er-to-be-forgotten day ! Sae far I sprachled ^ up the brae, I diuner'd wi' a lord. I 've been at drucken writers' feasts. Nay, been bitch fou 'mang godly priests ; (Wi' rev'rence be it spoken !) I've even join'd the honour'd jorum When mighty squireships o' the quorum Their hydra drouth did sloken. But wi' a lord ! — stand out, my shin : A lord — a peer — an earl's son ! — Up higher yet, my bonnet ! And sic a lord ! — lang Scotch ells twa, Our peerage he o'erlooks them a', As I look o'er my sonnet. But, oh ! for Hogarth's magic power ! To show Sir Bardie's willyart glower,"^ And how he stared and stummer'd ! When goavan,3 as if led wi' branks,* And stump in' on his ploughman shanks. He in the parlour hammer'd. To meet good Stewart little pain is, Or Scotia's sacred Demosthenes ; Thinks I, they are but men ! But Bums, my lord — guid God ! I doited ! * My knees on ane anither knoited,^ As faultering I gaed ben ! ^ I sidling shelter'd in a nook, And at his lordship steal't a look. Like some portentous omen ; Except good sense and social glee, And (what surprised me) modesty, I marked nought uncommon. I watch'd the symptoms o' the great, The gentle pride, the lordly state. The arrogant assuming ; The fient a pride, nae pride had he, Nor sauce, nor state, that I could see, Mair than an honest ploughman. Then from his lordship I shall learn Henceforth to meet with unconcern One rank as weel 's another ; Nae honest, worthy man need care, To meet wi' noble, youthful D^VER, For he but meets a brother. ADDRESS TO EDINBURGH. Writing to his fi'iend, William Chalmers, the poet says: — "I enclose you two poem?, which I have carded and spun since I passed Glenbuck. 'Fair Burnet' is the heavenly Miss Burnet, daughter of Lord Monboddo, at whose house I have had the honour to be more than once. There has not been anything nearly like her* in all the combinations of beauty, grace, and goodness the great Creator has formed, since Milton's Eve on the first day of her existence ! " Edina ! Scotia's darling seat ! All hail thy palaces and towers. Where once beneath a monarch's feet Sat Legislation's sovereign powers ! From marking wildly-scatter'd flowers, As on ^.he banks of Ayr I stray'd. And singing, lone, the lingering hours, I shelter in thy honour'd shade. 1 Clambered. s Moving stupidly. 6 Knocked. 2 Bewildered stare. * Bridle. s Became stupified. 7 Into the room. so POEMS. [1787. Here wealth still swells the golden tide, As busy Trade his labour plies ; There Architecture's noble pride Bids elegance and splendour rise ; Here Justice, from her native skies, High wields her balance and her rod ; There Learning, with his eagle eyes, Seeks Science in her coy abode. Thy sons, Edina \ social, kind, A7ith open arms the stranger hail ; Their views enlarged, their liberal mind. Above the narrow, rural vale ; Attentive still to Sorrow's wail, Or modest Merit's silent claim ; And never may their sources fail ! And never envy blot their name ! Thy daughters bright thy walks adorn, Gay as the gilded summer sky, Sweet as the dewy milk-white thorn, Dear as the raptured thrill of joy ! Fair Burnet strikes th' adoring eye. Heaven's beauties on my fancy shine ; I see the Sire of Love on high, And own His work indeed divine. There, "watching high the least alarms, Thy rough, rude fortress gleams afar ; Like some bold veteran, gray in arms, And mark'd with many a seamy scar : The ponderous wall and massy bar. Grim-rising o'er the rugged rock. Have oft withstood assailing war, And oft repell'd the invader's shock. With awe-struck thought, and pitying tears, I view that noble, stately dome, "VVliere Scotia's kings of other years. Famed heroes ! had their royal home : Alas, how changed the times to come ! Their royal name low in the dust ! Their hapless race wild-wandering roam ! Though rigid law cries out, 'Twas just. "Wild beats my heart to trace your steps, Whose ancestors, in days of j'ore. Through hostile ranks and ruin'd gaps" Old Scotia's bloody lion boi-e : Even I who sing in rustic lore, Haply, my sires have left their shed, And faced grim Danger's loudest roar, Bold-following where your fathers led ! Edina ! Scotia's darling seat ! All hail thy palaccB and towers, Where once beneath a monarch's feet Sat Legislation's sovereign powers ! From marking wildly-scatter'd flowers, As on the banks of Ayr I stray'd, And singing, lone, the lingering hovirs, I shelter in thy honour'd shade. THE POET'S WELCOME TO HIS ILLEGITIMATE CHILD.* There can be no doubt that the feelinp which prompted the composition of this and similar poems was not tliat of the reckless libertine who was lost to all * The subject of these verses was the poet's illeRitl- mate daughter whom, in "The Inventorj," he styles his «' Sonsle, smirking, dear-bought Bess." She prew up to womanhood, was married, and had a family. Her death is thus announced in the licots Maeazine, Decembers, 1817 :—" Died Elizabeth Burns, shame, and was without regard for the good opinion of his fellows. Lockhart hits the truth when he says:—" 'To wave' (in his own language) 'the quantum of the sin,' he who, two years afterwards, wrote the * Cotter's Saturday Night' had not, we may be sure, hardened his heart to the thought of bringing addi- tional sorrow and unexpected shame to the fireside of a widowed mother. But his false pride recoiled from letting his jovial associates guess how little he was able to drown the whispers of the ' still small voice;' and the fermenting bitterness of a mind ill at ease within itself escaped, (as may be too often traced in the history of satirists,) in the shape of angry sarcasms against others, who, whatever their private errors might be, had at least done him no wrong. It is impossible not to smile at one item of consola- tion which Bui-ns proposes to himself on this occa- sion :— The mair they talk, I'm kenn'd the better ; E'en let them clash ! This is indeed a singular manifestation of 'the last infirmity of noble minds.'" Thou 's welcome, wean ! mishanter^ fa' me. If ought of thee, or of thy mammy, ShaU ever danton me, or awe me, My sweet wee lady, Or if I blush when thou shalt ca' me Tit-ta or daddy. Wee image of my bonny Betty, I fatherly will kiss and daut^ thee, As dear and near my heart I set thee Wi' as guid will. As a' the priests had seen me get thee That 's out o' heU. What though they ca' me fornicator, And tease my name in kintra clatter : ' The mair they talk I 'm kenn'd the better, E'en let them clash !* An auld wife's tongue's a feckless^ matter To gie ane fash.^ Sweet fruit o' mony a merry dint. My funny toil is now a' tint, Sin' thou came to the warld asklent,^ Which fools may scoff at ; In my last plack thy part's be in't — The better half o't. And if thou be what I wad hae thee, And tak the counsel I shall gie thee, A lovin' father I '11 be to thee. If thou be spared : Through a' thy childish years I '11 ee thee, And think 't weel wared. Guid grant that thou may aye inherit Thy mither's person, grace, and merit. And thy poor worthless daddy's spirit, Without his failin's, 'Twill please mo mair to hear and see 't, Than stockit mailins.^ TO MRS C , ON RECEIVEfG A WORK OF HANNAH MORE'S. Thou flattering mark of friendship kind. Still may thy pages call to mind 1 Misfortune. » Fondle. * Gossip. 6 Very small. 1 1rregularly. 3 Country talk. Trouble. 8 Stocked farms. wife of Mr John Bishop, overseer at Polkemmct, near ■W'hitburn. She was the daughter of the celebrated Ilobert Burns, and the subject of some of his most beautiful lines. JET. 29.] POEMS. 51 The dear, the beauteous donor ! Though sweetly female every part, Yet such a head, and more the heart, Does both the sexes honour. She show'd her taste refined and just When she selected thee, Yet deviating, own I must, For so approving me. But kind still, I mind still The giver in the gift, I '11 bless her, and wiss her A Friend above the lift.i TO MISS LOGAN, WITH BEATTIE's poems AS A KEW-YE^VK'S GIFT, JAN. 1, 1787. Miss Susan Losran was the sister of the Major Lopan to vrhom Burns wrote a rhymed epistle. He was indebted to both for many pleasant hours when he was suffering from despondency. Again the silent wheels of time Their annual round have driven. And you, though scarce in maiden prime. Are so much nearer heaven. No gifts have I from Indian coasts The infant year to hail ; I send you more than India boasts, In Edwin's simple tale. Our sex with guile and faithless love Is charged, perhaps, too true ; But may, dear maid, each lover prove An Edwin stiU to you ! VERSES INTENDED TO BE WEITTEN BELOW A NOBLE EAEL's PICTUKE. "The enclosed stanzas," said the poet, in a letter to his patron, the Earl of Glencairn, "I intended to write below a picture or profile of your lordship, could I have been so happy as to procure one with any- thing of a likeness." "Whose is that noble, dauntless brow ? And whose that eye of fire ? And whose that generous princely mien Even rooted foes admire ? Stranger, to justly show that brow. And mark that eye of fire, "Would take His hand, whose vernal tints His other works admire. Bright as a cloudless summer sun. With stately port he moves ; His guardian seraph eyes with awe The noble ward he loves. Among the illustrious Scottish sons That chief thou mayst discern ; Mark Scotia's fond returning eye — It dwells upon Glencairn. TO A HAGGIS. The haggis is a dainty peculiar to Scotland, though it is supposed to be an adaptation of a French dish- Sky. It is composed of minced offal of mutton, mixed with meal and suet, to which are added various con- diments by way of seasoning, and the whole is tied up tightly in a sheep's stomach, and boiled therein. Although the ingredients of this dish are not over in- viting, the poet does not far exceed poetical licence in singing its praises. We would recommend the readertoturntopagel73ofvol. i. of Wilson's "Noctes Ambrosianae," where he will find a graphic and humorous description of a monster haggis, and what resulted from cutting it up. The Edinburgh Literary Journal, 1829, made the following state- ment: — "About sixteen years ago there resided at Mauchline IMr Robert Morrison, cabinetmaker, lie was a great crony of Burns's, and it was in Mr iloiTison's house that the poet usually spent tho ' mids o' the day ' on Sunday. It was in this house that he wrote his celebrated ' Address to a Haggis,'' after partaking liberally of that dish as prepared by Mrs Morrison." Fair fa' your honest, sonsie^ face, Great chieftain o' the puddin' race ! Aboon them a' ye tak your place, Painch, tripe, or thairm :* Weel are ye worthy of a giace As lang 's my arm. The groaning trencher there ye fill, Your hurdies like a distant hill. Your pin * wad help to mend a mill In time o' need. While through your pores the dews distil Like amber bead. His knife see rustic labour dight,^ And cut you up wi' ready slight, Trenching your gushing entrails bright Like ony ditch ; And then, oh, what a glorious sight, Warm-reekin','* rich ! Tlien horn for horn they stretch and strive, Deil tak the hindmost, on they drive. Till all their weel-swall'd kytes belyve f Are bent like drums ; Then auld guidman, maist like to rive,^ Bethankit hums. Is there that owre his French ragout. Or olio that wad staw a sow,^ Or fricassee wad mak her spew-^ Wi' perfect scunner,^ Looks down wi' sneering, scornfu' view On sic a dinner? Poor devil ! see him owre his trash, As feckless ^ as a wither'd rash, • His spindle-shank a guid whip-lash. His nieve^'' a nit : Through bloody flood or field to dash. Oh, how unfit ! But mark the rustic, haggis-fed. The trembling earth resounds his tread. Clap in his walie nieve a blade, He 11 mak it whissle ; And legs, and arms, and he^ds will sned,ii Like taps o' thiissle. Ye powers wha mak mankind your care, And dish them out their bill o fare, 1 Jolly. 4 Smoking. 1 Vomit. 10 Fist. 2 Small intestines. 5 Burst. 8 Loathing. » Cut ofl^ « Wipe. 6 Pig. » Pithless. * A wooden skewer with which it is lifted out and in to the vessel in which it is cooked, t Till all their well-swollen bellies by and by. 52 POEMS. [1787. Auld Scotland wants rae skinking ware ^ That jaups ^ in luggies j^ But if ye wisli her gratefu' prayer, Gie her a haggis ! PROLOGUE. SPOKEN BY ME WOODS * ON HIS BENEFIT NIGHT, MONDAY, APRIL 16, 1787. "When by a generous public's kind acclaim. That dearest meed is granted — honest fame : When here your favour is the actor's lot. Nor even the man in private life forgot ; What breast so dead to heavenly virtue's glow, But heaves impassion'd with the gi-ateful throe ? Poor is the task to please a barbarous throng, It needs no Siddons' powers in Southern's song ; But here an ancient nation famed afar, Por genius, learning high, as great in war — Hail, Caledonia ! name for ever dear ! Before whose sons I 'm honour 'd to appear ! Where every science— every nobler art — That can inform the mind, or mend the heart, Is known ; as grateful nations oft have found. Par as the rude barbarian marks the bound. Philosophy, no idle pedant dream. Here holds her search by heaven-taught Season's Here History paints with elegance and force. The tide of Empire's fluctuating course ; Here Douglas forms wUd Shakespeare into plan, And Harley t rouses all the god in man. When well-form'd taste and sparkling ^vit unite With manly lore, or female beauty bright, (Beauty, where faultless symmetry and grace, Can onJy charm us in the second place,) Witness my heart, how oft with panting fear. As on this night, I 've met these judges here ! But still the hope Experience taught to live. Equal to judge — you 're candid to forgive. No hundred-headed Riot here we meet, "With decency and law beneath his feet : Nor Insolence assumes fair Preedom's name ; Like Caledonians, you applaud or blame. O Thou dread Power! whose empire-giving hand Has oft been stretch'd to shield the honour'd land! Strong may she glow with all her ancient fire ! May every son be worthy of his sire ! Firm may she rise with generous disdain At Tyranny's, or direr Pleasure's, chain ! Still self-dependent in her native shore, Bold may she brave grim Danger's loudest roar. Till Fate the cm-tain drops on worlds to bo no more. NATURE'S LAW. HUMBLY INSCRIBED TO GAVIN HAMILTON, ESQ. These verses were first published in Mr Pickering's I Thin stair. 2 Splashes. » In wooden dishes. ♦ Mr Woods had been the friend of Ferpusson. lie was long a favourite actor in Edinburgh, and was him- self a man of some poetical talent. t Henry Mackenzie, author of " The Man of Feel- ing." edition of the poet's works, printed from the orJRiual MS. in the poet's handwriting. They appear to have been written sliortly after "Bonny Jean" had presented him with twins. "Great Nature spoke— observant man obey'd." — POPK. Let other heroes boast their scars, The marks of sturt and strife ; And other poets sing of wars, The jDlagues of human life : Shame fa' the fun, wi' sword and gun, To slap mankind like lumber ! I sing his name and nobler fame, Wha multiplies our number. Great Nature spoke, with air benign, " Go on, ye human race ! This lower world I you resign ; Be fruitful and increase. The liquid fire of strong desire I 've pour'd it in each bosom ; Here, in this hand, does mankind stand, And there is beauty's blossom ! " The hero of these artless strains, A lowly bard was he. Who sung his rhymes in Coila's plains. With mickle mirth and glee ; Kind Nature's care had given his share Large of the flaming current ; And all devout, he never sought To stem the sacred torrent. He felt the powerful, high behest. Thrill, vital, through and through ; And sought a correspondent breast To give obedience due : Propitious Powers screen'd the young flowers From mildews of abortion ; And lo ! the bard, a great reward, Has got a double portion ! Auld cantie Coil may count the day, As annual it returns. The third of Libra's equal sway, That gave another Bums, With future rhymes, and other times, To emulate his sire ; To sing auld Coil in nobler style, "With more poetic fire. Ye powers of peace, and peaceful song. Look down with gracious eyes ; And bless auld Coila, large and long. With multiplying joys ; Lang may she stand to prop the land, The flower of ancient nations ; And Bums's spring, her fame to sing, To endless generations ! THE HERMIT. written on A MABBLE SIDEBOARD IN THE HERMI- TAGE BELONGING TO THE DUKE OF ATHOLE, IN THE WOOD OF ABERFELDY. This poem was brought to light by Mr Peter Buchan, himself a poet, and editor of the " Scottish Legen- dary Ballads," and first appeared in Hogg and Mo- therwell's edition of the poet's works. It is believed to be authentic. AVhoe'er thou art, these lines now reading, Think not, though from the world receding, I joy my lonely days to lead in Tliis desert drear ; That fell remorse, a conscience bleeding, Hath led me here. ^T. 29.] POEMS. S3 No thought of guilt my bosom sours ; Free-will'd I fled from courtly bowers ; Tor well I saw in hulls and towers That lust and pride, The arch-fiend's dearest, darkest powers, In state preside. I saw mankind with vice incrusted ; I saw that Honour's sword was rusted ; That few for aught but folly lusted ; That he was still deceived who trusted To love or friend ; And hither came, with men disgusted, My life to end. In this lone cave, in garments lowly, Alike a foe to noisy folly. And brow -bent gloomy melancholy, I wear away My life, and in my office holy Consume the day. This rock my shield, when storms are blowing; The limpid streamlet yonder flowing Supplying drink, the earth bestowing My simple food ; Eut few enjoy the calm I know in This desert wood. Content and comfort bless me more in This grot than e'er I felt before in A palace — and with thoughts still soaring To God on high, Each night and morn, with voice imploring, This wish I sigh — "Let me, O Lord ! from life retire, Unknown each guilty worldly fire. Remorse's throb, or loose desire ; And when I die. Let me in this belief expire — To God I fly." Stranger, if full of youth and riot. And yet no grief has marr'd thy quiet, Thou haply throw'st a scornful eye at The hermit's prayer ; But if thou hast good cause to sigh at Thy fault or care ; If thou hast known false love's vexation. Or hast been exiled from thy nation, Or guilt affrights thy contemplation. And makes thee pine. Oh ! how must thou lament thy station, And envy mine ! SKETCH OF A CHAEACTER. "This fragment," says Burns to Dugald Stewart, "Ihave not shown to man living till I now send it to you. It forms the postuluta, the axioms, the definition of a character, which, if it appear at all, shall be placed in a variety of lights. This particular part I send you merely as a sample of my hand at portrait- sketching." A LITTLE, upright, pert, tart, tripping wight. And still his precious self his dear delight : Who loves his own smart shadow in the streets Better than e'er the fairest she he meets : A man of fashion, too, he made his tour, Learn'd Vive la bagatelle, ct Vive Vanwur I So travell'd monkies their grimace improve, Polish their grin, nay, sigh for ladies' love. Much specious lore, but little understood ; Veneering oft outshines the solid wood : His solid sense by inches yon must tell. But mete his cunning by the old Scots eU ; His meddling vanity, a busy fiend. Still making work his selfish craft must mend. VEKSES ox BEADING IN A NEWSPAPER THE DEATH OF JOHN M'LEOD, ESQ., BROTHER TO A YOUNG LADY, A PARTICULAR FRIEND OF THE AUTHOR'S. Sad thy tale, thou idle page. And rueful thy alarms : Death tears the brother of her love From Isabella's ai'ms. Sweetly deckt with pearly dew The morning rose may blow ; But cold successive noontide blasts May lay its beauties low. Fair on Isabella's morn The sun .propitious smiled ; But, long ere noon, succeeding clouds Succeeding hopes beguiled. Fate oft tears the bosom chords That nature finest strung : So Isabella's heart was form'd. And so that heart was wrung. "Were it in the poet's power, Strong as he shares the grief That pierces Isabella's heart, To give that heart relief ! Dread Omnipotence alone Can heal the wound He gave ; Can point the brimful grief-worn eyes To scenes beyond the grave. Virtue's blossoms there shall blow. And fear no withering blast; There Isabella's spotless worth Shall happy be at last. ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF SIR JAMES HUNTER BLAIR. Sir James Hunter Blair, who died in 1787, was a partner in the eminent banking house of Sir William Forbes and Co., of Edinbui'gh, The lamp of day, with ill-presaging glare, Dim, cloudy, sunk beneath the western wave ; The inconstant blast howl'd through the dark- ening air, And hollow whistled in the rocky cave. Lone as I wander'd by each cliff and deU, Once the loved haunts of Scotia's royal train ;* Or mused where limpid streams, once hallow'd, well,t Or mouldering ruins mark the sacred fane. J The increasing blast roar'd round the beetling The clouds, swift-wing'd, flew o'er the starry sky. The groaning trees untimely Shed their locks. And shooting meteors caught the startled eye. The paly moon rose in the livid east, And 'mong the cliffs disclosed a stately form, In weeds of woe, that frantic beat her breast. And mix'd her waHings with the raving storm. Wild to my heart the filial pulses glow, 'Twas Caledonia's trophied shield I view'd : * The King's Park, at Holyrood House. t St Anthony's WeU. % St Anthony's Chapel. 54 POEMS, [1787. Her form majestic droo^'d in pensive woe. The lightning of her eye in tears imbued. Reversed that spear, redouhtable in war, Reclined that banner, erst in fields unfurl'd, That like a deathful meteor gleam'd afar, And braved the mighty monarchs of the world. "My patriot son fills an untimely grave ! " With accents wild and lifted arms she cried ; "Low lies the hand that oft was stretch'd to save, Low lies the heart that swell'd with honest pride. " A weeping country joins a widow's tear, The helpless poor mix with the orphan's cry ; The drooping arts surround their patron's bier, And grateful science heaves the heartfelt sigh ! " I saw my sons resume their ancient fire ; I saw fair Freedom's blossoms riclily blow : But ah ! how hope is born but to expire ! Relentless Fate has laid their guardian low. "My patriot falls, but shall he lie unsung, While empty greatness saves a worthless name? No ; every Muse shall join her tuneful tongue. And future ages hear his growing fame. "And I will join a mother's tender cares. Through future times to make his virtues last ; That distant years may boast of other Blairs ! " — She said, and vanish' d vdth the sleeping blast. TO MISS FERRIER, ENCLOSING THE ELEGY ON SIR J. H. BLAIR. During the poet's sojourn in Edinburgh his Muse of fire appears never to have ascended its highest heaven of invention. A few days after the death of his patron, Sir James Hunter Blair, he was wandering in a musing mood along George Street, which was at that time so remote from the great centre of business as to be considered almost in the country, when he accidentally met Miss Ferrier, eldest daughter of Mr J. Ferrier, W.S., one of his warmest patrons, and father of Miss Ferrier, the well-known novelist. In the sparkling eyes of this young lady, who afterwards became Mrs General Graham, the poet seems to have found the inspiration he was in search of. Nae heathen name shall I prefix Frae Pindus or Parnassus ; Auld Reekie dings ^ them a' to sticks, For rhyme-inspiring lasses. Jove's tunefu' dochters three times three Made Homer deep their debtor ; But, gien the body half an ee, Nine Ferriers wad done better I Last day my mind was in a bog, Down George's Street I stoited ; * A creeping, cauld, prosaic fog My very senses doited. ^ Do what I dought* to set her free, My saul lay in the mire ; Ye turn'd a neuk^ — I saw your ec— She took the wing like fire ! The moumfu' sang I here enclose, In gratitude I send you ; And [wish and] pray in rhyme sincere, A' guid things may attend you. 1 Beats. * Would. 2 Tottered. » Corner. » Stupifled. LINES WRITTEN 'WITH A PENCIL OVER THE CHIMNEY- PIECE IN THE PARLOUR OP THE INN AT KEN- MORE, TAYMOUTH. This and the following poem, with their fine and appre- ciative description of magnificent scenery, must have escaped the notice of the writer of the article in the North British Review for March 1865. This article, which is said to be from the pen of John Hill Bur- ton, is meant to prove that the Scottish Muse ig- nored allusions to romantic scenery until recently. Professor Walker says, "Burns passed two or three days with the Duke of Athole, and was highly delighted by the attention he received, and the company to whom he was introduced. By the Duke's advice he visited the Falls of Bruar, and in a few days I received a letter from Inverness, with the following verses enclosed : " — Admiring Nature in her wildest grace, These northern scenes with weary feet I trace ; O'er many a winding dale and painful steep, The abodes of covey'd grouse and timid sheep. My savage journey, curious, I pursue. Till famed Breadalbane opens to my view, — The meeting cliffs each deep-sunk glen divides, The woods, wild scatter'd, clothe their ample sides ; The outstretching lake, embosom' d 'mong the hills. The eye with wonder and amazement fills : The Tay, meandering sweet in infant pride. The palace, rising on its verdant side ; The lawns, wood-fringed in Nature's native taste; The hillocks, dropt in Nature's careless haste ; The arches, striding o'er the new-born stream ; The village, glittering in the noontide beam- Poetic ardours in my bosom swell, Lone wandering by the hermit's mossy cell : The sweeping theatre of hanging woods ! The incessant roar of headlong tumbling floods. Here Poesy might wake her Heaven-taught lyre. And look through Nature with creative fire ; Here, to the wrongs of Fate half -reconciled. Misfortune's lighten'd steps might wander wild ; And Disappointment, in these lonely bounds. Find balm to soothe her bitter, rankling wounds ; Here heart-struck Grief might heavenward stretch her scan. And injured Worth forget and pardon man. THE HUMBLE PETITION OF BRUAR WATER* TO THE NOBLE DUKE OF ATHOLE. My lord, I know your noble ear Woe ne'er assails in vain ; Erabolden'd thus, I beg you '11 hear Your humble slave complain, How saucy Phoebus' scorching beams. In flaming summer pride. Dry-withering, waste my foamy streams. And drink my crystal tide. The lightly-jumpin', glowrin' trouts. That through my waters play. If, in their random, wanton spouts, They near the margin stray ; If, hapless chance ! they linger lang, I 'm scorching up so shallow. * Bruar Falls, in Atliole, are exceedingly picturesque and beiuitiful ; but their effect is much impaired by the want of trees and shrubs.— -i?. JET. 29.] POEMS. 55 They 're left, the whitening stanes among, In gasping death to wallow. Last day I grat wi' spite and teen, As Poet Burns came by, That to a bard I should be seen Wi' half my channel diy : A panegjTic rhyme, I ween. Even as I was he shored ^ me ; But had I in my glory been. He, kneeling, wad adored me. Here, foaming down the shelvy rocks. In twisting strength I rin ; There, high my boUtng torrent smokes. Wild-roaring o'er a linn : Enjoying large each spring and well, As nature gave them me, I am, although I say 't mysel, Worth gauu ^ a niile to see. Would, then, my noblest master please To grant my highest wishes, He '11 shade my banks wi' towering trees. And bonny spreading bushes. Delighted doubly, theu, my lord, You '11 wander on my banks, And listen mony a grateful bird lletui-n you tuneful thanks. The sober laverock, 3 warbling wild, Shall to the skies aspire ; The gowdspink, Music's gayest child, Shall sweetly join the choir ; Tlie blackbird strong, the lintwhite clear, The mavis •* mild and mellow ; The robin pensive autumn cheer, In all her locks of yellow. This, too, a covert shall insure, To shield them from the storms ; And coward maukins ^ sleep secure Low in their grassy forms : The shepherd here shall make his seat. To weave his crown of flowers ; Or find a sheltering safe retreat. From j)rone descending showers. And here, by sweet endearing stealth. Shall meet the loving pair. Despising worlds, with all their wealth. As empty idle care. The flowers shall vie in all their charms The hour of heaven to grace, And birks extend their fragrant arms To screen the dear embrace. Here haply too, at vernal dawn, Some musing bard may stray. And eye the smoking dewy lawn, And misty mountain gray ; Or, by the reaper's nightly beam,^ Mild-chequering through the trees, Have to my darkly-dashing stream. Hoarse swelling on the breeze. Let lofty firs, and ashes cool. My lowly banks o'erspread. And view, deep-bending in the pool. Their sliadows' watery bed ! Let fragrant birks in woodbines drest My craggy cliffs adorn ; And, for the little songster's nest, The close-embowering thorn. 1 Promised. 4 Thrush. 2 Going. ' Hares. 8 Lark. « The harvest moon. So may old Scotia's darling hope. Your little angel band. Spring, like their fathers, up to prop Their honour'd native land ! So may through Albion's furthest ken. To social-flowing glasses. The grace be — " Athole's honest men. And Athole's bonny lasses ! " LINES WEITTEN WITH A PENCIL, STANDING BY THE FALL *^ OF FYERS, NEAR LOCH NESS. Among the heathy hills and ragged woods The roaring Fyers pours his mossy floods ; Till full he dashes on the rocky mounds. Where, through a shapeless breach, his stream resounds, As high in air the bursting torrents flow. As deep-recoUing surges foam below, Prone down the rock the whitening sheet de- scends. And viewless Echo's ear, astonish'd, rends. Dim seen through rising mists and ceaseless showers. The hoary cavern, wide -surrounding, lowers. Still, through the gap the struggling river toils. And still, below, the horrid caldron boils. CASTLE-GORDOK These lines were written after Burns's brief visit to Gor- don Castle. The poet enclosed them to James Hoy, librarian to the Duke of Gordon. The ducliess guessed them to be by Dr Beattie, and on learning they were by Burns, regretted they were not in the Scottish language. Streams that glide in orient plains, Never bound by Winter's chains ! Glowing here on golden sands. There commix'd with foulest stains From tyranny's empurpled bands : These, their richly-gleaming waves, I leave to tyrants and their slaves ; Give me the stream that sweetly laves The banks by Castle-Gordon. Spicy forests, ever gay. Shading from the burning ray Hapless wretches sold to toil. Or the ruthless native's way. Bent on slaughter, blood, and spoil : Woods that ever verdant wave, I leave the tyrant and the slave. Give me the groves that lofty brave The storms by Castle-Gordon. Wildly here without control, Nature reigns and rules the whole ; In that sober pensive mood, Dearest to the feeling soul. She plants the forest, pours the flood : Life's poor day I '11 musing i-ave. And find at night a sheltering cave. Where waters flow and wild woods wave, By bonny Castle-Gordon. ON SCAEING SOME WATER-FOWL IN LOCH TURIT, A "WILD SCENE AMONG THE HILLS OF OCHTEETTEK Why, ye tenants of the lake. For me your watery haunts forsake ? 56 POEMS. [1787. Tell mc, fellow-creatures, why At my presence thus you fly ? Why disturb your social joys, Parent, filial, kindred ties ?— Common friend to you and me, Nature's gifts to all are free : Peacefid keep your dimpling wave. Busy feed, or wanton lave ; Or, beneath the sheltering rock, Bide the surging billow's shock. Conscious, blushing for our race. Soon, too soon, your fears I trace. Man, your proud usurping foe, Would be lord of all below : Plumes himself in freedom's pride, Tyrant stern to all beside. The eagle, from the cliffy brow. Marking you his prey below. In his breast no pity dwells, Strong necessity compels : But man, to whom alone is given A ray direct from pitying Heaven, Glories in his heart humane — And creatures for his pleasure slain. In these savage, liquid plains, Only known to wandering swains, Where the mossy rivulet strays. Far from human haunts and ways ; All on nature you depend. And life's poor season peaceful spend. Or, if man s superior might Dare invade your native right. On the lofty ether borne, Man with all his powers you scorn : Swiftly seek, on clanging wings, Other lakes and other springs ; And the foe you cannot brave Scorn at least to be his slave. TO MISS CEUIKSHANK, A VEET YOUNG LADY. WRITTEN ON THE BLANK LEAF OF A BOOK PEESENTED TO HER BY THE AUTHOR. This young lady was the subject of one of the poet's songs, " A Rosebud by my Early Walk." She was the daughter of Mr Cruikshank, No. 30 St James's Square, Edinburgh, with whom the poet resided for some time dui'ing one of his visits to Edinburgh. She afterwards became the wife of Mr Henderson, a solicitor in Jed- burgh. Beauteous rosebud, young and gay. Blooming in thy early May, Never mayst thou, lovely flower, Chilly shrink in sleety shower ! Never Boreas' hoary path. Never Eurus' poisonous breath, Never baleful stellar lights, Taint thee with untimely blights ! Never, never reptile thief Riot on thy virgin leaf ! Nor even Sol too fiercely view Thy bosom bluahing still with dew ! Mayst thou long, sweet crimson gem, Richly deck thy native stem : Till some evening, sober calm, Dropping dews, and breathing balm, Wlule all around the woodland rings, And every bird thy requiem sings ; Thou, amid the dirgeful sound, Shed thy dying honours round, And resign to parent earth The loveliest form she e'er gave birth. POETICAL ADDRESS TO MR WILLIAM TYTLER. WITH A PRESENT OF THE BAED'S PICTURE. "William Tytler, Esq., of Woodhouselee, to whom these lines were addressed, wrote a work in defence of Mary Queen of Scots, and earned the gratitude of Burns, who had all a poet's sympathies for the unfor- tunate and beautiful queen. Mr Tytler was grand- father to Patrick Eraser Tytler, the author of " The History of Scotland." Revered defender of beauteous Stuart, Of Stuart, a name once respected, — A name which to love was the mark of a true heart. But now 'tis despised and neglected. Though something like moisture conglobes in my eye. Let no one misdeem me disloyal ; A poor friendless wanderer may well claim a sigh, Still more, if that wanderer were royal. My fathers that name have revered on a throne ; My fathers have fallen to right it ; Those fathers would spurn their degenerate son, That name should he scoffingly sfight it. Still in prayers for King George I most heartily join, The queen, and the rest of the gentry ; Be they wise, be they foolish, isnothing of mine — Their title 's avow'd by my country. But why of this epoch a make such a fuss That gave us the Hanover stem ; If bringing them over was lucky for us, I 'm sure 'twas as lucky for them. But, loyalty, truce! we're on dangerous ground. Who knows how the fashions may alter ? The doctrine to-day that is loyalty sound, To-morrow may bring us a halter. I send you a trifle, a head of a bard, A trifle scarce worthy your care : But accept it, good sir, as a mark of regard, Sincere as a saint's dying prayer. Now life's chilly evening dim shades on your eye, And ushers the long dreary night ; But you, like the star that athwart gilds the sky. Your course to the latest is bright. ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF ROBERT DUNDAS, ESQ., OF ARNISTON,* LATE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COtiET OF SESSION. In a letter to Dr Geddes, Burns tells the fate of this ])Ocm, and makes his own comment : — " The follow- ing elegy has some tolerable lines in it, but the in- curable wound of my pride will not suffer me to cor- rect, or even peruse, it. I sent a copy of it, with my best prose letter, to the son of the great man, the theme of the piece, by the hands of one of the noblest * Elder brother to Viscount Melville, born 1718, appointed President in 1761), and died December 18, 1787, after a short illness. ^T. 29.] POEMS, 57 men in God's world — Alexander Wood, surgeon. When, behold ! his solicitorsliip took no more notice of my poem or me than if I had been a strolling fiddler who had made free with his lady's name over a silly new reel I Did the gentleman imagine that I looked for any dirty gratuity 'i " Lone on the bleaky hills the straying flocks Shun the fierce storms among the sheltering rocks ; Down foam the rivulets, red with dashing raLiis ; The gathering floods burst o'er the distant plains ; Beneath the blast the leafless forests groan ; The hollow caves return a sullen moan. Ye hills, ye plains, ye forests, and ye caves. Ye howling winds, and wintry -swelling waves I Unheard, unseen, by human ear or eye, Sad to your sympathetic scenes I fly ; Wliere, to the whistling blast and waters' roar Pale Scotia's recent wound I may deplore. Oh heavy loss, thy countiy ill could bear ! A loss these evil days can ne'er repair ! Justice, the high vicegerent of her God, Her doubtful balance eyed, and sway'd her rod ; She heard the tidings of the fatal blow. And sunk, abandon'd to the wildest woe. "Wrongs, injuries, from many a darksome den, Now gay in hope explore the paths of men : See, from his cavern, grim Oppression rise. And throw on Poverty his cruel eyes ; Keen on the helpless victim see him fly, And stifle, dark, the feebly-bursting cry. Mark rufiian Violence, distained with crimes, Rousing elate in these degenerate times ; View unsuspecting Innocence a prey. As guileful Fraud points out the erring way : While subtle Litigation's pliant tongue The life-blood equal sucks of Right and "Wrong : Hark! injured Want recounts th' unlisten'd tale. And much-wrong'd IMisery pours the impitied wail! Ye dark waste hills, and brown unsightly plains, To you I sing my grief -inspired strains : Ye tempests, rage ! ye turbid torrents, roll ! Ye suit the joyless tenor of my soul. Life's social haunts and pleasures I resign, Be nameless wilds and lonely wanderings mine, To mourn the woes my country must endure, That wound degenerate ages cannot cure. TO CLAEDTDA. ON THE poet's LEAVING EDINBUEGH. The maiden name of Clarinda was Agnes Craig. At the time Burns made her acquaintance she was the wife of a Mr M'Lehose, from whom she had been separated on account of incompatibility of temper, &c. She seems to have entertained a sincere affection for the poet. Burns, who was always engaged in some affair of the heart, seems to have been much less sincere. His letters to her are somewhat forced and stilted, and contrast very unfavourably with those of hers which have been preserved. He soon forgot her, how- ever, to her great regret and mortification. She was beautiful and accomplished, and a poetess. (See pre- fatoi7 note to Letters to Clarinda.) Burns thus alludes to one of her productions :— " Your last verses to me have 60 delighted me that I have got an excellent old Scots air that suits the measure, and you shall see them in print in the Scots Musical Museum, a work publishing by a friend of mine in this town. The air is ' The Banks of Spey,' and is most beauti- ful. I want four stanzas— you gave me but thi-ee, and one of them alluded to an expression in my for- mer kttir : so I have taken your first two verses, with a slight alteration In tlie second, and have added a third ; but you must help me to a fourth. Here they are ; the latter half of the first stanza would have been worthy of Sappho ; I am in raptures with it : — " ' Talk not of Love, it gives me pain, For Love has been my foe ; He bound me with an iron chain, And plunged me deep in woe. " ' But friendship's pure and lasting joys My heart was form'd to prove ; There, welcome, win, and wear the prise, But never talk of Love. *« ' Your friendship much can make me blest, Oh ! why that bliss destroy ? Why urge the odious [only] one request You know I must [willj deny?' "P. ,Sf.— Wliat would you think of this for a fourth stanza ? " ' Your thought, if Love must harbour there. Conceal it in that thought ; Nor cause me from my bosom tear The very friend I sought.' " These verses are inserted in the second volume of the Musical Museum. Clarinda, mistress of my soul. The measured time is run ! The wretch beneath the dreary pole, So marks his latest sun. To what dark cave of frozen night Shall poor Sylvander hie ? Deprived of thee, his life and light, The sun of all his joy ! We part — but, by these precious drons That fill thy lovely eyes ! No other light shall guide my steps Till thy bright beams arise. She, the fair sun of all her sex. Has blest my glorious day ; And shall a glimmering planet fix My worship to its ray ? TO CLARINDA. WITH A PEESENT OF A PAIE OF DEINKING-GLASSES. ! Faie empress of the poet's soul, And queen of poetesses ; Clarinda, take this little boon, This humble pair of glasses. And fill them high with generous juice, As generous as your mind ; And pledge me in the generous toast— " The whole of humankind !" " To those who love us !" — second fill ; But not to those whom we love ; Lest we love those who love not us ! A third — "To thee and me, love ! " Long may we live ! long may we love ! And long may we be happy ! And may we never want a glass Well charged with generous nappy ! TO CLARINDA, Befoee I saw Clarinda's face. My heart was blithe and gay. Free as the wind, or feather'd race That hop from spray to spray. But now dejected I appear, Clarinda proves unkind; 5S POEMS. [1788. I, sigliing, drop the silent tear, But no relief can find. In plaintive notes my tale rehearses When I the fair have found ; On every tree appear my verses That to her praise resound. But she, ungrateful, shuns my sight, My faithful love disdains, My vows and tears her scorn excite — Another happy reigns. Ah, though my looks betray, 1 envy your success ; Yet love to friendship shall give way, I cannot wish it less. TO CLAKINDA. " I BURN, I burn, as when through ripen'd com. By driving winds, the crackling flames are borne ! " Now maddening, wild, I curse that fatal night ; Now bless the hour which charm'd my guilty sight. In vain the laws their feeble force oppose ; ^ Chain'd at his feet they groan. Love's vanquished foes : In vain Religion meets my shrinking eye ; I dare not combat — but I turn and fly : Conscience in vain upbraids the unhallow'd fire ; Love grasps its scorpions— stifled they expire ; Reason drops headlong from his sacred throne, Your dear idea reigns, and reigns alone : Each thought intoxicated homage yields, And riots wanton in forbidden fields ! By all on high adoring mortals know ! ]iy all the conscious villain fears below ! By your dear self ! — the last great oath I swear — Nor life nor soxil was ever half so dear ! LINES WRITTEN IN FRIAKS' CARSE HERMITAGE, ON THE BANKS OF THE NITH. {First Version.) Bums thought so well of this poem, that he preserved both copies. The first was written in June 1783. The MS. of the amended copy is headed, "Altered from the foregoing, in December 1788." The hermi- tage in which these lines were written was on the pro- perty of Captain Riddel of Friars' Carse, a beauti- ful house with fine grounds, a mile above Ellisland. One of the many kindly favours extended to the poet by Captain Riddel and his accomplished lady was the permission to wander at will in the beautiful grounds of Friars' Carse. The first six lines were graven with a diamond on a pane of glass in a window of the hermitage. Thou whom chance may hither lead. Be thou clad in russet weed. Be thou deckt in silken stole, Grave these maxims on thy soul : — Life is but a day at most. Sprung from night, in darkness lost ; Day, how rapid in its flight- Day, how few must see tlie night ; Hope not sunshine every hour. Fear not clouds will always lower. Happiness is but a name, Make content and ease thy aim ; Ambition is a meteor gleam ; Fame an idle, restless dream : Pleasures, insects on the wing Round Peace, the tenderest flower of Spring ! Those that sip the dew alone, ]\Iake the butterflies thy o^vn ; Those that would the bloom devour, Crush the locusts — save the flower. For the future be prepared. Guard Avhatever thou canst guard : But, thy utmost duly done, Welcome what thou canst not shun. Follies past give thou to air. Make their consequence thy care : Keep the name of man in mind. And dishonour not thy kind. Reverence with lowly heart Him whose wondrous work thou art ; Keep His goodness still in view. Thy trust— and thy example, too. Stranger, go ! Heaven be thy guide ; Quoth the Beadsman on Nithside. LINES WRITTEN IN FRIARS' CARSE HERMITAGE, ON NITHSIDE. (Second Version.) Thou whom chance may hither lead. Be thou clad in russet weed. Be thou deckt in silken stole. Grave these cQuusels on thy soul : — Life is but a day at most. Sprung from night, in darkness lost ; Hope not sunshine every hour. Fear not clouds will always lower. As Youth and Love, with sprightly dance, Beneath thy morning-star advance, Pleasure, with her siren air, May delude the thoughtless pair ; Let Prudence bless Enjoyment's cup, Then raptured sip, and sij) it up. As thy day grows warm and high. Life's meridian flaming nigh, Dost thou spurn the humble vale ? Life's proud summits wouldst thou scale ? Check thy climbing step, elate, Evils lurk in felon wait : Dangers, eagle -pinion'd, bold. Soar around each cliffy hold. While cheerful Peace, with linnet song. Chants the lowly dells among. As the shades of evening close. Beckoning thee to long repose ; As life itself becomes disease. Seek the chimney -neuk of ease, There ruminate with sober thought On all thou 'st seen, and heard, and Avrought J And teach the sportive younkers round, Saws of experience sage and sound : Say, man's true, genuine estimate, The grand criterion of his fate, Is not — Art thou high or low ? Did thy foi-tune ebb or flow? Wast thou cottager or king ? Peer or peasant? — no such thing! Did many talents gild tliy span ? Or frugal Nature grudge' thee one? Tell them, and ]uess it on their mind. As thou thyself must shortly find, ^T. 30.] POEMS. 59 The smiJe or frown of awful Heaven To Virtue or to Vice is given. Say, "To be just, and kind, and wise, There solid Self -enjoyment lies ; That foolish, selfish, faithless ways Lead to the wretched, vile, and base." Thus resign'd and quiet, creep To the bed of lasting sleep ; Sleep, whence thou shalt ne'er awake, Xight, where dawn shall never break. Till future life —future no more — To light and joy the good restore. To light and joy unknown before ! Stranger, go ! Heaven be thy guide ! Quoth the beadsman of Nithside. A MOTHER'S LAMENT FOR THE DEATH OF HER SOX. The poet says:— '"The Mother's Lament' was com- posed partly with a view to Mrs Fergusson of Cmip- darroch, and partly to the worthy patroness of my farly unknown muse, Mrs Stewart of Afton." It was also inserted in the Musical Museum, to the tune of " Finlayston House." Fate gave the word, the arrow sped, And pierced my darling's heart ; And with him all the joys are fled Life can to me impart. By cruel hands the sapling drops, In dust dishonour'd laid ; So fell the pride of aU my hopes, My age's future shade. The mother-linnet in the brake Bewails her ravish'd young ; So I, for my lost darlings sake, Lament the live-day long. Death, oft I 've fear'd thy fatal blow, Xow, fond, I bare my breast. Oh, do thou kindly lay nie low With him I love, at rest ! ELEGY OX THE YEAR 1788. A SKETCH. Cnnningham says :—" Truly has the ploughman bard described the'natures of those illustrious rivals, Fox and Pitt, under the similitude of the ' birdie cocks.' Nor will the allusion to the ' hand-cuffed, muzzled, half-shuckled regent ' be lost on those who remem- ber the alaim into which the nation was thrown by the king's illness." For lords or kings I dinna mourn, E'en let them die— for that they 're bom ! But oh ! prodigious to reflec' ! A towmont,! sirs, is gane to wreck ! O Eighty-eight, in thy sma' space What dire events hae taken place ! Of what enjojTnents thou hast reft us ! In what a pickle thou hast left us ! The Spanish empire's tint^ a head. And my auld teethless Bawtie 's^* dead ; The tulzie 's^ sair 'tween Pitt and Fox, And our guidwife's wee birdie cocks ; The tane is game, a bluidy devil. But to the hen-birds unco civil ; 1 Twelvemonth. 3 His dog. 2 Lost. * Fight The tither 's something dour o' treadin', But better stuff ne'er claw'd a midden. Ye ministers, come mount the pu'pit, And cr}' till ye be hoarse and roopit, For Eighty-eight he wish'd you weel, And gied you a' baith gear^ and meal ; E'en mony a plack, and mony a peck, Ye ken yoursels, for little feck ! ^ Ye bonny lasses, dight ^ your een, For some o' you hae tint a frien' ; In Eighty-eight, ye ken,* was ta'en "VMiat ye '11 ne'er hae to gie again. Observe the very nowte' and sheep. How dowf and dowie^ now they creep ; Nay, even the yirth itsel does cry, For Embrugh wells are grutten^ dry. O Eighty -nine, thou 's but a bairn, And no owi-e auld, I hope, to learn ! Thou beardless boy, I pray tak care. Thou now hast got thy daiddy's chair, Xae hand-cuff'd, muzzled, half-shackled regent. But, like himsel, a full, free agent. Be sure ye follow out the plan Nae waur^ than he did, honest man ! As muckle better as you can, Jan. 1, 1789. TO CAPTAESr RIDDEL OF GLENRIDDEL. EXTEMPORE LINES ON RETURNING A NEWSPAPER, The newspaper sent contained some sharp strictures on the poet's works. Ellislasd, Monday Evening. Your news and review, sir, I've read through and through, sir. With little admiring or blaming ; The papers are barren of home news or foreign, Xo murders or rapes worth the naming. Our friends, the reviewers, those chippers and hewers. Are judges of mortar and stone, sir ; But of meet or unmeet, in a. fabric complete^ I boldly pronounce they are none, sir. My goose-quill too rude is to tell all your good- ness Bestow'd on your servant, the poet ; Would to God I had one like a beam of the sun. And then all the world, sir, should know it ! ODE: SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF MRS OSWALD. The origin of this bitter and not very creditable effusiort is thus related by the poet in a letter to Dr Moore : — "The enclosed 'Ode' is a compliment to the memory of the late Mrs Oswald of Auchincruive. You prob ably knew her personally, an honour which I can- not boast, but I spent my early years in her neigh- bourhood, and among her servants and tenants. I know that she was detested with the most heartfelt cordiality. However, in the particular part of her conduct which roused my poetic wrath she was much less blamable. In January last, on my road to Ayr- shire, I had to put up at Bailie Whigham's in San- i Goods. 2 Work. * Know. 6 Pithless and low-spirited. 8 Worse. » Wipe. » Cattle. 7 Wept. 6o POEMS, [1789. quhar, the only tolerable inn in the place. The frost ■w.as keen, and the grim evening and howling wind ■were ushering in a night of snow and drift. My horse and I were both much fatigued with the labours of the day; and just as my friend the bailie anAI were bidding defiance to the storm, over a smoking bowl, in wheels tl-.e funeral pageantry of the late Mrs Oswald ; and poor I am forced to brave all the terrors of the tempestuous night, and jade my horse — my . young favourite hoi-se, whom I had just christened "Pegasus— further on, through the wildest hills and moors of Ayrshire, to New Cumnock, the next inn. The powers of poesy and prose sink under me when I would describe what I felt. Suffice it to say that, when a good fire at New Cumnock had so far recovered my frozen sinews, I sat down and wrote the enclosed ' Ode.' " The poet lived to think more favourably of the name : one of his finest lyrics, " Oh, wat ye wha 's in yon town," was written in honour of the beauty of the succeeding Mrs Oswald. Dweller in yon dungeon dark, Hangman of creation, mark ! Who in widow-weeds appears, Laden with unhonour'd years, Noosing with care a bursting jjurse, Baited with many a deadlj'' cui'se ! STROPHE. View the wither'd ■beldam's face — Can thy keen inspection trace Aught of humanity's sweet melting Note that eye, 'tis rheum o'erflows, Pity's flood there never rose. See these hands, ne'er strefcch'd to save, Hands that took— but never gave. Keeper of Mammon's iron chest, Lo, there she goes, uni)itied and unblest — She goes, but not to realms of everlasting rest ! ANTISTROPHK Plunderer of armies, lift tliine eyes, (A while forbear, ye torturing fiends ;) Seest thou whose step, unwilling, hither "bends ? No fallen angel, hurl'd from upjjer skies ; 'Tis thy trusty quondam mate, Doom'd to share thy fiery fate, She, tardy, hellward plies. EPODE. And are they of no more avail, TcD thousand glittering pounds a year ? In other worlds can Mammon fail, Omnipotent as he is here ? Oh, bitter mockery of the pompoua bier, "While down the wretched vital part is driven ! The cave-lodged beggar, with a conscience clear. Expires in rags, unknown, and goes to heaven. TO JOHN TAYLOR. "The poet," says a correspondent of Cunningham's, "it seems, during one of his journeys over his ten parishes as an exciseman, had arrived at Wanlock- head on a winter day, when the roads were slippery with ice, and Jennv Geddes, his mare, kept her feet with difficulty. The blacksmith of the place was busied with o'ther jireFsing matters in the forge, and could not spare time for 'frosting' the shoes of the poet's mare, and it is likely he would have proceeded on his dangerous journey, had he notbethought himself of propitiating the son of Vulcan with verse. lie called for pen and ink, wrote these verses to John Taylor, a person of inlluencc in AVanlockhead ; and when he had done, a gentleman of the name of Sloan, who accompanied him, added these words : — ' J. Sloan's best compliments to Mr Taylor, and it would be doing him and the Ayrshire bard a })artici:lnr favour, if Jjo would oblige them instanter Avith his agreeable com- pany. The road has been so slippery that the riders and the brutes werj etjually in danger of getting some of their bones broken. I'or the poet, his life and limbs are of some consequence to tlie world ; but for poor Sloan, it matters very little what may become ot him. The whole of this business is to ask the favour of getting the horses' shoes sharpened.' On the re- ceipt of this, Taylor spoke to the smith ; the smith flew to his tools, sharpened the horses' shoes, and, it is recoi'ded, lived thirty years to say he had never been ' weel paid buc ance, and that was by the poet, who paid him in money, paid him in drink, and paid liim in verse.' " With Pegasus upon a day, Apollo weary Hying, Through frosty bills clio ;ioumey lay. On foot the way v.'as plying. Poor slipshod giddy Pegasus Was but a sorry walker ; To Vulcan then Apollo goes, To get a frosty caulker. * Obliging Vulcan fell to work, Threw by his coat and bonnet, • And did Sol's business in a crack ; Sol paid him with a sonnet. Ye Vulcan's sons of Wanlockhead, Pity my sad disaster ; My Pegasus is poorly shod — I '11 pay you like my master. Egbert Burns. Ramage's, 1}>,re& o'clock. SKETCH : INSCRIBED TO THE RIGHT HON. 0. J. FOX. In a letter to Mrs Dunlop the poet says, "I have a poetic whim in my head, which I at present dedicate, ' or rather inscribe, to the Right Hon. Charles James ! Fox ; but how long that fancy may hold, I cannot | say. A few of the first lines I have just rough- sketched as follows : " — ! How wisdom and folly meet, mix, and unite ; How virtue and vice blend tiieir black and their white ; How genius, the illustrious father of fiction. Confounds rule and law, reconciles contradic- tion — I sing: if these mortals, the critics, should bustle, I care not, not I— let the critics go whistle ! But now for a patron, whose name and whose glory At once may illustrate and honour my story. Thou first of our orators, first of our wits ; Yet whose parts and acquirements seera mere lucky hits ; With knowledge so vast, and with judgment so strong. No man with the half of 'em e'er went far wrong; With passions so potent, and fancies so bright, No man with the half of 'em e'er went quite riglit ;— A sorry, poor misbcgot son of the Muses, For using thy name offers fifty excuses. Good Lord, what is man? for as simple he looks, Do but try to develop liis hooks and his crooks ; With his depths and his shallows, his good and his evil ; All in all he's a problem must puzzle the devil. * A nan put into a shoo to prevent the foot from slipping in frosty weather. /ET. 31.] POEMS. 61 On his one ruling passion Sir Pope hugely labours. That, like the old Hebre-w -walking-switch, eats up its neighbours ; Mankind are his shoAV-box — a friend, would you know him ? Pull the string, ruling passion the picture will show him. "V.Tiat pity, in rearing so beauteous a system. One trifling particular truth should have miss'd him ; For, spite of his fine theoretic positions, Mankind is a science defies definitions. Some sort all our qualities each to its tribe, And think human nature they truly describe ; If ave you found this, or t'other ? there 's more in the wind, As bv one drunken fellow his comrades you '11 find. ^ But such is the flaw, or the depth of the plan, In the make of that wonderful creature call'd man, No two virtues, whatever relation they claim, Nor even two different shades of the same. Though like as was ever twin brother to brother, Possessing the one shall imply you 've the other. But truce with abstraction, and truce with a Muse, Whose rhymes you '11 perhaps, sir, ne'er deign to peruse : Will you leave your justings, your jars, and your quarrels. Contending with Billy for proud-nodding laurels ? My much-honour'd patron, believe your j)oor poet, Your courage much more than yourprudence you show it ; In vain with Squire Billy for laurels you struggle, He '11 have them by fair trade, if not, he will smuggle ; Not cabinets even of kings would conceal 'em, He 'd up the back-stairs, and by God he would steal 'em. Then feats like Squire BiUy's you ne'er can achieve 'em, It is not, outdo him, the task ia out-thiove hini. VEESES ON SEEING A WOtTNDED HARE LIMT BT ME WHICH A FELLOW HAD JUST SHOT. This poem was founded on a real incident. James Thomson, a neighbour of the poet's, states that hav- ing shot at, and wounded a hare, it ran past the poet, who happened to be near, "he cursed me, and said he would not mind throwing me into the water ; and I'll warrant he could hae done't, though 1 wa» both young and strong." Enhusian man ! curse on thy barb'rous art. And blasted be thy murder-aiming eye ; May never pity soothe thee with a sigh, Nor ever pleasure glad thy cruel heart ! 60 live, poor wanderer of the wood and field! The bitter little that of life remain* : No more the thickening bnikea and verdant plains To thee shall home, or food, or pastime yield. Seek, mangled wretch, some place of wonted rest, No more of rest, but now thy dying bed I The sheltering rushes whistling o'er thy head, The cold earth with thy bloody bosom prest. Oft as by winding Nith, I, musing, wait The sober eve, or hail the cheerful dawn ; I '11 miss thee sporting o'er the dewy lawn. And curse the ruffian's aim, and mourn thj' hap- ^ less fate. DELIA. AN ODE. This ode was sent to the Star newspaper with the fol:- lowing characteristic letter: — "Mr Printer, — If the productions of a simple ploughman can merit a place in the same paper with the other favourites of the Muses who illuminate the Star with the lustre of genius, your insertion of the enclosed trifle will be succeeded by future communications from, yours, Ac, " Robert Buaxs. " Ellislaxd, near Dumfkies, May IS, 1789." Fair the face of orient day, Fair the tints of opening rose ; But fairer still my Delia dawns, More lovely far her beauty blows. Sweet the lark's wild-warbled lay, Sweet the tinkhng rill to hear ; But, Delia, more delightful still. Steal thine accents on mine ear.^^ The flower-enamour'd busy bee. The rosy banquet loves to sip ; Sweet the streamlet's limpid lapse To the sxm-brown'd Arab's lip. But, Delia, on thy balmy lips Let me, no vagrant insect, rove ! Oh, let me steal one liquid kiss ! For, oh ! my soul is parch'd with love ! ADDEESS TO THE TOOTHACHE. WRITTEN WHEN THE AUTHOR WAS GRIEVOUSLT TORMENTED BY THAT DISORDEB. My curse upon thy venom'd stang. That shoots my tortured gums alang ; And through my lugs gies mony a twang, Wi' gnawing vengeance; Tearing my nerves wi' bitter pang. Like racking engines! When fevers bum, or ague freezes, Rheumatics gnaw, or cholic squeezes ; Our neighbour's sympathy may ease us, Wi' pitying moan ; But thee — thou hell o' a' diseases. Aye mocks our groan I Adown my beard the slavers trickle ! I kick the wee stools o'er the rnickle. As round the fire the giglets keckle,^ To see me loup ; ^ While, raving mad, I wish a heckle * Were in their doup. Of a' the numerous human dools,^ 111 haii-sts, daft bargains, cutty-stools. 1 The mirthful children laugh. 3 Troubles. Jump. * A frame in which is stuck, sharp ends uppermost, from fifty to a hundred steel spikes, through which the hemp is drawn to straighten it for manufacturing pur 62 POEMS. [1789. Or worthy friends raked i* the mools,i Sad sight to see ! The tricks o' knaves, or fash o' fools, Thou bear'st the gree. Where'er that place be priests ca' hell, AVTience a' the tones o' misery yell, And ranked plagues their numbers tell, In dreadfu' raw. Thou, Toothache, surely bear'st the bell Amang them a' ! O thou grim mischief -making chiel, That gars the notes of discord squeel. Till daft mankind aft dance a reel In gore a shoe thick, Gie a' the faes o' Scotland's weal A towmond's^ toothache ! THE KIRK'S ALAEM. A SATIEE. We quote Lockhart's account of the origin of the "Kirk's Alarm :" — " M'Gill and Dalrymple, the two ministers of the town of Ayr, had long been suspected of entertaining heterodox opinions on several points, particularly the doctrine of original sin and the Trinity; and the former at length published 'An Essay on the Death of Jesus Christ,' which was con- sidered as demanding the notice of the Church courts. More than a year was spent in the discussions which arose out of this : and at last, Dr M'Gill was fain to acknowledge his errors, and promise that he would take an early opportunity of apologising for them to his congregation from the pulpit, which promise, however, he never performed. The gentry of the country took, for the most part, the side of M'Gill, who was a man of cold, unpopular manners, but of unreproached moral character, and possessed of some accomplishments. The bulk of the lower orders espoused, with far more fervid zeal, the cause of those who conducted the prosecution against this erring doctor. Gavin Hamilton, and all persons of his stamp, were, of course, on the side of M'Gill — Auld and the Mauchline elders with his enemies. Kobert Aiken, a writer in Ayr, a man of remarkable talents, particularly in public speaking, had the principal management of M 'Gill's cause before the presbytery and the synod. He was an intimate friend of Hamilton's, and through him had about this time formed an acquaintance which soon ripened Into a warm friendship with Burns. Burns was, therefore, from the beginning, a zealous, as in the end he was, perhaps, the most effective, partisan of the side on which Aiken had staked so much of his reputation." Orthodox, orthodox, Wha believe in John Knox, Let me sound an alarm to your conscience— There 's a heretic blast Has been blawn i* the wast. That what is not sense must be nonsense. Doctor Mac,* Doctor Mac, You should stretch on a rack, To strike evil-doers wi* terror ; To join faith and sense, Upon ony pretence. Is heretic, damnable error. Town of Ayr, town of Ayr, It was mad, I declare, 1 Grave — earth. ' Twelvemonth's. ♦ Dr M'GiU. To meddle wi' mischief a-brewing ; Provost John* is still deaf To the Church's relief. And Orator Bobf is its ruin. D'rymple mild, J D'rymple mild. Though your heart 's like a child, And your life like the new-driven snaw ; Yet that winna save ye, Auld Satan must have ye. For preaching that three 's ane and twa» Rumble John,§ Rumble John, Mount the steps wi' a groan. Cry the book is wi' heresy cramm'd ; Then lug out your ladle. Deal brimstone like adle, ^ And roar every note of the damn'd. Simper James, || Simper James, Leave the fair Killie'-^ dames, There 's a holier chase in your view ; I '11 lay on your head That the pack ye '11 soon lead. For puppies like you there 's but few. Singet Sawney,^ Singet^ Sawney, Are ye herding the penny, Unconscious what evil await ? Wi' a jump, yell, and howl. Alarm every soul. For the foul thief is just at your gate. Daddy Auld,** Daddy Auld, There 's a tod * in the fauld, A tod meikle waur than the clerk ; W Though ye downa do skaith," Ye '11 be in at the death. And if ye canna bite, ye can bark. Davie Bluster, J J Davie Bluster, For a saunt if ye muster. The corps is no nice of recruits ; Yet to worth let 's be just. Royal blood ye might boast. If the ass were the king of the brutes. Jamie Goose, §§ Jamie Goose, Ye hae made but toom roose,^ In hunting the wicked lieutenant ; But the doctor 's your mark, For the Lord's haly ark He has cooper'd and ca'd^ a wrang pin in 't. Poet Willie, I! II Poet Willie, Gie the Doctor a volley, 1 Putrid water. * Fox, 1 Driven. 2 Kilmarnock. « Harm. 3 Singed. c Empty fame. * John BixUantyne, Esq., provost of Ayr, to whom the "Twa Brigs" is dedicated. t Mr Robert Aiken, writer in Ayr, to whom the "Cot- ter's Saturday Night" is inscribed. He was agent for Dr M'Gill in the presbytery and synod. X The Rev. Dr William Dalrymple, senior minister of the collegiate church of Ayr. { The Rev. John Russell, celebrated in the " Holy Fair." II The Rev. James Mackinlay, the hero of the "Ordi- nation." ^ The Rev. Alexander Moodie, of Riccarton, one of the heroes of the "Twa Herds." «• The Rev. Mr Auld, of Mauchline. tt The clerk was Mr Gavin Hamilton, who had been a thorn in the side of Mr Auld. \X Mr Gnint, Ochiltree. §§ Mr Young, Cumnock. nil The Rev. Dr Peebles, of Newton-upon-Ayr, the author of an Indifferent poem on the centenary of the Revolution, iu which occurred the line to which th» poet alludes. ^T. 31.] POEMS. 63 Wi' your " Liberty's chain" and your wit ; O'er Pegasus' side Ye ne'er laid a stride, Ye but smelt, man, the place where he Andro Gouk,* Andro Gouk, Ye may slander the book, And the book nane the waur, let me tell ye ; Though ye 're rich, and look big. Yet lay by hat and wis. And ye 'U hae a calf s head o' sma' value. Barr Steenie,f Barr Steenie, What mean ye, what mean ye ? If ye *11 meddle nae mair wi' the matter, Ye may hae some pretence To havins ^ and sense, Wi' people wha ken ye nae better. Irvine side,:!: Irvine side, Wi' your turkey-cock pride, Of manhood but sma' is your share ; Ye 've the figure, 'tis true. Even your faes wiU allow. And your friends they daur grant you nae mair. Muirland Jock,§ Muirland Jock, When the Lord makes a rock To crush Common Sense for her sins, If ill manners were wit, There 's no mortal so fit To confound the poor Doctor at ance. Holy Will, il Holy WiU, There was wit i' your skull When ye pilfer'd the alms o' the poor ; The timmer is scant, When ye 're ta'en for a saunt, Wha should swing in a rape for an hovir. Calvin's sons, Calvin's sons, Seize your spiritual guns, Ammunition you never can need ; Your hearts are the stuff Will be powther enough. And your skulls are storehouses o' lead. Poet Bums, Poet Burns, Wi' your priest-skelping turns. Why desert ye your auld native shire ? Your Muse is a gipsy — E'en though she were tipsy, She could ca' us nae waur than we are. THE WHISTLE. Bams says, "As the authentic prose history of the 'Whistle' is curious, I shall here give it:— In the train of Anne of Denmark, when she came to Scot- land with our James the Sixth, there came over also a Danish gentleman of gigantic stature and great prowess, and a matchless champion of Bacchus. He had a little ebony whistle, which at the commence- ment of the orgies he laid on the table, and whoever was the last able to blow it, everybody else being disabled by the potency of the bottle, was to carry off the whistle as a trophy of victory. The Dane pro- duced credentials of his victories, without a single defeat, at the courts of Copenhagen, Stockholm, Mos- cow, Warsaw, and several of the petty courts in Ger- 1 Good manners. ♦ Dr Andrew MitcheU, Monkton, a wealthy member of presbytery. t Rev. Stephen Young, Barr. ♦ Rev. Mr George Smith, Galston. § Mr John Shepherd, Muirkirk. II William Fisher, elder in Mauchline, whom Bums so often scourged. many; and challenged the Scots Bacchanalians to the alternative of trying his prowess, or else of acknowledging their inferiority. After many over- throws on the part of the Scots, the Dane was en- countered by Sir Robert Lawrie of Maxwelton, ances- tor of the present worthy baronet of that name, who, after three days' and three nights' haid contest, left the Scandinavian under the table, And blew on the whistle his requiem shrill. Sir "Walter, son of Sir Robert before mentioned, after- wards lost the whistle to Walter Riddel of Glen- riddel, who had married a sister of Sir Walter's.— On Friday, the 16th of October 1789, at Friars' Carse, the whistle was once more contended for, as related in the ballad, by the present Sir Robert Lawrie of Maxwelton; Robert Riddel, Esq., of Glenriddel, lineal descendant and representjitive of Walter Rid- del, who won the whistle, and in whose family it had continued; and Alexander Ferguson, Esq., of Craigdar- roch, likewise descended from the great Sir Robert, which last gentleman carried off the hard-won honours of the field." A good deal of doubt was at one time felt as to whether Bums was present at the contest for the whistle — Professor Wilson having contended that he was not present, citing as evidence a letter to Cap- tain Riddel, which will be found in the General Corres- pondence. These doubts are now set at rest. Captaiu Riddel, in replying to the letter mentioned, invited the poet to be present. He answered as follows :— " The king's poor blackguard slave am I, And scarce dow spare a minute ; But I'll be with you by and by, Or else the devil 's in it ! " — B. Mr Chambers places the matter still further beyond doubt by quoting the testimony of William Hunter, then a "servant at Friars' Carse, who was living in 1851, and who distinctly remembered that Burns was there, and, what was better still, that Bums was re- markably temperate during the whole evening, and took no part in the debauch. I srXG of a whistle, a whistle of worth, I sing of a whistle, the pride of the Xorth, Was brought to the court of our good Scottish king. And long with this whistle all Scotland shall Old Loda,* still rueing the arm of Fingal, The god of the bottle sends down from his hall— "This whistle's your challenge — to Scotland get o'er. And drink them to hell, sir, or ne'er see me more ! " Old poets have sung, and old chronicles tell. What champions ventured, what champions fell ; The son of great Loda was conqueror still. And blew on the whistle his requiem shriU. Tin Robert, the lord of the Cairn and the Skarr, L^nmatch'd at the bottle, unconquer'd in war, He drank his poor godship as deep as the sea, No tide of the Baltic e'er drunker than he. Thus Robert, victorious, the trophy has gain'd ; AVhich now in his house has for ages remarn'd ; Till three noble chieftains, and all of his blood, The jovial contest again have renew'd. Three joyous good fellows, -with hearts clear of flaw: Craigdarroch, so famous for wit, worth, and law; And trusty Glenriddel, so skill'd in old coins ; And gallant Sir Robert, deep-read in old wines. See Ossian's Caric-thura.— .B. 64 POEMS. [1789. Craigdarroch began, witli a tongue smooth as oa, Desiring Glenriddel to yield tip the spoil ; Or else lie would muster the heads of the clan, And once more, in claret, try -which was the man. *' By the gods of the ancients ! " Glenriddel re- plies, "Before I surrender so glorious a prize, I'll conjure the ghost of the gi-eat Eorie More,* And bumper his horn with him twenty times o'er." Sir Bobert, a soldier, no speech would pretend. But he ne'er turn'd his back on his foe — or his friend, Said, Toss down the whistle, the prize of the field. And, knee-deep in claret, he'd die ere he'd yield. To the board of Glenriddel our heroes repair, i So noted for drowning of sorrow and care ; But for wine and for welcome not more known to fame, Than the sense, wit, and taste, of a sweet lovely dame. A bard was selected to witness the fray. And tell future ages the feats of the day ; A bard who detested all sadness and spleen, And wish'd that Parnassus a vineyard had been. The dinner being over, the claret they pl)^ And every new cork is a new spring of joy ; In the bands of old friendship and kindred so set. And the bands grew the tighter the more they were wet. Gay pleasure ran riot as bumpers ran o'er ; Bright Phoebus ne'er witness'd so joyous a core, And vow'd that to leave them he Avas quite for- lorn. Till Cynthia hinted he'd see them next mom. Six bottles apiece had well wore out the night, When gallant Sir Kobert, to finish the fight, Turn'd o'er in one bumper a bottle of red, And swore 'twas the way that their ancestors did. Then worthy Glenriddel, so cautious and sage. No longer the warfare, ungodly, would wage ; A high ruling-elder to wallow in wine ! He left the foul business to folks less divine. The gallant Sir Robert fought hard to the end; But who can with Fate and quart-bumpers con- tend? Though Fate said— A hero shall perish in light ; So up rose bright Phoebus— and down fell the knight. Next up rose our bard, like a prophet in drink : " Craigdarroch, thou It soar when creation shall sink! But if thou wouldst flourish iramoi-tal in rhyme, Come— one bottle more — and have at the sub- lime! "Tliyline, that have struggled for freedom with Bruce, Shall heroes and patriots ever produce : So thihe be the laurel, and mine be the bay ; The field thou hast won, by yon bi-ight god of day!" • Sec Johnson's Tonr to the n-bridca.— B. VERSES OjS" capt.ms- gsose's pekegrinations through scotland collecting the antiquities of that kingdom. Captain Grose, the hero of this poem, author of a Avork on the Antiquities of Scotland, was an enthusiastic antiquary, fond of good wine and good company. Burns met him at the hospitable table of Captuin Riddel of Friars' Carse. He died in Dublin, of an apoplectic fit, in 1791, in the 52d year of his age. Heae, Land o' Cakes, and brither Scots, Frae Maidenkirk * to Johnny Groat's ; If tliere 's a hole in a' your coats, I rede you tent^ it ; A chiel 's amang you takin' notes, And, faith, he '11 prent it ! If in your bounds ye chance to light Upon a fine, fat, fodgel " wigh.t, O' stature short, but genius bright. That 's he, mark weel — And wow ! he has an unco slight O' cauk and keel.f By some auld, houlet-haunted biggin', % Or kirk deserted by its riggin', It 's ten to ane ye '11 find him snug in Some eldritch ^ pai-t, Wi' deils, they say. Lord save 's ! colleaguin' At some black art. Ilk ghaist that haunts auld ha' or chaumer. Ye gipsy gang that deal in glamour,* And you, deep read in hell's black grammar, Warlocks and witches ; Ye '11 quake at his conjuring hammer. Ye midnight bitches ! It 's tauld he was a sodger bred. And ane wad rather fa'n than fled ; But now he 's quat the spurtle-blade And dog-skin wallet, And ta'en — the antiquarian trade, I tlunk they call it. He has a fouth^ o' auld nick-nackets. Rusty airn caps and jinglin' jackets,§ Wad baud the Lothians three in tackets A towmond guid ; And parritch-pats, and auld saut-backets, Afore the flood. Of Eve's first fire he has a cinder ; Anld Tubal Cain's fire-shool and fender ; That which distinguished the gender O' Balaam's ass ; A broomstick o* the witch o' Endor, Weel shod wi' brass. Forbye, he 11 shape you afF, fu' gleg,^ The cut of Adam's pliilabeg : The knife that nicket Abel's craig ^ He '11 prove you fully. It waa a faulding jocteleg, Or lang-kail gully. 1 need. 4 lUack art. 7 Throat. 2 Plump. 6 Abundance. 3 Unholy, c Full quickly. * An inversion of the name of Kirkmaiden, in TVig- tonshire, the most southerly parish iu Scotland. t Alluding to his powers a.s a draughtsman. X See his "Antiquities of Scotland." — B. § See his "Treatise on Ancient Armour and Wea- pons."—!.'. -ET. 31.] POEMS. But wad ye see liim in his glee, For meikle glee aud fun has he, Then set him down, and twa or three Guid fellows vvi' him ; And port, O port ! shine thou a wee. And then ye '11 see him ! Ifow, by the powers o' verse and prose ! Thou art a dainty chiel, O Grose ! — "Whae'er o' thee shall ill suppose, They sair misca' thee ; I 'd take the rascal by the nose, "Wad say, Shame fa' thee \ LINES VVHITTENT IN A WEAPPER, ENCLOSING A LETTER TO CAPTAIN GROSE. Bums having undertaken to gather some antiquarian and legendary material as to the ruins in Kyle, in sending them to Captain Grose under cover to Mr Cardonnel, a brother antiquaiy, tlie following verses, in imitation of the ancient ballad of '-Sir John Malcolm," were enclosed. Cardonnel read them everywhere, much to the captain's annoyance, and to the amusement of his friends. Ken ye ought o' Captain Grose ? Igo and ago, If he 's amang his friends or foes ? Iram, coram, dago. Is he south, or is he north ? Igo and ago, Or drownM in the river Fortk? Iram, coram, dago. Is he slain by Highlan' bodies f Igo and ago, And eaten like a wei.her-haggis? Iram, coram, dag«. Is he to Abra'm's bosom ganef Igo and ago. Or handin' Sarah by the wame ? Iram, coram, dagow "Where'er he be, the Lord be near him ! Igo and ago. As for the deil, he dauma steer him ! Iram, convm, dago. But please transmit the enclosed letter, Igo and ago, "Which will oblige yom- humble debtor, Iram, coram, dago. So may ye hae auld stanes in store, Igo and ago, The very stanes that Adam bore, Iram, coram, dago. So may ye get in glad possession, Igo and ago. The coins o' Satan's coronation ! Iram, coram, dago. SKETCH— NEW-YEAH'S DAY, [1790.] TO MRS DDNLOP. On the original MS. of these lines, the poet writes as follows: — '-On second thoughts I send you this ex- tempore blotted sketch. It is just the first random scrawl : but if you think the piece worth while, I shall retouch it, and finish it. Though I have no copy of it, my memory serves me." This day, Time winds the exhausted chain, To run the twelvemonth's length again ; I see the old, bsdd-pated fellow. With ardent eyes, complexion sallow, Adjust the xmimpair'd machine. To wheel the equal, dull routine. The absent lover, minor heir. In vain assail him with their prayer ; Deaf, as my fiiend, he sees them press. Nor makes the hour one moment less. "Will you (the Major's* with the hounds. The happy tenants share his rounds ; Coila 's fair Rachel's t care to-day. And blooming Keith 's % engaged with Gray) From housewife cares a minute borrow — That grandchild's cap will do to-morrow — And join with me a-moralising. This day 's propitious to be wise in. First, what did yesternight deliver? "Another year is gone for ever I" And what is this day's strong suggestion ? " The passing moment 's all we rest on I " Rest on — for what ? what do we here ? Or why regard the j^assing year ? "Will Time, amused with proverb'd lore. Add to our date one minute more ? A few days may — a few years must — Repose us in the silent dust. Then is it wise to clamp our bliss? Yes — all such reasonings are amiss ! The voice of Nature loudly cries. And many a message from the skies. That something in us never dies : That on this frail, uncertain state. Hang matters of eternal weight : That future life, in worlds unknown. Must take its hue from this alone ; Whether as heavenly glory bright. Or dark as Misery's woeful night. Since, then, my honour'd, first of friends. On this poor being all depends. Let us the important now employ. And live as those who never die. Though you, with days and honours croTni'd, Witness that filial cu-cle round, (A sight, life's sorrows to repulse, A sight, pale Envy to convulse,) Others now claim your chief regard : YourseK, you wait your bright reward. PROLOGUE, SPOKEN AT THE THEATRE, DUMFRIES, ON NBW- TEAR'S DAY EVENING, [1790.] Bums, writing to his brother Gilbert, says :— " We have gotten a set of very decent players here just now : I have seen them an evening or two. David Campbell, in Ayr, wrote to me by the manager of the company, a Mr'Sutherland, who is a man of apparent worth. On New-year's Day I gave him the following prologue, which he spouted to his audience with ap- plause : " — No song nor dance I bring from yon great city That queens it o'er our taste— the more's the pity: * Major, afterwards General, Andrew Donlop, Sirs Dnnlop's second son. t Miss Rachel Dunlop, who afterwards married nobert Glasgow, Esq. % Miss Keith Dunlop, the youngest daughter. 66 POEMS. [1790. Though, by the by, abroad why will you roam? j Grood sense and taste are natives here at home : j But not for panegyric I appear, ! I come to wish you all a good new year ! i Old Father Time deputes me here before ye, ! Not for to preach, but tell his simple story. ! The sage grave ancient cough'd, and bade me ! ^y* i *' You 're one year older this important day." i If wiser, too — he hinted some suggestion, ■ But 'twould be rude, you know, to ask the ' question ; ; And with a would-be roguish leer and wink, I He bade me on you press this one word — I " Think ! " j Ye sprightly youths, quite flush'd with hope i and spirit, Who think to storm the world by dint of merit. To you the dotard has a deal to say. In his sly, dry, sententious, proverb way ! { He bids you mind, amid your thoughtless rattle. That the first blow is ever half the battle ; That though some by the skirt may try to snatch him, Yet by the forelock is the hold to catch him ; That whether doing, suffering, or forbearing. You may do miracles by persevering. Last, though not least in love, ye faithful fair. Angelic forms, high Heaven's peculiar care ! To you old Bald-pate smooths his wrinkled brow, And humbly begs you'll mind the important Now! To crown your happiness he asks your leave, And offers bliss to give and to receive. For our sincere, though haply weak, endeavours, i With grateful pride we own your many favours; j And howsoe'er our tongues may ill reveal it, ' Believe our glowing bosoms truly feel it. TO THE OWL. This poem was originally printed, from a MS. in the poet's handwriting, by Cromek, who threw some doubts on its being written by Bums. But as the MS. copy showed occasional interlineations in the same hand, there can be little doubt, we presume, as to its authenticity. Sad bird of night, what sorrows call thee forth, To vent thy plaints thus in the midnight hour? Is it some blast that gathers in the north, Threatening to nip the verdure of thy bower? Is it, sad owl, that Autumn strips the shade, And leaves thee here, unshelter'd and forlorn? Or fear that Winter will thy nest invade ? Or friendless melancholy bids thee mourn ? Shut out, lone bird, from all the feather'd train, To tell thy sorrows to the unheeding gloom ; No friend to pity when thou dost complain, Grief all thy thought, and solitude thy home. Sing on, sad mourner ! I will bless thy strain, And pleased in sorrow listen to thy song : Sing on, sad mourner ; to the night complain. While the lone echo wafts thy notes along. Is beauty less, when down the glowing cheek Sad, piteous tears, in native soiTows fall ? Less kind the heart when anguish bids it break ? Less hapiiy he who lists to pity's call ? All no, sad owl ! nor is thy voice less sweet, That sadness tunes it, and that grief is there ; That spring's gay notes, imskill'd, thou canst repeat ; That sorrow bids thee to the gloom repair. Nor that the treble songsters of the day Are quite estranged, sad bird of night ! from thee ; Nor that the thrush deserts the evening spray, "WTien darkness calls thee from thy reverie. From some old tower, thy melancholy dome. While the gray walls, and desert solitudes, Beturn each note, responsive to the gloom Of ivied coverts and surrounding woods. There hooting, I will list more pleased to thee Than ever lover to the nightingale ; Or drooping wretch, oppress'd with misery, Lending his ear to some condoling tale. ( VERSES ON AN EVENING VIEW OF THE RUINR OF LDTCLV i-EN ABBEY.* Ye holy walls, that, still sublime, Resist the crumbling touch of time ; How strongly still your form displays The piety of ancient days ! As through your ruins, hoar and gray — Ruins yet beauteous in decay — The silvery moonbeams trembling fly : The forms of ages long gone by Crowd thick on Fancy's v/ondering eye, And wake the soul to musings high. Even now, as lost in thought profound, I view the solemn scene around. And, pensive, gaze with wistful eyes. The past returns, the present flies ; Again the dome, in pristine j)ride, Lifts high its roof and ai-ches wide. That, knit with curious tracery. Each Gothic ornament display. The high-arch'd windows, iminted fair, Show many a saint and martyr there. As on their slender forms I gaze, Methinks they brighten to a blaze ! With noiseless step and taper bright, What are yon forms that meet my sight? Slowly they move, while every eye Is heavenwai'd raised in ecstasy. 'Tis the fair, spotless, vestal train, That seek in prayer the midnight fane. And, hark ! what more than mortal sound Of music breathes the pile around ? 'Tis the soft-chanted choral song, Whose tones the echoing aisles prolong ; Till, thence return'd, they softly stray O'er Cluden's wave, with fond delay ; Now on the rising gale swell high. And now in fainting murmurs die ; The boatmen on Nith's gentle stream, That glistens in the pale moonbeam, Suspend their dashing oars to hear The holy anthem, loud and clear ; Each worldly thought a while forbear, And mutter forth a half-form'd prayer. But, as I gaze, the vision fails, Like frost-work touch'd by southern gales ; The altar sinks, the tapers fade. And all the splendid scene 's decay'd ; * On the banks of the river Cluden, and at a short distance from Dumfries, arc the beautiful ruins of the Abbey of Lincludcn, which was founded in the time of Malcolm, the fourth King of Scotland. ^T. 32.] POEMS. 67 In window fair tlie painted pane No longer glows with holy stain, But through the broken glass the gale Blows chilly from the misty vale ; The bird of eve flits sullen by, Her home these aisles and arches high ! The choral hymn, that erst so clear Broke softly sweet on Fancy's ear, Is drown'd amid the mournful scream That breaks the magic of my dream ! Boused by the sound, I start and see The ruin'd sad reality ! PROLOGUE, FOR MB SUTHERLAND'S BENEFIT NIGHT, DU3IFIIIE3. This prologue was accompanied with the following letter to Mr Sutherland, the manager of the Dum- fries Theatre : — ^'Monday Morning. ^' I was much disappointed in wanting your most agi'eeable company yesterday. However, I heartily pray for good weather next Sunday ; and whatever aerial being has the guidance of the elements, he may take any other half dozen of Sundays he pleases, and clothe them with Vapours, and clouds, and storms, Until he terrify himself At combustion of his own raising. I shall see you on Wednesday forenoon. In the greatest huiTy.— R. B." "What needs this din about the town o' Lon'on, How this new play and that new sang is comin'? ■\7hy is outlandish stuff sae meikle^ courted ? Does nonsensemend like whisky, when imported? Is there nae poet, burning keen for fame, AVill tiy to gie us sangs and plays at hame ? For comedy abroad he needna toil, A fool and knave are plants of every soil ;* Kor need he hunt as far as Rome and Greece To gather matter for a serious piece ; There 's themes enow in Caledonian story, Would show the tragic muse in a' her glory. Is there no daring bard will rise and tell How glorious "Wallace stood, how hapless fell? "Where are the Muses fled that could produce A drama worthy o' the name o' Bruce ; How here, even here, he first unsheath'd the^ sword, 'Gainst mighty England and her guilty lord; And after mony a bloody, deathless doing, "Wrench'd his dear country from the jaws of r^in? Oh for a Shakespeare or an Otway scene / To draw the lovely, hapless Scottish queen/! "Vain all the omnipotence of female charms 'Gainst headlong, ruthless, mad Rebellion's arms. She fell, but fell with spirit truly Roman, To glut the vengeance of a rival woman : A woman — though the phrase may seem uncivil— As able and as cruel as the devil ! One Douglas lives in Home's immortal page, But Douglases were heroes every age : And though your fathers, i^rodigal of life, A Douglas followed to the martial strife. Perhaps if bowls row right, and Right succeeds, Ye yet may follow where a Douglas leads ! As ye hae generous done, if a' the land "Would take the Muses' servants bv the hand ; 1 Much. Isot only hear, but patronise, befriend them. And where ye justly can commend, commend them; And aiblins when they winna stand the test, Wmk hard and say the folks hae done their best ! "Would a' the land do this, then I '11 be caution Ye '11 soon hae poets o' the Scottish nation, Will gar Fame blaw until her trumpet crack, And warsle^ Time, and lay him on his back ! For us and for our stage should ony spier,^ " AVha's aught thae chiels maks a' this bustle here?" ]\Iy best leg foremost, I '11 set up my brow, "We have the honour to belong to you ! "We 're your ain bairns, e'en guide us as ye like, But like good mithers, shore ^ before ye strike. And gratefu' still I hope ye '11 ever find us. For a' the patronage and meikle kindness "We 've got f rae a' professions, sets, and ranks ; God help us ! we 're but poor — ye 'se get but thanks. STANZAS ON THE DUKE OF QUEENS- BERRY. On being questioned as to the propriety of satirising people unworthy of his notice, and the Duke of Queensberry being cited as an instance, Burns drew out his pencil and penned the following bitter lines as his reply : — How shall I sing Drumlanrig's Grace — Discarded remnant of a race Once great in martial story ? His forbeai's' virtues all contrasted — The very name of Douglas blasted — His that inverted glory. Hate, envy, oft the Douglas bore ; But he has superadded more. And sunk them m contempt ; Follies and crimes have stain'd the name ; But, Queensbeixy, thine the virgm claim, From aught that 's good exempt. VEESES TO MY BED. Thou bed, in which I first began To be that various creature— 7naw / And when again the fates decree. The place where I must cease to be ; — When sickness comes, to whom I fly. To soothe my pain, or close mine eye ; — AVhen cares surround me where I weep, Or lose them all in balmy sleep ; — When sore with labour, whom I court, And to thy downy breast resort- Where, too, ecstatic joys I find. When deigns my Delia to be kind — And full of love, in all her charms, Thou givest the fair one to my arms. The centre thou, where grief and jxiin. Disease and rest, alternate reign. Oh, since within thy little space So many various scenes take place ; Lessons as useful shalt thou teach. As sages dictate— churchmen preach ; And man, convinced by thee alone, This great important truth shall cNvn : — That thin partitions do divide The bounds where good and ill reside ; That nought is i)erfect here below ; But hliss still bordering upon ivoe. 1 Wrjstle. 2 Ask. 8 Threaten. 68 POEMS. [1790- ELEGY ON PEG NICHOLSON. Peg Nicholson, the "good bay mare," belonged to Mr William Nicol, a fast friend of the poet's, and was so named from a frantic virago who attempted the life of George III. The poet enclosed the following verses in a letter to his friend, in Tebruaiy 1790, with a long account of the deceased mare, which letter will be found in the correspondence of that year. Peg Nicholson was a good "bay mare As ever trode on aii-n ; ^ But now she 's floating down the Nith, And past the mouth o' Cairn. Peg Nicholson was a good bay mare, And rode through tliick and thin ; But now she 's floating down the Nith, And wanting even the skin. Teg Nicholson was a good bay mare. And ance she bore a priest ; But now she 's floating down the Nith, For Solway fish a feast. Peg Nicholson was a good bay mare. And the priest he rode her sair ; And much oppress'd and bruised she was, As priest-rid cattle are. LINES WRITTEN TO A GENTLEMAN WHO HAD SENT HIM A NEWSPAPER, AND OFFERED TO CONTINUE IT FREE OF EXPENSE. Kind sir, I 've read your paper through. And, faith, to me 'twas really new ! How guess'd ye, sir, what maist I wanted ? This mony a day I've gran'd^ and gaunted^ To ken what French mischief was brewin', Or what the drumlie Dutch were doin' ; That vile doup-skelper. Emperor Joseph, If Yenus yet had got his nose off ; Or how the collieshangie^ works Atween the Russians and the Turks ; Or if the Swede, before he halt, "Would play anither Charles the Twalt : If Denmark, anybody spak o 't ; Or Poland, wha had now the tack^ o 't ; How cut-throat Prussian blades were hingin' ;^ How libbet^ Italy was singin' ; If Spaniards, Portuguese, or Swiss "Were say in' or t;diui' aught amiss : Or how our merry lads at hame. In Britain's court, kept up the game : How royal George, the Lord leuk o'er him ! "Was managing St Stephen's quorum; If sleekit** Chatham Will Avas liviii', Or glaikit^ Charlie got his nieve^" in ; How Daddie Burke the plea was cookiu'. If "Warren Hastings' neck was yeukin' ;^^^ How cesses, stents, and fees were rax'd,^'^ Or if bare a — s yet were tax'd ; The news o* princes, dukes, and earls, Pimps, sharpers, bawds, and opera girls j If that daft buckie, Geordie Wales, Was threshin' still at hizzies' tails ; Or if he was grown oughtlins do\iser,^ And no a perfect kintra cooser. 1 Iron. 2 Groaned, 3 Yawned. 4 QuarreL » Lease. " Hanging. 7 Castrated. 8 Sly. Thoughtless, w Fist. 11 Itching, " Stretched. 18 At all more sober. A' this and mair I never heard of ; And but for you I might despair'd of. So gratefu', back your news I send you. And pray, a' guid things may attend you ! Ellisland, Monday Morning, 1780. ELEGY ON CAPTAIN MATTHEW HENDERSON, A GENTLEMAN WHO HELD THE PATENT FOR HIS HONOURS IMMEDIATELY FROM ALMIGHTY GOD. The following note was appended to the original MS. of the Elegy : — "Now that you are over with the sirens of flattery, the harpies of corruption, and the furies of ambition— those infernal deities that, on all sides and in all parties, preside over the villainous business of politics — permit a rustic muse of your acquaintance to do her best to soothe you with a song. You knew Henderson. I have not flattered his memory." In a letter to Dr Moore, dated February 1791, the poet says : — " The Elegy on Captain Henderson is a tribute to the memory of a man I loved much. Poets have in this the same advantage as Roman Catholics ; they can be of service to their friends after they have passed that bourne where all other kindness ceases to be of any avail. Whether, aftei- all, either the one or the other be of any real service to the dead is, I fear, very problematical ; but I am sure they are highly gratifying to the living. Captain Henderson was a retired soldier, of agreeable manners and upright character, who had a lodging in Carrubber's Close, Edinburgh, and mingled with the best society of the city : he dined regularly at For- tune's Tavern, and was a member of the Capillaire Club, which was composed of all who inclined to the witty and the joyous." " Should the poor be flatter'd ? "— Shakespeam:. But now his radiant course is run, . For Matthew's course was bright ; His soul was like the glorious sun, A matchless heavenly light ! O Death ! thou tyrant fell and bloody ! The meikle devil wi' a woodie ^ , , . Haurl^ thee hame to his black smiddie,* O'er hurcheon^ hides, And lik© stock-fish come o'er his studdie * Wi' thy auld sides ! He 's gane ! he *s gane ! he 's f rae us torn ! The ae best fellow eer was bom ! Thee, Matthew, Nature's sel shall mourn By wood and wild. Where, haply, Pity strays forlorn, Frae man exiled ! Ye hills ! near neibors o' the Btams,^ That proudly cock your cresting cairns I Ye cliffs, the haunts of sailing yearns, ^ Where Echo slumbers ! Come join, ye Nature's sturdiest bairns. My waiUng numbers ! Mourn, ilka grove the cushat kens ! ^ Ye hazelly shaws and briery dens ! Ye burnies, wimpliu' down your glens, Wi' toddlin' din,t Or foaming Strang, wi' hasty stens,^ Frae lin to Im ! » Halter. 3 Drag. * Anvil. « Stai-s, ? Wood-pigeon knows. s Hedgehog. « Eagles. 8 Bounds, * SmidcUr, a blacksmith's shop— hence the appro- priateness of its use in the pi'cscnt instance. t With the noise of one who goes hesitatingly or in securely. ^T. 32.] POEMS. 69 Mourn, little harebells o'er the lea ; Ye stately foxgloves fair to see ; Ye woodbines, hanguig bonnilie In scented bo .vers ; Ye roses on your thorny tree. The first o' flowers. At dawn, when every grassy blade Droops with a diamond at its head, At even, when beans their fragrance shed, I' the rustling gale, Ye maukins whiddin' ^. through the glade, Come, join my wail. Mourn, j^e wee songsters o' the wood ; Ye grouse that ci-ap ^ the heather bud ; Ye curlews calling through a clud ; ^ Ye whistling plover ; And mourn, ye whu-ring j)aitrick^ brood ! — He 's gane for ever. Mourn, sooty coots, and speckled teals ; Ye fisher herons, watching eels ; Ye duck and drake, wi' airy wheels Circling the lake ; Ye bitterns, till the quagmire reels, Eair * for his sake. Mourn, clam'ring craiks^ at close o' day, 'Mang fields o' flowering clover gay ; And when ye wing your annual way Frae our cauld shore. Tell thae far warlds wha lies in clay, Wham we deplore. Ye houlets,^ frae your ivy bower. In some auld tree or eldritch '^ tower. What time the moon, wi' silent glower,8 Sets up her horn. Wail through the dreary midnight hour Till waukrif e ^ morn ! O rivers, forests, hills, and plains! Oft have ye heard my canty ^^ strains : But now, what else for me remains But tales of woe ? And frae my een the drapping rains Maun ever flow. Mourn, Spring, thou darling of the year ! Ilk cowslip cup shall kep ^^ a tear : Thou, Simmer, while each corny spear Shoots up its head. Thy gay, green, flowery tresses shear For him that 's dead ! Thou, Autumn, wi' thy yellow hair. In grief thy sallow mantle tear ! Thou, Winter, hurling through the air . The roaring blast, Wide o'er the naked world declare The worth we 've lost ! Mourn him, thou Sun, great source of light ! Mourn, empress of the silent night ! And you, ye twinkling stamies bright, ISIy Matthew mourn ! For through your orbs he 's ta'en his flight. Ne'er to return. O Henderson ! the man — the brother ! And art thou gone, and gone for ever? 1 Hares running. « Cloud. « Owls. » Wakenin" 4 Pjirtrid.^e. 7 Haunted. 50 Happy. ' Crop, eat. 5 Landrails. 8 Stare. " Catch. *We can hardly convey the meaning here; but we know of no better word. And hast thou cross'd that unknown river, Life's dreary bound? Like thee, where shall I find another The world around ! Gro to your sculptured tombs, ye great, In a' the tinsel trash o' state ! But by thy honest turf I '11 wait. Thou man of worth ! And weep the ae best fellow's fate E'er lay in earth. THE EPITAPH. Stop, passenger ! — my story 's brie^ And truth I shall relate, man ; I tell nae common tale o' grief — For Matthew was a great man. If thou uncommon merit hast. Yet spum'd at Fortune's door, man, A look of pity hither cast — For Matthew was a poor man. If thou a noble sodger art. That passest by this grave, man. There moulders here a gallant heart — For Matthew was a brave man. If thou on men, their works and ways. Canst throw uncommon light, man. Here lies wha weel had won thy praise — For Matthew was a bright man. If thou at friendship's sacred ca' Wad life itself resign, man, The sympathetic tear maun fa' — For Matthew was a kind man \ If thou art stanch without a stam, lake the unchanging blue, man, Tliis was a kinsman o' thy ain — For Matthew was a true man. If thou hast wit, and fun, and fire. And ne'er guid wine did fear, man. This was thy billie, dam, and sire — For Matthew was a queer man. If ony whiggish whingin' sot. To blame poor Matthew dare, man. May dool and sorrow be his lot ! — For Matthew was a rare man. TAM O* SHANTEIi: A TALI. Captain Grose, in the introduction to his " Antiquities of Scotland," says, "To ray ingenious friend, Mr Robert Burns, I have been seriously obligated ; he ■was not only at the pains of making out what was most worthy of notice in Ayrshire, the country honom-ed by his birth, but he also wrote, expressly for this work, the pretty tale annexed to Alloway Church." This pretty tale was "Tarn 0' Shanter," cer- tainly the most popular of all our poet's works. In a letter to Captain Grose, No. CCXXVII. of the General Con-espondence, Burns gives the legend which formed the groundwork of the poem : — "On a market day in the town of Ayr, a farmer from Carrick, and consequently whose way lay by the very gate of Allo- way kirkyard, in order to cross the river Doon at the old bridge, which is about two or tliree hundred yards farther on than the said gate, had been de- tained by his business, till by the time he reached Alloway it was the wizard hour, between night and morning. Though he was terrified with a blaze stream- 70 POEMS. [1790. ing from the kirk, yet it is a well-knovra fact that to turn back on these occasions is running by far the greatest risk of mischief, — he prudently advanced on his road. "When he had reached the gate of the kirk- yard, he was sui-prised and entertained, through the ribs and arches of an old Gothic window, which still faces the highway, to see a dance of witches merrily footing it round their old sooty blackguard master, who was keeping them all alive with the power of his bagpipe. The farmer, stopping his horse to observe them a little, could plainly descry the faces of many old women of his acquaintance and neighbourhood. How the gentleman was dressed tradition does not say, but that the ladies were all in their smocks : and one of them happening unluckily to have a smock which was considerably too short to answer all the purpose of that piece of dress, our farmer was so tickled that he involuntarily burst out, with a loud laugh, ' Weel luppen, Maggie wi' the short sark ! ' and, recollecting himself, instantly spurred his horse to the top of his speed. I need not mention the univer- sally-known fact that no diabolical power can pursue you beyond the middle of a running stream. Lucky it was fot the poor farmer that the river Doon was so near, for notwithstanding the speed of his horse, which was a good one, against he reached the middle of the arch of the bridge, and consequently the mid- dle of the stream, the pursuing, vengeful hags, were so close at his heels that one of them actually sprung to seize him ; but it was too late, nothing was on her side of the stream but the horse's tail, which imme- diately gave way at her infernal grip, as if blasted by a stroke of lightning ; but the farmer was beyond her reach. However, the unsightly, tailless condition of the vigorous steed was, to the last hour of the noble creature's life, an awful warning to the Carrick far- mers not to stay too late in Ayr markets." Douglas Grahame of Shanter, a farmer on the Carrick shore, who was in reality the drunken, careless being the poet depicts him, became the hero of the legend, and several ludicrous stories current about him were woven into it with admirable skill. It is reported of hini that one market day being in Ayr he had tied his mare by the bridle to a ring at the door of a pub- lic house, and while he was making himself happy with some cronies inside, the idle boys of the neigh- bourhood pulled all the hair out of the mare's tail. This was not noticed until the following morning, when, becoming bewildered as to the cause of the accident, lie could only refer it to the agency of witchcraft. It is further related of Grahame that when a debauch had been prolonged until the dread of the " sulky sullen dame " at home rose up before him, he would fre- quently continue drinking rather than face her, even although delay would add to the terrors of the inevit- able home-going. The poem was composed in one day in the winter of 1790. Jlrs Burns informed Cromek that the poet liad lingered longer by the river side than his wont, and that, taking the children with her, she went out to join him, but perceiving that her presence was an interruption to him, she lingered behind him : her attention was attracted by his wild gesticulations and ungovernable mirth, while he was reciting the pas- sages of the poem as they arose in his miud. «' Of brownyis and of bogilis full is this buke." — Gawin Douglas. "When chapman IjiUies^ leave the street> And drouthy'-^ neibors neibors meet, As market days .are wearin' late, And folk begin to tak the gate ;^ ■\Vlule we sit bousing at tlie nappy,* And gettin' fou and unco hajjpy, _ AVe think na on the Ling Scuts iniles, The mosses, waters, slaps, and stiles," That lie between us and our hame, AVhare sits our sulky sullen dame, Gathering her brows like gathering storm, Kursing her wrath to keep it warm. This truth fand honest Tarn o' Shanter, As he frae Ayr ae night did canter, 1 Fellows. 4 Ale. 2 Thirsty. 8 Road. 6 Breaches in hedges or walls. (Auld Ayr, wham ne'er a town surpasses For honest men and bonny lasses. ) O Tam ! hadst thou but been sae wise As ta'en thy ain "vvife Kate's advice ! She tauld thee weel thou wast a skellum,^ A blethering, blustering, drunken blellum;' That frae November till October, Ae market day thou Avasna sober ; That ilka melder,* wi' the miller Thou sat as lang as thou hadst siller ; 3 That every naig^ was ca'd a shoe on. The smith and thee gat roaring fou on ; That at the Lord's house, even on Sunday, Thou drank wi' Kirktonf Jean till Monday. She prophesied that, late or soon. Thou wouldst be found deep drown'd in Doon ! Or catch'd wi' warlocks i' the mirk," By Alloway's auld haunted kirk. ^. Ah, gentle dames ! it gars^ me greet To think how mony counsels sweet. How mony lengthen'd, sage advices. The husband frae the wife despises ! But to our tale : — Ae market night, Tam had got planted unco" right, Fast by an ingle,8 bleezing finely, AVi' reaming swats,^ that drank divinely ; And at his elbow, Souter Johnny, His ancient, trusty, drouthy^o crony; Tam lo'ed him like a vera brither — They had been fou for weeks thegither ! The night drave on wi' saugs and clatter, And aye the ale was gi'owing better : The landlady and Tam grew gracious, "Wi' favours secret, sweet, and precious ; The Souter tauld his queerest stories. The landlord's laugh was ready chorus : The storm without might rair^^ and rustic — Tam didna mind the storm a wliistle. Care, mad to see a man sae happy. E'en drown'd himsel amang the nappy ! As bees flee hame wi' lades ^^ q' treasure. The minutes wing'd their way wi' pleasure : Kings may be blest, but Tam was glorious. O'er a' the ills o' life victorious ! But pleasures are like poppies spread, ,^ You seize the flower, its bloom is shed ! Or like the snowfall in the river, A moment white— then melts for ever j Or like the borealis race. That flit ere you can point their place ; Or like the rainbow's lovely foi'm, Evanishing amid the storm. Nae man can tether ^^ time or tide ; The hour approaches Tam maun ride ; That hour, o night's black arch the keystane. That dreary hour he mounts his beast in ; And sic^* a night he taks the road in As ne'er poor sinner was abroad in. The wind blew as 'twad blawn its last ; The rattling showers rose on the blast ; 1 A worthless fellow. 3 A talker of nonsense, a boaster, and a drunken fool. ' Money. * Horse. * Dark. « Makes. 7 Unusually. 8 rire. Foaming ale. 10 Thirsty. n Roar. 12 Loads. i» Tie up. 1* Such. * Any quantity of corn sent to the mill is called a melder. t The village where a parish church is situated is usually called the Kirkton (Kirk-town) in Scotland. A certain Jean Kennedy, who kept a reputable public house in the village of Eirkosvrald, is here alluded to. iET. 32.] POEMS. 71 ■i The speedy gleams the darkness swallow'd ; Loud, deep, and lang, the thunder bellow'd : That night, a child might understand The deil had business on his hand. Weel mounted on his gray mare, Meg, A better never lifted leg, Tarn skelpit^ on through ditb and mire, Despising wind, and rain, and fire ; Whiles holding fast his guid blue bonnet, Whiles crooning^ o'er some auld Scots sonnet ; Whiles glowering^ round wi' i^rudent cares, Lest bogles"* catch him imawares : Kirk-Alloway was drawing nigh, ■Whare ghaists and houlets^ nightly cry. By this time he was 'cross the foord, Whare in the snaw the chapni'^ 1 smoor'd ;^ And past the birks and meikle stane Whare drunken Charlie brak s neck-bane : And through the whins, ar. I by the cairn" Whare hunters fand the murder'd bairn ; And near the thorn, aboon the well, Whare Mungo's mither hang'd hersel. Before him Doon puurs a' his floods ; The doubling storm roars through the woods ; The lightnings flash frae pole to pole ; Near and more near the thunders roU ; When, glimmering through the groaniug trees, Kirk-Alioway seem'd in a bleeze ; Through ilka bore* the beams wei^ glancing. And loud resoiUMed mirth and dancing. Inspiring bold John Barleycorn ! W^hat dangers thou canst niak us scorn ! Wi' tippfiuny,9 we fear nae evil ; Wi' usquebae,^*^ we '11 face the devil ! — The swats sae ream'd in Tammie's noddle, ^^ Fair play, he caretl na deils a boddle.^* But Maggie stood right sair astonish'd. Till, by the heel and hand admonished, She ventured forward on the light ; And, wov : Tam saw an unco sight!' Warlorks :ind witches in a dance ; Nae cotillon brent-new^^ frae France, Jiiit hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels, I'ut life and mettle i' their heels : ' ; winnock-buiiker,^** i' the east, ihere sat auld Mck, in shape o' beast ; A towzie tyke,^^ black, grim, and large, To gie them music was his charge ; He screw*d-thT5 pipes, and garths them skirl,^? TUl roof and ratters a' did dirl.^^ CoflSns stood round, like open presses. That shaw'd the dead in their last dresses ; And by some devHish cantrip ^^ slight Each in its cauld hand held a light, — By which heroic Tam was able To note upon the haly table, A murderer's banes in gibbet aims ;-<> Twa span-lang, wee,^^ unchristen'd bairns i A thief, new-cutted frae a rape, Wi' his last gasp his gab^^ did gape ; Five tomahawks, wi' bluid red-rusted ; Five scimitars, wi' murder crusted ; A garter, which a babe had strangled ; A knife, a father's throat had mangled, 2 Humming. * Spirits, 6 Pedlar was smothered. 8 Every hole in the wall 10 Whisky. 1 Rode with careless speed. 8 Stai'ing. » Ghosts and owls. "i Stone-heap. 9 Twopenny ale. ii The ale so wrought in Tammie's head. 12 A small coin. i» Brand-new. i4 A kind of window seat. is a rough dog. i« Made. 17 Scream. w Vibrate. i^ Spell. ' £0 IroQ5. 2i gaiall. 22 Mouth. Whom his a in son o' life bereft. The gray hairs yet stack to the heft :^ Wi' mair o' horrible and awfu', Wliieh even to name wad be unlawfu'. As Tammie glower'd,'^ amazed and curious, The mirth and fun grew fast and furious : The piper loud and louder blew. The dancers quick and quicker flew ; They reel'd, they set, they cross'd, they cleekit. Till ilka carlin swat and reek it, "^ And coost"* her duddies^ to the wark. And linket^ at it in her sark.7 Now Tam ! O Tam ! had thae been queans,8 A' plump and str^pin' in their teens. Their sarks, instead o' creeshie flannen,^ Been snaw- white seventeen-hunder linen ! t" Thir breeks^o o' mine, my only pair. That ance were plush, o' guid blue hair, I wad hae gieu tliem aff my hurdles, ^^ For ae blink ^^ o' the bonny burdies !^' But wither'd beldams, auld and droll, Rigwoodie^'* hags, wad spean^^ a foal, Lowpia' and flingin' on a cummock,^** I wonder didna tui-n thy stomach. ButTam kenn'd^^ what was what fu' brawlie,^^ "There was ae winsome wench and walie,"^^:); That night enlisted in the core, (Lang after kenn'd on Carrick shore ; For mony a beast to dead she shot. And perish'd mony a bonny boat, And shook baith meikle corn and bear. And kept the country-side in fear.) Her cutty sark,=^*^ o' Paisley harn, That, while a lassie, ^^ she had worn. In longitude though sorely scanty. It was her best, and she was vauntie.^^ Ah ! little kenn'd thy reverend grannie. That sark she coft^^ for her wee Nannie, Wi' twa pund Scots, ('twas a' her riches,) Wad ever graced a dance o' witches ! But here my JIuse her wing maun cour,"* Sic flights are far beyond her power ; To sing how Nannie lap and flang,^^ I (A souple jade"^^ she was, and Strang, 2") \ And how Tam stood, like ane bewitch'd, And thought his very een enricli'd ; Even Satan glower'd, and fidged fu' fain. And hotch'd^s and blew wi' might and main ; 1 Handle. 2 Stared. 8 Till each old beldam smoked with sweat. * Stript. « Clothes. 6 Tripped. 7 Shirt. 8 Young girls, » Greasy flannel. 10 These breeches. 11 Hams. 1- Look. ' 13 Lasses. 1* Gallows-worthy. ' 15 Wean. is Jumping and capering on a staff. 17 Knew, 18 Full well. 19 A hearty girl and jolly, 20 Short shirt. 21 Girl. 22 Proud of it, 2* Bought. 24 Lower. 25 Jumped and kicked. 23 Girl. 27 Strong. 2s Hitched. * The following four lines were, in the original MS., in this place :— Three lawyers' tongues turn'd inside out, Wi' lies seam'd like a beggar's clout : 1 And priests' hearts, rotten, black as muck, Lay stinking, vile, in every neuk,2 The poet omitted them at the suggestion of Mr Tjtler of Woodhouselee. t The manufacturers' term for a fine linen wc reed of 1700 divisions. — Cbomek. + Allan Eamsay. Bags. 2 Corner, -J 72 POEMS. [1791. Till first ae caper, syne^ anither, , .Tarn tint^ bis reason a' tliegither, / And roars out, "Weel done, Cutty-sark !" And in an instant a' was dark : And scarcely had he Maggie rallied, When out the hellish legion sallied. As bees bizz out wi' angry fyke,^ When plundering herds assail their byke,"^ As oi)en pussie's mortal foes. When, poj) ! slie starts before their nose ; As eager runs the market-crowd. When "Catch the thief !" resounds aloud ; So Maggie runs, the witches follow, Wi' mony an eldritch^ screech and hollow. Ah, Tarn! ah, Tarn! thou 'It get thy fairin'! 6 In hell they '11 roast thee like a herrin' ! In vain thy Kate awaits thy comin' ! Kate soon will be a woefu' woman! Now, do thy speedy utmost, Meg, And win the keystane* of the brig; There at them thou thy tail may toss, A running stream they darena cross ; But ere the keystane she could make, The fienf a tail she had to ^hake ! For Nannie, far before the rest, Hard uj)on noble Maggie prest. And flew at Tarn wi' furious ettle ;8 But little wist 9 she Maggie's mettle — Ae spring brought off her master hale, But left behind her aia gray tail : The carlm claught her by the rump. And left poor Maggie scarce a stump. Now, wha this tale o' truth shall read, Ilk^*^ man and mother's son, take heed : Whane'er to drink you are inclined. Or cutty-sarks run m your mind, Think ! ye may buy the joys owre dear — Eemember Tam o' Shanter's mare. ON THE BIETH OP A POSTHUMOUS CHILD, BORN IN PECULIAR CIRCUMSTANCES DP FAMTT.Y DISTRESS. The mother of the child was Miss Susan ' Dtmlop, daughter of Bums's friend, Mrs Dunlop. She had married a French gentleman of birth and for- tune, named Henri, who died prematurely. Some time afterwards, Mrs Henri went to the south of France, where she died, leaving her child exposed to all the dangers of the revolutionary excesses. He was carefully tended by an old domestic of the family's, and restored to his friends when the tranquillity of the country was secured. Sweet floweret, pledge o' meikle love, And ward o' mony a prayer, What heart o' stane would thou na move, Sae helpless, sweet, and fair ! November hirplcs'^i o'er the lea, Chill on thy lovely form ; iThen. 2 Lost. * Hive. 6 Unearthly.. t Ne'er. 8 Design. 10 Each. 11 Moves slowly. 8 Fuss. Deserts. Knew. * It Is a well-known fact that witches, or any evil spirits, have no power to follow a poor wight ony farther tlian the middle of tlu; next running stream. It may be proper likewise to mention to the benighted travel- ler that, when he fulls in wilh hoqlts, whatever danger may be in his goin^' forward, there iji much more hazard in turning back.— i^. And gane, alas ! the sheltering tree Should shield thee from the storm. May He who gives the rain to pour, And wings the blast to blaw. Protect thee frae the driving shower, The bitter frost and snaw J May He, the friend of woe and want, Who heals life's various stounds,^ Protect and guard the mother-plant. And heal her cruel wounds ! But late she flourish'd, rooted fast, Pair on the summer-morn : Now feebly bends she in the blast, Unshelter'd and forlorn. Blest be thy bloom, thou lovely gem. Unscathed by ruffian hand ! And from thee many a parent stem Arise to deck our landl ELEGY ON MISS BUENET OF MONBODDO. Miss Burnet was the daughter of the accomplished and eccentric Lord Monbod'io. She is alluded to in the " Address to Edinburgh," /"p. 49.) Fair Burnet strikes th' adoring eye, Heaven's beauties on my fancy shine; I see the Sire of Love on high, And own His work indeed divine, She was one of tlie most beautiful women of her time, and died of consumption in the twenty-third year of her age. Life ne'er exulted in so rich a prize As Burnet, lovely from her native skies ; Nor envious Death so triumph'd in a blow, ,, As that which laid th' accomplish'd Burnet low. Thy form and mind, sweet maid, can I forget? In richest ore the brightest jewel set ! In thee, high Heaven above was truest shown. As by His noblest work the Godhead best is known. In vain ye flaunt in summer's pride, ye gi'oves ; Thou crystal streamlet with thy flowery shore. Ye woodland choir that chant youi* idle loves. Ye cease to charm — Eliza is no more ! Ye heathy wastes, immix'd with reedy fens ; Ye mossy streams, with sedge and rushes stored ; Ye rugged cliffs, o'erhanging dreary glens, To you I fly, ye with my soul accord. Princes, whose cumbrous pride was all their worth. Shall venal lays their pompous exit hail? And thou, sweet excellence ! forsake our earth, And not a Muse in honest grief bewail? We saw thee shine in youth and beauty's pride. And virtue's light, that beams beyond the spheres ; But, like the sun eclipsed at morning tide. Thou lef t'st us darldiilg in a world of tears. The parent's heart that nestled fond in thee, That heart how sunk, a prey to grief and care ; So deckt the woodbine sweet yon aged tree ; So from it ravish'd, leaves it bleak and bare. Tangs. 2.5^5 g a 9 :; I ilis ^„^ *» cmm LAMENT OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS, ON THE APPPtOACH OF SPUING. This poem is said to have been ^vritten at the instipa- tiou of Lady Winifred Maxwell Constable, daughter of William Maxwell, Earl of Nithsdale, who re- warded him with a present of a valuable snufif-box, having a portrait of Queen Mary on the lid. In a letter to Graham of Fintry, enclosing a copy of "The Lament," the poet says :—" Whether it is that the story of our JMaiy Queen of Scots has a peculiar effect on tlie feelings of a poet, or whether I have, in the enclosed ballad, succeeded beyond my usual poetic success, I know not, but it has pleased me beyond any effort of my Jluse for a good while past." Ifow Nature hangs her mantle green On every blooming tree, j A::d spreads her sheets o' daisies white ' Out o'er the grassy lea : Now Phoebus cheers the crystal streams, And glads the azure skies ; But nought can glad the weary wight ^ That fast in durance lies. Now lav'rocks wake the merry mom, Aloft on dewy wing ; The merle, in his noontide bower, Makes woodland echoes ring ; The mavis wild, wi' mony a note. Sings drowsy day to rest : In love and freedom they rejoice, Wi' care nor thrall opprest. Now blooms the lily by the bank, The primrose down the brae ; The hawthorn 's budding in the glen, And milk-white is the slae ; The meanest hind in fair Scotland May rove their sweets amang; But I, the queen of a' Scotland, Maun lie in prison Strang ! I was the queen o' bonny France, Where happy I hae been ; Fu' lightly rase I in the mom. As blithe lay down at e'en : And I 'm the sovereign of Scotland, And mony a traitor there ; Tet here I lie in foreign bands, And never-ending care. But as for thee, thou false woman ! — My sister and my fae. Grim Vengeance yet shall whet a sword That through thy soul shall gae ! The weeping blood in woman's breast ^ Was never known to thee ; Nor the balm that draps on wounds of woe Frae woman's pitying ee. My son ! my son ! may kinder stars Upon thy fortune shine ! And may those pleasures gild thy reign. That ne'er wad blink on mine ! God keep thee frae thy mother's faes. Or turn their hearts to thee : And where thou meet'st thy mother's friend, Eemember him for me ! Oh ! soon to me may summer suns Nae mair light up the morn ! Nae mair to me the autumn winds Wave o'er the yellow com ! And in the narrow house o death Let winter round me rave ; , And the next flowei-s that deck the spring Bloom on my iJeacef ul grave ! LAMENT FOE JAMES, EAEL OF GLENCAIKN. The early death of the Earl of Glencaim robbed the poet of an intelligent friend and patron. Bums en- closed the ''Lament" in a letter to Lady Elizabeth Cunningham, the sister of the earl, from which we quote the following : — " My heart glows, and shall ever glow, with the most grateful sense and remem- brance of his lordship's goodness. The sables I did myself the honour to wear to his lordship's memory were not the ' mockery of woe.' Nor shall my grati- tude perish with me ! If, among my children, I shall have a son that has a heart, he shall hand it down to his child as a family honour, and a family debt, that my dearest existence I owe to the noble house of Glencairn." The wind blew hollow frae the hiQs, By fits the sun's departing beam Look'd on the fading yellow woods That waved o'er Lugar's winding stream : Beneath a craigy steep, a bard, Laden with years and meikle pain, In loud lament bewail'd his lord, Whom death had all untimely ta'en. He lean'd him to an ancient aik. Whose trunk was mouldering down with years ; Bfis locks were bleached white with time, His hoary cheek was wet wi' tears ; And as he touch'd his trembling harp. And as he tuned his doleful sang, The winds, lamenting through their caTes, To Echo bore the notes alang : — "Ye scatter'd birds that faintly sing The reliques of the vernal quire ! Ye woods that shed on a' the winds The honours of the aged year ! A few short months, and glad and gay. Again ye '11 charm the ear and ee ; But nocht in all revolving time Can gladness bring again to me. " I am a bending aged tree. That long has stood the wind and rain ; But now has come a cruel blast, And my last hold of earth is gane : Nae leaf o' mine shall greet the spring, Nae simmer sun exalt my bloom ; But I maun lie before the storm. And ithers plant them in my room. " I 've seen sae mony changefu' years. On earth I am a stranger grown ; I wander in the ways of men, Alike unknowing and unknown : Unheard, unpitied, unrelieved, I bear alane my lade o' care. For silent, low, on beds of dust, Lie a' that would my son-ows share. " And last (the sum of a' my griefs !) My noble master lies in clay ; The flower amang our barons bold, His country's pride— his country's stay! In weary being now I pine, For a' the life of life is dead. And hope has left my aged ken, On forward wing for ever fled. "Awake thy last sad voice, my harp! The voice of woe and wild despair ; Awake ! resound thy latest lay — Then sleep in silence evermair ! And thou, my last, best, only friend, That fillest an untimely tomb, 74 POEMS. [1791. Accept this tribute from fhe bard Thou brought from Fortune's mirkest gloom. " In Poverty's low barren vale Thick mists, obscure, involved me round ; Though oft I turn'd the wistful eye, Nae ray of fame was to be found ; Tliou found'st me, like the morning sun, That melts the fogs in limpid air — The friendless bard and rustic song Became alike thy fostering care. '•'Oh ! why has worth so short a date, While villains ripen gray with time ? Must thou, the noble, generous, great, Fall in bold manhood's hardy prime ! Why did I live to see that day ? A day to me so full of woe ! — Oh ! had I met the mortal shaft "Which laid my benefactor low ! " The bridegroom may forget the bride Was made his wedded wife yestreen : The monarch may forget the crown That on his head an hour has been ; The mother may forget the child That smiles sae sweetly on her knee ; But 1 11 remember thee,' Glencairn, And a' that thou hast done for me ! '* LINES SENT TO SIR JOHN WHITEFOOED, BART., OFWHITE- FOORD, WITH THE FOREGOING POEM!. Thou, -who thy honour as thy God reverest, Who, save thy mind's reproach, nought earthly fear'st, To thee this votive-offering I impart, The tearful tribute of a broken heart. The friend thou valued'st, I the patron loved ; His worth, his honour, all the world approved. We '11 mourn till we too go as he has gone, And tread the dreary path to that dark world imknown. ADDEESS TO THE SHADE OF THOMSON, ON CROWNING HIS BUST AT EDNAM, ROXBURGH- SHIRE, WITH BAYS. The Earl of Buchan invited the poet to be present at the coronation of Thomson's bust on Ednam Hill. He could not attend, but sent the following "Ad- dress" instead: — While virgin Spring, by Eden's flood, Unfolds her tender mantle green, Or pranks the sod in frolic mood, Or tunes iEolian strains between : Wliile Summer, with a matron grace, Eetreats to Dryburgh's cooling shade. Yet oft, delighted, stops to trace The progress of the spiky blade : While Autumn, benefactor kind. By Tweed erects his ag5d head, And sees, with self -approving mind. Each creature on his bounty fed : While maniac Winter rages o'er The hills whence classic Yarrow flows. Housing the tiubid torrent's roar, Or Bweeping, wild, a waste of snows : So long, sweet Poet of the year ! Shall bloom that wreath thou well hast won; While Scotia, with exulting tear. Proclaims that Thomson was her son! YEESES TO JOHN MAXWELL OF TERRAUGHTT, ON HIS BIRTHDAY. John Maxwell, the subject of the following lines, was an eccentric but able man. He had a great admira- tion for the jjoet— not that he cared much for his poetry, but on account of his knowledge of human nature, and his striking conversational powers. He outlived the poet twenty years. Health to the Maxwells' veteran chief ! Health, aye unsour'd by care or grief : Inspired, I turn'd Fate's sybil leaf This natal morn ; I see thy life is stuff o' prief,^ Scarce quite half worn. This day thou metes threescore eleven. And I can tell that bounteous Heaven (The second sight, ye ken, is given To ilka2 poet) On thee a tack o' seven times seven Will yet bestow it. If envious buckies^ view wi' sorrow Thy lengthen'd days on this blest morrow, May Desolation's lang-teeth'd harrow. Nine miles an hour, Eake them, like Sodom and Gomorrah, In brunstane stoure ! "* But for thy friends, and they are mony, Baith honest men and lasses bonny, May couthie-'^ Fortune, kind and canny. In social glee, Wi* mornings blithe and e'enings funny, Bless them and thee ! Fareweel, auld birkie ! " Lord be near ye. And then the deil ho daurna steer ye : Your friends aye love, your f aes aye fear ye ; For me, shame fa' me, If neist my heart I dinna wear ye, While Burns they ca' mo I THE YOWELS : A TALE. *TWAS wliero the birch and sounding thong are plied, The noisy domicile of pedant pride ; Where Ignorance her darkening vapour throws. And Cruelty directs the thickening blows ; Upon a time, Sir Abece the great, In all his pedagogic powers elate. His awful chair of state resolves to mount, And call the trembling Vowels to account. First entcr'd A, a grave, broad, solemn wight, But, ah ! deform'd, dishonest to the sight ! His twisted head look'd backward on his way. And flagrant from the scourge, he grunted ai I 1 Proof. * Dust. 8 Every. 6 Loving. s Bucks. 6 A lively fellow. k ^T. 33.] POEMS. 75 Reluctant, E stalk'd in ; witli piteous race The jostling tears ran down his honest face ! That name, that well-worn nanae, and all his own, Pale he surrenders at the tyrant's throne ! Tlie pedant stifles keen the Roman sound Kot all his mongrel diphthongs can compound; And next, the title following close behind, He to the nameless ghastly wretch assign'd. The cobweVd Gothic dome resounded Y! In sullen vengeance, I disdain'd reply : The pedant swung his felon cudgel round, And knock'd the groaning vowel to the ground ! In rueful apprehension enter'd O, The wailing minstrel of despairing woe ; The inquisitor of Spain the most expert, Might there have learnt new mysteries of his art : So grim, deform'd, with horrors entering, U His dearest friend and brother scarcely knew ! As trembling U stood staring all aghast, The pedant in his left hand clutch'd him fast, In helpless infants' tears he dipp'd his right, Baptized him ew, and kick'd him from his sight. ADAjM A- 'S PRAYER. The circumstances under which the following lines were written were as follows :— The servant of a Mauchline innkeeper having been too indulgent to one of her master's customers, a number of reckless young fellows, among whom was Adam A , an ill-made little fellow, made her "ride the stang," — that is, placed her astride a wooden pole, and carried her through the streets. An action being raised against the offendei'S, Adam A absconded. "While Ekulking about, Burns met him, and suggested that he needed some one to pray for him : "Just do't yoursel, Burns ; I know no one so fit," Adam replied. Adam A 's Prayer was the result. GuDE pity me, because I'm little, For though I am an elf o' mettle. And can, like ony wabster's^ shuttle, Jink 2 there or here ; Yefc, scarce as lang 's a guid kail whittle,^ I 'm unco queer. And now thou kens our woefu' case, Por Geordie's jurr* we 're in disgrace, Because we 've stang'd her through the place, And hurt her spleuchan, For -which we daurna show our face Within the clachan.^ And now we 're dem'd^ in glens and hollows. And hunted, as was William Wallace, Wi' constables, those blackguard fallows, And sodgers baith ; But gude preserve us frae the gallows. That shamef u' death ! Auld, grim, black-bearded Geordie's sel, Oh, shake him o'er the mouth o' hell. There let him hing, and roar, and yeU, Wi' hideous din, And if he offers to rebel. Just heave^ him in. 1 "Weaver's. * Village. 2 Dodee. 6 Hidden. 3 Knife. 6 Pitch. ♦ "Jurr" is in the west of Scotland a colloquial term for "journeyman," and is often applied to desig- nate a servant of either sex. When Death comes in, wi' glimmering blink. And tips auld drunken Nanse * the wink, May Hornie gie her doup a clink Ahint his yett,i And fill her up wi' brimstone drink. Red, reeking, het. There 's Jockie and the haveril Jenny, + Some devils seize them in a liurry, And waff them in the infernal wherry Straught through the lake. And gie their hides a noble curry, Wi' oil of aik. As for the jurr, poor worthless body. She 's got mischief enough already ; Wi' stangid hips, and buttocks bluidy. She 's suff er'd sau' ; But may she wintle in a woodie,^ ^ If she whore mair. VERSES TO JOHN RAN-KINE.$ Ae day, as Death, that grusome carl, Was driving to the tithe r warl' A mixtie-maxtie, motley squad, And mony a guilt-bespotted lad ; Black gowns of each denomination. And thieves of every rank and station. From him that wears the star and garter, To him that wintles ^ in a halter. Ashamed himsel to see the wretches, He mutters, glowerin'^ at the bitches, "By God, I '11 not be seen beliint them. Nor 'mang the sp'ritual core present them. Without, at least, ae honest man. To grace this damn'd infernal clan," By Adamhill a glance he threw, "Lord God ! " quoth he, "I have it now; There 's just the man I want, i'faith ! " And quickly stoppit Rankine's breath. ON SENSIBILITY. TO MT DEAB AND MUCH-HONOURED FRIEND, MRS DUNLOP OF DUNLOP. Sensibilitt, how charming. Thou, my friend, canst truly tell ; But distress, with horrors arming, Thou hast also known too well ! Fairest flower, behold the lily. Blooming in the sunny ray : Let the blast sweep o'er the vaUey, See it prostrate on the clay. Hear the woodlark charm the forest, Telling o'er his little joys ; Hapless bird ! a prey the surest, To each pirate of the skies. Dearly bought the hidden treasure Finer feelings can bestow ; Chords that vibrate sweetest pleasure Thrill the deepest notes of woe. 1 Gate. s Struggles. 2 Struggle in a halter. * Staring. * Geordie's wife, t Geordie's son and daughter. + John Rankine of Adamhill, the ready-witted Rankine" of the Epistle. 'rough, rude, 76 POEMS. [1793. LINES ON FERGUSSON. fhe following lines were inscribed by Burns on a blank leaf of a copy of the penodical publication entitled the yVorld, from which they have been copied : — Ill-fated genius \ Heaven-tauglit Fergusson ! What heart that feels aucl will not yield a tear. To think life's sun did. set ere well begun. To shed its influence on thy bright career. Oh, why should truest worth and genius pine Beneath the iron grasp of Want and Woe, While titled knaves and idiot greatness shine In all the splendour Fortune can bestow ! THE EIGHTS OF WOMAN, AN OCCASIONAL ADDRESS SPOKEN BY MISS FON- TENELLE ON HER BENEFIT NIGHT. While Europe's eye is jBx'd on mighty things. The fate of empires and the fall of kings ; While quacks of state must each produce his plan, And even children lisp the rights of man ; Amid this mighty fuss, just let me mention, The rights of woman merit some attention. First, in the sexes' intermix'd connexion, One sacred right of woman is, protection. The tender flower that lifts its head, elate. Helpless, must fall before the blasts of fate, Sunk on the earth, defaced its lovely form, Unless your shelter ward th' impending storm. Our second riglit — ^but needless here is caution, To keep that right inviolate 's the fashion ; Each man of sense has it so full before hira. He'd die before he 'd wrong it— 'tis decorum. There was, indeed, in far less polish 'd days, A time, when rough, rude man, had naughty ways; Would swagger, swear, get drunk, kick up a riot. Nay, even thus invade a lady's quiet ! Now, thank our stai-s ! these Gothic times are fled; Now, well-bred men — and ye are all weU bred ! — Most justly think (and we are much the gainers) Such conduct neither spirit, wit, nor manners. For right the third, our last, our best, our dearest, That right to fluttering female hearts the nearest. Which even the rights of kings iu low prostra- tion Most humbly own— 'tis dear, dear admiration ! In that blest spliere alone we live and move ; There taste that life of life— immortal love. Smiles, glances, sighs, tears, fits, flirtations, airs, 'Gainst such a host what flinty savage dares — When awful Beauty joins with all hor charms, Who is so rash as rise in rebel arms ? But truce with kings, and truce with constitu- tions, With bloody armaments and revolutions ! Let majesty your firsr, attention summon, Ah ! fa ira I the majesty of woman ! ON THE DEATH OF A FAVOUEITE CHILD. The following lines were composed on the death of a daughter, which took place suddenly while the poet was absent from home : — Oh, sweet be thy sleep in the land of the grave. My dear little angel, for ever ; For ever — oh no ! let not man be a slave, His hopes from existence to sever. Thoxigh cold be the clay where thou i)iUoAv'sfc thy head. In the dark silent mansions of sorrow. The spring shall return to thy low narrow bed. Like the beam of the daystar to-moiTow. The flower-stem shall bloom like thy sweet seraph form. Ere the spoiler had nipt thee in blossom ; When thou shrunk from the scowl of the loud winter storm. And nestled thee close to that bosom. Oh, still I behold thee, all lovely in death, Keclined on the lap of thy mother, When the tear trickled bright, when the short stifled breath, Told how dear ye were aye to each other. My child, thou art gone to the home of thy rest. Where suffering no longer can harm ye, Where the songs of the good, where the hymns of the blest. Through an endless existence shall charm thee. While he, thy fond parent, must sighing so- journ Through the dire desert regions of sorrow. O'er the hope and misfortune of being to mourn. And sigh foj: Lis life's latest niorrow. TO A KISS. Humid seal of soft affections, Tenderest pledge of future bliss, Dearest tie of young connexions, Love's first snowdrop, virgin kiss ! Speaking silence, dumb confession. Passion's birth, and infant's play. Dove-like fondness, chaste concession. Glowing dawn of brighter day. Sorrowing joy, adieu's List action. When lingeiing lips no more must join, What words can ever speak affectiou So thrilling and sincere as thiue I SONNET ON HEABTNa A THRUSH SING IN A MORNING WALK; WRITTEN JAN. 26, 1793, THE BIRTHDAY OF THl AUTHOR. Sing on, sweet thrush, upon the leafless bough. Sing on, sweet bird, I listen to tlxy strain : See, ac;e«l Winter, 'mid his surly reign. At thy blithe carol clearshis ftuxow'd.brow* ^T. 35.] POEMS. 77 So in lone Poverty's dominion drear, Sits meek Content with light iinanxions heart, Welcomes the rapid moments, bids them part, Nor asks if they bring aught to hope or fear. I thank Thee, Author of this opening day ! Thou whose bright sun now gilds yon orient skies ! Eiches denied, Thy boon was purer joys, "What wealth could never give nor take away ! Yet come, thou child, of Poverty and Care ; The mite high Heaven bestow'd, that mite with thee I'll share. IMPEOMPTU OX MRS EIDDEL'S BIETHDAY. NOVEMBER 4, 1793. Old Winter with his frosty beard Thus once to Jove his pi-ayer i)referr'd — " What have I done, of all the year, To bear this hated doom severe ? My cheerless suns no pleasure know ; Night's horrid car drags dreaiy, slow ; My dismal months no joys are crowning. But spleeny English, hanging, drowning. " Now, Jove, for once be mighty civil, To counterbalance all this evil ; Give me, and I 've no more to say, Give me Maria's natal-day ! That brilliant gift shall so enrich me, Spring, Summer, Autumn, cannot match, me.' " 'Tis done ! " says Jove ; so ends my story, And Winter once rejoiced in glory. EPISTLE FEOM ESOPUS TO MAEIA. The Esopns of this epistle was 'Williamson the actor ; and the Maria to whom it is addressed was Mrs Rid- del — " A lady," say.? Allan Cunningham, "whose memoiy will be held in grateful remembrance, not only for her having forgiven the poet for his lam- poons, but for her having written a sensible, cleai', heart-warm account of him when laid in the grave. Mrs Riddel was a sincere friend and admirer of Burns, who quaiTelled with her on account of some fancied slight. Williamson was a member of the di-iimatic company which frequently visited Dumfries. He had been a frequent visitor at JIr.s Riddel's. While the dramatic company were at Whitehaven, the Earl of Lonsflale committed them to prison as vagrants. Burns had no favour for the Earl of Lonsdale, and managed in the epistle to gratify his aversion to him, as well as his temporary anger with Mrs Riddel. His behaviour towards the latter was as discreditable to him as Mrs Riddel's generosity in forgiving it was worthy of her goodness and her high opinion of his better natiure." From those drear solitudes and frowsy cells. Where infamy with sad repeirtance dwells ; Where turnkeys make the jealous mortal fast, And deal from iron hands the spare repast ; Where truant 'prentices, yet young in sin. Blush at the cuiious stranger peeping in ; Where strumpets, relics of the drunken roar, Eesolve to drink, nay, half to whore, no more ; Where tiny thieves, not destined yet to swing. Beat homp for others riper for the string : From these dire scenes my wretched lines I date To tell Maria her Esopus' fate. " Alas ! I feel I am no actor here I " 'Tis real hangmen real scourges bear! Prepare, Maria, for a horrid tale Will turn thy very 7-ouge to deadly pale ; Will make thy hair, though erst from gipsy poll'd. By barber woven, and by barber sold, Though twisted smooth with Harry's nicest care. Like hoary bristles to erect and stare. The hero of the mimic scene, no more I stai-t in Hamlet, in Othello roar ; Or haughty chieftain, 'mid the din of arms. In Highland bonnet woo Malvina's charms ; Whilst sans-culottes stoop up the mountain high, And steal from me Maria's prying eye. Blest Highland bonnet ! once my i)roudesfc dress, Now prouder still, Maria's temples jjress. I see her wave thy towering xjlumes afar, And call each coxcomb to the wordy war ; I see her face the first of Ireland's sons, And even out-Irish his Hibernian bronze ; The crafty colonel leaves the tartan'd lines, For other wars, where he a hero shines ; The hopeful youth, in Scottish senate bred. Who owns a Bushby's heart without the head ; Comes, 'mid a string of coxcombs, to display That veni, vidi, vici, is his way ; The shrinking bard adown an alley skulks. And dreads a meeting worse than Woolwicb hulks : Though there, his heresies in churcb and state Might well award him Muir and Palmer s fate : Still she undaunted reels and rattles on. And dares the public like a noontide sun. (What scandal call'd Maria's janty stagger The ricket reeling of a crooked swagger ; Whose spleen e'en worse than Burns's venom when He dips in gall unmix'd his eager pen, — And pours his vengeance in the burning line, Who christen' d thus Maria's lyre divine ; The idiot strum of vanity bemused, And even the abuse of poesy abused ; Who call'd her verse a parish workhouse, matte For motley, foundling fancies, stolen or stray'd?) A workhouse ! ha, that sound awakes my woes, And pillows on the thorn my rack'd repose ! In durance vile here must I wake and weep. And all my frowsy couch in sorrow steep ! That straw where many a rogue has lain of yore, And vermin'd gipsies litter'd heretofore. Why, Lonsdale, thus thy wrath on vagrants pour, IMust earth no rascjd save thyself endure ? Must thou alone in guilt immortal swell, And make a vast monopoly of hell? Thoxi know'st the virtues cannot hate thee worse; The vices also, must they club their curse ? Or must no tiny sin to others fall, Because thy guilt's supreme enough for all? Maria, send me too thy griefs and cares ; In all of these sure thy Esopus shares. As thou at ail mankind the flag unfurls. Who on my fair one satire's vengeance hurls? Who calls thee pert, affected, vain coquette, A wit in folly, and a fool in wit ? Who says thtit fool alone is not thy due, And quotes thy treacheries to prove it true? Our force united on thy foes we '11 turn. And dare the war with all of woman born : For who can write and speak as thou and I ? My periods that deciphering defy, And thv still matchless tongue that conquers all reply. 78 POEMS. [1794 MONODY ON A LADY FAMED FOR HER CAPRICE.* How cold is that bosom which folly once fired, How pale is that cheek where the rouge lately glisten'd ! How silent that tongue which the echoes oft tired, How dull is that ear which to flattery so lis- ten'd! If sorrow and anguish their exit await. From friendship and dearest affection removed; How doubly severer, Eliza, thy fate, Thou diedst unwept as thou livedst unloved. Loves, Graces, and Virtues, I call not on you ; So shy, grave, and distant, ye shed not a tear : But come, all ye offspring of Folly so true, And flowers let us cull for Eliza's cold bier. "We 11 search through the garden for each silly flower, "We '11 roam through the forest for each idle weed : But chiefly tbc nettle, so typical, shower, For none e'er approach'd her but rued the rash deed. "We'll sculpture the marble, we '11 measure the lay; Here Vanity strums on her idiot lyre ; There keen Indignation shall dart on her prey, "Which spurning Contempt shall redeem from his ire. POEM ON PASTORAL POETRY. This poem was found by Dr Currie among the papers of the poet, and in his own handwriting ; but Gilbert Burns says, "There is some doubt of its being his." It is not perhaps one of his happiest efforts ; but there can be no doubt of its authenticity. Hail, Poesie ! thou nymph reserved ! In chase o' thee, what crowds hae swerved Frae common sense, or sunk ennerved 'Mang heaps o' clavers j^ And och ! owre aft thy joes^ hae starved 'Mid a' thy favours I Say, lassie, why thy train amang, While loud the trump's heroic clang, And sock or buskin skelp alang To death or marriage ; Scarce ane has tried the sheplierd sang But wi' miscarriage ? In Homer's craft Jock Milton thrives ; Eschylus' pen Will Shakespeare drives ; Wee Pope, the knurlin,=^ till him rives * Horatian fame ; In thy sweet sang, Barbauld, survives Even Sappho's flame. But thee, Tlieocritus, wha matches ? They 're no herd's ballats, Maro's catches : 1 Nonsense. » Lwarllah. 3 Lovers. 4 Draws. ♦ This was another of the poet's splenetic attacks on Mrs niddcU Squire Pope but busks his skinklin^ patches 0' heathen tatters : I pass by hunders, nameless wretches, That ape their betters. In this braw age o' wit and lear. Will nane the Shepherd's whistle mair Blaw sweetly in its native air And rural grace ; And wi' the far-famed Grecian share A rival place ? Yes ! there is ane ; a Scottish callan — There 's ane ; come f orrit, honest Allan ! * Thou need na jouk^ behint the hallan, A chiel sae clever ; The teeth o' time may gnaw Tantallan, But thou 's for ever ! Thou paints auld nature to the nines, In thy sweet Caledoniai lines ; Nae gowden stream thr jugli myrtles twines, Where Philomel, While nightly breezes sweep the vines. Her griefs will tell ! In gowany glens thy burnie strays. Where bonny lasses bleach their claes ; Or trots by hazelly shaws and braes, Wi' hawthorns gray, Where blackbirds join the shepherd's lays At close o' day. Thy rural loves are nature's sel ; Nae bombast spates o' nonsense swell ; Nae snap conceits — but tliat sweet spell O' witchin' love ; That charm that can tlie strongest quell, The sternest move. SONNET ON THE DEATH OP EOBERT RIDDEL, ESQ., OF GLEN BIDDEL.f j No more, ye warblers of the wood, no more ! Nor pour your descant, grating, on my soul : Thou youug-eycd Spring, gay in thy verdant stole — ! More welcome were to me grim AVinter's wildest I'oar. j How can ye charm, ye flowers, with all your 1 dyes ? I Ye blow upon the sod that wraps my friend ! How can I to the tuneful strain attend? ' That strain flows round the untimely tomb where Riddel lies ! { Yes, pour, ye warblers, pour the notes of woe ! | And soothe tlie Virtues weeping o'er his bier : ' The Man of Worth, who has not left his peer. Is in his narrow house, for ever darkly low. } Thee, Spring, again with joy shall otliers greet, ' Me, memory of my loss will only meet. j Thin or gauzy. 2 Hide. * Allan Ramsay. t lloliert Riddel, Esq., of Friars' Carse, a very worthy gentleman, and ono I'rom whom Burns had received many obligations. JET. 36.] POEMS. 79 LIBERTY: A FRAGMENT. Writing to Mrs Dunlop from Castle-Douglas, the poet says:— "I am just going to trouble your critical patience with the first sketch of a stanza I have been framing as I passed along the road. Tlie subject is Liberty: you know, my honoured friend, how dear the theme is to me. I design it as an irregular ode for General Washington's birthday. After having mentioned the degeneracy of other kingdoms, I come to Scotland thus : " — Thee, Caledonia, tliy wild heatlis among, Thee, famed for martial deed and sacred song, To thee I turn with swimming eyes ; "Where is that soul of freedom fled ? Immingled with the mighty dead, Beneath the htillow'd turf where Wallace lies ! Hear it not, Wallace, in thy bed of death ! Ye babbling winds, in silence sweep ; Disturb not ye the hero's sleep, Nov give the coward secret breath. Is this the power in freedom's war That wont to bid the battle rage ? Behold that eye which shot immortal hate, Braved usurpation's boldest daring ! That arm which, nerved with thundering fate, Crush'd the despot's proudest bearing : One quench'd in darkness, like the sinking star. And one the palsied arm of tottering, powerless His royal visage seam'd with many a scar. That Caledonian rear d his martial form, "Who led the tyrant-quelling war, "Where Bannockburn's ensanguined flood Swell'd with mingling hostile blood, Soon Edward's myiiads struck with deep dismay. And Scotia's troop of brothers win their way. (Oh, glorious deed to bay a tjrant's band ! Oh, heavenly joy to free our native land !) "While high their mighty chief pour'd on the doubling storm. VEESES TO 3JISS GRAHAM OF FINTRY, WITH A PRESENT OF SONGS. These verses Trere written by the poet on the blank side of the title-page of a copy of Thomson's " Select Scottish Songs," and the volume sent as a present to the daughter of his much-honoured and much-valued friend, Sir Graham of Fintry. Here, where the Scottish Muse immortal lives, In sacred strains and tuneful numbers join'd, Acoept the gift, though humble he who gives ; Kich is the tribute of the grateful mind. So may no ruflian feeling in thy breast Discordant jar thy bosom-chords among! But Peace attune thy gentle soul to rest. Or Love, ecstatic, wake his seraph song ! Or Pity's notes, in luxury of tears. As modest Want the tala of woe reveals; "While conscious Virtue all the strain endears, And heaven-boi-n Piety her sanction seals. THE TREE OF LIBERTY. This poem was taken from a BIS. in the poet's hand- writing in the possession of Mr James Duncan Mosesfield, near Glasgow, and first printed in Mr Robert Chambers's edition of the poet's works, 1838. Heard ye o' the tree o' France, I watna ^ what 's the name o 't ; Ai'ound it a' the patriots dance, "W^eel Europe kens the fame o 't. It stands wliere ance the Bastile stood, A prison built by kings, man. When Superstition's hellish brood Kept France in leading-strings, man. TJpo' this tree there grows sic fruit. Its virtues a' can tell, man ; It i-aises man aboon the brute, It maks him ken himsel, man. Gif ance the peasant taste a bit. He 's greater than a lord, man, And wi' the beggar shares a mite Of a' he can afford, man. This fruit is worth a' Afric's wealth. To comfort us 'twas sent, man : To gie the sweetest blush o' health. And mak us a' content, man. It clears the een, it cheers the heart, Maks high and low guid friends, man ; And he wha acts the traitor's part It to perdition sends, man. My blessings aye atfcend the chieP Wha pitied Gallia's slaves, man, And staw ^ a branch, spite o' the deil, Frae yont •* the western waves, man. Fair Virtue water'd it wi' care, And now she sees wi' pride, man. How weel it buds and blossoms there, Its branches spreading wide, man. But vicious folk aye hate to see The works o' Virtue thrive, man ; The courtly vermin 's bann'd the tree, And grat ^ to see it thrive, man ; King Louis thought to cut it down. When it was nnco^ sma', man ; For this the watchman crack'd his crown, Cut aff his head and a', man, A wicked crew syne,'' on a time. Did tak a solemn aith, man. It ne'er should flourish to its prime, I wat 8 they pledged their faith, man ; Awa' they gaed,^ wi' mock parade, Like beagles hunting game, man. But soon gi'ew weary o' the trade. And wish'd they 'd been at hame, man. For Freedom, standing by the tree, Her sons did loudly ca', man ; She sang a sang o' liberty, "Which pleased them ane and a', man. By her inspired, the nev/'-born race Soon drew the avenging steel, man ; The hirelings ran — her foes gied i" chase, And bang'd ^^ the despot weel, man. Let Britain boast her hardy oak. Her poplar and her pine, man, Auld Britain ance could crack her joke, And o'er her neiglibours shine, man. But seek the forest round and round, And soon 'twill be agreed, man, That sic a tree cannot be found 'Twixt London and the Tweed, man. "Without this tree, alake, this life • Is but a vale o' woe, man : 1 Know not. * From beyond. 1 Then. 10 Gave. * Man. «Wept 8 Know, n Beat. 3 Stole. « Verv. s Went. 8o POEMS. [1796. A scene o' sorrow mix'd wi' strife, Nae real joys we know, man. We labour soon, we labour late, To feed the titled knave, man; And a' the comfort we 're to get Is that ayont the grave, man. "Wi' plenty o' sic trees, I trow, The warld would live in peace, man ; The sword would help to mak a plough. The din o' war wad cease, man. Like brethren in a common cause, "We 'd on each other smile, man; And equal rights and equal laws Wad gladden every isle, man. Wae worth the loon "^ wha wadna eat Sic halesome dainty cheer, man ; I 'd gie my shoon f rae aff my feet, To taste sic fi-uit, I swear, man. Syne let us pray, auld England may Sure plant this fai'-famed tree, man ; And blithe we '11 sing, and hail the day That gives us liberty, man. TO CHLORIS. The Chloris of the following lines, and of several songs of the poet's, was a Mrs Whelpdale, the beautiful daugh- ter of Mr William Lorimer, farmer of Kemmis Hall, near Ellisland. Her marriage was unfortunate, for a few months after it took place she was separated from her husband, whom she did not again meet for twenty-three years, 'Tis Friendship's pledge, my young, fair friend. Nor thou the gift refuse, Nor with unwilling ear attend The moralising Muse. Since thou, in all thy youth and charms, Must bid the world adieu (A world 'gainst peace in constant arms) To join the friendly few. Since thy gay morn of life o'ercast, Chill came the temi)est's lower ; (And ne'er misfortune's eastern blast Did nip a fairer flower. ) Since life's gay scenes must charm no more, | Still much is left behind ; Still nobler wealth hast thou in store — The comforts of the mind ! Thine is the self-approving glow. On conscious honour's part : And, dearest gift of Heaven below. Thine friendship's truest heart. The joys refined of sense and taste, Witli every Muse to rove : And doubly were the poet blest, These joys could he improve. VERSES ON THE DESTRUCTION OF THE WOODS NEAE DRUMLANEIG. The Duke of Queensberry, who was no favourite of the poet's, and who was de'servedly held in little esteem wherever his character was known, liad (we ciuotefrom » Eellow. Mr Chambers) "stripped his domains of Drumlanrig in Dumfriessiiire, and Neidpath in Peeblesshire, of all the wood fit for being cut, in order to enrich the Countess of Yarmouth, whom he supposed to be his daughter, and to whom, by a singular piece of good fortune on her part, Mr George Selwyn, the cele- brated wit, also left a foitune, under the same, and probably equally mistaken, imj)ression." As on the banks o' wandering Nith Ae smiling summer morn I sti-ay'd. And traced its bonny howes and haughs, Where linties sang and lambkins play'd, I sat me down upon a cniig. And drank my fill o' fancy's dream. When, from the eddying deep below,, ^ Uprose the genius of the stream. Dark, like the frowning rock, his brow. And troubled like his wintry wave. And deep, as sughs ^ the boding wind Amang his eaves, the sigh he gave — "And came ye here, my son," he cried, "To wander in my birken shade ?. To muse some favourite Scottish theme. Or sing some favouiite Scottish maid ! "There was a time, it's nae lang syne,^ Ye might hae seen me in my pride. When a' my banks sae bi'avely saw Their woody pictures in my tide ; When hanging beech and spreading elm Shaded my stream sae clear and cool ; And stately oaks their tv/isted arms Threw broad and dark across the pool ; "When glinting through the trees appear'd The wee white cot aboon the mill. And peacefu' i-ose its higle reek,^ That slowly cu^i'l'd up the hill. But now the cot is bare and cauld, Its branchy shelter 's lost and gane, And scarce a stinted birk is left To shiver in the blast its lane." "Alas !" said I, "what ruefu' chance Has twin'd"* ye o' your stately trees ? Has laid your rocky bosom bare ? • Has stripp'd the deeding^ o' your braes? Was it the bitter eastern blast, That scatters blight in early spring? Or was 't the wil'-fire scorch'd their boughs, Or canker-worm wi' secret sting?" "Nae eastlin blast," the sprite replied ; " It blew na here sae fierce and fell; And on my dry and halesome banks Nae canker-worms get leave to dwell : Man ! cruel man ! " the genius sigh'd — As through the clitfs lie sank him do-wn — "Tlie worm that gnaw'd my bonny trees, That reptile wears a duciu' crown !" ADDRESS SPOKEN BY MISS FONTENELLE ON HEE BENEFIT NIGHT. "We have had a brilliant theatre here this season," the poet writes to Mrs Dunlop ; "only, as all other business does, it experiences a stagnation of trade from the epidemical complaint of the country — want oj cash. 1 mention our theatre merely to lug in an occasional address which I wrote for tlxe benefit nigiit of one of the actresses." 1 Sighs, » The smoke of its fire. 5 Cloihinff. 2 Since. * Reft. JET. 38.] POEMS. 81 Still anxious to secure your partial favour, And not less anxious, sure, this night than ever, A Prologue, Epilogue, or some such matter, 'Twould vamp my bill, said I, if nothing better ; So sought a poet, roosted near the skies, Told him I came to feast my curious eyes ; Said nothing like his works was ever printed ; And last, my Prologue-business slily hinted. "Ma'am, let me teU you," quoth my man of rhymes, " I know your bent —these are no laughing times : Can you— but. Miss, I own I have my fears — Dissolve in pause and sentimental tears ; With laden sighs, and solemn-rounded sentence. Rouse from his sluggish slumbers, fell Repent- ance; Paint Vengeance, as he takes his horrid stand, Waving on high the desolating brand. Calling the storms to bear him o'er a guilty land?" I could no more — askance the creature eyeing, D'ye think, said I, this face was made for crv- ing? Ill laugh, that's poz — nay, more, the world shall know it : And so, your servant ! gloomy Master Poet ! Firm as my creed, sirs, 'tis my fix'd belief, That Misery 's another word for Grief ; I also think — so ma}' I be a bride I That so much laughter, so much life enjoy'd. Thou man of crazy care and ceaseless sigh, Still under bleak Misfortune's blasting eye ; Doom'd to that sorest task of man alive — To make three guineas do the work of five ; I Laugh in Misfortune's face— the bedlam witch ! j Say you '11 be meiTy, though you can't be rich. I Thou other man of care, the wretch in love, i Who long with jiltish arts and airs hast strove ; ; Who, as the boughs all temptingly project, j Measured in desperate thought—a rope — thy j ■ neck — I Or, where the beetling cliff o'erhangs the deep, i Peerest to meditate the healing leap : j Wouldst thou be cured, thou silly, moping elf, ! Laugh at her follies — laugh e'en at thyself : Leai-n to despise tliose frowns now so terrific. And love a kinder— that 's your grand specific. To sum Tip aJl, be merry, I advise ; And as we 're merry, may we still be wise ! TO COLLECTOR MITCHELL. j The poet died within a few months of writing th.s. But Collector Mitchell, who was a sincere friend to him, was not aware of his distrt>ss at this time. Friend of the poet, tried and leal, Wha, wanting thee, might beg or steal j Alake ! aiake ! the meikle deil Wi' a' his witches Are at it, skelpin' ^ jig and reel. In my poor pouches ! I modestly fu' fain wad hint it. That one pound one I sairly want it ; If wi' the hizzie '^ down ye sent it, It would be kind ; And while my heart wi' life-blood dunted,^ I 'd bear 't in mind. So may the auld year gang ^ out moaning To see the new come laden, groaning, Wi' double iilenty o'er the loaning ^ To thee and thine ; Domestic peace and comforts crowning The hale design. POSTSCKIPT. Ye 've heard this while how I 've been licket,* And by fell Death was nearly nicket ; * Grim loun ! he gat me by the fecket, ^ And sair me sheuk ; But by guid luck I lap a wicket. And turn'd a neuk. But by that health, I 've got a share o 't, And by tliat life I 'm promised mair o 't. My hale and weel I '11 tak a care o 't, A tentier <> Avay : Then fareweel folly, hide and hair o 't, For ance and aye ! TO COLONEL DE PEYSTER.* Mt honour'd colonel, deep I feel Your interest in the poet's weal : Ah! now sma' heart hae I to speeF The steep Parnassus, Surrounded thus by bolus pill And potion glasses. Oh, what a canty ^ warld were it, Would pain, and care, and sickness spare it ; And fortune favour worth and merit As they deserve ! And aye a rowth,^ roast beef and claret ; Syne^*^ wha wad starve ? Dame Life, though fiction out may trick her. And in paste gems and frippery deck he*: ; Oh! flickering, feeble, and unsicker^i I 've found her still, Aye wavering, like the willow- wicker, ^^ 'Tween good and UL Then that curst carmagnole, auld Satan, Watches, like baudrons^-^ by a ratton, Our sinfu' saul to get a claut^'* on Wi' felon ire ; Syne whip ! his tail ye '11 ne'er cast saut^^ on— He 's aff like fire. Ah, Nick ! ah, Nick ! it is na fair, First showing us the tempting ware, Bright wines and bonny lasses rare, To put us daft ;i8 Synd weave, imseen, the spider snare O' hell's damn'd waft. Poor man, the flee aft bizzes by. And aft as chance he comes thee nigh. Thy auld damn'd elbow yeuks^'' wi' joy, And hellish pleasure ; Already in thy fancy's eye, Thy sicker treasure. Soon, heels-o'er-gowdie ! ^8 in he gangs, And, like a sheep-head on a tangs. 2 The road leading to the farm, * Cut ofif. 5 Waistcoat. 7 Climb. 8 Happy. 10 Then. ^1 Insecure. 13 Cat. 1* Claw. 18 Mai. 17 Itches. 1 Dancing. 3GirL 3 Throbbed. »Go. s Beaten. 6 More careful. 9 Abundance. 12 Twig. 35 Salt. 18 Topsy-turvy. * Arentz de Peyster, colonel of the Gentlemen Volun- teers of DumfrieH, of which Burns w.is a member. He had made some kind inquiries as to the poet's heaV% Thy giming^ laugli enjoys his pangs And murdering wrestle, As, dangling in the wind, he hangs A gibbet's tassel. But lest you think I am uncivil, To plague you with this draunting^ drivel. Abjuring a' intentions evil, I quat my pen : The Lord i^reserve us frae the devil ! Amen! Amoa! TO MISS JESSY LEWAES, DUMFEIES, WITH A PRESENT OP BOOKS. Cunningham says :— "Miss Jessy Lewars watched over the poet and his little household during his declining 1 Grinning. 2 Drawling. days with all the afTcctionate reverence of a daugh- ter. For this she has received the silent thanks of all who admire the genius of Burns, or look with sor- row on his setting sun ; she has received more— the undying thanks of the poet himself : his songs to her honour, and his simple gifts of books and verse, will keep her name and fame long in the world." Thine be the volumes, Jessy fair. And with them take the poet's prayer — That Fate may in her fairest page. With every kindliest, best presage Of future bliss, enrol thy name ; With native worth, and spotless fame, And wakeful caution still aware Of ill— but chief, man's felon snare. All blameless joys on earth we find, And all the treasures of the mind — These be thy guardian and reward ; So prays thy faithful friend— the Bard. EPISTLES. EPISTLE TO JOHN EANKINE, ENCLOSING SOME POEMS. John Rankine, Adamhill, near Torbolton, would seem to have merited the epithets of ♦' rough and readj'- witted," which Burns bestowed upon him. The dream which is alluded to in the epistle may be related as an instance of his caustic humour. Lord K , it is said, was in the practice of calling all his familiar acquaintances "brutes," and sometimes "damned brutes."— "Well, ye brute, how are ye to-day, ye damned brute ? " was his usual mode of salutation. Once, in company, his lordship having indulged in this rudeness more than his wont, turned to Ran- kine, and exclaimed, " Ye damned brute, are ye dumb ? Have ye no queer, sly story to tell us ? ' "I have nae story," said Rankine, "but last night I had an odd dream." "Out with it, by all means," said the other. "Aweel, ye see," said Rankine, "I dreamed I was dead, and that for keeping other than pood company upon earth I was damned. When I knocked at hell-door, wha should open it but the deil; he was in a rough humour, and said, *Wha may ye be, and what's your name?' 'My name,' quoth I, 'is John Rankine, and my dwelling-place was Adamhill.' *Gae wa' wi' ye,' quoth Satan, 'ye canna be here ; ye 're ane of Lord K 's damned brutes— hell 's fu' o' them already ! ' " This sharp re- buke, it is said, polished for the future his lordship's speech. With reference to the circumstances alluded to in the epistle, Lockhart says : — *' He was compelled, according to the then almost universal custom of rural parishes in Scotland, to do penance in church, before the con- gregation, in consequence of the birth of an illegiti- mate child ; and, whatever may be thought of the propriety of such exhibitions, there can be no dif- ference of opinion as to the culpable levity with which he describes the nature of his offence, and the still more reprehensible bitterness with which, in his epistle to Rankine, he inveighs against the clergy- man, who, in rebuking him, only performed what ■was then a regular part of the clerical duty, and a part of it that could never have been at all agreeable to the worthy man whom he satirises under the ap- pellation of Daddie Auld." O ROUGH, rude, ready-witted Rankine, The wale ' o' cocks for fun and drinkin' ! There 's mony godly folks are thinkiu' Your dreams * and tricks "Will send you, Korah-like, a-sinkin', Straught to auld Nick's. Ye liae sae mony cracks and cants,^ And in your wicked, drucken rants,^ Ye mak a devil o' the saunts, And fill them f ou ; ^ + 1 Choice. 3 Boats. 3 Stories and tricks. * Tipsy. * A certain humorous dream of his was then making a noise in the country-side. — B. t A minister or elder, some say Holy Willie, had called on Rankine, and had partaken so freely of whisky-toddy as to have ended by tumbling dead-drunk ou the floor. And then their failings, flaws, and wants. Are a' seen through. Hypocrisy, in mercy spare it ! That holy robe, oh, dinna tear it ! Spare 't for their sakes wha aften wear it, The lads in black ! But your curst wit, when it comes near it, Eives 't 1 aff their back. Think, wicked sinner, wha ye le skaithing,^ It's just the blue-gown badge and claithing* O' savmts ; tak that, ye lea'e them naething To ken them by, Frae ony unregenerate heathen Like you or L I 've sent you here some ihyming ware, A' that I bargain'd for, and mair ; Sae, when ye hae an hour to spare, I will expect Yon sangj'h ye 11 seu't wi' cannie care, And no neglect. Though, faith, sma' heart hae I to sing ! My muse dow •* scarcely spread her wing ! I 've play'd mysel a bonny spring, And danced my fill ! I 'd better gaen and sair't^ the king, At Bunker's Hilh 'Twas ae night lately, in my fun, I gaed a roving wi' the gun, And brought a paitrick^ to the grun', A bonny hen, And, as the twilight was begun, Thought nane wad ken.* The poor wee thing was little hurt ; I straikit ^ it a wee for spoi-t. Ne'er thinking they wad fash 8 me for't ; But, diel-ma-care ! Somebody tells the j)oacher-court The hale affair. Some auld-used hands had ta'en a note, That sic a hen had got a shot, I was suspected for the plot ; I scom'd to lie ; So gat the whistle o' my groat, And pay 't the fee. 1 Pulls it. * Sert-ed. 7 Stroked. 2 Injuring. 5 Partridge. ' Dare. 6 Know. 8 Trouble. » " The allusion here is to a privileged class of men- dicants well known in Scotland by the name of ' Blue Gowns.' The order was instituted by James V, ot Scotland, the royal 'Gaberlunzie-Man.'" t A song he had promised the author.— £. 84 EPISTLES, [1785 But, by my gun, o' guus the wale, And by my pouther and my hail, And by my hen, and by her tail, I vow and swear ! The game shall pay o'er moor and dale, i'or this, neist year. As soon 's the clocking-time is by, And the wee pouts begun to cr}'-. Lord, I 'se hae sportin' by and hj, For my gowd guinea : Though I should herd the buckskin kye For 't in Virginia. Trouth, they had muckle for to blame ! 'Twas neither broken wing nor limb. But twa-three draps about the wame Scarce through the feathers ; And baith a yellow George to claim And thole their blethers ! 1 It pits me aye as mad 's a hair ; So I can rhyme nor write nae mair ; But pennyworths again is fair. When time 's exj)edient : Meanwhile I am, respected sir. Your most obedient. EPISTLE TO DAVIE, A BROTHER POET. January 1785. Dnvid Sillar, to whom this epistle was addressed, was a native of Torbolton, a poet and scholar. He was for many years a schoolmaster at Irvine, and was lat- terly a magistrate of that town. He published a volume of poems in the Scottish dialect. Gilbert Burns says, with reference to this epistle : — " Among the earliest of his poems was the epistle to Davie. Robert often composed without any regular plan. When anything made a strong impression on his mind, so as to rouse it to any poetic exertion, he would give way to the impulse, and embody the thought in rhyme. If he hit on two or three stanzas to please him, he would then think of proper intro- ductory, connecting, and concluding stanzas ; hence the middle of a poem was often first produced. It was, I think, in the summer of 1784, when, in the interval of harder labour, Robert and I were weeding in the garden, that he repeated to me the principal part of this epistle. I believe the first idea of Robert's becoming an author was started on this occasion. I was much pleased with the epistle, and said to him I was of opinion it would bear being printed, and that it would be well received by people of taste ; that I thought it at least equal, if not su- perior, to many of Allan Ramsay's epistles, and that the merit of these, and much other Scottish poetry, seemed to consist principally in the knack of tlie expression ; but here there was a strain of interest- ing sentiment, and the Scotticism of the language scarcely seemed affected, but appeared to be the na- tural language of the poet ; that, besides, there was certainly some novelty in a poet pointing out the consolations that were in store for him when he should go a-begging.— Robert seemed well pleased with my criticism." While winds f rae aff Ben Lomond blaw, And bar the doors wi' driving snaw, And hing^ us owre the ingle," I set me down to pass the time, And spin a verse or twa o' rhyme, In hamely westlin j ingle. * While frosty winds blaw in the drift, Ben to the chimla lug," 1 Nonsense. 2 Hang. * Fire. 4 Homely west country dialect, * Chimney comer. I grudge a wee the great folk's gift, That live sae bien^ and snug: I tent 2 less, and want less Their roomy fire -side ; But hanker and canker To see their cursed pride. It 's hardly in a body's power To keep at times frae being sour. To see how things are shared ; How best o' chiels=^ are whiles in want, While coofs"* on countless thousands rant,* And ken na how to wair 't ; ^ But, Davie, lad, ne'er fash '' your head, Though we hae little gear,!^ We 're lit to win our daily bread, As lang 's we 're hale and fier :3 " Mair spier na, nor fear na," 1° Auld age ne'er mind a feg,"- The last o 't, the warst o 't, Is only but to beg. To lie in kilns and bams at e'en, AVhen banes are crazed, and bluid is thin, Is doubtless great distress ! Yet then content could make us blest ; E'en then, sometimes, we 'd snatch a taste Of truest happiness. The honest heart that 's free frae a' Intended fraud or guile. However Fortune kick the ba', Has aye some cause to smile : And mind still, you 'U find still, A comfort this nae sma' ; Uae mair then, we '11 care then, Nae farther can we fa'. What though, like commoners of air, We wander out we know not where, But either house or hall ? Yet nature's charms— the hUls and woods, The sweeping vales, and foaming floods — Are free alike to all. In days when daisies deck the ground. And blackbu'ds whistle cleai*, With honest joy our hearts will bound To see the coming year : On braes, when we please, then. We '11 sit and sowth^^ a tune : Syne rhyme till 't, we '11 time tiU 't. And sing 't when we hae dune. It 's no in titles nor in rank : It 's no in wealth like Lon'on bank, To purchase peace and rest : . It 's no in making muckle mair ; ^ It 's no in books ; it 's no in lear ;^* To make us truly blest ; If happiness hae not her seat And centre in the breast, We may be wise, or rich, or great, But never can be blest : , Nae treasures, nor pleasures, Could maliC lis happy lang : The heart aye's the part aye That makes us right or wrang. Think ye that sic^* as you and I, Wha drudge and drive through wet and dry, 1 Comfortable, 2 need, s Men. ■* Fools. 6 Live extravagantly. « Spend it. 7 Trouble. 8 (ioods or wealth, Whole and sound. !'> More ask not, nor fear not. »i Fig. 12 Whistle. i^ Much moi-e. 1* Learning. " Such. iET. 27.] EPISTLES. 85 "Wi' never-ceasing toil ; Think ye, ai-e we less blest than they Wha scai'cely tent^ us in tlieii- way, As harcUy worth their while? Alas ! how aft in haughty mood, God's creatures they oppress ! Or else, neglecting a' that 's guid, They riot in excess ! Bivith careless and fearless Of either heaven or heU ! Esteeming and deeming It 's a' an idle tale ! Then let tis cheerfu' acquiesce ; Nor make our scanty pleasures less, By pining at our state ; And, even should misfortunes come, I here wha sit hae met wi' some, An 's thajokf u' for them yet. They gie the wit of age to youth ; They let us ken oursel ; They make us see the naked truth, Tlie real guid and ill. Though losses and crosses Be lessons right severe. There 's wit there, ye '11 get there, Ye '11 find nae other wHere. But tent me, Davie, ace o' hearts ! (To say aught less wad wrang the cartes, And flattery I detest,) This life has joys for you and I ; And joys that riches ne'er could buy : And joys the very best. There 's a' the pleasures o' the heart, The lover and the frien' ; Ye hae your Meg,* your dearest part. And I my darling Jean ! It warms me, it charms me. To mention but her name : It heats me, it beets me. And sets me a' on flame ! Oh, all ye powers who rule above ! O Thou, whose very self art love ! Thou know'st my words sincere ! The life-blood streaming through my heart, Or my more dear immci-tal pait. Is not more fondly deai- ! "WTien heart-corroding care and grief Deprive my soul of rest. Her dear idea brings relief And solace to my breast. Thou Being, all-seeing. Oh, hear my fervent prayer ! Still take hei-, and make her Thy most peculiar care ! All hail ! ye tender feelings dear ! The smile of love, the friendly tear, The sympathetic glow ! Long since, this world's thorny ways Had numbei-'d out my weary days," Had it not been for you ! Fate still has blest me with a friend, In every care and ill ; Ajid oft a more endearing band, A tie more tender still. It lightens, it brightens The tenebrific scene, To meet with, and greet with My Davie or my Jean ! Oh, how that name inspires my style ! The words come skelpin',^ rank and file, Amaisf-^ before I ken P The ready measure rins as fine As Phoebus and the famous Nine Were glowerhi' owre my pen. My spaviet^ Pegasus will limp, Till ance he 's fairly het ; And then he '11 hilch,;^ and stilt,^ and jimp/ And rin an imco fit : But lest then, the beast then. Should rue^ this hasty ride, I'll light now, and dight') now His sweaty, wizen' d^" hide. 1 Heed. * Sillar's flame was a lass of the name of JIargaret Orr, who had charge of the chiUlren of Mrs Stewart of Stair. It was not the fortune of " Meg" to become Mrs Sillar. \ EPISTLE TO JOHN LAPitAIK, AN OLD SCOTTISH BAED. April 1, 1785. John Lapraik was a rustic follower of the Muses. Burns describes him as that "very worthy and face- tious old fellow, John Lapraik, late of Dalfram, near Muirkirk, which little property he was obliged to sell in consequence of some connexion as security for some persons concerned in that villainous bubble, the Ayr Bank." While briers and woodbines budding green. And paitricks^^ scraichin'^^ loud at e'en. And morning poussie^^ whiddin seen, Inspire my Muse, This freedom in an unknown frien' I pray excuse. On Fasten-e'en we had a rockin',* To ca' the crack ^"^ and weave our stockin'; And there was muckle^^ fun and jokin', Ye needna doubt ; At length we had a hearty yokiu'^^ At sang about. There was ae sang, amang the rest, Aboon them a' it pleased me best. That some kind husband had addrest To some sweet wife : It thirl'd the heart-strings through the breast, A' to the life.t I 've scarce heard ought described sae weel, What generous manly bosoms feel ; Thought I, *' Can this be Pope, or Steele, OrBeattie's wark?!' They tauld me 'twas an odd kind chieP'^ About Muii'kirk. It pat me fidgin-fain^^ to hear 't, Ajid sae about him there I spiert ;^3 Then a' that kent'^*' him round declared He had ingine j^i That nane exceU'd it, few cam near't. It was sae fine. 1 Dancing. - Almost, ' Enow. * Spavined. * Hobble. 6 Halt "^ Jump. 8 Repent. 9 Wipe. ^0 Withered. n Partridges. 12 Screaming. *' The hare. 1* To drive the talk. 15 Much. 16 Bout. 17 Man. IS JIade me fidget with desire. 1^ Inquired. 20 Knew. 21 Genius or geniality. * In former times young women were wont to meet together, each having her distaff or rock for the pur- pose of spinning while the song and the gossip went round. t This song is entitled, "When I upon thy bosom lean." %6 EPISTLES. [1785. Tlmt, set him to a pint of ale, And eitlier douce ^ or merry tale, Or rhymes and sangs he 'd made himsel, Or witty catches : 'Tween Inverness and Teviotdale He had few matches. Tlien np I gat, and swore an aith,2 Though I should pawn my pleugh and graith,^ Or die a cadger pownie's death, At some dike back, A pint and gill I 'd gie them baith To hear your crack. But, fii'st and foremost, I should tell, Amaist as soon as I could spell, I to the crambo- jingle"^ fell, Though rude and rough : Yet crooning^ to a body's sel Does weel eneugh. I am nae poet, in a sense, But just a rhymer, like by chance, i And hae to learning nae pretence. Yet what the matter? "Whene'er my Muse docs on me glance, I jiugle at her. Your critic folk may cock their nose. And say, "How can you e'er propose, You, wha ken hardly verse frae prose, To mak a sang?" But, by your leaves, my learned foes. Ye 're maybe wrang. What 's a' your jargon o' your schools, Your Latin names for horns and stools ; If honest nature made you fools. What sairs your grammars ? Ye 'd better ta'en up spades and shools, Or knappin'-hammeis. Ji. set o' dull, conceited hashes,^ Confuse their brains in college classes ! They gang in stirks,'' and come out asses. Plain truth to speak ; And syne 8 they think to climb Parnassus By dint o' Greek ! Gie me ae spark o' Nature's fire ! That 's a' the learning I desire ; Then, though I drudge through dub and mire At pleugh or cart. My Muse, though hamely in attire. May touch the heart. Oh for a spunk o' Allan's ^ glee. Or Fergusson's, the bauld and 8lee,^<> Or bright Lapraik's, my friend to be. If I can hit it ! That would be lear^^ enough for me, If I could get it I Now, sir, if ye hae friends enow, Though real friends I b'lieve are few, Yet, if your catalogue be fu*, I 'se no insist, But gif ye want ae friend that 's true, I 'm on your list. I winna^'-* blaw about mysel ; As iU I like my f auts to tell ; 1 Sober. * Dogperel verses. 7 Year-old cattle ^0 Sly. Oath. » Humming. 8 Then. " Learning. 3 Tackle. 6 IJlockheads. » Allan Ramsay. 12 -Will not. But friends and folk that wish me well, They sometimes roose^ me; Though I maun 2 own, as mony still As far abuse me. There 's ae wee faut^ they whiles lay to me, I like the lasses — Gude forgie me ! For mony a plack they wheedle frae me, At dance or fair ; Maybe some ither thing they gie me, They weel can spare. But Mauchline race, or Mauchline fair, I should be proud to meet you there ; We 'se gie ae night's discharge to Care, If we forgather, And hae a swap'* o' rhymin' ware Wi' ane anither. The four-gill chap,^ we 'se gar^ him clatter. And kirsen^ him wi' reekin' water ; Syne we '11 sit down and talc our Avhitter,8 To cheer our heart ; And faith, we 'se be acquainted better Before we part. There 's naething like the honest nappy I^ Whar'lP" ye e'er see men sae happy, Or women sonsie, saft, and sappy ^^^ 'Tween morn and mora. As them wha like to taste the drappy^^ In glass or horn ! I 've seen me dais't i'^ upon a time, I scarce could wink, or see a styme j^* Just ae half-mutchkin does me prime. Aught less is little, Then back I rattle on the rhyme, As gleg's a v/hittle! ^^ Awa' ye selfish war'ly race, Wha think that havins,!^ sense, and grace. E'en love and friendship, sliould give place To cateh-the-plack ! i7 I diuna^s ]^q Iq gge your face. Nor hear your crack. ^^ But ye whom social pleasure charms, Whose hearts the tide of kindness warms, Who hold your being on the terms, "Each aid the others," Come to my bowl, come to my arms. My friends, my brothers. But, to conclude my long epistle. As my auld pen 's worn to the grissle ; Twa lines frae you would gar me fissle,20 Who am, most ferveut. While I can either sing or whissle. Your friend and servant. . SECOND EPISTLE TO LAPRAIK. \ April 21, 1785. While new-ca'd kye rowte^^ at the stake. And pownies reek-^ in i^lcugh or braik,'^^ This hour on e'enin's edge I take. To own I 'm debtor To honest-hearted, auld Lapraik, For his kind letter. 1 Praise. 2 Must. ' « Small fault. * An exchange. 6 Stoup. « Make. ^ Cliristen. 8 Hcarty draught. Ale. 10 Where wiU. n Comely. 1-' Small drop. " Stupid. " See in tlie least. ^'^ As keen as a knife. i« Decorum. " To seek after money. ^8 Do not. 19 Talk. so Fidget. 21 Driven cows low. ^ Smoke. 2s Harrow .ET. 27.] EPISTLES. 87 Forjesket sair,^ wi' weary legs, l.attlin' the corn out-owre the rigs, Or dealing through amang the naigs • Theii" ten-hours' bite, ]\ry awkvN'ard Muse sair pleads and begs I wouldna write. The tapetless ramfeezled hizzie,3 iShe 's saft at best, and something lazy. Quo' she, "Ye keu, we've been sae busy, This month and raair, That, trouth, my head is grown right dizz}-, And something sail-." Her dowff ^ excuses pat me mad : " Conscience," says I, " ye thowless jad! •* I '11 write, and that a hearty blaud,^ This vei-a night ; So dinna ye affront your trade. But rhyme it right. "Shall bauld Lapraik, the king o' heartSj, Though mankind were a pack o' cartes, Koose you sae weel for your desei-ts, j In terms sae friendly. Yet ye '11 neglect to shaw your parts, And thank him kindly ? " j Sae I gat paper in a blink,^ ! And down gaed stumpie in the ink : j l^uoth I, " Before I sleep a wink, ^ I vow I '11 close it ; And if ye wmna mak it clink,^ By Jove 1*11 prose it ! " Sae I've begun to scrawl, but whether In rhyme, or prose, or baith thcgither, Or somo hotch-potch " that's rightly neither, Let time mak proof ; But I shall scribble down some blether^^ Just clean aff-loof.f ]\Iy worthy friend, ne'er gi-udge and cai-]}. Though Fortune use you hard and shai-p ; Come, kittle^ up your moorland-harp ■\Yi' gleesome touch ! Xe'er mind how Fortune waft and warp; She's but a bitch. She's gien^'5 me mony a jirt and fleg,^^ Sin' I could striddle owre a rig ; But, by the Lord, though I should beg AVi' lyart pow,^^ 1 '11 laugh, and sing, and shake my leg. As lang's I dowl^^ Xow comes the sax and twentieth simmer I've seen the bud upo' the timmer,^-^ Still persecuted by the limmer^^ Frae year to year ; But yet, despite the kittle kimmer,io I, Rob, am here. Do ye envy the city gent, Behint a last to lie and sklent, % J Worn sore with fatigue. 2 The heedless and exhausted jade. s Silly. « Lazy jade. 5 Quantity. 6 Twinkling t Rhyme. « Nonsense. 9 Tickle 10 Given. u Jerk and kick. 12 Gray head. " Can. 1* Tree. w Jade. ic Girl. * Hotch potch is the Scotch name for a soup made of all sorts of vegetables. No other explanation could give a proper idea of the meaning of the phrase here, t Scotticism for extemporaneous. X Behind a counter to lie and leer. Or purse-proud, big wi' cent, per cent. And muckle wame,^ In some bit brugh to represent A bailie's name ? Or is 't the paughty,^ feudal thane, Wi' ruffled sark and glancing cane, "Wha thinks himsel nae sheep-shank bane, But lordly stalks, While caps and bonnets aff are ta'en,-* As by he walks. O Thou wha gies us each guid gift ! Gie me o' wit and sense a lift. Then turn me, if Thou please, adrift, Through Scotland wide ; Wi' cits nor lairds I wadna shift. In a' their pride ! Were this the charter of our state, " On pain o' hell be rich and great," Damnation then would be our fate Beyond remead ; But, thanks to Heaven, that 's no the gate We learn o\ir creed. For thus the royal mandate ran. When first the human race began, "The social, friendly, honest man, Whate'er he be, 'Tis he fulfils great Nature's plan. And none but he ! " O mandate, glorious and divine ! The ragged followers o' the Nine, Poor, thoughtless devils ! yet may shine In glorious light, While sordid sons o' JMammon's line Are dark as night. Though here they scrape, and squeeze, and growl. Their worthless nievefu' ^ of a soul May in some future carcase howl. The forest's fright ; Or in some day-detesting owl May shun the light. Then may Lapraik and Bums arise. To reach their native kindred skies. And sing their pleasures, hopes, and joys. In some mild sphere. Still closer knit in friendship's ties Each j)assing year ! EPISTLE TO JOHN GOUDIE, KIL- MAENOCK, ON THE PUBLICATION OP HIS ESSAYS. John Goudie was a Kilmarnock tradesman. His essay, fully discussing the authority of the Holy Scriptures, first appeared in 1780, and a new edition in 1785. The publication of the new edition called forth the following epistle from the poet :— O Goudie ! terror of the Whigs, ■ Dread of black coats and reverend wigs. Sour Bigotry, on her last legs, Girnin', ^ looks back, Wishin' the ten Egyptian plagues Wad seize you quick. 1 Big belly. 4 Handful. 2 Haughty. 3 Taken. « Grinning. S8 EPISTLES. [1785. Poor gapin', glowerin' ^ Superstition, Waes me ! slie 's in a sad condition ; Fie ! bring Black Jook,* her state physician. To see her water : Alas ! there 's ground o' great suspicion She '11 ne'er get better. Anld Orthodoxy long did grapple. But now she 's got an unco ripple ; ^ Haste, gie her name up i' tlie chapel, Nigh unto death ; See how she fetches at the thrapple, 3 And gasps for breath ! Enthusiasm 's past redemption, Gaen'* in a galloping consumption, Not a' the quacks, wi' a' their gumption, ^ Will ever mend her. Her feeble pulse gies strong presumption Death soon will end her. Tis you and Taylorf are the chief, Wha are to blame for this mischief j But gin the Lord's ain folk gat leave, A toom ^ tar-barrel And twa red peats ' wad send relief, And end the quarreL EPISTLE TO WILLIAM SIMPSON, OCHILTEEE. May 1785. William Simpson was schoolmaster of Ochiltree, a parish a few miles south of Mauchline. According to ilr Chambers, he had sent a rliymed epistle to Burns, on reading his satire of the "Twa Herds," which called forth the following beautiful epistle in re- ply :- I GAT your letter, winsome ^ Willie ; Wi' gratefu' heart I tliank you brawlie, ^ Though I maun say 't, I wad be silly. And unco vain, Should I believe, my coaxin' billie, ^^ Your fiatterin' strain. But I 'se believe ye kindly meant it, I sud ^^ be laith to think ye hinted Ironic satire, sidelins sklented ^^ On my poor Musie ; Though in sic phi-asin'^^ terms ye 've penn'd it, I scarce excuse ye. My senses wad be in a creel, J Should I but dare a hope to speel, Wi' Allan or wi' Gilbertfield,^ The braes o' fame ; Or Pergusson,|| the writer chiel, A deathless name. i Staring. « Pain* in the back and loins. » Throat. * Gone. » Knowledge. ^ Empty. " Two burniBg peats to set fire t« the tar barrel. 8 Hearty. » Heartily. i" I'ellow. " Siiould. 12 Obliiiuely directed. IS Flattering. * The Rev. John Russell, Kilmarnock, one of the heroes of the «• Twa Herds." t Dr Taylor of Norwich — B. X A basket. When a person's wits are supposed to be a wool-gathering, he is said to be in a creel. { Allan Ramsay, and William Hamilton of Gilbert- field, a forgotten poet and contemporary of Ramsay's. U Robert fcrgusson, the pout. (O Fergusson, thy glorious parts 111 suited law's dry musty arts ! My curse ui)on your wliuustane hearts. Ye E'nbrugh gentry ! The tithe o' what ye waste at cartes ^ Wad stow'd ^ his pantry !) Yet when a tale comes i' my head. Or lasses gie my heart a screed, ** As wliiles they 're like to be my dead, (O sad disease !) I kittle ^ up my rustic reed ; It gies me ease. A vdd Coila ■" now may fidge fu' fain, 5 She 's gotten poets o' her ain, Chiels <* wha their chanters winna hain,'' But tune their lays. Till echoes a' resound again Her weel-sung praise. Nae poet thought her worth his while. To set her name in measured style ; She lay like some unkenn'd-of isle Beside New Holland, Or where wild-meeting oceans boil Besouth Slagellan. Ramsay and famous Fergusson Gied Forth and Tay a lift aboon ;8 Yarrow and Tweed, to mony a tune, Owre Scotland rings, While Irwin, Lugar, Ayr, and Doon, Naebody sings. Th' missus, Tiber, Thames, and Seine, Glide sweet in mony a tunefu' line 1 But, Willie, set your fit to mine. And cock ^ your crest. We'll gar^^ our streams and burnies shine Up wi' the best. We'll sing auld Coila's plains and fells. Her moors red-brown wi' heather-bells, Her banks and braes, her dens and dells. Where glorious Wallace Aft bare the gree, 11 as story tells, Frae southron billies. At Wallace' name what Scottish bloot But boils up in a spring-tide flood ! Oft have our fearless fathers strode By Wallace' side, Still pressing onward, red-wat shod, ^^ Or glorious died. Oh, sweet are Coila's haughs ^^ and woods, When lintwhites chant aniang the buds. And jinkin'^'' hares, in amorous whidsjt Their loves enjoy. While through the braes tlie cushat croods^'^ With waQfu' cry! Even winter bleak has charms to me, When winds rave through the naked tree : 1 Cards. » Stored. » Rent. * Tickle. 6 Fidget with joy. « Fellows. 1 Will not spare, » Above. 9 Elevate. 10 Make. " Often bore the bell. 12 Their shoes red in blood. " Meadows 1* Dodging. I'* Coos. * An application frequently applied by Burns to the district of Kyle. t A word expressive of the quick, nimble movements of the hare. ST. 27.] EPISTLES. 89 Or frosts on hills of Ochiltree Are hoary gi'ay : Or hlinding drifts wild-furious flee, Dai-kening the day ! Nature ! a' thy shows and forms, To feeling, pensive hearts hae charms ! "Whether the summer kindly warms Wi' life and light, Or winter howls, in gusty storms, The lang, dark night ! The Muse, nae poet ever fand^ her, Till by himsel he learn'd to wander, Adown some trotting burn's meander, And no think lang ; Oh, sweet to stray, and pensive ponder A heart-felt sang ! The warly race may drudge and dVive, Hog-shouther, jundie,^ stretch, and strive — Let me fair Nature's face descrive,** And I, wi' pleasure. Shall let the busy, grumbling hive Bum owre^ their treasure. Fareweel, "my rhyme-composing brither !" We 've been owre lang unkenn'd to ither : ^ Now let us lay our heads thegither. In love fraternal ; May Envy wallop^ in a tether,-^ Black fiend, infernal ! "While Highlandmen hate tolls and taxes; "While moorlan' herds like guid fat braxies,* While terra firma on her axis Diurnal turns. Count on a friend, in faith and practice, In Robert Bdrns. POSTSCRIPT. My memory 's no worth a preen : ^ 1 had amaist forgotten clean Ye bade me write you what they mean By this New Light,t "Bout which our herds sae aft hae been Maist like to fight. In days when mankind were but callans^ At grammar, logic, and sic talents, They took nae pains their speech to balance, Or rules to gie,^o But spak their thoughts in plain, braid lallans,^! Like you or me. In thae auld times, they thought the moon, Just like a sark,i^ or pair of shoon,^^ Wore by degrees, till her last roon ^^ Gaed past their viewing. And shortly after she was done, They gat a new one. This pass'd for certain — undisputed : It ne er cam i' their heads to doubt it. Till chiels^ gat up and wad confute it. And ca'd it wrang ; And muckle din there was about it, Baith loud and lang. 1 Found. 2 Jostle, push. » Describe. < Hum over. * Too long unknown to each other. 6 Struggle. 1 Rope. 8 Pin. » Juveniles. ^0 Give. " Lowland speech. 13 Shirt. "Shoes. i* Shred, 15 FeUows. * Sheep which have died of disease ; and which are understood to belong to the shepherds as their per- quisites. t An allusion to the " Twa Herds." Some herds, weel learn'd upo' the beuk,^ Wad threap 2 auld folk the thing misteuk ; 3 For 'twas the auld moon turn'd a neuk,-* And out o' sight. And backlins^-comhi', to the leuk ^ She grew mair bright. This was denied — it was afBrm'd ; The herds and hirsels^ were alarm'd ; The reverend gray-beards raved and storm'd Tliat beardless laddies ^ Should think they better were inform'd Than their auld daddies.' Frae less to mair it gaed to sticks ; Frae words and aiths to slours and nicks ;^® And mony a fallow gat his licks,^^ Wi' hearty crunt i^^ And some, to learn them for their tricks. Were hang'd and brunt. This game was play'd in mony lands, And Auld-Light caddies ^^ bure sic hands That, faith, the youngsters took the sands Wi' nimble shanks,^-* TiU lairds forbade, by strict commands, Sic bluidy pranks. But New-Light herds gat sic a cowe, *^ Folk thought them ruin'd stick and stowe,i* Till now amaist on every knowe ^^ Ye '11 find ane placed ; And some their New-Light fair avow. Just quite barefaced. Nae doubt the Auld-Light flocks are bleatin' ; Their zealous herds are vex'd and sweatin' ; Mysel, I've even seen them greetin'^^ Wi' girnin'^9 spite. To hear the moon sae sadly lied on, By word and write. But shortly they will cowe the loons ! 20 Some Auld-Light herds in neibor towns Are mind't, in things they ca' balloons, To tak a flight. And stay ae month amang the moons, And see them right. Guid observation they wUl gie them ; And when the auld moon 's gaun to lea'e them. The hindmost shaird, ^^ they'll fetch it wi' them, Just i' their pouch,23 And when the New-Light billies ^^ see them, I think they'll crouch! Sae, ye observe that a' this clatter^-* Is nae thing but a "moonshine matter ; " But though dull prose-folk Latin splatter In logic tulzie,^''' I hope we bardies ken some better Than mind sic brulzie.^ V HERD EPISTLE TO JOHN LAPRAIK. This epistle did not appear in either of the editions of his works which the post saw through the press. It 1 Book. ' Argue. 9 Mistook. ■* Corner. » Backwards. « Look. 7 Flocks. 8 Lads. 9 Fathers. \ 10 Blows and cuts. " Got a beating. , 12 Dint. 13 Fellows. " Legs. 15 Such a fright. i« Stump and nimp. ! 17 Hillock. 18 Crying. 19 Grinning. 20 Rascals. 21 Shred. 22 Pocket. 23 Fellows. M Gossip. 2« Contention. 2S Broils. 90 EPISTLES, [1785. ■was written while in the midst of his second hai-vest at Mossgiel — an unfortunate one as it proved ; for being both a late and a wet season, an evil conjunc- tion on the cold wet soil, half the crops were lost. September 13, 1785. GuiD speed and furder* to you, Johnny, Guid health, hale han's, and weather bonny; Now when ye 're nickan^ down fu' canny The staff o' bread, May ye ne'er want a stoup o' bran'y To clear your head. May Boreas never thrash your rigs,f Nor kick your rickles^ aff their legs, Sendin' the stuff o'er muirs and haggs^ Like drivin' wrack ; But may the tapmast grain that wags Come to the sack. I 'm bizzie too, and skelpin'^ at it, But bitter, daudin'^ showers hae wat it, Sae my auld stumpie pen I gat it Wi' muckle wark, And took my jocteleg^ and whatf it. Like ony dark. It 's now twa month that I 'm your debtor, Por your braw, nameless, dateless letter, Abusin' me for harsh ill nature On holy men. While deil a hair yoursel ye 're better, But mair profane. But let the kirk-folk ring their bells. Let 's sing about our noble sels ; We '11 cry nae jads^ frae heathen hills To help or roose*^ us, But browster wives ^'^ and whisky stills, They ai'e the muses. Your friendship, sir, I winna quat it, And if ye mak objections at it. Then han' in nieve^^ some day we '11 knot^^ j^, And witness take, And when wi' usquebae we 've wat it, It winna break. But if the beast and branks^^ \^q spared Till kye be gaun^^ without the herd, And a' the vitteP^ in the yard, And theekit^'' right, I mean your ingle-side to guard Ae winter night. Then muse-inspii-in' aqua-vitae Shall make us baith sae blithe and witty, Till ye forget ye 're auld and gatty,^^ And be as canty ^^ As ye were nine year less than tliretty,^^ Sweet ane and twenty ! But stocks are cowpif^^ wi' the blast, And now the sinn keeks 21 in the west, Then I maun rin amang the rest. And quat my chanter ; Sae I subscribe myself in haste, Yours, llAB THE llANTER. ^ Cutting. - Stocks or shocks of corn. 3 Morasses. * Driving at it. '> Wind-driven, / MJlasp-knife, "> Cut or sharpened it. % >^Musc3. 9 Rouse. 10 Ale-liouse wives. " Hand in fist. 12 Bind. w Bridle. " Going. 36 Victual. 10 Tliatched. " Frail. M Happy. 13 Thirty. "o Overturned. 21 Sun blinks. * Good speed and success in furtiKiance to you. t May Boreas never shake the cuiu in your ridges. EPISTLE TO THE EEV. JOHN M'MATH. The Rov. John M 'Math was at this time assistant to the Hev. Peter Wodrow of Torbolton. As a copy 01 "Holy Willie's Prayer" accompanied the epistle, we need hardly say he was a member of the New-Light party. The bleak ungenial harvest weather is very graphically pictured in the first verse. September 17, 1785. While at the stock the shearers ^ cower To shun the bitter blaudin' ^ shov.'er, Or in gulravage rinnin' scower"^ To pass the time, To you I dedicate the hour In idle rhyme. My Musie, tired wi' mony a sonnet On gown, and ban', and douce ^ black bonnet, Is grown right eerie ^ now she 's done it, Lest they should blame hei-. And rouse their holy thunder on it And anathem her. I own 'twas rash, and rather hardy, That I, a simple, country bardie, Should meddle wi' a pack sae sturdy, Wha, if they ken me, Can easy, wi' a single wordic, Lowse hell upon me. But I gae mad at their grimaces, Their sighin', cantin', grace-proud faces. Their three-mile prayers, and half-mile graces, Theu' raxin'** conscience, Whase greed, revenge, and pride disgraces Waur norT' their nonsense. There's Gavsm,* misca't^ waur than a beast, Wha has mair honour in his breast Than mony scores as guid 's the priest Wha sae abuse 't him. And may a bard no crack his jest What way they 've use't hiin ? See him, the poor man's friend in need, The gentleman in word and deed, And shall his fame and honour bleed By worthless skcUums,^ And not a muse erect her liead To cowe the blellums?^^' Pope, had I thy satire's darts, To gie the rascals their deserts, 1 'd rip their rotten, hollow hearts, And tell aloud. Their juggliu' hocus-pocus arts. To cheat the crowd. God knows, I'm no the thing I should be, Nor am I even the thing I could be. But twenty times I rather would be An atheist clean. Than under gospel colours hid be Just for a screen. An honest man may like a glass, An honest man may like a lass. But mean revenge, and malice fausc,^^ He '11 still disdain. And then cry zeal fur -nsiiel laws. Like .sdinc w c ken. i Harvest people. 3 Run riotously for amusement. ^ Timorous. •' Strctdiing. 8 Misnamed. '■> Wretches. 11 False. * Gavin Ilamilton, E3(i. 7 AVorsr than. 10 Tellou.'^. .T^T. 27.] EPISTLES. 91 They take religion in their mouth ; They talk o' mercy, grace, and truth, Tor what ? — to gie their malice skouth ^ 5n some puir wight,^ And hunt lilm down, o'er right and ruth,^^ To ruin straight. All hail, Eeligion ! maid divine ! Pardon a Muse sae mean as mine, Who, in her rough imperfect line. Thus daurs to name thee ; To stigmatise false friends of tliiiie Can ne'er defame thee. Though hlotcht and foul wi' mony a stain, And far unworthy of thy train. With trembling voice I tune my strain To join with those Who boldly daur thy cause maintain In spite o' foes : lu spite o' crowds, in spite o' mobs, In spite o' undermining jobs. In spite o' dark banditti stabs At worth and merit, By scoundrels, even wi' holy robes, But hellish spirit. O Ayr ! my dear, my native ground, W^ithin thy presbyteiial bound, A candid liberal band is found Of i)ublic teachers, As men, as Christians too, renown'd, And manly preachers. Sir, in that circle you are named ; Sir, in that circle you are famed ; And some, by whom your doctrine 's blamed, (Which gies 5'ou honour), Even, sir, by them your heju-t \s esteem'd. And winning manner. Pardon this freedom I have ta'en, And if impertinent I 've been. Impute it not, good sir, in ane Whase heai-t ne'er wrang'd ye. But to his utmost Avould befriend Ought that belang'd ye. SECOND EPISTLE TO DAVIE, A BROTHER POET. AULD NeIBOR, I 'm three times doubly o'er your debtor, For your auld-farrant ^ frien'ly letter ; Though I maun say't, I doubt yc flatter, Ye speak sae fair, For my puu-, silly, rhymin' clatter Some less maun Kair.^ Hale be your heart, hale be your fiddle ; Lang may your elbuck jink and diddle.e To cheer you through the weary widdle ^ O' war'ly cares. Till bairns* bairns kindly cuddle ^ Your auld gray hairs. But Davie, lad, I 'm rede ye 're glaikit ; ^ I 'm tauld the Muse ye hae negleckit ; 1 Scope. 2 Fellow. » ^fercy. •* Sasracious. 5 Must'serve. c i:ibo\v dodge and jerk. 7 Struggle. s TouUle. y I fear you are foolish. " And gif it 's sae, ye sud be licket ^ Until ye fyke ; ^ Sic hauns as you sud ne'er be faikct, ^ Be liaint ^ wha like. For me, I 'm on Parnassus' brink Rivin' ^ the words to gar ^ them clink ; Whiles dais't ^ wi' love, whiles dais't wi' drink, Wi' jads or masons ; And whiles, but aye owre late, I thiuk Braw sober lessons. Of a' the thoughtless sons o' man. Common' me to the bardie clan ; Except it be some idle plan O' rhymin' clink. The devil-haet,8 that I sud ban. They ever think. IsTae thought, nae view, nae scheme o' livin', Nae cares to gie us joy or grievin' ; But just the pouchie^ put the nieve ^^ in, And while ought 's there. Then hiltie skiltie,^^ we gae scrievin',^^ And fash ^^ nae mair Leeze me -^ on rhyme ! its aye a treasure, ]\Iy cliief, amaist my only pleasure. At hame, a-fiel', at wark, or leisure, The Muse, poor hizzie ! ^^ Though rough and raploch ^^ be her measure, She 's seldom lazy. Hand to the Muse, my dainty Davie : The warl' may play you mony a shavie ;^'' But for the Muse she" '11 never leave ye, Though e'er so puir, Na, even though limpin' wi' the spavie^^ Frae door to door. X EPISTLE TO JAMES SMITH. James Smith, one of Burns's earliest friends, was a merchant in Mauchline. He was present at the scene in "Poosie Isansie's," which suggested "The Jolly Beggars." " Friendship ! mysterious cemopt of the soul ! Sweet'ner of life, and solder of society ! I owe thee much." — Blaib. Dear Smith, the sleest,^^ paukie^o thief. That e'er attempted stealth or rief,^^ Ye surely hae some warlock breef ^^ Owre human hearts ; For ne'er a bosom yet was prief ^^ Against your arts. For me, I swear by sun and moon, And every star that blinks aboon, Ye've cost me twenty x^air of shoon^* Just gaun to see you; And every ither pair that 's done, Mair ta'en I 'm wi' you. That auld caiiricious carlin,^-' Nature, To mak amends for scrimpit^s stature. 1 Should be beaten. a Shrup:. 3 Spared. < Saved. 5 Twisting. 6 Make. 7 Stupid. 8 The devil a bit. 9 Pocket. 10 Fist. n Helter skelter. 12 Go smoothly. i3 Trouble. 1* A term of endearment, an expression of happiness or pleasure. i^ Lass. is Coarse. 17 Trick. -18 Spavin. 19 Slyest, io Knowing, 21 Robbery. ^2 Spell. £3 Proof. 24 Shoes. 25 'Woman 20 Stinted. 92 EPISTLES. [1785. She 's turn'd you aff, a linman creature On liei- first plan ; And in lier freaks, on every feature She's wrote, "The Man." Just now I 've ta'en the fit o' rhyme, My barmiei noddle 's working prime, My fancy yerkit^ up sublime Wi' hasty summon : Hae ye a leisure moment's time To hear what 's comin' ? Some rhyme a neibor's name to lash ; Some I'hyme (vain thought !) for needfu' cash: Some rhyme to court the country clash,** And raise a din ; * For me, an aim I never fash ;5 I rhyme for fun. The star that rules my luckless lot Has fated me the russet coat. And damn'd m.y fortune to the groat j But in requit, Has blest me wi' a random shot O' country wit. This while my notion 's ta'en a sklent,^ To try my fate in guid ])lack ])rent ; But still, the mair I 'm that way bent, Something cries, ' ' Hoolie I ^ I rede 8 you, honest man, tak tent,^ Ye '11 shaw your folly. *' There 's ither poets much your betters. Far seen in Greek, deep men o' letters, Hae thought they had insured their debtors A' future ages ; Now moths deform in shapeless tatters Their unknown pages." Then fareweel hopes o' laurel-boughs, To garland my poetic brows ! Henceforth I '11 rove where busy ploughs Are whistling thrang, And teach the lanely heights and howes^" My rustic sang. I'll wander on, with tentless^i heed How never-halting moments speed, Till Fate shall snap the brittle thread ; Then, all unknown, 111 lay me with the inglorious dead. Forgot and gone ! But why o' death begin a tale ? Just now we 're living sound and hale, Then top and main to]) crowd the sail, Heave Care owre side ! And large, before Enjoyment's gale, Let 's tak the tide. This life, sae far's I understand, Is a' enchanted fairy-lan r)pm])stcr of Dunnichcn, orator ol' tlij tijiiu. 8 Sweated, c Fellow-,-^. 5 AtciKUL-joated. parliamentary iET. 27.] EPIS7LES. 93 " AYbile ye are pleased to keep me hale, I '11 sit down o'er my scanty meal, Be 't water-brose, or mnsliu-kail,^ "Wi' choerfu' face, Asking's the Muses dinna fail To say the grace." An anxious ee I never throws Behint my lug ^ or by my nose ; I jouk^ beneath Misfortune's blows As weel's I may ; Swom foe to Sorrow, Care, and Prose, I rhyme away. ye douce •* folk, that live by rule. Grave, tideless-blooded, calm and cool, Compiu'ed wi' jou — O fool ! fool ! fool ! How much unlUce ! Your hearts are just a standing pool, Your lives a dike ! ^ Nae harebrain'd, sentimental traces, In your unletter'd, nameless faces ! In arioso trills and graces Ye never stray, But gravissimo, solemn basses Ye hum away. Ye are sae grave, nae doubt ye 're wise ; Nae ferly^ tbough ye do despise The hau'um-scairum, ram-stani''^ bora. The rattling squad : 1 see you upward cast your eyes — Ye ken the roa^ "Whilst I— but I shall baud me there — "Wi' you I '11 scarce gang ony where — Then, Jamie, I shall say nae mair. But quat my sang. Content wi' you to mak a pair, Whare'er I gang. 'EPISTLE TO GAYIN HAMILTON, Esq., EECOMMENDING A BOY. Cravin Hamilton, solicitor in Mauchline, was a ■vrarm and generous friend of the poet's, a New-Light par- tisan who had suffered from Auld-Light persecutions — a fact which did not tend to lessen Burns's i-espect for him. With reference to the Master Tootie of this epistle, Cromek tells us, " He lived in Mauchline, and dealt in cows. It was his common practice to cut the nicks or markings from tlie horns of cattle, to disguise their age, and so bring a higher price." MosGAViLLE, May 3, 1786. I HOLD it, sir, my bounden duty To warn you how that Master Tootie, Alias, Laird M'Gaun, "Was here to hire yon lad away 'Bout whom ye spak the tither day, And wad hae done't aff ban' -fi But lest he learn the callan'* tricks. As, faith, I muckle doubt him, liike scrapin' out auld Crummie's nicies,''* And tellin' lies about them : As lieve^" then, I'd have then. Your clerkship he should sair, If sae be, ye may be Not fitted other where. * Broth made without meat. 2 Ear. 8 Stoop. ■* Seriou?. 6 Blank as a wall. • Wonder. 7 Reckless. 8 off hand. «> Boy. 10 More willingly. — - • See introduction to this epistle. Although I say't, he's gleg^ enough, And 'bout a house that 's rude and rough, The boy miglit learn to swear; But then wi' you he '11 be sae taught, Aud get sic fair example straught, I haena ony fear. Ye '11 catechise him eveiy quirk. And shore " him weel wi' hell ; And gar ^ him follow to the kh-k — Aye when ye gang yoursel. If yc then, niaixu be then Trae hame this comin' Friday ; Then please, sir, to iea'e, sir. The orders wi' your lady. My -word of honour I hae gien, In Paisley John's, that night at e'en, To meet the warld's worm ; ^ To try to get the twa to gree, And name the airles ^ and the fee. In legal mode and form : I ken he weel a sneck can draw,® When simple bodies let him ; And if a devil be at a', In faith he 's sure to get him. To phrase you, and praise you. Ye ken your laureate scorns : The prayer still, you share still. Of grateful Mlksteel Buens. POETICAL INVITATION TO ME JOHN KENNEDY. This rhymed epistle was accompanied by a prose letter, and a copy of the "Cotter's Saturday Night." Ken- nedy had interested himself gi'eatly in the success of the Kilmarnock edition of the poems. He was afterwards factor to the Mai-quis of Breadalbane. Now Kennedy, if foot or horse E'er bring you in by Mauchline corse, ^^ Lord, man, there 's lasses there wad force A hermit's fancy ; And down the gate, in faith they 're worse. And mair unchancy. But, as I'm sayin', please step to Bow's, And taste sic gear as Johnnie brews, Till some bit callant ^ bring me news That you are there ; And if we dinna baud a bouze I 'se ne'er drink xoair. It 's no I like to sit and swallow. Then like a swine to puke and wallow; But gie me just a true good fallow, Wi' right ingine,» And spunkie,^o ance to make us mellow. And then we 'U shine. Now, if ye 're ane o' warld's folk, "Wha rate the wearer by the cloak. And sklent ^^ on poverty their joke, Wi' bitter sneer, Wi' you no friendship will I troke,^^ Nor cheap nor dear. But if , as I 'm informed weel. Ye hate, as iU's the very deil, 3 Make. 1 Sharp. 2 Threatfen 4 Avaricious creature. 5 Earnest money 6 Can take advantage 8 Boy. 10 Whisky is meant. 12 Exchange. "• Mauchline market cross. 9 Genius or temperament 11 Throw. 94 EPISTLES, [1786 The flinty heart that canna feel- Come, sir, here 's tae you ! Ilae, there 's my haun', I wiss you weel. And guid be \vi' you. EPISTLE TO A YOUKG EEIEND. This epistle was addressed to Andi-e\v Aiken, the son of his old friend Robert Aiken, writer in Ayr. Andrew Aiken afterwards earned, distinction in tlie service of his country. May 1786. I LANG hae thought, my youthfu' friend, A something to have sent you, Though it shouhl serve nae other end Than just a kind memento j But how the subject-theme may gang, Let time and chance determine ; Perhaps it may turn out a sang, Perhaps turn out a sermon. Ye '11 try the world f u' soon, my lAd, And, Andrew dear, believe me. You 11 find mankind an unco squad,^ And muckle they may grieve ye : • Por care and trouble set your thought, Even when your end 's attained ; And a' your views may come to nought. Where every nerve is strain'd. I'll no say men are villains a' ; The real, harden'd, wicked, Wha hae ni\e check but human law, Are to a few restricked : But, och ! mankind are unco 3 weak, And little to be trusted ; If self the wavering balance shake, It 's rarely right adjusted ! Yet they wha fa' in fortune's strife. Their fate we shouldna censure, For still the important end of life They equally may answer ; A man may hae an honest heart, Though poortith^ hourly stare him; A man may tak a neibor's part, Yet hae na cash to spare him. Aye free, aff han' * your story tell. When wi' a bosom crony ; ^ But still keep something to yoursel Ye scarcely tell to ony. Conceal yoursel, as weel 's ye can Frae critical dissection ; But keek ^ through every other man, Wi' sharpen'd, sly inspection. The sacred lowe o' weel-placed love. Luxuriantly indulge it ; But never tempt the illicit rove, Though naething should divulge it : I waive the quantum o' the sin, The hazard of concealing ; But, och ! it hardens a' within, And petrifies the feeling ! To catch dame Fortune's golden smile, Assiduous wait upon her ; And gather gear 7 by every wile That's justified by honour; Not for to hide it in a hedge. Nor for a train-attendant ; But for the glorious privilege Of being independent. The fear o' hell 's a hangman's whip To baud the wretch in order ; But where ye feel your honour grip. Let that aye be your border : Its slightest touches, instant pause — Debar a' side pretences ; And resolutely keep its laws. Uncaring consequences. The great Creator to revere Must sure become the creature ; But still the preaching cant forbear. And even the rigid feature : Yet ne'er with wits jjrofane to range, Be complaisance extended ; An atheist laugh 's a poor exchange For Deity olt'ended ! When ranting round in Pleasure's ring, Religion may be blinded ; Or if she gie a random sting. It may be little minded ; But when on life we 're tempest-driven, A conscience but a canker — A corres]3ondence fix'd wi' Heaven Is sure a noble anchor ! Adieu, dear, amiable youth ! Your heart can ne'er be wanting ! May prudence, fortitude, and truth Erect your brow undaunting ! In ploughman phrase, "God send you speed," Still daily to grow wiser : And may you better reck the rede Than ever did th' adviser ! ] 1 Queer lot. I * Off hand. 7 Wealth. 2 Very. » Poverty. » Boon companion. • Look prylngly. EPISTLE TO MR IM'ADAM OF CRAIGEN- GILLAK The following was written on receiving a letter, con- gratulating him on his jioetic etiorts, from Mr M'Adam: — Sir, o'er a gill I gat your card, I trow 1 it made me proud ; " See wha taks notice o' the bard ! " I lap'-^ and cried fu' loud, Now deil-ma-care about their jaw, The senseless, gawky •* million ; I '11 cock my nose aboon thein a' — I 'ni roos'd^ by Craigengillan ! 'Twas noble, sir ; 'twas like yoursel, To grant your high protection : A great man's smile, ye ken fu' well, Is aye a blest infection. Though by his ^' banes wha in a tub Match'd Macedonian Sandy ! f On my ain legs, through dirt and dub, I independent stand aye. And when those legs to guid warm kail,*^ Wi' welcome canna bear mo ; A lee dike-side,'' a sybow "^ tail, And baiiey scone ** shall cheer rce. Heaven spare you lang to kiss the breath O' mony flowery sinmiers ! * Vow. ' Leaped * Praised. ' Broth. 1 The young onion. * Diogenes. 3 Silly. « A shady wall-side. 8 Cake. t Alexander the Great. iET. 28.] EPISTLES. 95 And bless your bonny lasses baith — I 'm tauld they 're lo'esome kimmers ! ^ And God bless young Dunaskin's laird, The blossom of our gentry ! And may he wear an auld man's beard, A credit to his country. EPISTLE TO MAJOR LOGAN. Major Logan, a retired military officer, lived at Park House, near Ayr, with his mother and sister — the lat- ter the Miss Logan to Avhom Barns addressed some verses, with a present of Beattie's poems. The major ■was a man after Burns's own heart, a capital com- panion, abounding in humorous sallies, and a first- rate violinist, well-known to, and much in favour with, the celebrated Neil Go\v. Hail, thairm--inspii-in', rattlin' 'Willie ! Though Foi-tune's road be rough and hilly To every fiddling, rhyming bilUe, We never heed, But tak it like the unback'd filly. Proud o' her speed. When idl}^ goavan ^ whiles we saunter, Yirr, Fancy barks, awa' we canter, Up hill, down brae, till some mischanter,* Some black bog-hole. Arrests us, then the scaith and banter We 're forced to thole.'' Hale be your heart ! hale be your fiddle ! Lang may your elbuck jink and diddle,^'- To cheer you through the weary widdle "^ O' this wild warl'. Until you on a cummock driddle ^ A gray-hair'd carL Come wealth, come poortith,^ late or soon. Heaven send your heart-strings aye in tune, And screw yoiu- temper-pins aboon, A fifth or mair. The melancholious, lazy croon ^*) O' cankrie care ! ]May still your life from day to day Nae lente largo in the play, But allegretto forte gay Harmonious flow : A sweeping, kindling, bauld strathspey — Encore ! Bravo ! A blessing on the cheery gang Wha dearly like a jig or sang. And never think o' right and wrang By square and rule. But as the clegs 1^ o' feeling stang Are wise or fool ! My hand- waled 12 curse keep hard in chase The harpy, hoodock,^^ purse-proud race, Wha count on poortith as disgrace — Their tuneless hearts ! May fireside discords jar a base To a' their parts ! But come, your hand, my careless brither — r th' ither warl', if there 's anither — 1 Heart-enticing creatures. 2 Fiddle-strinir. » Walking aimlessly. * Mishap. * Bear. c Elbow dodge and jerk. 7 Struggle. 8 Until you hobble on a staff. 5 Poverty. w Drone. n Gadflies. 12 Chosen. w Money-loving. ♦ These two lines also occur in the Second Epistle to Davie. And that there is I 've little swither ^ About the matter — We cheek for chow ^ shall jog thegither. I 'se ne'er bid better. We 've faults and failings— granted clearly, We 're frail backsliding mortals merely. Eve's bonny squad, priests wyte** them sheerly,^ For our grand fa' ; But still— but still— I like them dearly — God bless them a' ! Ochon ! for poor Castalian drinkers, When they fu' fcul o' earthly jinkers,-"* The witching, cursed, delicious blinkers ^ Hae put me hyte,^ And gart me weefc my waukrife winkers,8 Wi girnin' ^ spite. But by yon moon !— and that 's high swearin' — And every star within my hearin' ! And by her een wha was a dear ane ! * I '11 ne'er forget ; I hope to gie the jads^*' a clearin* In fair play yet. ]\ry loss I mourn, but not repent it, I '11 seek my pursie whare I tint ^^ it, Ance to the Indies I were wonted. Some cantrip ^"-^ hour. By some sweet elf I '11 yet be dinted, Then, Vive Vamourl Faites mes haisemains respectueuses. To sentimental sister Susie, And honest Lucky ; no to roose^^ ye, Ye may be proud, That sic a couple Fate allows ye To grace your blood. Nae mair at present can I measure. And trouth my rhymin' ware 's nae treasure j But when in Ayr, some half -hour's leisure. Be 't light, be 't dark. Sir Bard will do himsel the pleasure To call at Park. Egbert Bus2;s. MOSSGIEL. Oct. 30, 175 TO THE GUIDWIFE OF WAUCHOPE HOUSE. . Mrs Scott of Wauchope, to whom this epistle was ad- dressed, was a lady of considerable taste and talent, a writer of verse, and something of an artist. She was niece to Jlrs Cockburu, authoress of a beautiful version of " The Flowers of the Forest." GUIDWIFE, I mind it weel, in early date, When I was beardless, young, and blate,^* And first could thrash the barn, Or baud a yokin' at the pleugh ; And though forfoughten^^ sair eneugh. Yet unco proud to learn : 1 Doubt. 4 Sorely. 1 Mad. 10 Lasses. IS Praise. 2 Jcle. 6 Sprightly girls. 8 Sleepy eyelids, n Lost. » Bashful. 3 Blame. 6 Pretty girls. 9 Griniiing. 12 Witching. 15 Fatigued. * An allusion to the unfortunate termination of hi» courtship with Jean Ai-mour. 96 EPISTLES, [1787. When first amaaig the yellow corn A man I reckon'd was, And wi' the lave ' ilk merry mom Could rank my rig and lass, Still shearing, and clearing, Tiie titber stocked raw, Wi' claivers and haivers 2 Wearing the day awa'. Even then, a wish, (I mind its power,) A wish that to my latest hour Shall strongly heave my breast — That 1, for poor auld Scotland's sake. Some usefu' plan or beuk could make, Or sing a sang at least. The rough burr-thistle, spreading wide Amang ihe bearded bear, I tum'd. the weeder-clips aside, And spared the symbol dear : No nation, no station. My envy e'er could raise, A Scot still, but blot still, I knew nae higher praise. But still the elements o' sang. In formless jumble, right and wraug, Wild floated in my brain ; Till on that hairst^ I said before. My partner in the merry core,^ She roused the forming strain : I see her yet, the sonsie quean,* That lighted up my jingle. Her witching smile, her i)auky een. That gart" my heart-strings tingle! I fired, inspired, At every kindling Iceek,^ But bashing, and dashing, I feared aye to speak. Health to the sex ! ilk guid chieF says, Wi' merry dance in winter-days, And we to share in common : Tlie gust o' joy, the balm of woe. The saul o' life, the heaven below, Is rapture-giving woman. Ye surly sumphs,** who hate the name. Be mindfu' o' your mither : She, honest woman, may think shame That ve 're connected with her. Ye re wae^ men, ye 're nae men. That slight the lovely dears ; To shame ye, disclaim ye. Ilk honest birkie '^ swears. For yon, no bred to bam and byre, Wha sweetly tune the Scottish lyre, Thanks to you for your line : The mai-led plaid ye kindly spare By me should gratefully be ware ;^i 'Twad please me to the Nine. I'd be mair vauntie^^ o' my hap,^^ Douce hingin'14 owre my curple,^" Than ony ermine ever lap, Or proud imperial purple. Tareweel then, lang heal then, And plenty be your fa' ; May losses and crosses Ne'er at your hallan^^ ca'I 1 Rest. 8 Harvest, fl Glance. » Woeful. " Proud. 14 Bravely hanging. » Idle stories and possip. « Comely lass. '' JTade. » Fellow. 8 Blocklicads. 10 Fellow. " Worn. i» Covering. 16 Bump. !• Forch. EPISTLE TO WILLIAM CREECH. "Vrilliam Creech was the publisher of the first Edin- burgh edition of the peel's works. He was the most celebrated publislier of his time in Edinburgh ; and it was his good fortune to be the medium through which the works of the majority of that band of eminent men who made Edinburgh the head-quarters of literature during the latter half of the eighteenth century, passed to the world. This epistle was writ- ten during the poet's Border torn-, and while Creech was in London. Auld chuckie^ Eeekie's^ sair distrest, Down droops her ance v/eel-burnisht crest, Nae joy her bonny buskit •* nest Can yield ava,^ Her darling bird that she lo'es best, Willie 's awa' 1 Willie was a witty wight,^ And had o' things an unco slight ;^ Auld Heekie aye he keepit tight. And trig and braw : But now they'll busk her like a fright — Willie 's awa' ! The stifFest o' them a' he bow'd ; The bauldest o' them a' he cow'd ; They durst nae mair than he allow'd, That was a law : We 've lost a birkie'' weel worth gowd — WiUie 's awa' 1 Now gawldes, tawpies, gowks,^ and fools, Erae colleges and boarding-schools, May sprout like simmer jiuddock ^-stools In glen or shaw ; He wha could brush them down to mools^''— Willie 's awa' ! The brethren o' the Commerce-Chaumer* May mourn their loss wi' doolf u' clamour ; He was a dictionar and grammar Amang them a' ; 1 fear they'll now male mony a stammer^* — Willie 's awa' ! Nae mair we see his levee door Philosophers and poets pour. And toothy critics by the score. In bloody raw ! The adjutant o' a' the core— WiUie 's awa' ! Now worthy Gregory's f Latin face, Ty tier's:!: and Greenfield's^ modest grace; Mackenzie, II Stewart, *I| sic a brace As Rome ne'er saw ; They a' maun^^ meet some ither jdace — Willie 's awa' ! Poor Burns — e'en Scotch drink canna quicken. Ho cheeps '** like some bewilder'd chicken, Scared frae its minniei-* and the cleckin^** By hoodie-craw j 1 liitorally a hen. 2 Edinburgh. 3 Decorated. ■* At alL » Fellow. A great knowledge. ^ Fellow. 8 Simpletons, sluts— gowk means litcnvllv cuckoo, also a fool. y Toad, io The dust. " Stumble. i^ Must. " Chirps. 14 Mother. is Brood- * The Chamber of Commerce, of which Creech was secretary. t Dr James Gregoiy. i Tytler of Woodhouselee. ^ Professor of Rhetoric in the University. 1 llenry Mackenzie. \ Bugald Stewart. ,^T. 29.] EPISTLES. 97 Grief's gien his heart an unco kicldn'— AVillie 's awa' ! Now every sour-raou'd glmin' lilellura,^ And Calvin's folk, are fit to fell him ; And self-conceiocd critic skellum^ His quill may draw ; He wha could brawlie" ward their helluni-*- Willie 's awa' ! Up wimpling stately Tweed I 've sped, And Ellen scenes on crystal Jed, And Ettrick banks now roaring red, "NVliile tempests blaw; Eut every joy and pleasure 's fled — AYillie 's awa' ! May I be Slander's common speech ; A text for Infamy to preach ; And lastly, streekit^ out to bleach In winter snaw. When I forget thee, Willie Creech, Though far awa' ! May never wicked Fortune touzle^ him ! May never wicked men bamboozle^ him! Until a pow8 as auld 's Methusalem He canty !* claw! Then to the blessed New Jerusalem, Fleet wing awa* ! EPISTLE TO HUGH PAEKER. Mr Hugh Parker was a Kilmarnock merchant, and an eaily Mend and admirer of the iioet's. In this strange land, this uncouth clime, A land unknown to prose or rhyme ; AVhere words ne'er crost the Muse's heckles,* Kor limpet ^^ in poetic shackles ; A laud that Prose did never view it. Except when drunk he stachei-t ^^ through it ; Here, ambush'd by the chinda cheek,^ Hid in an atmosphere of reek,^^ I hear a wheel thrum i' the neuk,^'* I hear it — for in vain I leuk. The red peat gleams, a fiery kernel, Enhusked by a fog infernal : Here, for my wonted rhyming raptures, I sit and count my sins by chapters ; For life and spunk like ither Cliristians, I 'm dwindled down to mere existence ; Wi' nae converse but Gallowa' bodies, Wi' nae kenn'd face but Jenny Geddes.+ Jenny, my Pegasean pride ! Dowie ^^ she sauntera down Nithside, And aye a westlin leuk she throws. While tears hap ^^ o'er her auld brown nose ! Was it for tliis wi' canny''' care. Thou bure the bard through many a shire ? At howesi3 or hillocks never stumbled. And late or early never grumbled ? 1 Talking fellow. » A term of contempt. 3 E,'danoch. 3 Captain Riddel of Glenriddel, another friend of the poet's. I Provost Staig of Dumfries. ^ Sheriff Welah. *» A wme merchant In Dumfries. Hurl down wi' crashing rattle : As flames amaug a hundred woods ; As headlong foam a hundred floods ; Such is the rage of battle ! The stubborn Tories dare to die ; As soon the rooted oaks woxild fly Before th' approaching fellers : The Whigs come on like Ocean's roar, When all his wintry billows pour Against the Buchan Bullers.* Lo, from the shades of Death's deep night, Departed Whigs enjoy the fight. And think on former dai-ing : The mufiled murtherer of Charles t The Magna-Charta flag unfurls, All deadly gules its bearing. Nor wanting ghosts of Tory fame, Bold Scrimgeour J follows gallant Grahame, § Auld Covenanters shiver. (Forgive, forgive, much-wrong'd Montrose ! While death and hell ingulf thy foes. Thou liv st on high for ever ! ) Still o'er the field the combat burns. The Tories, Whigs, give way by turns ; But Fate the word has spoken ; For woman's wit and strength o' man, Alas ! can do but what they can — The Tory ranks ai-e broken ! Oh that my een were flomng burns ! My voice a lioness that mourns Her darling cub's undoing ! That I might greet, that I might cry, WhUe Tories fall, while Tories fly. And furious Whigs pursuing ! What Whig but wails the good Sir James ! Dear to his country by the names Friend, patron, benefactor ! Not Pulteney's wealth can Pulteney save ! And Hopetoun falls, the generous brave ! And Stewart, II bold as Hector. Thou, Pitt, shalt rue this overthrow ; And Thurlow growl a curse of woe : And Melville melt in wailing ! Now Fox and Sheridan rejoice ! And Burke shall sing, " O Prince, arise ! Thy power is all-prevailing." For your poor friend, the bard, af.ir He hears, and only hears, the war, A cool si)ectator purely : So when the storm the forest rends, The robin in the hedge descends, And bober chirps securely. Additional verse in Closebum IMS. — Now for my friends' and brethren's sakea, And for my dear -loved Land o' Cakes, I pi-ay with holy fire : Lord, send a rough-shod troojt o' hell, O'er a' wad Scotland buy or sdl. To grind them in the mire ! * The "Bullers of Buchan" is an appellation given to a tremendous rocky recess on the Aberdeenshire coast, near Peterhead— having an opening to the sea, wliile the top is open. The sea, constantly raging in it, gives it the appearance of a pot or boiler, and hence the name. t The executioner of Cliarles I. was masked. X John Earl of Dundee. 5 The great Marquis of Montrose. II Stewart of UiUside. ^T. 31.] EPISTLES. lOI THIED EPISTLE TO EGBERT GEAHAJM, ESQ. OF EINTEY. Late crippled of an arm, and now a leg,* About to beg a pass for leave to beg : Dull, listless, teased, dejected, and depresfc, (Nature is adverse to a cripple's rest ;) Will generous Graham list to Ids poet's wail? (It soothes poor Misery, heark'niug to her tale,) And hear hhn curse tiie light he first survey'd. And doubly curse the luckless i-hyming trade ? Thou, Nature ! partial Nature ! I arraign ; Of thy caprice maternal I complain. The lion and the bull thy care have found, One shakes the forests, and one spurns the ground : Thou giv'st the ass his hide, the snail his shell, Th' envenom'd wasp, victorious, guards his cell ; Thy minions, kings, defend, control, devour, In all th' omnipotence of rule and power ; Foxes and statesmen subtle wiles insure ; The cit and polecat stink, and are secure ; Toads with their poison, doctors with their drug, The priest and hedgehog in their robes are snug ; Even silly woman has her warlike arts, Her tongue and eyes— her dreaded spear and darts. But, oh ! thou bitter stepmother and hard, To thy poor, fenceless, naked child — the bard ! A thing unteachable in worldly skill. And half an idiot, too, more helpless still ; No heels to bear him from the opening dun : No claws to dig, his hated sight to shun ; No horns, but those by luckless Hymen worn, And those, alas ! not Amalthea's horn : No nerves olfactory, Mammon's trusty cur, Clad in rich Duluess' comfortable fur ;— In naked feeling, and in aching pride. He bears the unbroken blast from every side : Vampire booksellers drain him to the heart, And scorpion critics cureless venom dart. Critics ! — appall'd I venture on the name. Those cut-throat bandits in the paths of fame : Bloodv dissectors, worse than ten Mom'oes ! + He hacks to teach, they mangle to expose. His heart by causeless wanton malice wrung, By blockheads' daring into madness stung ; His well-won bays, than life itself more dear, By miscreants torn, who ne'er one sprig must wear : j Foil'd, bleeding, tortured, in the unequal strife, ! The hapless poet flounders on through life ; i Till, fled each hope that once his bosom fired, I And fled each muse that glorious once inspired, Low sunk in squalid unprotected age. Dead, even resentment, for his injured page. He heeds or feels no more the ruthless critic's rage. * Burns wrote to Mrs Dtinlop, on the 7th of February 1791, "that, by a fall, not from my horse, but with my horse, I have been a cripple for some time, and this is the first clay my ai'm and hand have been able to serve me in writing." f The allusion here is to Alexander Munro, the dis- tinguished Professor of Anatomy iu the University of Edinburgh in Burns' s day. So, by some hedre, the generous steed deceased, For half -starved" snarling curs a dainty feast. By toil and famine worn .to skin and bene. Lies senseless of each tugging bitch's son. Dulness ! portion of the truly blest ! Calm shelter' d haven of eternal rest ! Thy sons ne'er madden in the fierce extreme* Of Fortune's polar frost, or torrid beams. If mantling high she fills the golden cup, With sober selfish ease they sip it up : Conscious the bounteous meed they weU deserve, They only wonder " some folks " do not starve. The grave sage hern thus easy jjicks his frog, x\nd thinks the mallard a sad worthless dog. When Disappointment snaps the clue of Hope, And through disastrousnight they darklinggrope, With deaf endurance sluggishly they bear, And just conclude that "fools are fortune's care." So, heavy, passive to the tempest's shocks, Strong on the sign-post stands the stupid ox. Not so the idle Muses' mad-cap train. Not such the workings of then- moon-struck brain ! In equanimity they never dwell. By turns in soaring heaven or vavdted hell. 1 dread thee. Fate, relentless and severe. With all a poet's, husband's, father's fear ! Already one stronghold of hope is lost — Glencairn, the truly noble, lies in dust ; (Fled, like the sun eclipsed as noon aiipears, And left us darkling in a world of tears :) Oh ! hear my ardent, grateful, selfish prayer! — Fintry, my other stay, long bless and spare ! Through a long life has hopes and wishes crown, And bright in cloudless skies his sun go down ! May bliss domestic smooth his private path, Give energy to life, and soothe his latest breath, With many a filial tear circling the bed of death ! FOURTH EPISTLE TO ROBERT GRAHAM, ESQ. OF FINTEY. The following verses were written in acknowledgment of the favour the previous epistle prayed for. Cun- ningham justly says, " Robert Graham of Fintry had the merit of doing all that was done for Burns in the way of raising him out of the toiling humility of his condition, and enabling him to serve the Muse without dread of want." I CALL no goddess to inspire my strains, A fabled Muse may suit a bard that feigns ; Friend of my life ! my ardent spirit burns. And all the tribute of my heart returns, For boons accorded, goodness ever new, The gift still dearer, as the giver you. Thou orb of day ! thou other paler light ! And all ye many sparkling stars of night ; If aught that giver fi-om my mind efface ; If I that giver's bounty e'er disgrace ; Then roll to me along your wandering spheres, Only to number out a villain's years I EPIGRAMS, EPITAPHS, &c. THOUGH FICKLE FORTUNE HAS DECEIVED ME. 'The following," says Burns, "was written extempore, under the pressure of a heavy train of misfortunes, which, indeed, threatened to undo me altogether. It was just at the close of that dreadful period men- tioned already, (in Commonplace-book, March 1784 ;) and though the weather has brightened up a little with me since, yet there has always been a tempest brewing round me in the grim sky of futurity, which I pretty plainly see will, some time or other, perhaps ere long, overwhelm me, and drive me into some doleful dellj to pine in solitary, squalid wretched- ness," Though fickle Fortune has deceived me, She promised fair and perform'd but ill ; Of mistress, friends, and wealth bereaved me, Yet I bear a heart shall support me still. I'll act with prudence as far's I'm ahle, But if success I must never find. Then come, JNIisfortune, I bid thee welcome, I '11 meet thee with an undaunted mind. ON JOHN DOVE, INNKEEPER, MAUCHLINE. The subject of the following lines was the landlord of the Whitefoord Arms in Mauchline. Here lies Johnny Pigeon ; What was his religion ? Whae'er desires to ken,i To some other warl' Maun follow the carl,^ For here Johnny Pigeon had nane ! Strong ale was ablution — Small beer persecution, A dram was memento mori; But a full flowing bowl Was the saving Ids soul. And port was celestial glory. TO A PAINTER. While in Edinburgh, the poet paid a visit to the studio of a well-known painter, whom he found at work on a picture of Jacob's dream ; and having looked at tlio sketch for a little, he wrote the iDllowing verses on the back of it :— Dear , I '11 gie ye some advice. You '11 tak it no uncivil : You shouldna paint at angels mair, But try and paint the deviL 1 Know. 2 Old man. To paint an angel 's kittle wark, Wi' auld Nick there 's less danger ; You '11 easy draw a weel-kent face. But no sae weel a stranger. E. B. EPITAPH ON THE AUTHOR'S FATHER. The following lines were inscribed on a small head- stone erected over the grave of the poet's father in AUoway Kirkyard : — O YE whose cheek the tear of pity stains. Draw near with pious reverence, and attend ! Here lie the loving husband's dear remains. The tender father, and the generous friend; The pitying heart that felt for human woe ; The dauntless heart that fear'd no human pride; The friend of man, to vice alone a foe ; " For even his failings lean'd to virtue's side." * A FAREWELL. These lines form the conclusion of a letter from Burns to Mr John Kennedy, dated Kilmarnock, August | 1786. j Farewell, dear friend ! may guid luck hit you, ; And, 'mang her favourites admit you ! I If e'er Detraction shone to smite you. May nane believe him ! And ony deil that thinks to get you, Good Lord deceive him. ON A WAG IN MAUCHLINE. The wag here meant was James Smith, the James gmith of the epistle commencing, "Dear ymith, the sleest, pawkie thief." Lament him, Mauchline husbands ft', He af ten did assist ye ; For had ye staid whole years awa', Your wives they ne'er had miss'd ye. Ye Mauchline bairns, as on ye pass To school in bands thegither. Oh, tread ye lightly on his grass — Perhaps he was your father. POETICAL REPLY TO AN INVITATION. MOSSGIKL, 17S0. Sir, Yours this moment I unseal, And faith, I am gay and hearty ! * Goldsmith. ^T. 29.] EPIGRAMS, EPITAPHS, ETC. 103 To tell the truth and shame the deil, I am as fou as Bartie : * But foorsday, sir, my promise leal, Exi^ect me o' your pai-ty, If on a beastie I can speel, Or hui'l in a car tie.— K. B. TO A YOUNG L\DY IN A CHUECH. Dui-ing the poet's Border tour, he went to church one Sunday, accompanied by Miss Ainslie, the sister of his travelling companion. The text for the day happened to contaia a severe denunciation of ob- stinate sinners. And Burns, observing the young lady intently turning over the leaves of her Bible in search of the passage, took out a small piece of paper, and wrote the following lines upon it, which he immediately passed to her : — Fair maid, you need not take the hint, Nor idle texts pursue ; 'Twas guilty sinners that he meant, Not angels such as you ! VEESES •WRITTEN UNDER THE PORTRAIT OF FERGUSSON, THE POET, IN A COPY OF THAT AUTHOR'S WORKS PRESENTED TO A TOUNG LADY IN EDINBURGH, MARCH 17, 1787. Curse on ungrateful man, that can be pleased. And yet can starve the author of the pleasure ! O thou, my elder brother in misfortime, By far my elder brother in the Muses, AVith tears I pity thy unhajipy fate ! Why is the bard unpitied by the world, Yet has so keen a relish of its pleasures ? ON THE ILLNESS OF A FAVOUEITE CHILD. Now health forsakes that angel face, Nae mair my dearie smiles ; Pale sickness withers ilka grace. And a' my hopes beguiles. The cruel Powers reject the prayer I hourly mak for thee ! Ye heavens, how great is my despair, How can I see him die ! EXTEMPORE ON TWO LAWYERS. During Bums's first sojourn in Edinburgh in 1787, he paid a visit to the Parliament House, and the result was two well-drawn sketches of the leading counsel of the day— the Lord Advocate, Mr Hay Campbell, ( afterwards Lord President, ) and the Dean of Faculty, Harry Erskine. LORD ^VDVOCATE. He clench'd his pamphlets in his fist. He quoted and he hinted, , Till in a declamation mist His argument he tiat ^ it ; iLost. * A proverbial saying, which may be interpreted by a line of an old song — " I 'm no just fou, but I'm gayley yet." He gaped for't, he graped^ for't. He found it was awa', man ; But what his common sense cam short, He eked out wi' law, man. dean of FACULTY. Collected Harry stood a wee. Then open'd out his arm, man ; His lordship sat, wi' ruefu' ee. And eyed the gathering storm, man : Like wind-driven hail, it did assail, Or torrents owre a linn, man ; The Bench sae wise, lift up their eyes, Half-waken'd wi' the din, man. THE HIGHLAND WELCOME. Cunningham says :— « Burns, on repassing the High- land border, in 17S7, turned round and bade farewell to the hospitalities of the north in these happy lines. Another account states that he was called on for a toast at table, and gave ' The Highland Welcome,' much to the pleasure of aU who heard him." When Death's dark stream I ferry o'er, A time that surely shall come ; In heaven itself I '11 ask no more Than just a Highland welcome. EXTEMPORE ON WILLIAM SMETTJE, AUTHOR OF THE " PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL HISTORY,'* AND MEMBER OP THE ANTIQUARIAN AND ROYAL SOCIETIES OF EDINBURGH. Smellie belonged to a club called the CrochaUan Fen- cibles, of which Bui'ns was a member. Shrewd Willie Smellie to CrochaUan came. The old cock'd hat, the gray surtout, the same ; His bristling beard just rising in its might, 'Twas four long nights and days to shaving night ; His uncomb'd grizzly locks wild staring, thatch'd A head for thought profound and clear im- match'd : Yet though his caustic wit was biting, rude, His heart was warm, benevolent, and good. VERSES WRITTEN ON A WINDOW OF THE INN AT CARRON. The following lines were written on being refused ad- mittance to the Carron ii"on-works : — We cam na here to view your warks In hopes to be mair wise. But only lest we gang to hell. It may be nae surprise : But when we thied at your door. Your porter dought na hear us ; Sae may, should we to heU's yetts come, Your bUly Satan sair us ! Groped. LINES ON VIEWING STIRLING PALACE. The following lines were scratched with a diamond on a pane of glass in a window of the inn at which Burns put up, on the occasion of his first visit to Stirling. They were quoted to his prejudice at the time, and no doubt did him no good with those who could best serve his interests. On his next visit to Stirling, he smashed the pane with the butt-end of his riding whip : — Here Stuarts once in glory reign'd, And laws for Scotland's weal ordain'd ; But now unroof d their palace stands, Tlieir sceptre 's sway'd by other hands j The injured Stuart line is gone, A race outlandish fills their throne — An idiot race, to honour lost : Who know them best despise them most. THE REPEOOF. Rash mortal, and slanderous poet, thy name Shall no longer appear in the records of fame ; Dost not know, that old Mansfield, who writes like the Bible, Says, The more 'tis a truth, sir, the more 'tis a Hbel? LINES WRITTEN UNDER THE PICTURE OF THE CELEBRATED MISS BURNS. Miss Burns was a <'gay" lady, well known to the " fast " young fellows of the Scottish metropolis in the poet's day. Cease, ye prudes, your envious railing, Lovely Bums has charms — confess. True it is, she had one failing — Had a woman ever less ? ON INCIVILITY SHOWN TO HIM AT INVERARY. The poet having halted at Inverary during his first Highland tour, put up at the inn ; but on finding himself neglected by the landlord, whose house was filled with visitors to the Duke of Argyle, he re- sented the incivility in the following lines : — Whoe'er he be that sojourns here, I pity much his case, Unless he come to wait upon The lord their god, his Grace. There 's naething here but Highland pride, And Highland cauld and hunger ; If Providence has sent me here, 'Twas Burely in His anger. ON A SCHOOLMASTER. William Michie was schoolmaster of the parish of Cleish, in Fifeshire, and became acquainted with Bums during his first visit to Edinburgh, in 1787. Hebe lie Willie Michie's banes ; O Satan, when ye tak him, Gie him the schoolin' o your weans, For clever deils he 'U mak 'em I VERSES addressed to the landlady of the inn at EOSSLTN. My blessings on you, sonsie wife ; I ne'er was here before ; You've gien us walth for horn and knife, Nae heart could wish for more. Heaven keep you free frae care and strife. Till far ayont fourscore ; And, while I toddle on through life, I '11 ne'er gang by your door. INNOCENCE. Innocence Looks gaily-smiling on ; whUe rosy Pleasure Hides young Desire amid her flowery wreath. And pours her cup luxuriant : mantling high The sparkling heavenly vintage— Love and Bliss I ON ELPHINSTONE'S TRANSLATION OF MARTIAL'S "EPIGRAMS." " stopping at a merchant's shop in Edinburgh," says Burns, "a friend of mine one day put Elphinstone's translation of Martial into my hand, and desired my opinion of it. I asked permission to write my opinion on a blank leaf of the book ; which being granted, I wrote this epigram." O THOU, whom Poesy abhors ! Whom Prose has turned out of doors ! Heard'st thou that groan ? — proceed no further — 'Twas laurell'd Martial roaring, " Murther !" LINES WRITTEN ON A PANE OF GLASS IN THE INN AT MOFFAT. While Bums was in the inn at Mofiat one day, the *' charming, lovely Daviea" of one of his songs hap- pened to pass, accompanied by a tall and portly lady ; and on a friend asking him why God had made Miss Davies so small and the other lady so lai-ge, he re- plied— Ask why God made the gem so small, And why so huge the granite ? Because God meant mankind should set The higher value on it. LINES SPOKEN EXTEMPORE ON BEING APPOINTED TO THE EXCISE. Searching auld wives' barrels, Och, hon ! the day I That clartv barm should stain my laurels ; But— What '11 ye say ? These movin' things ca'd wives and weans AVad move the very hearts o' stanes 1 .^T. 30.] EPIGRAMS, EPITAPHS, ETC. 105 EPITAPH ON "W . Stop, thief ! Dame Nature cried to Death, As Willie drew his latest Iti-eath ; You have my choicest model ta'en. How shall I make a fool again ? ON i. PEKSON NICKNAMED THE MAEQinS. Tlie person who bore this name -was the landlord of a tavern in Dumfries frequented by Burns. In a moment of weakness he asked the poet to write his epitaph, wliich he immediately did, in a style not at all to the taste of the Marquis. Here lies a mock Marquis, whose titles were shamm'd ; K ever he rise— it will he to be damn'd. TO JOHN MTSTUKDO, ESQ. John M'Murdo was steward to the Duke of Queens- berry, and the faithful friend of Bums daring the whole period of his residence in Nithsdale. Oh could I give thee India's wealth As I this trifle send ! Because thy joy in both would be To share them with a friend. But golden sands did never grace The Heliconian stream ; Then take what gold could never buy — An honest bard's esteem. TO THE SAME. Blest be M'3Iurdo to his latest day ! No envious cloud o'ercast his evening ray ; No wrinkle furrow'd by the hand of Care, Nor ever sorrow add one silver hair ! Oh, may no son the father's honour stain. Nor ever daughter give the mother pain ! ON CAPTAIN FRANCIS GROSE. One nig:.t at table, when the wine had circulated pretty freely, and " The mirth and fun grew fast and furious," Captain Grose, it is said, amused with the sallies of the poet, requested a couplet on himself. Having eyed the corpulent antiquary for a little, Burns re- peated the following :— The devil got notice that Grose was a-dying, So whip at the summons old Satan came flying ; But when he approach'd where poor Francia ^y moaning. And saw each bedpost with its burden a-groaning, Astonish'd, confounded, cried Satan, "By God! I '11 want 'im, ere I take such a damnable load ! " ON GRIZZEL GRBL Here lies with Death auld Grizzel Grim, Lincluden's ugly witch ; O Death, how horrid is thy taste To lie with such a bitch ! ON MR BURTON. Bums having on one occasion met a young Englishman of the name of Burton, he became very importunate that the poet should compose an epitaph for him. "In vain," says Cunningham, "the bard objected that he was not sufficiently acquainted with his char- acter and habits to qualify him for the task; the re- quest was constantly repeated with a "Dem my eyes, Burns, do write an epitaph for me : oh, dem my blood, do. Burns, write an epitaph for me." Over- come by his importunity, Burns at last took out his pencil and produced the following :— Here cursing, swearing Burton lies, A buck, a beau, or Dem my eyes ! Who in his life did little good ; And his last words were — Dem my blood ! POETICAL REPLY TO AN INVITATION. The king's most humble servant, I Can scarcely spare a minute ; But I '11 be wi' you by and by. Or else the devil 's in it. TO THE EDITOR OF THE STAR. "Burns atone period," says Cunningham, "was in the habit of receiving the Star newspaper gratuitously ; but as it came somewhat irregularly to hand, he sent the following lines to head-quarters, to insure more punctuality :" — Dear Peter, dear Peter, We poor sons of metre, Are often negleckit, ye ken ; For instance, your sheet, man, (Though glad I'm to see't, man,) I get it no ae day in ten. ON BURNS'S HORSE BEING IMPOUNDED. Being in Carlisle, the poet's nag was turned out to grass, and had trespassed on some grounds belong- ing to the corporation. The horse was impounded, but the mayor, hearing to whom it belonged, gave orders for its liberation — " Let him have it, by all means, or the circumstance will be heard of for ages to come." As Bums had written the following lines previously, the worthy mayor's prophecy has come true : — Was e'er puir poet sae befitted. The maister drunk — the horse committed? Puir harmless beast ! tak thee nae care. Thou 'It be a horse when he 's nae mair {mayor.) LINES SENT TO A GENTLEMAN WHOM HE HAD OPPENDEa The friend was Mr Biddel of Woodley Park, at whose table, while under the influence gf wine, he liad in- dulged in a freedom of speech which gave offence to the company. The reparation made in the follow- ing lines was warmly accepted : — The friend whom wild from wisdom's way The fumes of wine infuriate send ; (Not mcony madness more astray ;) "Who but deplores that hapless friend? io6 EPIGRAMS, EPITAPHS, ETC. [1795- Mine was the insensate frenzied part ! Ah ! why should I such scenes outlive \ Scenes so abhorrent to my heart ! 'Tis thine to pity and forgive. VEESES TO JOHN EANKINE, ON HIS WKITING TO THE POET THAT A GIKL IN THAT PAET OF THE COUNTKY WAS WITH CHILD BY HIM. I AM a keeper of the law In some sma' points, although not a' ; Some people tell me gin I fa', Ae way or ither. The breaking of ae point, though sma'. Breaks a' thegither. I hae been in for 't ance or twice, And winna say o'er far for thrice. Yet never met with that surprise That broke my rest, But now a rumour 's like to rise, A whaup 's i' the nest. ON SEEING MISS EONTENELLE IN A FAVOURITE CHAEACTER. Sweet naivete of feature. Simple, wild, enchanting elf. Not to thee, but thanks to Nature, Thou art acting but thyself. Wert thou awkward, stiff, affected, Spurning nature, torturing art ; Loves and graces all rejected. Then indeed thou'dst act a part. ON GABEIEL EICHAEDSON, BEEWER, DUMFEIES. Here brewer Gabriel's fire 's extinct, And empty all his barrels : He 's blest — if, as he brew'd, he drink- In upright honest morals. THE BLACK-HEADED EAGLE : A FRAGMENT ON THE DEFEAT OF THE AUSTRTANS BY DUMOURIER, AT GEMAPPE, NOVEMBER 1792. The black-headed eagle, As keen as a beagle, He hunted owre height and owre howe ; But fell in a trap On the braes o' Gemappe, E'en let him come out as he dowe. ON A SHEEFS-HEAD. Having been dining at the Globe Tavern, Dumfries, on one occasion when a sheep's-head happened to bu the fare provided, he was asked to give something new as a grace, and instantly replied : — O Lord, when hunger pinches sore, Do Thou stand us in stead. And send us from Thy bounteous store A tup or wether head ! — Amen. After having dined, and greatly enjoyed this dainty, he was again asked to return thanks, when, witliout a moment's premeditation, he at once said ; — O Lord, since we have feasted thus, Which we so little merit. Let Meg now take away the flesh. And Jock^bring in the sj)irit !— Amen. ON THE DEATH OF A LAP-DOG NAMED ECHO. While Burns was on a visit to Kenmore Castle, the an- cient seat of the Gordons, it happened that the lady's lap-dog died, and she requested him to write an epi- taph for it, which he did as follows : — In wood and wild, ye warbling throng, Your heavy loss deplore ; Now half-extinct your powers of song. Sweet Echo is no more. Ye jarring, screeching things around,; Scream your discordant joys ; Now half your din of tuneless sound With Echo silent lies. ON SEEING THE BEAUTIFUL SEAT OF LORD GALLOWAY. This and the three following verses were written as political squibs during the heat of a contested elec- tion : — What dost thou in that mansion fair ? — Flit, Galloway, and find Some narrow, dirty, dungeon cave, The picture of thy mind ! ON THE SA]\IE. No Stewart art thou, Galloway, The Stewarts all were brave ; Besides, the Stewarts were but fools. Not one of them a knave. ON THE SAME. Bright ran thy line, O Galloway, Through many a far-famed sire ! So ran the far-famed Roman way, ' So ended— in a mire ! TO THE SAME, ON THE ADTHOB'S BEING THREATENED WITH HIS resentment. Spare me thy vengeance, Galloway, In quiet let me live : I ask no kindness at thy hand, For thou hast none to give. HOWLET FACE. One of the Lords of Justiciary, says a con-espondcnt of Mr Clmmbers's, wliile ou circuit at Dumfries, had dined one day at Mr Miller of Dalswintou's ; and JET. 35.] EPIGRAMS, EPITAPHS, ETC. 107 having, according to the custom of the time, taken •vriueto such an extent as to affect his sight, said to his host, on entering the drawing-room, and at the same time pointing to one of his daughters, who was thought an uncommonly handsome woman, "Wha's yon howlet-faced thing in the corner?" The circum- stance having been related to Burns, who happened to dine there next day, he took out his pencil, and wrote the following lines, which he handed to Miss Miller :— How daur ye ca' me howlet-faced, Ye ugly glowering sx^ectre ? My face was but the keekiu'-glass, And there ye saw your xnctm-e ! THE BOOK-WOEMS. Having been shown into a magnificent library, while on a visit to a nobleman, and observing a splendidly- bound, but uncut and worm-eaten, copy of Shake- speare on the table, the poet left the following lines in the volume : — Through and through the inspired leaves, Ye maggots, make your windings ; But, oh, respect his lordship's taste, And spare the golden bindings ! EPIGKAM ON BACON. Brownhill was a posting station some fifteen miles from Dumfries. Dining there on one occasion, the poet met a Mr Ladyman, a commercial traveller, who solicited a sample of his "rhyming ware." At din- ner, beans and bacon were served, and the landlord, whose name was Bacon, had, as was his wont, tluust himself somewhat ofifensively into the company of his guests :— At Brownhill we always get dainty good cheer. And plenty of bacon each day in the year ; We've all things that's neat, and mostly in season : But why always Bacon ? — oome, give me a reason. THE EPITAPH. In this stinging epitaph Burns satirises Mrs Riddel of ■\Voodley Park. He had taken offence because she seemed to pay more attention to some ofiicers in the company than to the poet, who had a supreme contempt for " epauletted puppies," as he delighted to call them. This quarrel, and the means he took of showing his anger, were not creditable to the poet, for he had no warmer friend and admirer than Mrs RiddeL Here lies, now a prey to insulting neglect. What once was a butterfly, gay in life's beam : Want only of wisdom denied her respect. Want only of goodness denied her esteem. ON MRS KEIUBLE. The poet having witnessed the performance of Mrs Kemble in the part of Yarico, one night at the Dum- fries theatre, seized a piece of paper, wrote these lines with a pencil, and handed them to the lady at the conclusion of the performance. Kemble, thou cur'st my unbelief Of Moses and his rod ; At Yarico's sweet notes of grief The rock with tears had flow'd. THE CREED OF POVERTY. "When the Board of Excise," says Cunningham, "in- formed Burns that his business was to act, and not think, he read the order to a friend, turned the paper, and wrote as follows : " — In politics if thou wouldst mix, iuQd mean thy fortunes be ; Bear this in mind — "Be deaf and blind ; Let great folks hear and see." WRITTEN IN A LADY'S POCKET-BOOK. The following lines indicate how strongly Burns sym- pathised with the lovers of liberty during the first outbreak of the French Revolution : — Grant me, indulgent Heaven, that I may live To see the miscreants feel the pain they give ; Deal Freedom's sacred treasures fi'ee as air, Till slave and despot be but things which were. THE PARSON'S LOOKS. Some one having remarked that he saw falsehood in the very look of a certain reverend gentleman, the poet replied — That there is falsehood in his looks I must and will deny ; They say their master is a knave — Aiid sure they do not lie. EXTEMPORE, PINNED TO A lady's COACH. If you rattle along like your mistress's tongue, Your speed will outrival the dart ; But a fly for your load, you '11 break down on the road. If your stuff be as rotten 's her heart. ON ROBERT RIDDEL. The poet traced these lines with a diamond on the window of the hennitage of Friars' Cai-se, the first time he visited it after the death of his fi-iend the Laird of Cai"se. To Ridilel, much-lamented man, This ivied cot was dear ; Reader, dost value matchless worth ? This ivied cot revere. ON EXCISEMEN. written on a window in DUMFRIES. " One day," says Cunningham, "while in the King's Arms Tavern. Dumfries, Burns overheard a country gentleman talking disparagingly concerning excise- men. The poet went to a window, and on one of the lianes wrote this rebuke with his diamond :" — Ye men of wit and wealth, why all this sneering 'Gainst poor excisemen? give the cause a hearing ; What are your landlords' rent-rolls? taxing ledgers ; Wliat premiers — what ? even monarchs' mighty gangers : Nay, what are priests, those seeming godly wise men? What are they, pray, but spiritual excisemen? io8 EPIGRAMS, EPITAPHS, ETC. [1795- VERSES WETTTEN ON A WINDOW OF THE GLOBE TAVEEN, DUMFRIES. The graybeard, old Wisdom, may boast of his treasures, Give me with gay Folly to live ; I grant him calm-blooded, time-settled pleasures, But Polly has raptures to give. THE SELKIRK GRACE. The poet having been on a visit to the Earl of Selkirk at St Mary's Isle, was asked to say grace at din- ner. He repeated the following words, which have since been known in the district as " The Selkirk Grace : " — Some hae meat, and canna eat, And some wad eat that want it ; But we hae meat, and we can eat, And sae the Lord be thankit. EPITAPH ON A SUICIDE. Earth'd up here lies an imp o' hell, Planted by Satan's dibble — Poor silly wretch he 's damn'd himsel To save the Lord the trouble. TO DR MAXWELL, ON MISS JESSIE STAIG'S EECOVEET. 'How do you like the following epigram," says the poet, in a letter to Thomson, "which I wrote the other day on a lovely young girl's recovery from a fever? Doctor Maxwell was the physician who seemingly saved her from the gi'ave ; and to him I address the following : " — Maxwell, if merit here you crave, That merit I deny ; You save fair Jessie from the grave? — An angel could not die. THE PARVENU. Bums being present in a company where an ill-edu- cated parreratt was boring everyone by boasting of the many great people he had lately been visiting, gave vent to his feelings in the following lines : — No more of your titled acquaintances boast, And in what lordly circles you 've been j An insect is still but an insect at most. Though it crawl on the head of a queen ! POETICAL INSCRIPTION POR AN ALTAR TO INDEPENDENCE. The following lineg were Inscribed on an altar erected at the seat of Heron of Kerroughtree. They were written in 1795, wlien the hopes and triumphs of the French RevoluLiou had made it a fashion to raise altars to Freedom, and plant trees to Liberty. Thou of an independent mind, With soul resolved, with soul resign'd; Prepared power's proudest frown to brave. Who wilt not be, nor have, a slave ; Virtue alone who dost revere, Thy own reproach alone dost fear, Approach this shrine, and worshiji here. EXTEMPORE TO IMR SYME, ON REFUSING TO DINE WITH HIM. John Syme of Ryedale was a gentleman of education and talent, and a constant companion of the poet's. These lines were Avritten in reply to an invitation to dine, in which he promised the "first of company and the first of cookery." Btc. 17, 179fi. No more of your guests, be they titled or not. And cookery the first in the nation ; Who is proof to thy personal converse and Avit Is proof to all other temptation. TO MR SYME, WITH A PRESENT OF A DOZEN OF POETEE. Jerusalem Tavern, Dumfrib Oh, had the malt thy strength of mind, Or hops the flavour of thy wit, 'Twere drink for first of humankind, A gift that e'en for Syme were fit. INSCRIPTION ON A GOBLET. Theee 's death in the cup— sae beware ! Nay, more — there is danger in touching ; But wha can avoid the fell snare ? The man and his wine 's sae bewitching ! THE TOAST Burns having been called on for a song at a dinner given by the Dumfries Volunteers in honour of the anniversary of Rodney's great victory of the 12th of April 1782, gave the following lines in reply to the call :— Instead of a song, boys, I '11 give you a toast — Here 's the memory of those on the twelfth that we lost ! — That we lost, did I say ? nay, by Heaven, that we found ; For their fame it shall last while the world goes round. The next in succession, I '11 give j'ou— The King ! Whoe'er would betray him, on high may he swing! And here 's the grand fabric, Our free Constitu- tion, As built on the base of tho great Revolution ; And longer with politics not to be cramm'd, Be Anarchy cursed, and be Tyranny damn'd ; And who would to Liberty e'er prove disloyal May his sou be a hangmaji, and he hi« first trial! ON THE POET'S DAUGHTER. The followinc; lines wore written on the loss of an f'onlf duwgliler and darling child" of Uie poet'a- who die4 in the autamn of 17U5 : — . ., ^T. 37.] EPIGRAMS, EPITAPHS, ETC. 109 Here lies a rose, a budding rose, Blasted before its bloom : Whose innocence did sweets disclose Beyond that flower's perfume. To those who for her loss are grieved, This consolation 's given — She 's from a world of woe relieved. And blooms a rose in heaven. ON A COUNTRY LAIRD. The subject of these verses is said to have been Sir David Maxwell of Cardoness, who had given some offence to the poet during tlie heat of a contested election. Bless the Redeemer, Cardoness, AYith grateful lifted eyes, Who said that not the soul alone, But body, too, must rise ; For had He said, *' The soul alone From death I will deliver ; " Alas ! alas ! O Cardoness, Then thou hadst slept for ever ! THE TRUE LOYAL NATIVES. The origin of these lines is thus related by Cromek : — "When politics ran high the poet happened to be in a tavern, and the following lines— the production of one of ' The True Loyal Natives ' — were handed over the table to Burns : — ' Ye sons of sedition, give ear to my song, Let Syme, Burns, and Maxwell, pervade every throng ; With Craken the attorney, and Mundell the quack, Send Willie the monger to hell with a smack.' The poet took out a pencil and instantly wrote this reply :" — Ye true " Loyal Natives " attend to my song, In uproar and riot rejoice the night long ; From envy and hatred your corps is exempt. But where is your shield from the darts of con- tempt? EPITAPH ON TAM THE CHAPilAN. Tarn the chapman was a Mr Kennedy, a travelling agent for a commercial house. The following lines were composed on his recovery from a severe illness: — As Tam the Chapman on a day Wi' Death forgather'd by the way, Weel pleased, he greets a wight ^ sae famous, And Death was nae less pleased wi' Thomas, Wha cheerfully lays down the pack. And there blaws up a hearty crack ;^ His social, friendly, honest heart Sae tickled Death, they couldna part : Sae, after viewing knives and garters. Death takes him hame to gie him quarters. EPITAPH ON ROBERT AIKEN, ESQ. Eobert Aiken, writer, Ayr, was one of the poet's most intimate friends. Know thou, O stranger to the fame Of this much -loved, much-honour'd name, (For none that knew liim need be told) A warmer heart Death ne'er made cold ! 1 Fellow. Gossip. ON A FRIEND. The name of the friend is unknown. An honest man here lies at rest, As e'er God with His image blest ! The friend of man, the friend of truth ; The friend of age, and guide of youth ; Few hearts like his, with virtue warm'd, Few heads with knowledge so inf orm'd : If there 's another workl, he lives in bliss, If there is none, he made the best of this. ON GAVIN HAMILTON. The poor man weeps — here Gavin sleeps, Whom canting wretches blamed : But with such as he, where'er he be. May I be saved or damn'd ! ON WEE JOHNNY. mC JACET WEE JOHNNY. John Wilson, the printer of the Kilmarnock edition of the poet's works. Whoe'er thou art, O reader, know That Death has murder'd Johnny ! And here his body lies fu' low — For saul he ne'er had ony. ON A CELEBRATED RULING ELDER. Here souter Hood in death does sleep; — To hell, if he 's gane thither, Satan, gie him thy gear ^ to keep, He 11 haud^ it weel thegither. ON A NOISY POLEMIC. James Humphrey, a working mason, was the ' ' noisy polemic" of this epitaph. Burns and he frequently disputed on Auld-Light and New-Light topics, and Humphrey, although an illiterate man, not un- frequently had the best of it. He died in great poverty, having solicited charity for some time be- fore his death. We have heard it said that in soli- citing charity from the strangers who arrived and departed by the Mauchline coach, he grounded his claims to their kindness on the epitaph — "Please, sirs, I 'm Bums's bletherin' bitch ! " Below thir stanes lie Jamie's banes : O Death, it 's my opinion, Thou ne'er took such a bleth'rin' bitch Into thy dark domdnion ! ON A NOTED COXCOMB. Light lay the earth on Billy's breast, His chicken heart so tender; But build a castle on his head. His skull will prop it under. ON MISS JEAN SCOTT OF ECCLEFECHAN. The young lady, the subject of these lines, dwelt in Ayr, and cheered the poet, not only by her sweet looks, but also with her sweet voice. 1 Wealth. s Hold. no EPIGRAMS, EPITAPHS, ETC. [179S. Oh ! had each Scot of ancient times Been, Jeannie Scott, jas thou art. The bravest heart on English grovuid, Had yielded like a coward ! ON A HENPECKED COUNTRY SQUIRE. As Father Adam first was fool'd, A case that 's still too common, Here lies a man a woman ruled — The devil ruled the woman. ON THE SAME. O Death, hadst thou but spared his life Wliom we this day lament ! We freely wad exchanged the wife, And a' been weel content ! E'en as he is, cauld in his graff, The swapi we yet will do't ; Tuk thou the carlin's * carcase aff, Thou'se get the saul to boot. ON THE SAME. One Queen Artemisia, as old stories tell. When deprived of her husband she lov^d so well, In respect for the love and affection he'd show d her, She reduced him to dust and she drank up the powder. But Queen Netherplace, of a different com- plexion, When call'd on to order the funeral direction, Would have eat her dead lord, on a slender pretence, 2iot to show her respect, but— to save the ex- pense ! JOHNNY PEEP. Burns having been on a visit to a town in Cumberland one (lay, entered a tavern and opened the door of a room, but on seeing three men sitting, he was about to withdraw, when one of them shouted, " Come in, Johnny Peep." The poet accordingly entei*ed, and soon became the ruling spirit of the party. In the midst of their mirth, it was proposed that each should write a verse of poetry, and place it, along with a half- crown, on the table— the best poet to have his half- crown returned, and the other three to be spent in treating the party. It is almost needless to say that the palm of victoiy was awarded to the following lines by Burns :— Here am I, Johnny Peep ; I saw three sheep. And these three sheep saw me ; Half-a-crown apipce Will pay for their fleece. And so Johnny Peep gets free. THE HENPECKED HUSBAND. It Is said that the wife of a gentleman, at whose table the poet was one day dining, expressed hei-self with more freedom than propriety regarding her husband's extravagant convivial habits, a rudeness which Burns rebuked in these sharp lines :— Cursed be the man, the poorest wretch in Ufe, The crouching vassal to the tyrant wife ! 1 Exchange. • Carlin— a woman with an evil tongue. In olden times used with reference to a woman suspected of hav- ing dealings with the devU. Who has no will but by her high permission ; Who has not sixpence but in her jiossession ; Who must to her his dear friend's secret tell ; Who dreads a curtain-lecture worse than hell ! Were such the Avife had fallen to my part, I 'd break her spirit, or I 'd break her heart ; I 'd charm her with the magic of a switch, I 'd kiss her maids, and kick the perverse bitch. ON ANDREW TURNER. In se'enteen hunder and forty-nine, Satan took stuff to mak a swine. And cuist it in a corner ; But wilily he changed his plan, And shaped it something like a man, And ca'd it Andrew Turner. A GRACE BEFORE DINNER. O Thou, who kindly dost provide For every creature's want ! We bless thee, God of nature wide, For all thy goodness lent : And, if it please thee, heavenly Guide, May never worse be sent ; But, whether granted or denied, Lord, bless us with content ! — ^Amen. ON MR W. CRUIKSHANK. One of the masters of the High School, Edinbui'gh, and a well-known friend of the poet's. Honest Will 's to heaven gane. And mony shall lament him ; His faults they a' in Latin lay, In English nane e'er kent them. ON WAT. The name of the hero of these terrible lines has not been rocordcd. Sic a reptile was Wat, Sic a miscreant slave, That the very worms damn'd him When laid in his grave. " In his flesh there 's a famine," A starved reptile cries ; ** And his heart is rank poison," Another replies. ON THE KIRK OF LAMINGTON, IN CLYDESDALE. Ilaving been stayed by a storm one Sunday at Laming- ton in Clydesdale, the poet went to church ; but the day was so cold, the place so uncomfortiible, and the sermon so poor, that he left the following poetic pro- test in the pew :— As cauld a wind as ever blew, A caulder kirk, and in 't but few ; As cauld a minister 's e'er siiak, Ye 'fie a' bo het ere I come back. i ^T.38.] EPIGRAMS, EPITAPHS, ETC. Ill A MOTHER'S ADDRESS TO HER INFANT. My blessin's upon thy sweet wee lippie : My blessin's upon tliy bonny ee-brie ! Tliy smiles are sae like my blithe sodger laddie, Thou's aye the dearer and dearer to me ! VERSES WBITTEN OJf A PANE OF GLASS, ON THE OCCASION OP A NATIONAL THANKSGIVmG FOR A NAVAL VICTORY. Te hypocrites ! are these your i)ranks ? To murder men, and gie God thanks ! For shame ! gie o'er — proceed jio further — God won't accept your thanks for murther ! I MURDER hate by field or flood, Though glory's name may screen us ; In wars at hame I '11 spend my blood, Life-giving wars of Venus. The deities that I adore. Are social peace and plenty ; I'm better pleased to make one more, Than be the death of twenty. My bottle is my holy pool, That heals the wounds o' care and dool ; And pleasure is a wanton trout, An' ye drink it dry, ye '11 find him out. TQE TOAST. On another occasion, while Miss Lewars was waiting upon him durinp his illness, he took up a crystal goblet, and writing the following lines on it, pre- sented it to her : — Fill me with the rosy wine. Call a toast— a to.ist divine ; Give the poet's darling flame, Lovely Jessy be the name ; Then thou may est freely boast Thou hast given a peerless toast. ON JOHN BUSHBY. Bushby, it seems, was a sharp-witted clever lawyer, who happened to cross the poet's path in politics, and was therefore considered a fair subject for a lam- poon. Here lies tTohn Bushby, honest man ! — Cheat him, devil, gin you can. LINES TO JOHN RANKINE. These lines were written by Burns while on his death- bed, and forwarded to Rankine immediately after the poet's death. He who of Rankine sang lies stiff and dead, And a gieen grassy hillock haps his head ; Alas ! alas ! a devilish change indeed ! TO MISS JESSY LEWARS. *« During the last illness of the poet," says Cunning- ham, "Mr Brown, the surgeon who attended him, came in, and stated that he had been looking at a collection of wild beasts just arrived, and pulling out the list of the animals, held it out to Jessy Lewars. The poet snatched it from him, took up a pen, and with red ink wrote the following on the back of the paper, saying, ' Kow it is fit to be presented to a Talk not to roe of savages From Afric's burning sun, No savage e'er could rend my heart As, Jessy, thou liast done. But Jessy's lovely hand in mine, A mutual faith to pliglit. Not even to view the heavenly choir "Would be so blest a sight. ON THE SICKNESS OF MISS JESSY LEWARS. On Miss Lewars complaining of illness in the hearing of the poet, he said he would provide for the worst, and seizing another crystal goblet, he wrote as fol- lows : — Say, sages, what 's the charm on earth Can turn Death's dart aside ? It is not purity and worth, Else Jessy had not died. ON THE RECOVERY OF JESSY LEWARS. On her recovering health, the poet said, "There is a poetic reason for it," and composed the following : — But rarely seen since nature's bii-th, The natives of the sky ; Yet still one seraph 's left on earth. For Jessy did not die. A BOTTLE AND AN HONEST FRIEND. Some doubt has been expressed by the brother of the poet as to the authenticity of this small piece. " There's nane that's blest of humankind But the cheerful and the gay, man. Fal, lal," &c. Here 's a bottle and an honest friend ! What wad you wish for mair, man? Wha kens, before his life may end. What his share may be of care, man? Then catch the moments as they fly, And use them as ye ought, man ; Believe me. Happiness is shy, And comes not aye when sought, man. GRACE AFTER DINNER. O Thou, in whom we live and move, Who madest the sea and shore ; Thy goodness constantly we prove. And, grateful, would adore. And if it please Tliee, Power above, Still grant us, with such store. The friend we trust, the fair we love, And we desire no more. ANOTHER. Lord, we thank Thee and adore, For temp'ral gifts we little merit ; At present we will ask no more — Let William Hyslop give the spirit I SONGS. MY HANDSOME NELL. Tune—" I am a man unmarried." Nelly Kilpatrick, the heroine of this song, was the daughter of the village blacksmith, and the poet's fii-st partner in the labours of the harvest-field. She was the "sonsie quean" he sings of, whose "witch- ing smile" first made his heart-strings tingle. " This song," he says, "was the first of my performances, and done at an early period of my life, when my heart glowed with honest, warm simplicity, — un- acquainted and uncorrupted with the ways of a wicked world. It has many faults ; but I remember I composed it in a wild enthusiasm of passion ; and to this hour I never recollect it but my heart melts^ my blood sallies-, at the remembrance." Oh, once I loved a bonny lass, Ay, and I love her still ; And wMlst that virtue warms my breast I '11 love my handsome Nell. Fal, lal de ral, &c. As bonny lasses I hae seen, And mony full as braw ; ^ But for a modest, gracefu' mien, The like I never saw. A bonny lass, I will confess, Is pleasant to the ee, But without some better qualities She 's no a lass for me. But Nelly's looks are blithe and sweet ; \nd, what is best of a' — Her reputation is complete, And fair without a flaw. She dresses aye sae clean and neat, Baith decent and genteel ; And then there 's something in her gait Gars 2 ony dress look weeL A gaudy dress and gentle air May slightly touch the heart ; But it 's innocence and modesty That polishes the dart. 'TIS this iji Nelly pleases me, 'Tis this enchants my soul ! For absolutely in my breast She reigns without controL L DKEAM'D I LAY WHERE FLOWERS WERE SPRINGING. 'These two stanzas," says the poet, " which are among the oldest of my printed pieces, I composed when I was seventeen." I dream'd I lay where flowers were springing Gaily in the sunny beam. Listening to the wild birds singicf By a falling crystal stream : Straight the sky grew black and daring ; Through the woods the whirlwinds rave ; Trees with aged arms were wai-ring. O'er the swelling, drumlie wave. Such was my life's deceitful morning. Such the pleasures I enjoy'd ; But lang or ^ noon, loud tempests storming, A' my floweiy bliss destroy'd. Though fickle Fortune has deceived me, (She promised fair, and perform'd but ill,) Of mony a joy and hope bereaved me, I bear a heart shall support me still. 1 Well dressed. 3 Makes. ^ MY NANNIE, O. T0NE— " My Nannie, 0." Agnes Fleming, the heroine of what has been termed the finest love-song in any language, was at one time a servant in the house of Mr Gavin Hamilton, the poet's friend, and died unmarried well advanced in life. It may gratify some to know that the father of the poet lived to read this song, and that he ex- pressed his hearty admiration of it. Behind yon hills, where Lugar flows 'Mang moors and mosses many, O, The wintry sun the day has closed, And I '11 awa' to Nannie, O. The westlin wind blaws loud and shrill ; , The night 's baith mirk and rainy, O ; But I '11 get my inlaid, and out I '11 steiU, And owre the hills to Nannie, O. My Nannie 's charming, sweet, and young, Nae artfu' wiles to win ye, O : May ill befa' the flattering tongue That wad beguile my Nannie, O. Her face is fair, her heart is true. As spotless as she 's bonny, O : The opening go wan. * wat wi* dew, Nae purer is than Nannie, O. A country lad is my degree, And few there be that ken me, O ; But what care I how few they be, I 'm welcome aye to Nannie, O^ My riches a' s my penny-fee,^ And I maun guide it cannie, O ; But warl's gear"* ne'er troubles me, My thoughts are a' my Naimio, O. Our auld guidman delights to view His sheep and kye thrive bonny, O ; But I 'm as blithe that bauds his pleugh. And has na care but Nannie, O. 1 Ere. 3 Daisy. * Wages. * World's wealth. . Hi I JET. 23.] SONGS. 113 Come weel, come woe, I care na by, I '11 tak what Heaven will sen' me, O; Nae ither care in life have I But live and love my Nannie, O ! O TIBBIE, I HAE SEEN THE DAY. TcNE — " Invercauld's Reel" Isabella Steven, the subject of these verses, was the daughter of a man in the neighbourhood of Lochlea, who possessed three acres of peat moss — an inherit- ance which she appears to have thought entitled her to treat the poet with disdain. O Tibbie, I hae seen the day Ye wadna been sae shy ; For lack o' gear ye lightly ^ me, But, trowth, I care na by. Yestreen I met you on the moor. Ye spak na, but gaed by like stonre :^ Ye geek ■^ at me because I 'm X)Oor, But feint a hair care I. I doubt na, lass, but ye may think, Because ye hae the name o' clink,"* That ye can please me at a wink Whene'er ye like to try. But sorrow tak him that 's sae mean, Although his i^ouch o' coin were clean, "Wha follows ony saucy quean, ^ That looks sae proud and high. Although a lad were e'er sae smart, If that he want the yellow dirt Ye 11 cast yer head anither airt,* And answer him f u' dry. But if he hae the name o' gear,'' Ye 'U fasten to him like a brier. Though hardly he, for sense or lear,* Be better than the kye.^ But Tibbie, lass, tak my advice, Your daddie's gear maks you sae nice ; The deil a ane wad spier your price Were ye as poor as L There lives a lass in yonder park, I wadna gie her in her sark ^^ For thee, wi' a' thy thousan* mark ! Ye need na look sae high- ON CESSNOCK BANKS. TuKE — " If he be a butcher neat and trim." Ellison Begbie, the inspirer of this song of similes, was the daughter of a small farmer in the parish of Galston ; and was, when the poet first knew and admired her, employed as a servant with a family on the banks of the Cessnock, about two miles from his home. The charms of this humble girl, which appear to have lain chiefly in the life and grace of her mind, were such, that the poet, after he had seen the finest Edinburgh ladies, acknowledged that she •was, of all the women he had ever addressed, the only one who was likely to have made a pleasant companion for life. The song first appeared in Cromek's "Reliques," the editor having obtained it from " the oral communication of a lady residing at Glasgow, whom the iKird in early life affectionately admired " — probably the heroine hei-self. » Slight = Dust driven by the wind, s Mock. 4 Money. » Wench. Direction. ^ Wealth. » Learning. 9 Cows. 10 Shift. On Cessnock banks there lives a lass. Could I describe her shape and mien, The giaces of her weelfaurd^ face. And the glancing of her sx^arkling een. She 's fresher than the morning dawn, /' When rising Phoebus first is seen. When dew-drops twinkle o'er the lawn ; And she 's twa glancing, sparkling een. She 's stately, like yon youthful ash That grows the cowslip braes between. And shoots it's head above each bush ; And she 's twa glancing, sparkling een. She 's spotless as the flowering thorn. With flowers so white and leaves so green. When purest in the de>vy mom ; And she 's twa glancing, sparkling een. Her looks are like the sportive lamb, When flowery May adorns the scene. That wantons round its bleating dain ; And she 's twa glancing, sparkling een. Her hair is like the curling mist That shades the mountain-side at e'en When flower-rev i\'iug rains are jjast ; And she 's twa glancing, sparkling een. Her forehead 's like the showery bow, When shining sunbeams intervene, And gild the distant mountain's brow ; And she 's twa glancing, sparkling een. Her voice is like the evening thrush That sings on Cessnock banks unseen, While his mate sits nestling in the bush ; And she 's twa glancing, sparkling een. Her lips are like the cherries ripe That sunny walls from Boreas screen — They tempt the taste and charm the sight ; Aid she 's twa glancing, sparkling een. Her teeth are like a flock of sheep With fleeces newly washen clean. That slowly mount the rising steep : And she s twa glancing, sparkling een. Her breath is like the fragi-ant breeze That gently stirs the blossom'd bean ^-^ When Phoebus sinks behind the seas ; And she 's twa glancing, sparkling een. But it's not her air, her form, her face. Though matching beauty's fabled queen, But the mind that shines in every grace. And chiefly in her sparkling een. IMPEOVED TEBSIOH. On Cessnock banks a lassie dirr:/^, Could I describe her shape aod mien. Our lassies a' she far excels; And she 's twa sparkling, roguish een. She '3 sweeter than the morning dawn, When rising Phoebus first is seen, And dew-drops twinkle o'er the lawn ; And she 'a twa sparkling, roguish een. She 's stately, like yon youthful ash That-^ows the cowslip braes between, And drinks the stream with vigour fresh ; And she 's twa sparkling, roguish een. She 's spotless, like the flowering thorn. With flowers so white, and leaves so green, Wlien purest in the dewy mom ; And she 's twa sparkling, roguish een. 1 Well-favoured. 114 SONGS. [1782. Her looks are like the vernal May, , When evening Phoebus shines serene. While birds rejoice on every spray; And she 's twa sparkling, roguish een. Her hair is like the curling mist That climbs the mountain-sides at e'en When flower-reviving rains are past ; And she 's twa sparkling, roguish e'en. Her forehead 's like the showery bow, When gleaming sunbeams intervene, And gild the distant mountain's brow ; And she 's twa sparkling, roguish een. Her cheeks are like yon crimson gem. The pride of all the flowery scene, Just opening on its thorny stem ; And she's twa sparkling, roguish een. Her teeth are like the nightly snoio. When pale the morning rises keen, While hid the murrn'ring streamlets flow ; And she 's twa sparkling, roguish een. Her lips are like yon cherries ripe That sunny walls from Boreas screen — They tempt the taste and charm the sight; And she 's twa sparkling, roguish een. Her breath is like the fragrant breeze, That gently stirs the blossom 'd bean When Phoebus sinks behind the seas ; And she 's twa sparkling, roguish een. Her voice is like the evening thrush. That sings on Cessnock banks unseen. While his mate sits nestling in the bush ; And she 's twa sparkling, roguish een. But it 's not her air, her form, her face, Though matching beauty's fabled queen, 'Tis the mind that shines in every grace ; And chiefly in her roguish een. MY FATHER WAS A FARMER. Tune—" The Weaver and his Shuttle, 0." 'The following song," says the poet, "is a wild rh*ip- sody, miserably deficient in versification ; but the sentiments were the genuine feelings of my heart at the time it was written." My father was a farmer Upon the Carrick border, O, And carefully he bred me In decency and order, O ; He bade me act a manly part, Though I had ne'er a farthing, O, For without an honest manly heart, No man was worth regarding, O. Then out into the world My course I did determine, O ; Though to be rich was not my wish, Yet to be great was charming, O : My talents they were not the worst. Nor yet my education, O ; Resolved was I, at least to try. To mend my situation, O. In many a way, and vain essay, I courted Fortune's favour, O ; Some cause unseen still stept between. To frustrate each endeavour, O : Sometimes by foes I was o'ei'power d ; Sometimes by friends forsaken, O j And when my hope was at the top, I still was worst mistaken, O. Then sore harass'd, and tired at last. With Fortune's vain delusion, O, I dropt my schemes, like idle dreams. And came to this conclusion, O : Tlie past was bad, and the future hid ; Its good or ill untried, O ; But the present hour was in my power, And so I would enjoy it, O. No help, nor hope, nor view had I, Nor person to befriend me, O ; So I must toil, and sweat, and broil, And labour to sustain me, O : To plough and sow, to reap and mow. My father bred me early, O ; For one, he said, to labour bred, Was a match for Fortune f aii-ly, O. Thus all obscure, unknown, and poor, Through life I'm doom'd to wander, O, Till down my weary bones I lay In everlasting slumber, O. No view nor care, but shim whate'er Might breed me pain or sorrow, O ; I live to-day as well 's I may, Regardless of to-morroAv, O. But cheerful still, I am as well As a monarch in a palace, O, Though Fortune's frown still hunts me down, With all her wonted malice, O : I make indeed my daily bread. But ne'er can make it farther, O ; But as daily bread is all I need, I do not much regard her, O. When sometimes by my labour I earn a little money, O. Some unforeseen misfortune Comes generally upon me, O : Mischance, mistake, or by neglect, Or my good-natured folly, O ; But come what will, I've sworn it still, I '11 ne'er be melancholy, O. All you who follow wealth and power With unremitting ardour, O, The more in this you look for bliss. You leave your view the farther, O. Had you the wealth Potosi boasts. Or nations to adore you, O, A cheerful, honest-hearted clown I will prefer before you, O ! JOHN BARLEYCORN: A BALLAD. The following is an improvement of an early song of English origin, a copy of which was obtained by I\Ir Robert Jameson from a black-letter sheet in the rejjys Library, Cambridge, and first published in his "Uallads:" — There were three kings into the east. Three kings both great and high ; And they hae sworn a solemn oath John Barleycorn should die. They took a plough and plough'd him down. Put clods upon his head ; And thoy hae sworn a solemn oath John iiarleycorn was dead. 1 But the cheerful spring came kindly on, And showers began to fall ; John Barleycorn got up again. And sore surprised them all. Tlie sultry suns of summer came, And he grew thick and strong ; His head weel arm'd wi' pointed spears, That no one should him wrong. The sober autumn enter'd mild. When he grew wan and pale ; His bending joints and drooping head Show'd he began to fail. His colour sicken'd more and more. He faded into age ; And then his enemies began To show their deadly rage. They *ve ta'en a weapon, long and sharp. And cut him by the knee ; Then tied him fast upon a cart, Like a rogue for f orgerie. They laid him down upon his back, And cudgell'd hira full sore ; They hung him up before the storm, Aiid txu-nd him o'er and o'er. They filled up a dai-ksome pit With water to the brim ; They heaved in John Barleycorn, There let him sink or swim. They laid him out upon the floor. To work him further woe : And still, as signs of life appear'd. They toss'd him to and fro. They wasted o'er a scorching flanxe The marrow of his bones ; But a miller used him worst of all — He crush'd him 'tween two stones. And they hae ta'en his very heart's blood. And drank it rovmd and round. And stUl the more and more they drank. Their joy did more abound. John Barleycorn was a hero bold. Of noble enterprise ; For if you do but taste his blood, 'Twill make your courage rise. 'TwiU n^ake a man forget his woe ; 'Twill heighten all his joy : 'Twul make the widow's heart to sing, Though the tear were in her eye. Then let us toast John Barleycorn, Each man a glass in hand ; And may his great posterity Ne'er fail in old Scotland ! MONTGOMERY'S PEGGY. TcNE— " Gala Water." ' 5rontgomery*s Peggy," says the poet, " who had been bred in a style of life rather elegant, was my deity for six or eight months." She was a superior ser- vant in the house of Mr Montgomery of Coilsfield ; and the poet's acquaintance with her arose from his sitting in the same seat with her at church. It cost him some heart-aches, he tells us, to get rid of this affair. Although my bed were in yon muir, Amang the heather, in my plaidie. Yet happy, happy would I be, Had I my dear Montgomery's Peggy. When o'er the hill beat surly storms, _ And winter nights were dark and rainy; I'd seek some dell, and in my arms I 'd shelter dear Montgomery's Peggy. Were I a baron proud and high. And horse and servants waiting ready. Then a' 'twad gie o' joy to me, The sharin 't wi' Montgomery's Peggy. MARY MORISON. Tune — "Bide ye yet." ■Of all the productions of Burns," says Hazlitt, "his pathetic and serious love-songs, in the manner of the old ballads, are pt-rhsps those which take the- deepest and most lasting hold of the mind. Such, are the lines to 3Iary Morison." Mary, at thy window be, It is the wish'd, the trysted hour ! Those smiles and glances let me see That make the miser's treasure poor : How blithely wad I bide the stoure, A weary slave frae sun to sun ; Could I the rich reward secure, The lovely Mary Morison. Yestreen, when to the trembling string, The dance gaed through the lighted ha ', To thee my fancy took its wing — I sat, but neither heard nor saw : Though this was fair, and that was braw. And yon the toast of a' the town, 1 sigh'd, and said, amang them a', " Ye are na Mary Morison." O Mary, canst thou wreck his peace Wha for thy sake wad gladly die ? Or canst thou break that heart of his Whase only faut is loving thee ? If love for love thou wilt na gie, At least be pity to me shown ; A thought ungentle canna be The thought o' Mary Morison. THE RIGS O' BARLEY. Tune—" Com Rigs are Bonny." The heroine of this song is supposed to have been a young girl of the name of Annie Ronald, afterwards Mrs Paterson of Aikenbrae, and the daughter of a neighbour of the poet's, at whose house he was wont to be a frequent visitor. It was upon a Lammas night, "\Yhen corn rigs are bonny, Beneath the moon's unclouded lights I held awa' to Annie : The time flew by wi' tentless heed. Till, 'tween the late and early, Wi' sma' persuasion she agreed To see me through the barley. The sky was blue, the wind was still, ^ ^ The moon was shining clearly, I set her down, wi' right good will, Amang the rigs o' barley : I kent her heart was a' my ain, I loved her most sincerely : I kiss'd her owre and owre again, Amang the rigs o' barley. I lock'd her in my fond embrace ! Her heart was beating rarely : ii6 SONGS. [1784. My blessings on that happy place, Amang the rigs o' barley ! But by the moon and stars so bright, That shone that hour so clearly ! She aye shall bless that happy night, Amang the rigs o' barley. I hae been blithe wi' comrades dear; I hae been merry drinkin' ! I hae been joyfu' gath'rin' gear ; I hae been happy thinkin' : But a' the pleasures e'er I saw, Though three times doubled fairly. That happy night was worth them a', Amang the rigs 0' barley. Com rigs, and barley rigs, And corn rigs are bonny : I '11 ne'er forget that happy night, Amang the rigs wi' Annie. PEGGY. TcNE— " I had a horse, I had nae mair." The heroine of this song, about whom there appears to be some dubiety, is tliought to have been the " Mont- gomery's Peggy" mentioned in the preceding page. Now westlin winds and slaught'ring guns Bring autumn's pleasant weather ; The moorcock springs, on whirring wings, Amang the blooming heather : Now waving grain, wide o'er the plain, Pelights the weary farmer ; And the moon shines bright, when I rove at night, To muse upon my charmer. The partridge loves the fruitful fells ; The plover loves the mountains ; The woodcock haunts the lonely dells ; The soaring hern the fountains : Through lofty groves the cushat ^ roves. The path of man to shun it ; The hazel bush o'erhangs the thrush. The spreading thorn the linnet. Thus every kind their pleasure find, The savage and the tender ; Some social join, and leagues combine ; Some solitary wander : Avaunt, away ! the cruel sway, Tyrannic man's dominion ; The sportsman's joy, the murdering cry, The fluttering, gory pinion ! But Peggy, dear, the evening's clear. Thick flies the skimming swallow ; The sky is blue, the fields in view, All fading green and yellow : Come, let us stray our gladsome way, And view the charms of nature ; The rustling com, the fruited thorn, And every happy creature. We '11 gently walk, and sweetly talk, Till the silent moon shine clearly ; I '11 grasp thy waist, and, fondly prost, Swear how I love thee dearly : Not vemal showers to budding flowers, Not autumn to the farmer, So dear can be, as thou to me, My fair, my lovely charmer ! 1 Wood-pigeon. f GEEEN GROW THE RASHES, O! TuKB— "Green grow the rashes." This song, which the poet said was the genuine lan- guage of his heart, is an improvement upon an ancient homely ditty, of considerable spirit and freedom, to the same au*. Gkeen grow the rashes, O ! Green grow the rashes, O ! The sweetest hours that e'er I spend. Are spent amang the lasses, O ! There 's nought but care on every ban', In every hour that passes, O : What signifies the life o' man, An 'twere na for the lasses, O? The warl'ly 1 race may riches chase. And riches stQl may fly them, O ; And though at last they catch them fast. Their hearts can ne'er enjoy them, O. But gie me a canny ^ hour at een, My arms about my dearie, O, And warl'ly cares, and warl'ly men. May a' gae tapsalteerie,-* O. For you sae douce,* ye sneer at this. Ye 're nought but senseless asses, O ; The wisest man the warl' e'er saw He dearly loved the lasses, O. Auld Nature swears the lovely dears Her noblest work she classes, O ; Her 'prentice hand she tried on man. And then she made the lasses, O. THE CURE FOR ALL CARE. T0NE — " Prepare, my dear brethren, to the tavern let 's fly." The poet composed this song shortly after Joining the Torbolton Mason Lodge, which was long noted in the west for its festivities. No churchman am I for to rail and to write. No statesman nor soldier to plot or to fight, No sly man of business contriving a snare — For a big-bellied bottle 's the whole of my care. The peer I don't envy, I give him his bow; I scorn not the peasant, though ever ao lo\*' ; But a club of good fellows, like those thu,i ;. here, And a bottle like this, are my glory and cave. Here passes the squire on his brother — 1 ' There centum per centum, the cit with 1. But see you the crown, how it waves in . There a big-bellied bottle still eases my c:u The wife of my bosom, alas ! she did dii ; For sweet consolation to church I did fly ; I found that old Solomon proved it fair, That a big-bellied bottle 's a cure for all care. I once was persuaded a venture to make ; A letter inform'd me that all was to wrewers who preside o'er the wind and the tide, "Who marked each element's border ; Who formed this frame with beneficent aim, '^^'l^ose sovereign statute is order ; Within this dear mansion may wayward Con- tention Or withered Envy ne'er enter ; May Secrecy round be the mystical bound, And Brotherly Love be the centre ! 1 Slippery balL SONG, IM THE CHARACTER OF A BCINED EARMER. TcxE — "Go from iny window, love, do." ■By the liberality of Mr Dick, bookseller, Ayr," says Mr Robert Chambers, in his recent edition of the poet's works, "the present proprietor of a manu- script of ten leaves, in Burns's hand-writing, and which was formerly in the possession of Mrs General Stewart of Stair, we are enabled to give "the following song, which has not hitherto seen the light : " — The sun he is sunk in the west. All creatures retired to rest. While here I sit all sore beset With sorrow, grief, and wo ; And it 's O, fickle Fortune, O ! The prosperous man is asleep, Nor hears how the whirlwinds sweep ; But Misery and I must watch The surly tempest blow : And it 's O, fickle Fortune, O I There lies the dear partner of my breast, Her cares for a moment at rest : Must I see thee, my youthful pride. Thus brought so very low I And it 's O, fickle Fortune, O ! There lie my sweet babies in her arms, No anxious fear their little heart alai-ms ; But for their sake my heart doth ache, With many a bitter throe : And it 's O, fickle Fox-tune, O ! I once was by Fortune carest, I once could relieve the distrest : Now, life's poor support hardly eam'd. My fate will scarce bestow : And it 's O, fickle Fortune, O ! No comfort, no comfort I have ! How welcome to me were the grave I But then my wife and children dear, whither would they go ? And it 's O, fickle Fortune, O I O whither, O whither shall I turu I All friendless, forsaken, forlorn 1 For in this world Rest or Peace 1 never more shall know ! And it 's O, fickle Fortune, O ! THE LASS OF BALLOCHMYLE. Tune—" Miss Forbes's Farewell to Banff." The beautiful estate of Ballochmyle, which is situated on the Ayr, in the neighbourhood of Mauchline, was at this period of the poef s life transferred from the family of the Whitefoords (whose departure he has lamented in the lines on " The Braes of Ballochr myle") to Mr Claud Alexander, a gentleman who had made a large fortune as paymaster-general cf the East India Company's troops at Bengal ; and having just taken up his residence at the mansion- house, his sister, Miss Wilhclmina Alexander, was one day walking out through the grounds, which ap- pear to have been a favourite haunt of Burns's, when she accidentally encountered him in a musing attitude, with his shoulder leaning against a tree. As the groimds were thought to be strictly private, the lady appears to have been somewhat startled ; but, hav- ing recovered herself, passed on, and thought no more of the matter. A sliort time afterwards, how- ever, she was reminded of the circumstance by re- ceiving a letter from the poet, enclosing the song. "I had roved out," lie says, "as chance directed in 122 SONGS. [1787. the favourite haunts of my Muse, on the banks of the Ayr, to view nature in all the gaiety of the vernal year. The evening sun was flaming over the distant western hills : not a breath stirred the crimson open- ing blossom, or the verdant spreading leaf. It was a golden moment for [a poetic heart. Such was the scene, and such was the hour — when, in a corner of my prospect, I spied one of the fairest pieces of na- ture's workmanship that ever crowned a poetic land- scape or met a poet's eye. • The enclosed song was the work of my return home ; and perhaps it but poorly answers what might have been expected from such a scene." Much to the mortification of Burns, however, the lady took no notice of either the letter or the song, although she ultimately displayed a high sense of the honour which the genius of the poet had conferred on her. She died unmarried in 1843, at the age of eighty-eight. 'TwAS even — the dewy fields were green, On every blade tlie pearls hang, The zephyrs wanton'd round the bean. And bore its fragrant sweets along : In every glen the mavis sang, All nature listening seem'd the while, Except where greenwood echoes rang, Amang the braes o' BaUochrayle. With careless step I onward stray'd. My heai-t rejoiced in Nature's joy, "When musing in a lonely glade, A maiden fair I chanced to spy ; Her look was like the morning's eye, Her air like Nature's vernal smile, Perfection whisper'd, passing by. Behold the lass o' JBallochmyle ! Fair is the morn in flowery May, And sweet is night in autumn mild ; When roving through the garden gay, Or wandering in the lonely wild : But woman, Nature's darling child ! There all her charms she does compile ; Even there her other works are foil'd By the bonny lass o' Ballochmyle. Oh ! had she been a country maid. And I the happy country swain. Though shelter d in the lowest shed That ever rose on Scotland's plain : Through weary winter's wind and rain, With joy, with rapture, I would toU; And nightly to my bosom strain The bomiy lass o' Ballochmyle ! Then pride might climb the slippeiy steep, Where fame and honours lofty shine ; And thirst of gold might tempt the deep, Or downward seek the Indian mine ; ' Give me the cot below the pine. To tend the flocks, or till the soil, And every day have joys divine With the bonny lass o' Ballochmyle. THE BONNY BANKS OF AYR. Tune—" Roslin Castle." The poet, says Trofessor Walker, having been on a visit to a family where he had enjoyed much elegant and social pleasure, and which he thought was never to be renewed, as he was about to depart for the West Indies, " on his way home had to cross a wide stretch of solitary moor ; and, depressed by the contrasted gloom of his prospects, the aspect of nature harmonised with his feelings : it was a lower- ing and heavy evening -in autumn. The wind was up, and whistled through the rushes and long spear- grass which bent before it. The clouds were driv- ing across the sky; and cold pelting showers at intervals added discomfort of body to cheerlessness of mind. Under these circumstances, and in this frame, Burns composed the following song :" — The gloomy night is gathering fast. Loud roars the wild inconstant blast ; Yon murky cloud is foul with rain, I see it driving o'er the plain ; __ The hunter now has left the moor, The scatter'd coveys meet secure ; While here I wander, prest with care, Along the lonely banks of Ayr. The Autumn mourns her ripening corn. By early Winter's ravage torn ; Across her placid, azure sky. She sees the scowling tempest fly : Ciiill runs my blood to hear it ravQ — I think upon the stormy wave. Where many a danger 1 must dare, Far from the bonny banks of Ayr. 'Tis not the surging billow's roar, ■'Tis not that fatal, deadly shore ; Though death in every shape appear. The wretched have no more to fear ! But round my heai-t the ties are bound. That heart transpierced with many a wound ; These bleed afresh, those ties I tear. To leave the bonny banks of Ayr. Farewell old Coila's hills and dales, Her heathy moors and winding vales ; The scenes where wretched fancy roves. Pursuing past unhappy loves ! Farewell, my friends ! farewell, my foes ! My peace with these, my love with those — The bursting tears my heart declare ; Farewell the bonny banks of Ayr ! THE BANKS OF DOON. FIRST VERSION. The following song relates to an incident in real life— an unhappy love-tale. The unfortunate heroine was a beautiful and accomplished woman, the daughter and heiress of a gentleman of fortune in Carrick. Having been deserted by her lover, the son of a wealthy Wigtoushire proprietor, to whom she had born a chilii witliout the sanction of the Church, she is said to have died of a broken heart. The poet composed a second version of this song in 1792, for the Scots Musical Museum ; but it lacks the pathos and simplicity of the present one. (See p. 149.) Ye flowery banks o' bonny Doon, How can ye bloom sae fair ; How can ye cliant, ye little birds, And I sae f u' o' care ! Thou 'It break my heart, thou bonny bird That sings upon the bough ; Thou minds me o' the happy days When my fause luve was true. Thou 'It break my lieart, thou bonny bird That sings beside thy mate ; For sae I sat, and sae 1 sang. And wist na o' my fate. Aft hae I roved by bonny Doon, To see the woodbine twine ; And ilka bird sang o' its love, And sae did I o' mine. JET. 29.] SONGS. 123 AVi' lightsome heai-fc I pu'd a rose, Frae off its thorny tree ; And my fause luver staw ^ the rose. But left the thorn wi' me. THE AMEEICAN WAE. A FRAQMEST. TcxE— " Killiecrankie." TJie following ballad was composed at a period when the poet's political opinions had scarcely developed themselves, and when, as Dr Blair remarked, they still " smelt of the smithy." It is curious, however, as an illustration of the mode in which the rustic mind is apt to view the most important military and political matters. "When Guildford good our pilot stood, And did our helm thraAV,'^ man, Ae night, at tea, began a plea, Within America, man : Then up they gat the maskin'-pat,^ And in the sea did jaw,'* * man ; And did nae less, in full Congress, Than quite refuse our law, man. Then through the lakes, Montgomery f takes, I wat he wasna slaw, man ! Down Lowrie's burn J he took a turn. And Carleton did ca', man : But yet, what-reck, he, at Quebec, Montgomery-like § did fa', man : Wi' sword in hand, before his band, Amang his en'mies a', man. Poor Tammy Gage, within a cage. Was kept at Boston ha', man ; || Till Willie Howe took o'er the knowe For Philadelphia, man ; Wi' sword and gun he thought a sin Guid Christian bluid to draw, man ; But at New York, wi' knife and fork. Sir -loin he hacked sma', man.^ Burgoyne gaed up, like spur and whip, TiU Fraser brave did fa', man ; Then lost his way, ae misty day. In Saratoga shaw,^ man.** Comwallis fought as long 's he dought,^ And did the buckskins claw, man ; But Clinton's glaive frae rust to save, He hung it to the wa', man. Then Montagite, and Guildford too, Began to fear a fa', man ; And Sackville doure,^ wha stood the stoure,^ The German chief to thraw,^ man ; 1 Stole. * Throw. 7 Stubborn. 2 Turn. 5 Wood, 8 Dust. s Tea-pot. 6 Could. 9 Thwart. • The English Parliament having imposed an eixcise duty upon tea imported into North America, the East India Company sent several ships laden with that ar- ticle to Boston ; but, on their arrival, the natives went on board by force of aims, and emptied all the tea into the sea. t General Montgomery invaded Canada in 1775, and took Montreal, the British general, Sir Guy Carleton, retiring before him. X A pseudonym for the St Lawrence. 5 A compliment to the poet's patrons, the Mont- gomeries of Coilsfield. II An allusion to General Gage's being besieged in Boston by General Washington. «J Alluding to an inroad made by Howe, when a large number of cattle was destroyed. ** An allusion to the surrender of General Burgoyne's army at siurdtoga. For Paddy Burke, like ony Turk, Nae mercy had at a', ra.an ; And Charlie Fox threw by the box. And loosed his tinkler jaw,* man. t Then Rockingham took up the game. Till death did on him ca' man ; When Shelburne meek held up his cheek, Conform to gospel law, man ; Saint Stephen's boys wi' jarring noise. They did his measures thraw, man. For North and Fox united stocks. And bore him to the wa', man. Then clubs and hearts were Charlie's cartes, He swept the stakes awa', man. Till the diamond's ace, of Indian race. Led him a sair faux pas, man ; % The Saxon lads, wi' loud placads,i . On Chatham's boy did ca', man ; And Scotland drew her pipe, and blew, " Up, Willie, waur 3 them a', man ! " Behind the throne then Grenville 's gone, A secret word or twa, man ; While slee Dundas aroused the class Be-north the Roman wa', man : And Chatham's wraith,=^ in heavenly graith, (Inspired Bardies saw, man ;) Wi' kindling eyes cried, " Willie, rise !" " Would I hae fear'd them a', man? " * But, word and blow. North, Fox, and Co., Gowff'd* Willie like a ba', man. Till Suthrons raise, and coost ° their claes Behind him in a raw, man ; And Caledon threw by the di-one, And did her whittle ^ draw, man ; And swoor fu' rude, through dirt and bluid, To make it guid in law, man. THE BIRKS OF ABERFELDY. Tune—" The Birks of Aberfeldy." The poet tells us he composed this song on a visit which he paid to the beautiful falls of Moness, at Aberfeldy, in Perthshire, while on his way to Inver- ness. The air is old and sprightly. BOXNY lassie, will ye go. Will ye go, -vnM ye go ; Bonny lassie, will ye go To the birks'' of Aberfeldy? Now simmer blinks 8 on flowery braes, And o'er the crystal streamlet plays ; Come, let us spend the lightsome days In the birks of Aberfeldy. While o'er their heads the hazels hing, l^ The little birdies blithely sing, Or lightly flit on wanton wing In the birks of Aberfeldy. The braes ascend, like lofty wa's, The foaming stream deep-roaring fa's, 1 Cheers. 2 Beat. 3 Ghost. 4 Knocked him about. The phrase properly refers to the game of golf. * Doflfed. « Knife. 'Birches — Birch-wood. 8 Glances. * Free-spokon tongue. Tinkers are proverbial for their power of speech. t By the union of Lord North and Mr Fox, in 1783, the heads of the celebrated coalition, Lord Shelburne was compelled to resign. X An allusion to Mr Fox's India Bill, which threw him out of oflfice in December 1783. I 124 SONGS. [1787. O'erhung wi' fragrant spreading sliaws,i The birks of Aberfeldy. The hoary cliffs are crown'd wi' flowers, Wliite o'er the linns the burnie pours. And rising, weets wi' misty showers The birks of Aberfeldy. Let Fortune's gifts at random flee, They ne'er shall draw a wish frae me, Supremely blest wi' love and thee, In the birks of Aberfeldy. THE BONKY LASS OF ALBANY. Tune — " Mary's Di-eam." The following sonjr," says Chambers, " is printed from a manuscript book in Burns's hand-writing, in the possession of Mr B. Nightingale of London." The heroine was the natural daughter of Prince Charles Edward, by Clementina Walkinshaw, with whom, it is well-known, he lived for many years. The Prince afterwards caused her to be legitimated by a deed of the parliament of Paris in 1787, and styled her the Duchess of Albany. My heart is wae, and unco wae, 2 To think upon the raging sea That roars between her gardens gi-een And the bonny Lass of Albany. This lovely maid 's of royal blood That ruled Albion's kingdoms three, But oh, alas ! for her bonny face, They 've wrang'd the Lass of Albany. In the'rolling tide of spreading Clyde There sits an isle of high degree, And a town of fame whose princely name Should grace the Lass of Albany. But there 's a youth, a witless youth, That fills the place where she should be ; We '11 send him o'er to his native shore, And bring our ain sweet Albany. Alas the day, and wo the day, A false usurper wan the gree ^ Who now commands the towers and lands — The royal right of Albany. We '11 daily pray, we 11 nightly pray, On bended loaees most fervently, The time may come, with pipe and drum. We '11 welcome hame fair Albany. LADY ONLIE. TcNB— "Ruffian's Rant." This is an old song improved by Burns for the Museum. A' THE lads o' Thorniebank, Wlien they gae to the shore o' Bucky,'' They '11 step in and tak a pint Wi' Lady Onlie, honest Lucky ! ' Lady Onlie, honest Lucky, Brews guid ale at shore o' Bucky ; I wish her sale for her guid ale. The best on a' the shore o' Bucky. Her house sae bien,^ her curch^ sae clean, I wat she is a dainty chucky ; -^ And cheerlie blinks the ingle-gieed ^ Of Lady Onlie, honest Lucky ! Lady Onlie, honest Lucky, Brews guid ale at shore o' Bucky ; I wish her sale for her guid ale, The best on a' the shore o' Bucky. BLITHE WAS SHE. Tune—" Andrew and his Cutty Gun." The heroine of this song was ]Miss Euphemia Murray of Lintrose, a lovely young creature of eighteen, and already distinguished by the appellation of " The Flower of Strathmore." The poet met her while on a visit to the house of her uncle. Sir William Mur- ray of Ochtertyre, and seems to have been charmed by her beauty and alfability. She subsequently be- came the wife of Mr Smythe of aiethven, one of the judges of the Court of Session. Blithe, blithe, and merry was she, Blithe was she butt and ben : ^ Blithe by the banks of Earn, And blithe in Glenturit glen. By Auchtertyre grows the aik,^ On Yarrow banks the birken shaw ; '' But Phemie was a bonnier lass Than braes o' Yarrovv ever saw. Her looks were like a flower in May, Her smile was like a simmer morn ; She tripped by the banks of Earn, As light 's a bird upon a thorn. Her bonny face it was as meek As ony lamb upon a lea ; The evening sun was ne'er sae sweet, As was the blink o' Phemie's ee. The Highland hills I 've wander'd wide, And o'er the Lowlands I hae been • But Phemie was the blithest lass That ever trod the dewy green. M 1 Woods. * Bucklmven. 2 Sad. 6 tioodwifti. ' Superiority. > BONNY DUNDEE. i Tune — " Bonny Dundee." This song appeared in the first volume of the Museum, The second verse alone is Burns's, tlie first havio] been taken from a very old homely ditty. Oh, whare did ye get that hauver^-mealbanhtfck ? Oh, silly blind body, oil, dinna ye see? I gat it frae a brisk young sodger laddie, Between Saint Johnston and bonny Dundee. Oh gin I saw the laddie that gae me 't ! Aft has he doudled^ me upon liis knee ; May Heaven ^)i'otect my bonny Scots laddie, And send him safe hame to his baby and me ! My blessin 's upon thy sweet wee lippie, My blessin 's upon thy bonny eebree ! Thy smiles are sae like my blithe sodger laddie. Thou 's aye be dearer and dearer to me ! But I '11 big a bower on yon bonny banks, Where Tay rins wimplin' by sae clear ; And I '11 deed thee in the tartan sae hue. And mak thee a man like thy daddie dear. 1 Well-filled. - Kerchief— a covering for the liead. " Dear. « Blazing fire. !< In kitchen and parlour. « Oak. 7 Birch-^voods. 8 Oat. :• Dandled. JET. 29.] SONGS. 125 THE JOYFUL WIDOWEE. Tpnb— " Maggy Lauder." I MARRIED with a scolding wife, The fourteenth of November ; She made me weary of my life By one xmraly member. Long did I bear the heavy yoke, And many griefs attended ; But, to ray comfort be it spoke, !Now, now her life is ended. We lived full one-and-twenty years As man and wife together ; At length from me her course she steer'd, And 's gone I know not whither : "Would I could guess, I do profess, I speak, and do not flatter. Of ail the women in the world, I never could come at her. Her body is bestowed well, A handsome grave does liide her j But sure her soul is not in hell. The deil could ne'er aoide her. I rather think she is aloft, And imitating thunder ; For why, methinks I hear her voiac Tearing the clouds asunder. A ROSEBUD BY IMY EARLY WALK. Tcxa— " The Hoaebud." This song ^as composed in honour of the young lady to whom the poet addressed the lines beginning, " Beauteous rosebud, young and gay." She was Miss Jenny Cruikshank, daughter of Mr William Cruik- shank, one of the masters of the High School of Edin- burgh, a friend of Burns's, and at whose house he resided during one of his visits to the metropolis. Being a proliciont in music, the young lady appears to have charmed the poet by her skill in that art. She subsequently became the wife of a 3Ir Henderson, a legal practitioner in Jedburgh. A ROSEBUD by my early walk, Adown a corn-enclosed bawk,i Sae gently bent its thorny stalk, All on a dewy morning. Ere cwice the shades o' dawn are fled, In a' its crimson glory spread And drooping rich the dewy head, It scents the early morning. "Within the bush, her covert nest A little linnet fondly prest. The dew sat cliilly on her breast Sae early in the morning. She soon shall see her tender brood. The pride, the pleasure o' the wood, Amang the freidi green leaves bedew'd. Awake the early morning. So thou, dear bird, young Jenny fair ! On trembling string, or vocal air. Shall sweetly pay the tender care That tend!s thy early morning. So thou, sweet rosebud, young and gay, Shalt beauteous blaze upon the day. And bless the parent's evening ray That watch'd thy early morning. 1 An open space in a cornfield. BRAYING ANGRY "WINTER'S STORMS. T011K— " Neil Cow's Lamentation for Abercaimy." The two following songs were written in praise of Miss Margaret Chalmers, a relative of the poet's friend, Mr Gavin Hamilton. Burns first became acquainted with the young lady at the house of Dr Blacklock ; and being of a quiet, amiable disposition, and pos- sessed of that " excellent thing in woman," a delight- ful voice, she appears to have left an abiding impres- sion on the heart of the susceptible poet, who called her "one of the most accomplished of women," and frequently spoke of her with more than common warmth. Where, braving angry Winter's storms. The lofty Ochils rise, Far in their shade my Peggy's charms First blest my wondering eyes ; As one who by some savage stream, A lonely gem surveys, Astonish'd, doubly marks its beam, With art's most polish'd blaze. Blest be the wild sequester'd shade, And blest the day and hour, "Where Peggy's charms I first survey'd, When first I felt their power ! The tyrant Death, with grim control. May seize my fleeting breath ; But tearing Peggy from my soul Must be a stronger death. MY PEGGY'S FACE. TirsE — " My Peggy'* Face." Mt Peggy's face, my Peggy's form, The frost of hermit age might warm ; My Peggy's worth, my Peggy's mind, Might charm the first of humankind. I love my Peggy's angel air. Her face so truly, heavenly fair. Her native grace so void of art. But I adore my Peggy's heart. The lily's hue, the rose's dye. The kindling lustre of an eye ; Who but owns their magic sway ! Who but knows they all decay ! The tender thrill, the pitying tear, Tlie generous purpose, nobly dear, The gentle look, that rage disarms — These are all immortal charms. THE BANKS OF THE DEYON. Tune— "Bhanarach dhonn a chruidh.* "These vei'ses," says Bums, in his notes in the Musical Museum, "were composed on a charming girl. Miss Charlotte Hamilton, wJio is now married to James M. Adair, physician. She is sister to my worthy friend, Gavin Hamilton of Mauchline, and was born on the banks of the Ayr ; but was, at the time I wrote these lines, residing at Harvieston, in Clackmannanshire, on the romantic banks of the little river Devon." The poet, it has been said, wished to be something more than a mere admirer of this young lady ; but " Meg was deaf as Ailsa Craig ; " for the music of his lyre appsars to have fallen on ears that would not charm. How pleasant the banks of the clear-winding Devon, With green -spreading bushes, and flovrers blooming fair ! 126 SONGS. [1788 But the bonniest flower on the banks of the Devon "Was once a sweet bud on the braes of the Ayr. i Mild be the sun on this sweet-blushing flower, In the gay rosy morn, as it bathes in the dew ! And gentle the fall of the soft vernal shower, That steals on the evening each leaf to renew. Oh, spare the dear blossom, ye orient breezes. With chni hoary wing, as ye usher the dawn ! And far be thou distant, thou reptile, that seizes The verdure and pride of the garden and lawn ! I/ot Bourbon exult in his gay gilded lilies, And England, triumphant, display her proud rose : A fairer than either adorns the green valleys Where Devon, sweet Devon, meandering flows. ^ MACPHERSON'S FAEEWELL. Tune— "M'Pherson's Kant." This fine song, which Lockhart terms "a grand lyric," and Carlyle "a wild, stormful song, that dwells in e;ir and mind with strange tenacity," was designed by the poet as an improvement of a well-known old ditty entitled, " Macpherson's Lament," and which is said to have been written by a Highland freebooter a night or two before his execution. As this hero's history contains some elements of interest, we bor- row the following account of him from Mr Robert Chambers's recent edition of the poet's works : — "James Macpherson was a noted Highland free- booter of uncommon personal strength, and an ex- cellent performer on the violin. After holding the counties of Aberdeen, BanfiF, and Moray in fear for some years, he was seized by Duff of Braco, ancestor of the Earl of Fife, and tried before the sheriff of Banffshire, (November 7, 1700,) along with certain gipsies who had been taken in his company. In the prison, while he lay under sentence of death, he com- posed a song and an appropriate air, the former com- mencing thus : — • I've spent my time in rioting, Debauch'd my health and strength ; I squander'd fast as pillage came, And fell to shame at length. But dantonly, and wantonly, And rantingly I'll gae; I '11 play a tune, and dance it roun' Beneath the gallows-tree.' When brought to the place of execution, on the Gal- lows-hill of Banff, (Nov. 16,) he played the tune on his violin, and then asked if any friend was present who would accept the instrument as a gift at his hands. No one coming forward, he indignantly broke the violin on his knee, and threw away the frag- ments ; after which he submitted to his fate. The traditionaiy accounts of Macpherson's immense prowess are justified by his sword, which is still pre- served in Duff House, at Banff, and is an implement of great length and weight— as well as by his bones, which were found a few years ago, and were allowed by all who saw them to be much stronger than the bones of ordinary men." Farewell, ye dungeons dark and strong, The wretch's destinie ! Macpherson's time will not be long On yonder gallows-tree. Sae rantingly, sae wantonly, Sae dauntingly gaed ho ; He play'd a spring, and danced it round, Below the gallows-tree. Oh ! what is death but parting breath? — On monv a bloody plain T 've dared his face, and in this place I scorn him yet again ! Untie these bands from off my hands, And bring to me my sword ! And there 's no a man in all Scotland But I '11 brave him at a word. I 've lived a life of sturt and strife; I die by treacherie : It burns my heart I must depart And not avenged be. Now farewell light— thou sunshine bright, And all beneath the sky ! May coward shame distain his name, The wretch that dares not die ! WHISTLE, AND I 'LL COME TO YOU, MY LAD. This version of an old fragment the poet composed for the second volume of the Museum; but he afterwards altered and extended it for Thomson's collection. Oh, whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad; Oh, whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad : Though father and mother should baith gae mad. Oh, whistle, and I '11 come to you, my lad. Come down the back stairs when ye come to court me ; Come down the back stairs when ye come to court me ; Come down the back stairs and let naebody see. And come as ye werena coming to me. STAY, MY CHARMER. Tune—" An Gille dubh ciar dhubh." Stat, my charmer, can you leave me ? Cruel, cruel to deceive me ! Well you know how much you grieve me ; Cruel charmer, can you go ? Cruel charmer, can you go ? By my love so ill requited ; By the faith you fondly plighted ; By the pangs of lovers slighted ; Do not, do not leave me so ! Do not, do not leave me so ! STRATHALLAN'S LAIVIENT. William, fourth Viscount of Strathallan, whom the poet celebrates in these lines, fell on the rebel side at CuUoden in 1746. The poet, perhaps ignorant of this fact, speaks of him as having survived the battle, and fied for safety to some mountain fastness. Thickest night, o'erhang my dwelling ! Howling tempests, o'er me rave ! Turbid torrents, wintry swelling. Still surrovmd my lonely cave ! Crystal streamlets gently flowing. Busy haunts of base mankind, WesteiTX breezes softly blowing. Suit not my distracted mind. In the cause of right engaged. Wrongs injurious to redress,^ Honour's war we strongly waged, But the heavens denied success. ^T. 30.] SONGS. 127 Farewell, fleeting, fickle treasure, 'Tween Misfortune and Folly shared ! Farewell Peace, and farewell JPleasure ! Farewell flattering man's regard ! Ruin's wheel has driven o'er us, Not a hope that dare attend, The wide world is all before us — But a world without a friend ! THE YOUNG HIGHLAND EOVER. TcsE— "Morag." Loud blaw the frosty breezes. The snaw the mountains cover ; like winter on me seizes. Since my young Highland rover Far wanders nations over. Where'er he go, where'er he stray, May Heaven be his warden ; Return him safe to fair Strathspey, And bonny Castle-Gordon ! The trees now naked groaning, Shall soon wi' leaves be hinging. The birdies dowie^ moaning, Shall a' be blithely singing, And every flower be springing. Sae I'U rejoice the lee-lang day, "When by his mighty warden My youth 's return'd to fair Strathspey, And bonny Castle-Gordon. RAVING WINDS AROUND HER BLOWING. TusE— " Macgregor of Ruara's Lament." 'I composed these verses," says Bums, "on Miss Isabella M'Leod of Raasay, alluding to her feelings on the death of her sister, and the still more melan- choly death of her sister's husband, the late Earl of Loudon, who shot himself out of sheer heartbreak at some mortification he suffered from the deranged state of his finances." Ravixg winds around her blowing. Yellow leaves the woodlands strowing, By a river hoarsely roai-ing, Isabella stray'd deploring : — "Farewell hours that late did measure Sunshine days of joy and pleasure ; Had thou gloomy night of sorrow. Cheerless night that knows no morrow ! •* O'er the past too fondly wandering, On the hopeless future pondering ; Chilly Grief my life-blood freezes. Fell Despair my fancy seizes. Life, thou soul of every blessing. Load to Misery most distressing, Oh, how gladly I 'd resign thee. And to dark oblivion join thee ! " MUSING ON THE ROARING OCEAN. TuNB— "Druimion Dubh." 'I composed these verses," says the poet, "out of compliment to a Mrs Maclachlan, whose liusband was an oflQcer in the East Indies." 1 Sadly. MusrxG on the roaring ocean, Which divides my love and me ; Wearying Heaven in warm devotion. For his weal where'er he be. Hope and Fear's alternate billow Yielding late to Nature's law ; Whispeiing spirits round my pillow Talk of him that 's far awa'. Ye whom sorrow never wounded. Ye who never shed a tear. Care-untroubled, joy-surrounded, Gaudy Day to you is dear. Gentle Night, do thou befriend me ; Downy Sleep, the curtain draw ; Spirits kind, again attend me, — Talk of him that 's far awa' ! BONNY PEGGY ALISON. TuxE— "Braes o' Balquhidder." The heroine of this song is thought to have been the "Montgomery's Peggy" of the song of that name, the subject of other songs, and the object of many months' fruitless wooing. I 'll kiss thee yet, yet, And I '11 kiss thee o'er again ; And I 'U kiss thee yet, yet. My bonny Peggy Alison ! Ilk care and fear, when thou art near, I ever mair defy them, O ; Young kings upon their hanseP throne Ai'e nae sae blest as I am, O ! When in my arms, wi' a' thy charms, I clasp my countless treasure, O, I seek nae mair o' Heaven to share, Than sic a moment's pleasure, O ! And by thy een, sae bonny blue, I swear I 'm thine for ever, O ! — And on thy lips I seal my vow. And break it shall I never, O ! THE CHEVALIER'S LAMENT. TcNE—" Captain CyKean." " Yesterday," wrote Burns to his friend Cleghom, "as I was riding through a tract of melancholy, joyless moors, between Galloway and Ayrshire, it being Sun- day, I turned my thoughts to psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs; and your favourite air, 'Captain O'Kean,' coming at length into my head, I tried these words to it. I am tolerably pleased with the verses ; but as I have only a sketch of the tune, I leave it with you to try if they suit the measure of the music." Cleghom answered that the words de- lighted him, and fitted the tune exactly. "I wish," added he, ' ' that you would send me a verse or two more : and, if you have no objection, I would have it in the Jacobite style. Suppose it should be sung after the fatal field of Cullodeu, by the unfortunate I Charles." The poet took his friend's advice, and in- j fused a Jacobite spirit into the first verse as well as | the second. } The small birds rejoice in the green leaves re- turning. The murmuring streamlet winds through the ■ vale ; The hawthorn trees blow, in the dew of the ; morning, And wild scatter'd cowslips bedeck the green dale : | 1 New-won. 128 SOJVGS. [1788. But what can give pleasure, or wliat can seem fair. While the lingering moments are number'd by- care ? No flowers gaily springing, nor birds sweetly singing, Can soothe the sad bosom of joyless despair. The deed that I dared, could it merit their malice, A king, and a father, to place on his throne ? His right are these hills, and his right are these valleys, Where the wUd beasts find shelter, but I can find none : But 'tis not my sufferings thus wretched,— forlorn. My brave gallant friends! 'tis your ruin I mourn ; Youi- deeds proved so loyal in hot bloody trial — Alas ! can I make you no sweeter return ? OF A' THE AIRTS THE WIND CAN BLAW. Tune— "Miss Admiral Gordon's Strathspey." •'I composed this song," says tlie poet, "oai of com- pliment to Mrs Burns, during our hoaeymoon." Or a' the airts the wind can blaw, I dearly like the west, For there the bonny lassie lives, The lassie I lo'e best : There wild woods grow, and rivers row,i And mony a hill between ; But day and night, my fancy's flight Is ever wi' my Jean. I see her in the dewy flowers, I see her sweet and fair : I hear her in the tunefu' birds, I hear her charm the air : There 's not a bonny flower that springs By fountain, shaw,^ or green. There 's not a bonny bird that sings. But minds me o' my Jean. * iKoU. 2 Wood. * The two following stanzas were written some years afterwards, by Mr John Hamilton, music-seller, Edin- burgh, and from their simplicity and beauty are really worthy of forming the corollary to this fine song :— " Oh, blaw, ye westlin' winds, blaw saft Amang the leafy trees, TTi' balmy gale, frae hill and dale, Bring hume the laden bees ; And bring the lassie back to me That '8 aye sae neat and clean ; Ae smile o' her wad banish care, Sae charming is my Jean. " What sighs and vows amang tlie knowes llae pass'd atween us twa I How fond to meet, how wae to part, That night she gaed awa' 1 The powers aboon can only ken, To whom the heart is seen. That nane can be sac dear to me As my sweet lovely Jean I" The two following were also wrftten as nn addition to this song by Mr William lloid, of the firm of Brash OH, WERE I ON PAENASSUS' HILL. Tune — "My love is lost to me." This song was also. produced in honour of Mrs Bums, shortly before she took up her residence at EUisland as the poet's wife. It is thought to have been com- posed while he was one day gazing towards the hill of Corsincon, at the head of Nithsdale, and beyond which, though at some distance, was the quiet vale where lived his "bonny Jean." Oh, were I on Parnassus' hill ! Or had of Helicon my fill ; That I might catch poetic skill To sing how dear I love thee. But Nith maun be my Muse's well. My Muse maun be thy bonny sel : On Corsincon I '11 glower d spell. And write how dear I love thee. Then come, sweet Muse, inspire my lay ! For a' the lee-lang simmers day I couldna sing, I couldna say. How much, how dear, I love thee. I see thee dancing o'er the green, Thy waist sae jimp,^ thy limbs sae clean,^ Thy tempting lips, thy roguish een— By heaven and earth I love thee ! By night, by day, a-field, at hame. The thoughts o' thee my breast inflame ; And aye I muse and sing thy name — I only live to love thee. Though I were doom'd to wander on Beyond the sea, beyond the sun. Till my last weary sand was run ; Till then— and then I 'd love thee. THE FETE CHABIP:eTEE. TuxE— " Killiecrankie." The poet's brother, Gilbert Burns, gives the following account of the origin of this ballad :—" When Mr Cunninghame of Enterkin came to his estate, two mansion-houses on it, Enterkin and Annbank, were both in a ruinous state. Wishing to introduce him- self with some eclat to the county, he got temporary erections made on the banks of the Ayr, tastefully decorated with shrubs and llowers, for a supper and ball, to which most of the respectable families in the county were invited. It was a novelty in the county, and attracted mucli notice. A dissolution of parlia- ment was soon expected, and this festivity was thought to be an inti-oduction to a canvass for repre- senting the county. Several other candidates were 1 Stare. 2 Small Well-shaped. and Reid, booksellei-s, Glasgow, been printed as the poet's : — and have sometimes • Upon the banks o' flowing Clyde The lassies busk 1 them braw ; But when their best they Iwe put on, My Jeanie dings -' them a' : In hamely weeds she far exceeds The fairest o' the town ; Baith sage and gay confess it sae, Though drest in russet gown. ' The gamesome lamb, that sucks its dam, Muir harmless canna be ; She has nae faut, (if sic ye ca't,) E-Kcept her love lor me : The sparkling dew, o' clearest hue, Is like her sliining een : In shape and air nane can compare Wi' my sweet lovely Jean." IDrei*. ^T" a Kxcela. ^T. 30.] SONGS. 129 spoken of, particulai-ly Sir John Wliitefoonl, then re- sidinsat Cloncaird, commonly pronounced Glencaird, and Mr Boswell, the well-kuown biographer of Dr Johnson. The political views of this festive assem- blage, which are alluded to in the ballad, if they ever existed, were, however, laid aside, as Mr Cunning- hame did not canvass the county." Oh, wha will to Saint Stephen's house, To do our errands there, man ? Oh, wha will to Saint Stephen's house, O' th' merry lads of Ayr, man'.' Or vrill we send a raan-o'-law ? Or will we send a sodj?er? Or him wha led o'er Scotland a' The meiklei Ursa-Major? Come, will ye court a noble lord, Or buy a score o' lairds, man ?_ For worth and honoiu: pawn their word. Their vote shall be Glencaird's, man? Ane gies them coin, ane gies them wine, Anither gies them clatter ; ^ Annbank, wha guess'd the ladies' taste. He gies a F^te Champetre. When Love and Beauty heard the news. The gay greenwoods amang, man ; Where gathering flowers and busking^ bowers, They heard the blackbird's sang, man ; A vow, they seal'd it with a kiss, Sir Politics to fetter, As theirs alone, the patent-bliss. To hold a Fete Champetre. Then mounted Mirth, on gleesome wing, O'er hill and dale she flew, man ; Ilk wimpling burn, ilk crystal spring, nk glen and shaw^ she knew, man : She summon'd eveiy social sprite, That sports by wood or water, On the bonny banks of Ayr to meet. And keep this Fete Champetre. Cauld Boreas, wi' his boisterous crew. Were bound to stakes like kye,^ man; And Cynthia's car, o' silver fu', Clamb up the starry sky, man : Reflected beams dweU in the stream.^, Or down the cuiTent shatter ; The western breeze steals through the trees To view this Fete Champetre. How many a robe sae gaUy floats ! AYhat sparkling jewels glance, man ! To Harmony's enchanting notes. As moves the mazy dance, man. The echoing wood, the winding flood. Like paradise did glitter, When angels met, at Adam's yett,^ To hold their Fete Champetre. When Politics came there, to mix And make his ether-stane, man I He cii-cled round the magic ground, But entrance found he nane, man : * He blush'd for shame, he quat his name, Forswore it, every letter, Wi' humble prayer to join and share This festive Fdte Champetre. 1 GrcaU * Wood. « Talk. « Cattle. 3 Dressing. 6 Gate. THE DAY RETURNS. TxTNE— " Seventh of November." In a letter to Miss Chalmers, an intimate female friend of the poet's, he says regarding this song :— "One of the most tolerable things I have done for some time is these two stanzas I made to an air a musical gen- tleman of my acquaintance [Captain Riddel of Glenriddel] composed for the anniversary of his wedding day." The day returns, my bosom bums. The blissful day we twa did meet, Though winter wild in tempest toil'd, Ne'er summer sun was half sae sweet. Than a' the pride that loads the tide. And crosses o'er the sultry line ; Than kingly robes, than crowns and globes. Heaven gave me more — it made thee mine ! While day and night can bring delight. Or nature aught of pleasure give. While joys above my mind can move, For thee, and thee alone, I live ! When that grim foe of life below Comes in between to make us part. The ii-on hand that breaks our band It breaks my bliss — it breaks my heart. THE DISCREET HINT. *' L.\ss, when your mitlier is frae hame, May I but be sae bauld As come to your bower window, And creep in frae the cauld ? As come to your bower window. And when its cauld and wat, Warm me in thy fair bosom ~ Sweet lass, may I do that ? " " Young man, gin ye should be sae kind, When our gudewif e's frae hame, As come to my bower window, Whare I am laid my lane. To warm thee in my bosom, — Tak tent,i I 'U tell thee what. The way to me lies through the kirk- Young man, do ye hear that ? " ♦ "Alluding to a superstition," says Chambers, "which represents adders as forming annually from Iheir slough certain little annular stones of streaked colouring, which are occasionally found, and the real origin of which is supposed by antiquaries to be Druidi- eal." TUHE- THE LAZY MIST. Here's a health to my true love." The lazy mist hangs from the brow of the hill. Concealing the coxirse of the diirk-winding rill ! How languid the scenes, late so sprightly, ap- pear! As Autumn to Winter resigns the ]mle year. The forests are leafless, the meadows are bro\vn. And all the gay foppery of Summer is flown : Apart let me wander, apart let me muse. How quick Time is flying, how keen Fate pur- sues ! How long I have lived — ^but how much lived in vain ! How little of life's scanty span may remain ! VThiit aspects old Time, in his progress, has worn! What ties, cruel Fate in my bosom has torn ! iHeed. I30 SONGS. [1788. How foolish, or worse, till our summit is gain'd ! And downward, how weaken'd, how darken'd, how pain'd ! This life 's not worth having v/ith all it can give — For something beyond it poor man sure must live. I HAE A WIFE O' MY AIN. Tune—" Naebody," The following sprightly lines were written shortly after the poet had welcomed home his wife to his new house on the farm of Ellisland — the first winter he spent in which he has described as the happiest of his life. I HAE a wife o' my ain— I '11 partake wi' naebody ; I '11 tak cuckold frae nane, I'll gie cuckold to naebody. I hae a penny to spend, There — thanks to naebody ; I hae naething to lend — I '11 borrow frae naebody, I am naebody's lord — I '11 be slave to naebody ; I hae a guid braid sword, I '11 tak dunts ^ frae naebody ; I '11 be merry and free, I '11 be sad for naebody; If naebody care for me, I '11 care for naebody. ^( AULD LANG SYNE. Burns has described this as an old song and tune which had often thrilled through his soul ; and in communicating it to his friend George Thomson, he professed to have recovered it from an old man's singing; and exclaimed regarding it — "Light be the turf on the breast of tlie Heaven-inspired poet who composed this glorious fragment!" The probability is, however, that the poet was indulging in a little mystification on the subject, and tiiat the entire song was his own composition. The second and third verses — describing the happy days of youth- are his beyond a doubt. Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And never brought to min' ? Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And days o' lang syne ? For auld lang syne, my dear, For auld lang syne. We '11 tak a cup o' Idndness yet For auld lang syne ! We twa hae run about the braes, And pu'd the gowans fine ; But we 've wander'd mony a weary foot Sin' auld lang syne. We twa hae paidl't i' the bum, Frae morning sun till dine : But seas between us braid hae roar'd Sin' auld lang syne. And here 's a hand, my trusty fiere,* And gies a hand o' thine ; And we '11 tak a right guid willie-waught,* For auld lang syne ! And surely ye '11 be your pint-stoup, And surely I '11 be mine ; And wo 11 tak a cup o' kindness yot, For auld lang syne. 1 Blows. s Friend. • Draught. MY BONNY ]MAEY. Tune— " Go fetch to me a pint o' wine." The first four lines of this song are from an old Ijallad composed in 1G36, by Alexander Lesly of Edin, on Doveran side, grandfather to tlie celebrated Arcli- bishop Sharpe— the rest are Burns's. Go fetch to me a pint o' wine, And fill it in a silver tassie,^ That I may drink, before I go, A service to my bonny lassie ; The boat rocks at the pier o' Leith ; Fu' loud the wind blaws frae the ferry ; The ship rides by the Berwick -law. And I maun leave my bonny Miiry. The trumpets sound, the banners fly, The glittering spears are ranked ready ; The shouts o' war are heard afar. The battle closes thick and bloody; But it 's not the roar o' sea or shore Wad make me langer wish to tarry ; Nor shout o' war that 's heard afar — It 's leaving thee, my bonny Mary. V MY HEART WAS ANCE AS BLITHE AND FEEE. Tu^'E — " To the weavers gin ye go." The chorus of this song is taken from a very old ditty the rest is the production of the poet. My heart was ance as blithe and free As simmer days were lang. But a bonny westlin' weaver lad Has gart me change my sang. To the weavers gin ye go, fair maids, To the weavers gin ye go ; I rede 2 you right, gang ne'er at night. To the weavers gin ye go. My mither sent me to the town. To warp ^ a i^laiden wab ; But the weary, weary warpin' o 't Has gart"* me sigh and sab. A bonny westlin' weaver lad Sat working at his loom ; He took my heart as wi' a net, In every knot and thrum.* I sat beside my warpin'-wheel, And aye I ca'd it roun' ; But every shot and every knock. My heart it gae a stoun.<* The moon was sinking in the west Wi' visage pale ancl wan. As my bonny westlin' weaver lad Convoy 'd me through the glen. But what was said, or what was done. Shame fa' me gin I tell ; But, oil ! I fear the kintra^ soon Will ken as weel 's mysel. > Cup. 8 Prepare for the loom. 8 Thread. • Start. 2 Warn. * Made. 1 Countr' JET. 30.] SONGS. 131 BRAW LADS OF GALA WATER. TuxK— "Gala Water." The air and chorus of this song are both very old. This version Burns wrote for the Scots Musical Museum; but he was so enamoured with the air, that he afterwards wrote another set of words to it for his friend Thomson, which will be found at p. 156. Bkaw, braw lads of Gala AVater ; Oh, braw lads of Gala Water : I 'U kilt^ my coats aboon my knee, And follow my love througb the water. Sae fair her hair, sae brent ^ her brow, Sae bonnie blue her een, my dearie ; Sae white her teeth, sae sweet her mou', The mair I kiss she 's aye my dearie. O'er yon bank and o'er yon brae, O'er yon moss amang the heather; I '11 kilt my coats aboon my knee, And follow my love through the water. Down amang the broom, the broom, Down amang the broom, my dearie, The lassie lost her silken snood,* That cost her mony a blirt and bleary .3 HER DADDIE FORBAD. Tune — " Jumpin' John." Her daddie forbad, her minnie forbad; Forbidden she wadna be : She wadna trow't the browst she brew'd ^ Wad taste sae bitterlie. The lang lad they ca' Jumpin' John BeguUed the bonny lassie ; The lang lad they ca' Jumpin' John Beguiled the bonny lassie. A cow and a calf, a ewe and a hauf, And thretty guid shillin's and three ; A very guid tocher,*'' a cotter-man's dochter, The lass with the bonny black ee. HEY, THE DUSTY MILLER. Tcxe — " The Dusty Miller." Hey, the dusty miller, And his dusty coat ; He will win a shilling Or he spend a groat. Dusty was the coat, Dusty was the colour, Dusty was the kiss I got frae the miller. 1 Tuck up and fix. ' High and smooth. 3 Sigh and tear. * She wouldn't believe the drink she brew'd, 6 Dower. ♦ The snood or ribband with which a Scottish lass braided her hair had an emblemntical signification, and applied to her maiden character. It was exchanged lor the curch, toy, or coif, when she passed by marriage into the matron state. But if the damsel was so unfor- tunate as to loose pretensions to the name of maiden without gaining a right to that of matron, she was neitJier permitted to use the snood nor advance to the graver dignity of the curch.— Scott. Hey, the dusty miller. And his dusty sack ; Leeze me on the calling Fills the dusty peck. Fills the dusty peck. Brings the dusty siller ; I wad gie my coatie For the dusty miller. THENIEL MENZIE'S BONNY MARY. TcNE— "The Ruffian's Rant." In coming by the brig o' Dye, At Darlet we a blink did tarry ; As day was dawin in the sky, We drank a health to bonny Mary. Theniel Menzie's bonny Mary, Theniel Menzie's bonny INIary ; Charlie Gregor tint ^ his plaidie, Kissin' Theniel's bonny Mary. Her een sae bright, her brow sae white. Her haffet^ locks as brown 's a berry; And aye tliey dimpl't wi' a smile. The rosy cheeks o' bonny Mary. We lap and danced the lee-lang day, Till pi])er lads were wae and weary ; But Charlie gat the spring to pay, For kissin' Theniel s bonny Mary. WEARY FA' YOU, DUNCAN GRAY. Tune—" Duncan Gray." This first version of an old song was written for the Museum. The poet afterwards composed another and better version for the collection of his friend Thomson, which will be found at p. 151. Weary fa' you, Duncan Gray — Ha, ha, the gu-din'^ o 't ! Wae gae by you, Duncan Gray — Ha, ha, the girdin' o 't ! When a' the lave •* gae to their play. Then I maun sit the lee-lang day, And jog the cradle wi' my tae. And a' for the girdin' o 't. Bonny was the Lammas moon — Ha, ha, the girdin' o 't ! Glowerin' a' the hills aboon — Ha, ha, the girdin' o 't ! The girdin' brak, the beast cam down, I tint ^ my curch ^ and baith my shoon — Ah ! Duncan, ye 're an unco loon— Wae on the bad girdin' o 't ! But, Duncan, gin ye '11 keep your aith. Ha, ha, the girdin' o 't ! — I 'se bless you wi' my hindmost breath— Ha, ha, the girdin' o 't ! Duncan, gin ye '11 keep your aith — Tlie beast again can bear us baith, And auld Mess John will mend the slcaith,'' And clout 8 the bad girdin' o 't. J^ Binding. eCap. J Lost. 3 Temple. * Others. »Lost. 7 Haim. 8 Patch up. 1^2 SONGS. [1788. THE PLOUGHMAK TcNE— " Up wi' the ploughman." The fourth and fifth verses only of this piece are by- Burns, the remainder by some older writer. The ploughman he 's a bonny lad, His mind is ever true, jo ; His garters knit below his knee, His bonnet it is blue, jo. Then up wi' my ploughman lad, And hey my merry ploughman ! Of a' the trades that I do ken, Commend me to the ploughman. My ploughman he comes hame at e'en, He 's af ten wat and weary ; Cast aff the wat, put on the dry. And gae to bed, my dearie ! I will wash my ploi..^'hman's hose. And I wiU dress his o'erlay ; ^ I will mak my ploughman's bed. And cheer him late and early. I hae been east, I hae been west, I hae been at Saint Johnston ; The bonniest sight that e'er I saw ^ Was the ploughman laddie dancin'. Snaw- white stockin's on his legs. And siller buckles glancin' ; A guid blue bonnet on his head — And oh, but he was handsome ! Commend me to the barn-yard. And the com-mou,* man; I never gat my coggie fou, TiU I met wi' the ploughman. LANDLADY, COUNT THE LAWIN. Tune— "Hey Tutti, Taiti." The first two verses of this son^ "were supplied by Barns ; the others belong to apolitical ditty of earlier date. Landlady,, count the lawin,^ The day is near the da win ; Ye 're a' blind drunk, boys, And I 'm but jolly fou.'* Hey tutti, taiti, How tutti, taiti — Wha 's fou now ? Cog and ye were aye fou, Cog and ye were aye feu, I wad sit and sing to you, If ye were aye fou. Weel may ye a' be ! Ill may we never see ! God bless the king, boys. And the companie ! Hey tutti, taiti. How tutti, taiti — Wha 's fou now? TO DAUNTON MK Tune— " To daunton me." The blude-red rose at Yule may blaw, The simmer lilies bloom in snaw, » Cravat. 2 Reckoning. » Fall. * The recess left in the stack of com in the bam as the sheaves are removed to the thrashing-floor. The frost may freeze the deepest sea ; But an auld man shall never daunton ^ me. To daunton me, and me so young, Wi' his fause heart and liatt'ring tongue, That is the thing you ne'er shall see ; Eor an auld man shall never daunton me. Eor a' his meal and a' his maut, For a' his fresh beef and his saut, For a' his gold and white monie. An auld man shall never daunton me. His gear 2 may buy him kye and yowes. His gear may buy him glens and knowes ; But me he shall not buy nor fee. For an auld man shall never daunton me. He hirples^ twa-fauld as he dow,^ Wi' his teethless gab^ and his a\ild held pow,** And the rain dreeps down frae his red bleer'd ee. That auld man shall never daunton me. COME BOAT ME O'ER TO CHAELIE. TiTNE— " O'er the Water to Charlie." Come boat me o'er, come row me o'er, Come boat me o'er to Charlie ; I'll gie John Ross another bawbee. To boat me o'er to Charlie. We 11 o'er the water and o'er the sea. We '11 o'er the water to Charlie ; Come weel, come woe, we '11 gather and go, And live or die wi' Charlie. I lo'e weel my Charlie's name. Though some there be abhor him : But oh, to see auld Nick gaun hame. And Charlie's faes before him ! I swear and vow by moon and stars. And sun that shines so early. If I had twenty thousand lives, I 'd die as aft for Charlie. RATTLIN', ROARIN' WILLIE. Tdnb— " Rattlin', roarin' Willie." " The hero of this chant," says Burns, "was one of the worthiest fellows in the world— William Dunbar, Esq., writer to the signet, Edinburgh, and colonel of the Crochallan corps—a club of wits, who took that title at the time of raising the fencible regiments." Th« last stanza only was the work of the poet. O RATTLIN', roarin' Willie, Oh, he held to the fair, And for to sell his fiddle, And buy some other ware ; But parting wi* his fiddle. The saut tear blin't his eo ; And rattlin', roarin' Willie, Ye 're welcome hame to me ! O Willie, come sell your fiddle. Oh, sell your fiddle sae fine ; O Willie, come sell your fiddle. And buy a pint o' wine ! If I should sell my fiddle. The warl' would think I was mad ; For mony a rantin' day My fiddle and I hae" had. ' Rule— intimidate. > Limps. •Mouth. 3 Wealtli. «Can. • Head. .£T. 30.] SONGS. 133 As I cam by Crochallan, I caniiily keekit ben — Kattlin', roariii' Willie Was sitting at yon board en' Sitting at you board en', And amang guid companie ; Rattlin', roarin' Willie, Ye 're welcome hame to me ! TCITE- MY HOGGIE.* ' What will I do gin my hoggie die ?' What will I do gin my lioggie die? Mj' joy, my pride, my hoggie ! My only beast, I had nae mae. And vow but I was vogie ! ^ The lee-lang night we watch'd the fanld, Me and my f aithf u' doggie ; We heard nought but the roaring linn, Amang the braes sae scroggie j^ But the hoidet cried frae the castle wa'. The blutter^ frae the boggie, The tod* replied upon the hill, I trembled for my hoggie. When day did daw, and cocks did craw, The morning it was foggie ; An unco tyke^ lap o'er the dike. And maist has kill'd my hoggie. UP IN THE MORNING EAELY. The chorus of this song is old ; but the two stanzas are Bums's. CHOEUS. Up in the morning's no for me, Up in the morning early ; When a' the hills are cover'd wV snaw, I 'm sure it 's winter f airlj'. Cauld blaws the wind frae east to west, The drift is driving sairly ; Sae loud and shrill 1 hear the blast, I 'm sure it 's winter fairly. The birds sit chittering^ in the thorn, A' day they fare but sparely ; And lang 's the night frae e1;n to mom, I 'm sure it 's winter fairly. I'M O'ER YOUNG TO MARRY YET. TtrsB — "I'm o'er young to marry yet." I AM my mammy's ae bairn, Wi' unco "^ folk I weary, sir ; And lying in a man's bed, I 'm fley'd 8 wad mak me eerie,^ sir. I 'm o'er young to marry yet ; I 'm o'er young to marry yet ; I 'm o'er young— 'twad be a sin To tak me frae my mammy yet. 1 Vain. 8 Mire-snipe. 6 Shivering. 9 Timorous. 2 Full of stunted bushes. * Fox. 8 A strange dog. 7 Strange. 8 Afraid. * Hoggie— a. young sheep after it is smeared, and be- fore it is first shorn. My mammy cof t ^ me a new gown. The kirk maun hae the gracing o 't ; Were I to lie wi' you, kind sir, I 'm fear'd ye 'd spoil the lacing o 't. Kiillowmas is come and gane, The nights are lang in winter, sir ; And you and I in ae bed. In trouth I dare nae venture, sir. Fu' loud and shrill the frosty wind Blaws through the leafless timmer52 sir ; But if ye come this gate ^ again, I 'II auldor be gin simmer, sir. THE WINTER IS PAST. The winter it is past, and the summer 's come at last, And the little birds sing on every tree ; Now everything is glad, while I am very sad. Since my true love is parted from me. The rose upon the brier, by the waters running clear, May have charms for the linnet or the bee ; Their little loves are blest, and their little hearts at rest. But my true love is parted from me. My love is like the sun, in the firmament doe« run, For ever is constant and true ; But his is like the moon, that wanders up and down, And is every month changing anew. All you that are in love, and cannot it remove, I pity the pains you endure : For experience makes me know that your hearts are full o' woe, A woe that no mortal can cure. OH, WILLIE BREWD A PECK O' MAUT. TuxE — "Willie brew'd a peck o' maut." The poet's account of the origin of this song is as fol- lows : — "The air is Allan Masterton's, the song . mine. The occasion of it was this — Mr William IS'icol of the High School, Edinburgh, being at Moffat during the autumn vacation, honest Allan — who was at that time on a visit to Dalswinton — and I went to pay Nicol a visit. We had such a joyous meeting that Masterton and I agreed, each in our own way, that we should celebrate the business." Oh, Willie brew'd a peck o' maut. And Rob and Allan cam to pree ;* Three blither hearts, that lee-lang night. Ye wadna find in Christendie. We are na fou, we 're nae that fou. But just a drappie in our ee ; The cock may craw, the day may daw, And aye we 11 taste the barley bree. Here are we met, three merry boys. Three merry boys, I trow, are we ; And mony a night we Ve merry been. And mony mae we hope to be ! 1 Bought. 3 Trees. Way. * Taste. 134 SONGS. [1789. It is the moon — I ken lier horn, That 's blinkin' in the lift sae hie ; She shines sae bright to wile us hame, But, by my sooth, she '11 wait a v/ee ! "VYha first shall rise to gang awa', A cuckold, coward loon is he ! Wha last beside his chair shall fa', He is the king amang us three ! TO MAEY m HEA.VEN. Tune— "Death of Captain Cook." The story of Mary Campbell has been briefly alluded to in the memoir of the poet, and in the notes to the Correspondence. She belonged to the neighbourhood of Dunoon, a beautiful watering-place on the Clyde, and was in the service of Colonel Montgomery of Coilsfield when the poet made her acquaintance, and afterwards in that of Gavin Hamilton. They would appear to have been seriously attached to each other. When Jane Armour's father had ordered her to relinquish all claims on the poet, his thoughts na- turally turned to Mary Campbell. ' It was arranged that Mary should give up her place with the view of making preparations for their union ; but before she went home they met in a sequestered spot on the banks of the Ayr. Standing on either side of a purling brook, and holding a Bible between them, they exchanged vows of eternal fidelity. Mary pre- sented him with her Bible, the poet giving his own in exchange. This Bible has been preserved, and on a blank leaf, in the poet's hand-writing, is inscribed, "And ye shall not swear by my name falsely: I am the Lord," (Lev. xix. 12.) On the second volume, *'Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform ■unto the Lord thine oath," (Matt. v. o3.) And on an- other blank leaf his name and mark as a Royal Arch mason. The lovers never met again, Mary Campbell having died suddenly at Greenock. Over her grave a monument has been erected by the admirers of the poet. On the third anniversary of her death, Jean Armour, then his wife, noticed that, towards tlie evening, "he grew sad about something, went into the barn-yard, where he strode restlessly up and down for some time, although repeatedly asked to come in. Imme- diately on entering the house he sat down and wrote *To Mary in Heaven,'" which Lockhart character- ises "as the noblest of all his ballads." Thou ling'ring star, with less'ning ray, That lovest to greet the early morn, Again thou usher'st in the day My Mary from my soul was torn. O Mary ! dear departed shade ! Where is thy place of blissful rest? Sce'st thou thy lover lowly laid ? Hear'st thou the groans that rend liis breast? That sacred hour can I forget. Can I forget the hallow'd grove, Wliere by the winding Ayr we met, To live one day of parting love 1 Eternity will not efface Those records dear of transports past ; Thy image at our last eml)raco ; Ah ! little thought we 'twas oxir last ! Ayr, gurgling, kiss'd his pebbled shore, O'erhung with wild woods, thickening green ; The fragrant birch, and hawtliorn hoar, Twined amorous round the raptured scene ; The flowers sprang wanton to be prest, The birds sang love on every spray- Till too, too soon, the glowing west Proclaim'd the speed of winged day. Still o'er these scenes my memory wakes, And fondly broods with miser care ! Time but the impression stronger makes, As streams their channels deeper weax. My Mary ! dear departed shade ! Where is thy place of blissful rest ? See'st thou thy lover lowly laid ? Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast ? 1 Serve. * Tends. 2 Beat. t Cows, •EOT. c Old women. THE LADDIES BY THE BANKS O' NITH. j TuKK— " Up and waur them a'." j The following ballad originated in a contest for the re- presentation of the Dumfries burghs, which took | place in September 1789, between the former mem- ber, Sir James Johnston of Westerhall, who was sup- ported by the court and the Tories, and Captain Mil- ler of Dalswinton, the eldest son of the poet's land- lord, who had the interest of the Duke of Queens- berry and the Whigs. As Burns had the warmest veneration for individuals of both parties, he wished to avoid taking any active part on either side, and contented himself therefore with penning this piece chiefly against the Duke of Queensberry, the largest landed proprietor in Nithsdale, and for whose char- acter he seems to have entertained the utmost detes- tation. The allusion in the first verse is to the vote his Grace gave on the regency question, when he de- serted the king, his master, in whose household he held office, and supported the right of the Prince of Wales to assume the government without the con- sent of Parliament. The laddies by the banks o' Nith Wad trust his Grace wi' a', Jamie ; But he'll sair^ them as he sair'd the king, Turn tail and rin awa', Jamie. Up and waur 2 them a', Jamie, Up and waur them a' ; The Johnstons hae the guidin' o 't, Ye turncoat Whigs, awa'. The day he stood his counti-y's friend, Or gaed her faes a claw, Jamie, Or frae puir man a blessin' wan. That day the duke ne'er saw, Jamie. But wha is he, the country's boast, Like him there is na twa, Jamie j There 's no a callant"* tents'* the kye,* But kens o' VYesterha', Jamie. To end the wark here 's Whistlebirck,* Lang may his whistle blaw, Jamie ; And Maxwell true o' sterling blue. And we '11 be Johnstons a', Jamie. Up and waur them a', Jamie, Up and waur them a' ; The Johnstons hae the guidin' o 't, Ye turncoat Whigs, awa'. THE FIVE CARLINES. Tune—" Chevy-chace." This is another ballad which the poet penned on the contested election mentioned above. It represents the live burghs in cleverly-drawn figurative charac- ters — Dumfries, as Maggy on the banks of Nith: Annan, as Blinking Bess of Aunandale ; Kirkcud- bright, as Whisky Jean of Galloway ; Sanquhar, as Black Joan frae Crichton Peel ; and Lochuiubcn, as Marjory of the Many Lochs— each of which is more or less locally appropriate. There were five carlines^ in the south, They fell upon a scheme. * Alexander Birtwhtstle, Esq., merchant in Kirkcud- briglit, and provost of the burgh. ^T. 31.] SONGS. 135 To send a lad to Lon'on town, To bring them tidings harno. Not only bring them tidings hame. But do their errands there ; And aiblins ^ gowd and honour baith JVIight be that laddie's shai-e. There was Maggy by the banks o' Nith, A dame wi' pride eneugh ; And xrlarjory o' the Mony Lochs, A carline auld and teugh. And Blinkin Bess of Annandale, That dwelt near Solway-side, And Whisky Jean, that took her gill lu Galloway sae wide. And Black Joan, frae Crichton Peel, O' gipsy kith and kin ; — Five wighter^ carlines werena foim' The south countrie within. To send a lad to Lon'on town. They met upon a day ; And mony a knight, and mony a laird, Their errand fain wad gae. Oh, mony a knight, and mony a laird. This errand fain wad gae ; But nae ane could their fancy please, Oh, ne'er a ane but twae. The first he was a belted knight,* ' Bred o' a Border clan ; And he wad gae to Lon'on town, IVIight nae man him withstan' ; And he wad do their errands weel, And meikle he wad say ; And Oka ane at Lon'on court Wad bid to him guid-day. Then neist cam in a sodger youth,f And spak wi' modest grace, And he wad gae to Lon'on town. If sae their pleasure was. He wadna hecht^ them courtly gifts, Nor meikle speech pretend ; But he wad hecht an honest heart Wad ne'er desert his friend. Now, wham to choose, and wham refuse, At strife thir carlines fell ; For some had gentlefolks to please, And some wad please themsel. Then out spak mim-mou'd^ Meg o' Nith, And she spak up wi' pride. And she wad send the sodger youth. Whatever might betide. For the auld guidmanlj: o' Lon'on court She didna care a pin ; But she wad send a sodger youth To greet his eldest son.^^ Then up sprang Bess of Annandale, And swore a deadly aith, Says, " I will send the Border knight Spite o' you carlines baith. "For far-off fowls hae feathers fair. And fools o' change are fain ; But I hae tried this Border knight, And I '11 try him yet again." 1 Perhaps. ' Promise. ♦ Sir J. Johnston. t George III. " More pow^erful. •* Prlm-moutUed. t Captain Miller, § The PriQce ot Wales. Then Whisky Jean spak owre her drink, "Ye weel ken, kimmers a', The auld guidman o' Lon'on court. His back 's been at the wa'. " And mony a friend that kiss'd his cup Is now a f remit ^ wight ; But it 's ne'er be said o' Whisky J ean, I'll send the Border knight." Says Black Joan frae Crichton Peel, A carline stoor^ and grim, — " The auld guidrnan, and the young guidman. For me may sink or swim ; "For fools will pi-ate o' right and wrang, While knaves laugh in their sleeve ; But wha blows best the horn shall win, I'll spier nae courtier's leave." Then slow raise Marjory o' the Lochs, And wrinkled was her brow ; Her ancient weed was russet gray, Her auld Scots bluid was true. " The Lon'on court set light by me— I set as light by them ; And I will send the sodger lad To shaw that court the same." Sae how this weighty plea may end, Nae mortal wight can tell : God grant the king, and ilka man. May look weel to himsel ! THE BLUE-EYED LASSIE. AiE — " The Blue-eyed Lass." The "Blue-Eyed Lassie" was Miss Jean Jeffrey, daughter of the Rev. Mr Jeffrey of Loclimaben, in Dumfries- shire, at whose house the poet was a frequent visitoi-. On the occasion of his first visit, the young lady, then a charming blue-eyed creature of eighteen, did the honours of the table, and so pleased the poet, that next morning at breakfast he presented her with the following passport to fame, in the form of one of his finest songs. Miss Jeffrey afterwards went out to New York, where she married an American gentle- man of the name of Renwick, to whom she bore a numerous family. One of her daughters became the wife of Captain Wilks, of the United States Navy, whose name was recently brought so prominently before the public of this country in connexion with, the affair of the steamship Trent, and the capture of the Confederate Commissioners, I GAED a waefu' gate ^ yestreen, A gate, I fear, I'll dearly rue ; I gat my death frae twa sweet een, Twa lovely een o' bonny blue. 'Twas not her golden ringlets bright ; Her lips, like roses, wat wi' dew ; Her heaving bosom, lily-white — It was her een sae bonny blue. She talk'd, she smiled, my heart she wiled ; She charm'd my soul — I wist na how ; And aye the stound,^ the deadly wound, Cam frae her een sae bonny blue. But spare to speak, and spare to speed,* She '11 aiblins ^ listen to my vow : Should she refuse, I '11 lay my dead* To her twa een sae bonny blue. 1 Estranged, s Road. 6 Perhaps. 2 Austere, 4 Pang, « Deatli, ♦ A proverbial expression— Give me the chance of speaking and the opportunity of gaining her favour. 136 SONGS. [1790- WHEN FIEST I SAW PAIR JEAKIE'S FACE. Air — "Maggie Lauder." This song first appeared in the IVew York Mirror in 1846, with the following notice of the heroine, Mrs Eenwick {nee Miss Jean Jefl'rey) mentioned above : — "The lady to whom the following verses— never before published — were addressed, known to the readers of Bui-ns as the * Blue-eyed Lassie,' is one of a race whose beauties and vu-tues formed for several generations the inspiration of the masters of Scot- tish gong. Her mother was Agnes Armstrong, in •whose honour the touching words and beautiful air of 'Koslin Castle' were composed. "When first I saw fair Jeanie's face, I couldna tell what ail'd me, My heart -went fluttering pit-a-pat, My een they almost fail'd me. She 's aye sae neat, sae trim, sae tiglit, All grace does round her hover, Ae look deprived me o' my heart. And I became a lover. She 's aye, aye sae blithe, sae gay, She 's aye so blithe and cheerie ; She 's aye sae bonnj-, blithe, and g'&j, Oh, gin I were her dearie ! Had I Dimdas's whole estate, Or Hopetoun's wealth to shine in ; Did warlike laurels crown my brow, Or humbler bays entwining — I 'd lay them a' at Jeanie's feet, Coidd I but hope to move her, And prouder than a belted knight, I 'd be my Jeanie's lover. She 's aye, aye sae blithe, sae gay, &c. But sair I fear some happier swain Has gaia'd sweet Jeanie's favour : If so, may every bliss be hers, Though I maun never have her ; But gang she east, or gang she west, 'Twixt Forth and Tweed all over. While men have eyes, or ears, or taste, She '11 always find a lover. She 's aye, aye sae blithe, sae gay, &c. MY LOVELY NANCY. Tune—" The Quaker's Wife." "The following song," says the poet, in a letter to Clarinda,* to whose charms, prol)ably, we owe the lines, " is one of my latest productions ; and I send it to you as I would do anything else, because it pleases myself : " — Thine am I, my faithful fair, Thine, my lovely Nancy ; Every pulse along my veins, Every roving fancy. To thy bosom lay my heart. There to throb and languish : Though despair had wrung its core, That would heal its anguish. Take awajr these rosy lip*. Rich with balmy treasure : Turn away thine eyes of love. Lest I die with pleasure. * For an account of this lady, gee Pref&tmy Nota to Letters to Clarlada. What is life when av anting love ? Night without a morning : Love 's the cloudless summer sun, Nature gay adorning. TIBBIE DUNBAR. Tune—" Johnny M'GilL" Oh, wilt thou go wi' me, sweet Tibbie Dunbar ? Oh, wilt thou go wi' me, sweet Tibbie Dunbar? Wilt thou ride on a horse, or be drawn in a car. Or walk by my side, oh, sweet Tibbie Dunbar? I care na thy daddie, his lands and his money, I care na thy kin, sae high and sae lordly : But say thou wilt hae me for better for waur — And come in thy coatie, sweet Tibbie Dunbar ! 'W^EN ROSY MAY COMES IN WI' FLOWERS. Tune—" The gardener wi' his paidle." The poet afterwards produced a new version of this song, with a change in the burden at the end of the stanzas. When rosy May comes in wi' flowers. To deck her gay green-spreading bowers, Then busy, busy, are his hours — The gardener wi' his paidle.^ The crystal waters gently fa' ; The merry birds are lovers a' ; The scented breezes round him blaw — The gardener wi' his paidle. When purple morning starts the hare To steal upon her early fare. Then through the dews he maun repair — The gardener wi' his j)aidle. When day, expiring in the west, The curtain draws of nature's rest. He flies to her arms he lo'es the best — The gardener wi' his paidle. MY HARRY WAS A GALLANT GAY. TuNK— " Highlander's Lament." The chorus of this song, the poet tells us, he picked up from an old woman in Dunblane, the rest being I his own. The old song was composed on a Highland I love affair ; but this version was evidently intended | for a Jacobite melody. My Harry was a gallant gay, Fu' stately strode he on the plain ; But now he 's banish'd far away, I '11 never see him back again. Oh, for him back again I Oh, for him back again ! I wad gie a' Knockh;ispie s land For Highland Harry back again. When a' the lave ^ gae to their bed, I wander dowie ^ up the glen ; I set me down and greet ■* my fill, And aye I wish him back again. iHoa »8ad. 2 Best. *Cry. iET. 32.] SONGS. 137 Ob, were some villains hangit liigli, And ilka body bad tbeir ain ! Tben I migbt see tbe jo}-fu' sigbt, My Higbland Harry back again. BEWAEE O' BONITT ANN. TuxE— " Ye gallants bright." 'I composed this song," says the poet, "out of com- pliment to Miss Ann Masterton, the daughter of my friend, Mr Allan Masterton. composer of the air, ' Strathallan's Lament.'" Miss Masterton subse- quently became Mrs Derbishire, and went to reside in London. Ye gallants brigbt, I rede ^ ye riglit. Beware o' bunny Ann ; Her comely face sae fu' o' grace, Your beart sbe will trepan. ^ Her een sae brigbt, like stars by night, Her skin is like tbe swan; Sae junply ^ laced ber genty waist, That sweetly ye migbt span. Youth, Grace, and Love, attendant move, And Pleasure leads tbe van : In a' tbeir charms, and conquering arms. They wait on bonny Ann. The captive bands may chain the hands, But love enslaves the man ; Ye gallants braw, I rede you a*, Beware o' bonny Ann ! JOHN ANDEESON, MY JO. Tl'^t:— " John Anderson, my Jo." John Anderson, my jo,* John, AVhen we were first acquent ; Your locks were like tbe raven, Your bonny brow was brent. ^ But now your brow is held, John, Your locks are like the snaw ; But blessings on your frosty pow,^ John Anderson, my jo. John Anderson, my jo, John, "We clamb the hill thegitber ; And mony a canty ^ day, John, We 've had wi' ane anither : Now we maxin totter dowTi, John, But band in hand we 11 go ; And sleep thegitber at the foot, John Anderson, my jo. THE BATTLE OF SHERrET-MUIE. TcsE— " Cameronian Rant." This is an improved version vrhich the poet composed for the Museum of an older and more diffuse song on the same subject, which was written by a Mr Barclay, a Berean minister of some note in Edinburgh, and uncle to the distinguished anatomist of the same name. " Oh cam ye here the fight to shun. Or herd the sheep wi' me, man ? Or were ye at the Sherra-muir, And did the battle see, man ? " I'yTam. * Love— dear. '' Happy. 2 Ensnare. 6 Smooth. » Tightly. « Head. "I saw tbe battle sair and tough. And reekin' red ran mony a sheugh ; ^ My heart, for fear, gaed sough 2 for sough, To hear the thuds,^ and see tbe cluds, O' clans frae woods, in tartan duds,'* "VVlia glaum'd^ at kingdoms three, man. " The red-coat lads, wi' black cockades. To meet them werna slaw,' man ; They rusb'd and pusb'd, and bluid outgush'd. And mony a bouk ^ did fa', man : The great Argjde led on his files, I wat they glanced for twenty miles,. They back'd and hash'd while broadswords clash'd. And through they dash'd, and hew'd and smash'd. 'Till fey '^ men died awa', man. " But had ye seen tbe philabegs, And skyrin ^ tartan trews, man ; When in tbe teeth they dared our Whigs And covenant true-blues, man ; In lines extended lang and birge. When bayonets o'erioower'd tbe targe, And thousands hasten'd to tbe charge, Wi' Highland wrath they frae the sheath Drew blades o' death, till out o' breath. They fled like frighted doos,^ man." " Ob, how den. Tarn, can that be true? Tbe chase gaed frae tbe north, man ; I saw mysel they did pursue Tbe horsemen back to Forth, man ; And at Dunblane, in my ain sight. They took the brig wi' a' their migbt. And straught to Stirling wmg'd tbeir flight ; But, cursed lot ! tbe gates were shut ; And mony a huntit, poor red-coat, For fear amaist did swarf,^*^ man I ' " My sister Kate cam up the gate Wi' crowdie imto me, man ; She swore she saw some rebels run ■ Frae Perth unto Dundee, man : Their left-band general had nae skill. The Angus lads had nae good will That day tbeir neibors' bluid to spill ; For fear by foes that they should lose Their cogs o' brose, they scared at blows, And hameward fast did flee, man. "They've lost some gallant gentlemen Amang the Highland cla,ns, man ; I fear my Lord Panmure is slain, Or fallen in Wbiggish hands, man : Now wad ye sing this double fight. Some fell for wrang, and some for right ; And mony bade tbe world guid-night ; Then ye may tell bow pell and mell, By red claymores, and muskets' knell, Wi' dying yell, the Tories fell, And Wliigs to bell did flee, man. BLOOMING NELLY. Tune—" On a Bank of Flowers." On a bank of flowers, in a summer day. For summer lightly drest, Tbe youthful blooming Nelly lay, With love and sleep opprest ; 1 Ditch. 3 Sigh. 3 Knocks. 4 Clothes. 6 Grasped. 6 TiTink, body. "! Predestined, 8 Shining. 9 Pigeons. 10 Swoon. 138 SONGS. [1790. V When 'Willie, wandering through the wood, "Wlio for her favour oft had sued, He gazed, he wish'd, he fear'd, he blush'd, And trembled where he stood. Her closed eyes, like weapons sheathed, "Were seal'd in soft repose ; Her lips, still as she fragi'ant breathed, It richer dyed the rose. The springing lilies sweetly prest. Wild- wanton, kiss'd her rival breast ; He gazed, he wish'd, he fear'd, he blush'd — His bosom ill at rest. Her robes, light waving in the breeze, Her tender limbs embrace ! Her lovely form, her native ease, All harmony and grace ! Tumultuous tides his pulses roll, A faltering, ardent kiss he stole ; He gazed, he wish'd, he fear'd, he blush'd, Ajad sigh'd his very soul. As flies the partridge from the brake. On fear-inspired wings, So Nelly, starting, half -awake, Away affrighted springs : But Willie f oUow'd — as he should ; He overtook her in the wood ; He vow'd, he pray'd, he found the maid Forgiving all and good. MY HEART'S IN" THE HIGHLANDS. Tune— "Faille na Miosg." "The first half stanza of this song," says Burns, "is old ; the rest is mine." My heart 's in the Highlands, my heart is not here; My heart 's in the Highlands, a-chasing the deer; A-chasing the wild deer, and following the roe-r My heart 's in the Highlands wherever I go. Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North, The birthplace of valour, the country of worth ; Wherever I wander, wherever I rove. The hUls of the Highlands for ever I love. Farewell to the mountains high cover'd! with snow ; Farewell to the straths and green valleys below ; Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods ; Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods. My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here; My heart 's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer ; A-chasing the wild deer, and following the roe— My heart 's in the Highlands wherever I go. THE BANKS OF NITH. TcNE— •' Robie donna Gorach." The Tliames flows proudly to the sea, Where royal cities stately stand ; But sweeter flows the Nith, to me, Where Cummins * ance had high command : When shall I see that honour'd land, That winding stream I love so dear I Must wayward Fortune's adverse hand For ever, ever keep mo here? * The well-known Comyns of Scottish history. How lovely, Nith, thy fruitful vales. Where spreading hawtliorns gaily bloom ! How sweetly wind thy sloping dales. Where lambkins wanton through the broom I Though wandering, now, must be my doom, Far from thy bonny banks and braes, May there my latest hours consume, Amang the friends of early days ! TAM GLEN. Tune— "Tam Glen." My hearb is a-breaking, dear tittie !^ Some counsel unto nie come len' ; To anger them a' is a pity. But what will I do wi' Tam Glen? I 'm ttinking, wi' sic a braw fallow. In poortith I might mak a fen ; 2 What care I in riches to wallow, If I mauna marry Tam Glen? There 's Lowrie the Laird o' Drumeller, " Guid day to you, brute ! " he comes ben : He brags and he blaws o' his siller. But when will he dance like Tam Glen? My minnie ^ does constantly deave me, And bids me beware o' young men ; They flatter, she says, to deceive me, But wha can think sae o' Tam Glen? My daddie says, gin I '11 forsake him, He '11 gie me guid hunder marks ten ; But if it 's ordain'd I maun take him, Oh, wha will 1 get but Tam Glen? Yestreen at the valentines' dealing. My heart to my mou' gied a sten ;4 For thrice I drew ane without failing. And thrice it was written — Tam Glen. The last Halloween I lay waukin'^ My droukit^ sark-sleeve, as ye ken;* His likeness cam up the house staukin', And the very gray breeks o' Tam Glen ! Come counsel, dear tittie ! don't tarry — I '11 gie ye my bonny black hen, Gif ye will advise me, to marry The lad I lo'e dearly— Tam Glen. THE TAILOR. Tune— "The tailor fell through the bed, thimbles and a'." The tailor fell through the bed, thimbles and a' ; The tailor fell through the bed, thimbles and a' ; The blankets were thin, and the sheets they were sma', The tailor fell through the bed, thimbles and a*. The sleepy bit lassie, she dreaded nae ill ; The sleepy bit lassie, she dreaded nae ill ; The weather was cauld, and the lassie lay still. She thought that a tailor could do her nae ill. Gie me the groat again, canny young man ; Gie me the groat again, canny young man ; The day it is short, and the night it is laug, The dearest siller that ever I wan ! 1 Sister. * Bound. a Shift. 6 Watching. 8 Mother. 6 Wet. » For an explanation of this old usage, see, under the head " Poems," Note i, page 12. iET. 32.] SONGS. 139 There '3 somebody weary "wi' lying her lane ; There's somebody weary wi' lying her lane ; There's some that are dowie,^ I trow wad be fiun2 To see the bit tailor come skippin' again. YE HAE LIEN WRANG, LASSIE. CHORUS. Ye hae lien a' wrang, lassie, Ye 've lien a' wrang ; Ye '\e lien in an unco^ bed, And wi' a fremit'* man. Your rosy cheeks are turn'd sae wan, Ye 're greener than the grass, lassie ; Your coatie 's shorter by a span, Yet ne'er an inch the less, lassie. O lassie, ye hae play'd the fool, And ye "will feel the scorn, lassie ; For aye tbe brose ye sup at e'en, Ye bock 5 them ere the mom, lassie. Oh, ance ye danced upon the knowes,^ And through the wood ye sang, lassie ; But in the berrying o' a bee byke, I fear ye 've got a stang, lassie. THERE 'S A YOUTH IN THIS CITY. TcNK— " Neil Gow's Lament." The first half stanza of this song is old ; the rest by Burns. There 's a youth in this city, It were a gi-eat pity That he frae our lasses should wander awa' ; For he 's bonny and braw, "Weel favour'd witha', And his hair has a natural buckle and a'. His coat is tbe hue Of his bonnet sae blue : His fecket* is white as the new-driven snaw; His hose they are blae, And his shoon like tbe slae, And his clear siller buckles they dazzle us a'. For beauty and fortune The laddie 's been courtin' ; "Weel-featured, weel-tocher'd, weel-mounted, and braw ; But chiefly the siller. That gars him gang till her. The penny 's the jewel that beautifies a'. There 's Meg wi' the mailen,t That fain wad a haen him ; And Susie, whose daddy was laird o' the ha' ; There 's lang-tocher'd Nancy Maist fetters his fancy — But the laddie's dear sel he lo'es dearest of a'. I ^Melancholy. * Stranxer. 2 Glad. 5 Yomit. * Strange. « HiUs. * An under waistcoat with sleeves. t A well-stocked faim. OUR THRISSLES FLOURISHED FRESH AND FAIR. TuKE— " Awa', Whigs, awa'." The second and fourth stanzas only of this song are from the pen of the poet ; the others belong to an old Jacobite ditty. Our thrissles flourish'd fresh and fair, And bonny bloom'd our roses ; But Whigs cam like a frost in June, And wither'd a' our posies. Awa', Whigs, awa' ! Awa', Whigs, awa' ! Ye 're but a pack o' traitor louns. Ye '11 do nae guid at a'. Our ancient crown 's fan in the dust— Deil blin' them wi' the stoure o't ; And write their names in his black beuk Wha gie the Whigs the power o't ! Our sad decay in Church and State Surpasses my descriving ; The Whigs cam o'er us for a curse. And we hae done wi' thriving. Grim Vengeance lang has ta'en a nap, But we may see him wauken ; Gude help the day when royal heads Are hunted like a maukin ! ^ v/ COME REDE ME, DAME. Co3iE rede 2 me, dame, come tell me, dame. And nane can tell mair truly. What colour maun the man be of To love a woman duly. The carline ^ flew baith up and down, And leugh and answer'd ready, I learn'd a sang in Annandale, A dark man for my lady. But for a country quean like thee. Young lass, I tell thee fairly. That wi' the white I 've made a shift. And brown will do fu* rarely. There 's mickle love in raven locks, The flaxen ne'er grows youden,* There 's kiss and hause ^ me in the brown, And glory in the gowden. THE CAPTAIN'S LADY. Tune—'' Oh, mount and go." Oh, mount and go, IMoutit and make you ready ; Oh, mount and go, And be the captain's lady. When the drums do beat. And the cannous rattle. Thou shalt sit in state, And see thy love in battle. 1 Hare. * Gray. ' Counsel. 5 Hug cv embrace. 8 Old woman. 140 SONGS. [1790. When the vanquish'd foe Sues for jjeace and quiet. To the shades we '11 go, And in love enjoy it. OH, MEEEY HAE I BEEJ^' TEETHIN' A HECKLE. T0KE— "Lord Breadalbane's March." Oh, merry hae I been teethin' a heckle, And merry hae I been shapin' a spoon ; And merry hae I been cloutin' ^ a kettle, And kissin' my Katie when a' was done. Oh, a' the lang day I ca' at my hammer. And a' the lang day I whistle and sing, A' the lang night I cuddle^ my kimmer, ^ ^ And a' the lang night am as happy 's a king. Bitter in dool I lickit my winnin's, O' marrying Bess, to gie her a slave : Blest be the hour she cool'd in her linens. And blithe be the bird that sings on her grave ! Come to my arms, my Katie, my Katie, And come to my arms and kiss me again ! Drvmken or sober, here 's to thee, Katie ! And blest be the day I did it again. EPPIE ADAIR. Tdke— " My Eppie." And oh ! my Eppie, My jewel, my Eppie ! Wha wadna be happy Wi' Eppie Adair? By love, and by beauty. By law, and by duty, I swear to be true to My Eppie Adair I And oh ! my Eppie, My jewel, my Eppie ! Wha wadna be happy Wi' Eppie Adair? A' pleasure exile me, Dishonour defile me. If e'er I beguile thee. My Eppie Adair I YOUNG JOCKEY. Tune— "Young Jockey." " The whole of this song," says Stenhouse, "excepting three or four lines, is the production of Burns." Young Jockey was the blithest lad In a' our town or here awa' : Fu' blithe he whistled at the gaud,* Fu' lightly danced he in the ha'. He roosed ^ my een, sae bonny blue, He roosed my waist sae genty sma', And aye my heart came to my mou* When ne'er a body heard or saw. My Jockey toils upon the plain. Through wind and weet, through frost and snaw: And o'er the lea I leuk fu' fain When Jockey's owsen hameward ca'. And aye the night comes round again, AVhen in his arms he laks me a' ; And aye he vows he '11 be my ain. As lang's he has a breath to draw. WEE WILLIE GRAY. Wee Willie Gray, and his leather wallet ; Peel a willow- wand to be him boots and jacket ; The rose upon the brier will be him trouse and doublet. The rose upon the brier wUl be him trouse and doublet. Wee Willie Gray, and his leather wallet, Twice a lily flower will be him sark and cravat : Feathers of a flee wad feather up his bonnet. Feathers of a flee wad feather up his bonnet. JAMIE, COME TRY ME. Tune—" Jamie, come try me." CHORUS. Jamie, come try me, Jamie, come try ms, If thou wad win my love, Jamie, come try me. If thou should ask my love, Could I deny thee ? If thou would win my love, Jamie, come try me. If thou should kiss me, love,^ Wha coxild espy thee ? If thou wad be my love, Jamie, come try me. THE BATTLE OF KILLIECRANKIE. TusE— " Killiecrankie." The chorus of this song, which celebrates the battle where Viscount Dundee fell in the moment of victory, is old ; the rest is from the pen of Burns. Whare hae ye been sae braw, lad ? Whare hae ye been sae brankie,^ O ? Oh, whare hae ye been sae braw, lad? Cam ye by Killiecrankie, O? An ye had been whare I hae been. Ye wadna been sae cantie,^ O ; An ye had seen what I hae seen, On the braes of Killiecrankie, O. I fought at land, I fought at sea ; At hame I fought my auntie, O ; But I met the devil and Dundee, On the braes o' Killiecrankie, O, The bauld Pitcur fell in a f ur,^ And Clavers got a clankie, O ; Or I had fed an Athole gled,* On the braes o' Killiecrankie, O. 1 Patching up. * Plough. 8 Fondle. * Praised. s Dearie. 1 Gaudy. * Furrow. « Merry. * Kite. iKT. SONGS. 141 GUIDWIFE, COUIS'T THE LAWm. TcNE — "Gaiclwyfe count the lawin." Gane is tlie day, and mirk 's the night. But we '11 ne'er stray for fau't ^ o' I'vAxt. For ale and brtuidy 's sttirs and moon, And blude-red wine 's the rising sun. Then, guidwife, count the lawiu, The la win, the la win ; Then, guidwife, count the lawin. And bring a coggie "-^ mair. There 's wealth and ease for gentlemen. And simple folk maun fecht and fen' ; But here we 're a' in ae accord. For ilka man that 's drunk 's a lord. My coggie is a haly pool. That heals the wounds o' care and dool ; ^ And pleasure is a wanton trout. An ye cli-ink but deep ye '11 find him out. WHISTLE O'EE, THE LAYE O'T. TusE — "Whistle o'er the lave o't." FiBST when Maggy was my care, Heaven, I thought, was in her air ; Now we 're married — spier ■* nae mair— Whistle o'er the lave o 't. — Meg was meek, and Meg was mild. Bonny Meg was nature's cliild ; Wiser men than me 's beguiled — Whistle o'er the lave o 't. How we live, my Meg and me, How we love, and how we 'gree, I care na by how few may see — Whistle o'er the lave o 't. Wha I wish were maggots' meat, Dish'd up in her winding sheet, I could write — but Meg maun see't — A\''histle o'er the lave o 't. OH, CAN YE LABOUE LEA. Oh, can ye labour lea, yorung man. And can ye labour lea ; Gae back the gate ye cam again, Ye 'se never scorn me. I fee'd a man at Martinmas, Wi' airl-pemiies three ; And a' the faut I f;in' wi' him. He couldna labour lea. The stibble-rig is easy plough'd. The fallow land is free ; But wha wad keep the handleas cooi. That couldna labour lea? WOMEN'S MINDS. TcNE— "Fora' that." Though women's minds, like winter winds, ]\Iay shift and turn, and a' that, The noblest breast adores them maist, A consequence I draw that. For a' that, and a' tliat, And twice as muckle 's a' that. The bonny lass that I lo'e best She '11 be my ain for a' thaL Great love I bear to all the fair. Their humble slave, and a' that ; But lordly will, I hold it still, A mortal sin to thraw that. But there is ane aboon the lave,i Has wit, and sense, and a' that ; A boimy lass, I like her best. And wha a crime dare ca' that ? IT IS NA, JEAN, THY BON-NY FACE. TcnE— " The Maid's Complaint." " These verses," says Cunningham, "were originally in English : Burns bestowed a Scottish dress upon them, and made them utter sentiments connected with his own affections." It is na, Jean, thy bonny face. Nor shape, that I admire. Although thy beauty and thy grace IMight weel awake desire. Something, in ilka part o' thee, To praise, to love, I find ; But, dear as is thy form to me. Still dearer is thy mind. Nae mair ungenerous wish I hae, Nor stronger in my breast. Than if I canna mak thee sae, At least to see thee blest. Content am I, if Heaven shall give But happiness to thee : And, as wi' thee I 'd wish to live. For thee I 'd bear to tlie. 1 Want. » Grief. * Bumper. «Ask. MY LOVE SHE'S BUT A LASSIE YET. Tune— "Lady Badinscoth's Keel." My love she 's but a lassie yet. My love she 's but a lassie yet ; We '11 let her stand a year or twa. She '11 no be half sae saucy yet. I rue the day I sought her, O, I rue the day I sought her, O ; Wha gets her needna say she 's woo'd. But he may say he 's bought her, O I Come, draw a drap o' the best o 't yet ; Come draw a drap o' the best o 't yet ; Gae seek for pleasure where ye will. But here I never miss'd it yet. We 're a' dry wi' drinking o 't ; We 're a' dry wi' drinking o 't ; The minister kiss'd the fiddler's wife, And couldna preach for thinkin* o 't. TtrsB- CA' THE EWES. ■' Ca' the Ewes to the Knowes.' The fourth and fifth stanzas of this song, which was written for the Museum, are old, with a few touches of improvement by Burns. He afterwards wrote a much better veFsion for Thomson's collection, which will be found at p. 166. » Eest 142 SONGS, [179] As I gaed down the water-side, There I met my shepherd had, He row'd ^ me sweetly in his plaid. And he ca'd me his dearie. Ca' the ewes to the knowes, Ca' them whare the heather grows, Ca'them whare the burnie rowes. My bonny dearie ! Will ye gang down the water-side. And see the waves sae sweeth^ glide ? Beneath the hazels spreading wide The moon it shines fu' clearly. I was bred up at nae sic school, 3Iy she]>herd lad, to play the fool, And a' the day to sit in dool,^ And naebody to see me. Ye sail get gowns and ribbons meet, Cauf-leather shoon upon yoixr feet, And in my arms ye 'se lie and sleep, And ye sail be my dearie. If ye '11 but stand to what ye Ve said, I'se gang wi' you, my shepherd lad, And ye may rowe me in your plaid. And I &all be your deai-ie. While waters wimple ^ to the sea ; While day blinks in the lift * sae hie ; Till clay-cauld death sail blin' my ee, Ye sail be my dearie. SIIHMEH'3 A PLEASANT TIME. Tune— "Aye Waukin, 0." This is an old song, on which the poet appears to have made only a few alterations. Simmer 's a pleasant time. Flowers of every colour ; The water rins o'er the heugh,^ And I long for my true lover. Aye waukin, O, Waukin still and wearie : Sleep I can get nane For thinking on my dearie. When I sleep I dream, When I wauk I 'm eerie ; ^ Sleep I can get nane For thinking on my dearie. Lanely night comes on, _ A' the lave ^ are sleepin'; I think on my bonny lad, And I bloer my een with greotin'.^ THERE'LL NEVER BE PEACE TILL JAMIE COMES HAME. TuHB— « There are few guid fellows when Willie 's awa'." "When political comimstion," says the poet, in a letter to Thomson, enclosing this sodr, which liad evidently been composed while in a Jacobitical mood, "ceases to be the object of princes and patriots, it then, you know, becomes the lawful prey of historians and poets." 1 Wrapt. * Heavens. TBest. 3 Grief. 6 Steep. • Weeping. » Wander, e Timorous. By yon castle wa', at the close of the day, I heard a man sing, though his head it was gi-ay ; And as he was singing, the tears fast dov/n came. There '11 never be peace till Jamie comes hame. The Church is in ruins, the State is in jars ; Delusions, oppressions, and murderous wars ; We darena weel say 't, though wo keji wha 's to blame — There 'II never be peace till Jamie comes hame I My seven braw sons for Jamie drew sword, And now I greet ^ round their green beds in the yerd.3 It brak the sweet heart of my faithfu' auld dame — There '11 never be peace till Jamie comes hame. Now life is a burthen that bows me down. Since I tint ^ my bairns, and he tint his crown ; But till my last moments my words are the same — There '11 never be peace till Jamie comes hame. LOVELY DAVIES. TtJNE— "Miss Muir." The heroine of this song was Miss Deborah Davies, a beautiful young Englishwoman, connected by ties of blood with the family of Captain Riddel of Glenriddel, at whose house the poet probably first met her. An interesting account of this young lady and her touch- ing fate will be found in a foot-note to Letter CCXXI. of the General Correspondence. Her beauty and ac- complishments appear to have made a deep impres- sion upon the poet, for he has celebrated them in a number of effusions in both prose and verse. In a letter to her enclosing this song, he says, in a strain of enthusiastic gallantry: — " When my theme is youth and beauty — a young lady whose personal charms, wit, and sentiment, arc equally striking and unaffected— by Heavfnis ! though I had lived three- score years a married man, and threescore years be- fore I was a married man, my imagination would hallow the veiy idea ; and I am truly sorry that the enclosed stanzas have done such poor justice to such a subject." Oh, how shall I, unskilfu' try The poet's occupation. The tunefu' powers, in happy hours. That whisper inspiration ? Even they maun dare an effort mair Than aught they ever gave us. Or they rehearse, in equal verse, The charms o' lovely Davies. Each eye it cheers, when she appears, Like Phoebus in the morning, When past the shower, and every flower The garden is adorning. As the ■wretch looks o'er Siberia's shore, When winter-bound the wave is ; Sae droops our heai-t when we maun part Frae charming, lovely Davies. Her smile 's a gift, frae 'boon the lift, That maks us mair than princes ; A sceptred hand, a king's command, Is in her darting glances : The man in arms, 'gainst female charms, Even he her willing slave is ; He hugs his chain, and owns the reign Of conquering, lovely Davies. My Muse to dream of such a theme, Her feeble powers surrender ; The eagle's gaze alone surveys The sun's meridian splendour : Weep. a Churchyard. 'Lost. ^^T. 33.] SONGS. 143 I wad in vain essay the strain. The deed too daring brave is ; I '11 drap the lyre, and mute admire The charms o' lovely Davies. THE BONNY WEE THING. TCXE— "Bonny wee Thing." This is another, though briefer and more sentimental, song in celebration of the lady mentioned above — ■"the chaiining, lovely Davies." BONTfY wee thing, cannie wee thing, Lovely wee thing, wert thou nyne, I wad wear thee in my bosom, . Lest my jewel I should tine.^ "Wishfully I look and languish In that bonny face o' thine ; And my heart it stounds ^ wi' anguish, Lest my wee thing be na mine. Wit, and grace, and love, and beauty. In ae constellation shine ; To adore thee is my duty. Goddess o' this soul o' mine I Bonny wee thing, cannie wee thing. Lovely wee thing, wert thou mine, I wad wear thee in my bosom. Lest my jewel I should tine ! WAR SONG. Am— "Oran an Doig;" or, " The Song of Death." *' I have just finished," says the poet, in a letter to Mrs Dunlop, enclosing this noble lyric, "the follow- ing song, which, to a lady, the descendant of Wallace, and herself the mother of several soldiers, needs neither preface nor apology." The subject, the poet tells us, was suggested to him by an Isle-of-Skye tune entitled, "Oran an Doig;" or, "The Song "of Death," which he found in a collection of Highland airs, and to the measure of which he adapted his stanzas. Scene — A field of battle — Time of the day, Evening — The wounded and dying of the victorious army are supposed to join in the following song : — Farewell, thou fair day, thou green earth, and ye skies, Now gay with the broad setting sun ! Farewell loves and friendships, ye dear tender ties! Our race of existence is run ! Thou grim King of Terrors, thou life's gloomy foe! Go, frighten the coward and slave ! Go teach them to tremble, fell tyrant! but know, No terrors hast thou to the brave ! Thou strik'st the dull peasant, dark. -he sinks in the Nor saves e'en the wreck of a name ; — Tliou strik'st the young hero — a glorious mark ! He falls in the blaze of his fume ! In the field of proud honour— our swords in our hands. Our king and our country to save — While victor}'- shines on life's last ebbing sands — Oh ! who would not die with the brave I i Lose. 2 Aches. AE FOND KISS. Tune— "Rory Dall's Port." This exquisitely beautiful song sprang from the depth of the poet's passion for Clarinda;* and is one of the most vehement and impressive outbursts of intense feeling ever written. Byron and Scott have both stamped it with their approbation ; and JIrs Jameson, speaking of these lines, truthfully and elegantly says — " They are in themselves a complete romance ; and contain the essence of an existence of pain and pleasui-e distilled into one burning drop." Ae fond Idss, and then we sever ; Ae fareweel, and then, for ever ! Deep in heart-wrung tears I '11 pledge thee, Warring sighs and groans I '11 wage thee. Who shall say that Fortune grieves him. While the star of hope she leaves him? Me, nae cheerfu' twinkle lights me ; Dark despair around benights me. I '11 ne'er blame my partial fancy, Naething could resist my Nancy ; But to see her was to love her ; Love but her, and love for ever. 1^ /"\V Had we never loved sae kindly, Had we never loved sae blindly, Never met — or never parted. We had ne'er been broken-hearted. Fare-thee-weel, thou first and fairest ! Fare-thee-weel, thou best and dearest ! Thine be ilka joy and treasure, Peace, Enjoyment, Love, and Pleasure ! Ae fond kiss, and then we sever ; Ae fareweel, alas ! for ever ! Deep in heart- wrung tears I '11 pledge thee, Warring sighs and groans I '11 wage thee ! GLOOMY DECEMBER. Tune— " Wandering Willie." The last interview of the poet with Clarinda took place in Edinburgh on the 6th of December 1791, and ap- pears to have been deeply affecting en both sides. In remembrance of tliis meeting, and while still under the influence of the feelings evoked by it, the poet composed these beautiful lines : — Ance mair I hail thee, thou gloomy December I Ance mair I hail thee, wi' sorrow and care ; Sad was the parting thou makes me remember. Parting wi' Nancy, oh ! ne'er to meet mair. Fond lovers' parting is sweet painful pleasure, Hope beaming mild on the soft parting hour ; But the dire feeling, oh, farewell for ever ! Is anguish unmiugled, and agoiiy pure. Wild as the winter now tearing the forest, Till the last leaf o' the summer is flown; Such is the tempest has shaken my bosom, Since my last hope and last comfort is gone ! j Still as I hail thee, thou gloomy December, j Still shall I hail thee wi' sorrow and care ; I For sad was the parting thou makes me re- member, Parting wi' Nancy, oh ! ne'er to m.eet mair. * For an account of this lady, see Prefatoi-y Note to Letters to Clarinda. 144 SONGS. [1792- BEHOLD THE HOUE. TcsE— "Oran Gaoll." A month after the interview mentioned in the intro- duction to the preceding song — on the 25th of Janu- ary 1792 — Clarinda, in anticipation of lier immediate departure for Jamaica to join her husband, wrote to the poet bidding him farewell. " Seek God's favour," she says ; " keep His commandments— be solicitous to prepare f(Jr a happy eternity. There, 1 trust, we will meet in never-ending bliss ! " She sailed a month afterwards ; and the poet poured his feelings on the occasion into the following fine song : — Behold tlie hour, the boat arrive, Thou goest, thou darling of my heart ! Sever'd from thee can I survive ? But Fate has will'd, and we must part. I'll often greet this surging swell, Yon distant isle will often hail : " E'en here I took the last farev/ell } There latest mark'd her vanish'd sail ! " * Along the solitary shore, While flitting sea-fowl round me cry, Across the rolling dashing roar, I '11 westward turn my wistful eye. Happy, thou Indian grove, 1 11 say. Where now my Nancy's path may be ! While through thy sweets she loves to stray, Oh, tell me, does she muse on me ? THE MmK NIGHT O' DECEMBEE. T0NE— " May, thy mom." The following song, the production of a lighter mood, is also said to have been written in commemoration of the final meeting with Clai-inda : — O May, thy morn was ne'er sae sweet As the mii-k night o' December ; For sparkling was the rosy wine. And private was the chamber : And dear was she I darena name. But I will aye remember. And dear was she I darena name, But I will aye remember. And here 's to them that, like oursel. Can push about the jorum ; And here 's to them that wish us weel, May a' that 's guid watch o'er them ! And here 's to them we darena tell, The dearest o' the quorum. And here 's to them we darena tell, The dearest o' the quorum ! ♦ The above two stanzas of this song are given by Chambers as follow : — Behold the hour, the boat arrive I My dearest Nancy, oh, fiireweel I Sever'd frae thee, can I survive, Frae thee whom I hae loved sae weel? Endless and deep shall be my grief; Nae ray o* comfort shall I see ; But this most precious, dear belief I That thou wilt still remem)»er me. MY NANNIE'S AWA'. TuiTB— " There '11 never be peace," &c. Some months after the departure of Clarinda, when time had mellowed the poet's passion, and absence calmed the tumult of his feelings, he wrote the fol- lowing touching pastoral : — Now in her green mantle blithe nature arrays, And listens the lambkins that bleat o'er the braes. While birds warble welcome in ilka green shaw ; ^ But to me it 's delightless — my Nannie 's awa' ! The snaw-drap and primrose our woodlands adorn, And violets bathe in the weet ^ o' the morn ; They pain my sad bosom, sae sweetly they blaw. They mind me o' Nannie — and Nannie 's awa' ! Thou laverock that springs frae the dews of the lawn. The shepherd to warn o' the gray breaking dawn. And thou mellow mavis that haUs the night fa', Give over for pity — my Nannie 's awa' I Come, Autumn sae pensive, in yellow and gray. And soothe me Avith tidings o' Nature's decay : The dark dreary winter, and wild driving snaw, Alane can dehght me — now Nannie 's awa' ! WANDEKING WILLIE. In composing this song, Burns is thought to have thrown himself sympathetically into the circum- stances of his mistress — Clarinda — and to have given expression to the feelings with which he sup- posed her to be animated in seeking, after a sepa- ration of many years, a reunion with her wayward, wandering husband. The idea of this song appears to have been taken from an old one, of which the two following verses have been preserved : — " Here awa', there awa', here awa', Willie, Here awa', there awa', here awa' hame ; Long have I sought thee, dear have I bought thee, Now I hae gotten my Willie again. " Through the lang muir I have follow'd my Willie, Through the lang muir I liave follow'd him hame; Whatever betide us, nought shall divide us, Love now rewards all my sorrow and pain." Here awa', there awa', wandering Willie, Here awa', there awa', baud awa' hame ; Come to my bosom, my ain only dearie, TeU me thou bring'st me my Willie the same. Winter winds blew loud and cauld at our parting, Fears for my Willie brought tears in my ee ; Welcome now simmer, and welcome my Willie — The simmer to nature, my Willie to me. Eest, ye wild storms, in the cave of your slumbers, How your dread howling a lover alarms ! Wauken, ye breezes ! row gently, ye billows ! And waft my dear laddie auce mair to my But oh, if he's faithless, and minds na his Nannie, Flow still between us thou wide roaring main ! May I never see it, may I nevei- trow it. But, dying, believe that my Willie 's my ain. 1 Wood. 2 Dew. ^T. 34.1 SONGS, THE DEIL'S AWA' WI' THE EXCLSEIVIAN. Tune — "The deil cam fiddling through the town." Lockhart gives the following interesting account of this song: — "This spirited song was composed on the shores of the Solway, wliile the poet and a party of his brother excisemen were engaged in watching'the motions of a suspicious-looking brig, which had put ill there, and which, it was supposed, was engaged in sii:uggling. The day following that on which she was first seen, the vessel got into shallow water, and it was then discovered that the crew were numerous, and not likely to yield witliout a struggle. Lewars accordingly was despatched to Dumfries for a party of dragoons, and another ofBcer proceeded on a similar eiTand to Ecclefechan, leaving Burns with some men under his orders, to watch the brig and prevent land- ing or escape. Burns manifested considerable im- patience while thus occupied, being left for many hours in a wet salt-marsh with a force which he knew to be inadequate for the purpose it was meant to fulfil. One of his comrades hearing him abuse his friend Lewars in particular, for being slow about his journey, the man answered that he also wished the devil had him for his pains, and that Bums in the meantime would do well to indite a song upon the sluggard. Burns said nothing; but after taking a few strides by himself among the reeds and shingle, rejoined his party, and chanted to them this well- known ditty : " — The deil cam fiddling througli the town, And danced awa' wi' the Exciseman, And ilka wife cries — " Auld Mahoun, I wish you luck o' the prize, man ! " The deil 's awa', the deil 's awa', The deil's awa' wi' the Exciseman ; He 's danced awa', he 's danced awa', He 's danced awa' wi' the Exciseman ! We '11 mak our maut, we 'U Lrew our drink, "We '11 dance, and sing, and rejoice, man ; And mony braw thanks to the meikle black deil That danced awa' wi' the Exciseman. The deil 's awa', the deil 's awa'. The deil 's awar' wi' the Exciseman ; He 's danced awa', he 's danced awa'. He 's danced awa' wi' the Exciseman ! There 's threesome reels, there 's foursome reels. There 's hornpipes and strathspeys, man ; But the ae best dance e'er cam to the land, Was — the deil 's awa' wi' the Exciseman. The den 's awa', the deil 's awa'. The deil's awa' wi' the Exciseman; He 's danced awa , he 's danced awa', He 's danced awa' wi' the Exciseman ! BONNY LESLEY. The poet, in a letter to Mrs Dunlop, gives the follow- ing account of the origin of this song: — "Apro- pos .'—do you know that I am almost in love with an acquaintance of yours ? Know, then," said he, "that the heart-s'truck awe, the distant humble approach, the delight we should have in gazing upon and listening to a messenger of Heaven, appearing in all the unspotted purity of his celestial home, among the coarse, polluted, far infe- rior sons of men, to deliver to them tidings that should make their hearts swim in joy, and their ima- ginations soar in transport,— such, so delighting and so pure, were the emotions of my soul on meeting the other day with Miss Lesley Baillie, your neigh- bour at Mayfield. Mr Baillie, with his two daugh- ters, accompanied by Mr 11. of G., passing through Dumfries a few days ago, on their way to Eng- land, did me the honour of calling on me, on which I took my horse, (though God knows I could ill spare the time,) and accompanied them fourteen or fifteen miles, and dined and spent the day with them. 'Twas about nine, I think, when I lel't them; and riding home, I composed the following ballad. You must know that there is an old one beginning with — ' My bonfiy Lizzie Baillie, I'lTrowe thee in my plaidie,' &c. So I parodied it as follows." Miss Baillie ultimately became Mrs Gumming of Logle, and died in Edin- burgh in 1S43. Oh, saw ye bonny Lesley As she gaed o'er the Border? She's gane like Alexander, To spread her conquests farther. 'o see her is to love her. And love but her for ever ; ""^ For Nature made her what she is. And never made anither ! Thou art a queen, fair Lesley, Thy subjects we, before thee : Thou art divine, fair Lesley, The hearts o' men adore thee. The deil he couldna skaith ^ thee. Nor aught that wad helang thee ; He 'd look into thy bonny face, And say, " I canna wrang thee." The powers aboon will tent^ thee ; Misfortune sha' na steer thee : Thou'rt like themselves sae lovely, That ill they '11 ne'er let near thee. Return again, fair Lesley, Return to Caledonie ! That we may brag we hae a lass There 's nane agaia sae bonny. CRAIGIE-BURN WOOD. The poet composed the following song to aid the elo- quence of a Mr Gillespie, a friend of his, who was paying his addresses to a Miss Lorimer, a young lady who resided at a beautiful place on the banks of the Moffat, called Craigie-burn Wood. The gentleman did not succeed in his suit, however, as the lady afterwards married another ; but her marriage prov- ing unfortunate, the poet, regarding her with that pity which is akin to love, made her the subject of some of his finest lyrics. For an account of this lady, see p. 166. Bua-ns afterwards considerably alt.red this song, and reduced it to the dimensions of the second version. Sweet closes the evening on Craigie-bum Wood, And blithely awaukens the morrow ; But the pride of the spring in the Craigie-bum Wood Can yield to me nothing but sorrow. Beyond thee, dearie, beyond thee, dearie, And oh ! to be lying beyond thee ; oil, sweetly, soundly, weel may he sleep That 's laid in the bed beyond thee ! I see the spreading leaves and flowers, I hear the wild birds singing ; But pleasure they hae nane for me. While care my heart is wringing. I canna tell, I maunna tell, I darena for your anger ; But secret love will break my heart, If I conceal it langer. iHanxL 2 Guard. 145 SONGS. [1792. I see tliee gracefu', straight, and tall, I see thee sweet and bonuy ; But oil, what will my torments be, If thou refuse thy Johnnie ! To see thee in anither's arms, In love to lie and languish, 'Twad be my dead,^ that will be seen, My heart wad burst wi' anguish. But, Jeanie, say thou wilt be mine, Say thou lo'es nane before me ; And a' my days o' life to come I '11 gratefully adore thee. SECOND VEKSION'. Sweet fa's the eve on Craigie-bum, And blithe awakes the morrow ; But a' the -oride o' spring's return Can yield me nought but sorrow. I see the flowers and spreading trees, I hear the wild birds singing ; But what a weary wight can please, And care his bosom wringing? Fain, fain would I my gi'iefs impart. Yet darena for your anger ; But secret love will break my heart, If I conceal it langer. If thou refuse to pity me, If thou slialt love anither, "When yon green leaves fade frae the tree. Around my grave they 'U wither. FKAE THE FRIENDS AND LAND I LOVE. AiE— " Can-on Side." In his notes to the Museum, the poet says of this song : — " I added the last four lines by way of giving a turn to the theme of the poem— such as it is." The entire song, however, was in his own handwrit- ing, and is genenillv thought to be his own compo- sition, as the other „tvelve lines have not been found in any collection. Frae the friends and land I love. Driven by Fortune's felly 2 spite, Frae my best-beloved I rove. Never mair to taste delight ; Never mair maun liope to find Ease frae toil, relief frae care : When remembrance wracks the mind, Pleasures but unveil despair. Brightest climes shall mirk appear, Desert ilka blooming shore, Till the Fates, nae mair severe, Friendship, Love, and I'cace restore ; Till Revenge, wi' laurcU'd head, Bring our banish'd name again ; And ilka loyal bonny lad Cross the seas and win his ain. MY TOCHER'S THE JEWEL. ToNK— " My Tocher's the Jewel." Oh meikle thinks my luve o* mv beauty, And meikle thinks my luvo o my kin ; 1 Death. 3 Belentlesa. But little thinks my luve I ken brawliei My tocher 's^ the jewel has charms for him. It 's a' for the apple he '11 nourish the tree ; It 's a' for the hiney he '11 cherish the bee ; My laddie 's sae meikle in luve wi' the siller He canna hae luve to sjiai-e for me. Your proffer o' luve 's an airl-penny,^ My tocher 's the bargain ye wad buy ; But an ye be crafty I am cunnin', Sae ye wi' anither your fortune maun try. Ye 're like to the timmer'* o' yon rotten wood, Ye 're like to the bark o' yon rotten tree, Ye '11 slip frae me like a knotiess thread. And ye '11 crack^ your credit wi' mae** nor me. WHAT CAN A YOUNG LASSIE DO? Tune — ' ' What can a young lassie do wi' an auld man ? " What can a young lassie, what shall a young lassie, What can a young lassie do wi' an auld man? Bad luck on the penny that tempted my minnie^ To sell her poor Jenny for siller and Ian' ! Bad luck on the penny, kc. He 's always compleenin' frae mornin' to e'enin', He boasts 8 and he hirples^ the weary day lang ; He's doyl't^o a^d he's dozen," his bluid it is frozen. Oh, dreary 's the night wi' a crazy auld man ! He 's doyl't and he 's dozen, &c. He hums and he hankers, he frets and he cankers, I never can please him, do a' that I can ; He's peevish and jealous of a' the young fellows : Oh, dooP'-^ on the day I met wi' an auld man! He 'a peevish and jealous, &c. My auld Auntie Katie upon me talcs pity, I '11 do my endeavour to follow her plan ! I'll cross him, and wrack him, until I heart- break him. And then his auld brass will buy me a new pan. I'll cross him, and wrack him, kc. OH, HOW CAN I BE BLITHE AND GLAD? Tune—" Owre the hills and liir awa'." The poet having found the germ of this song in Herd's collection is thought to have wrought into it some allusion 10 an incident in his own personal history. 'Tliis little lamentation of a desolate damsel," says Jeflrey, " is lender and pi-etty." Oil, how can I be blithe and glad, Or how can I gans brisk and braw. When the bonny lad that I lo'e best Is o'er the hills and far awa' ? When the bonny lad that I lo'e best Is o'er the hills and far awa' ? It 's no the frosty winter wind. It 's no the driving drift and snaw ; But aye the tear conies in my ee. To think on him that 's far awa'. But aye the tear comes in my ee, To think on him that 'a far awa'. 1 Know well. 3 Dowry. 3 Money given as earnest of a bargain. * Timl)LT. 6 Injure. « More. "f Mother. » Coughs. » Limps. 10 Crazed. n Benumbed. is Woe. ^T. 34.] SONGS. 147 My father pat me frae his door, My friends they has disown'd me a', But I hae ane will tak my part, The bonny lad that 's far awa'. But I hae ane Avill tak my part, The bonny lad that 's far awa'. A pair o' gloves he bought for me, And silken snoods * he gae me twa ; And I will wear them for his sake, — The bonny lad that 's far awa'. And I will wear them for his sake, — The bonny lad that 's far awa'. Oh, weary winter soon will pass, And spring will deed the birken-shaw;^ And my young baby will be born. And he '11 be hame that 's far awa'. And my young baby will be born. And he '11 be hame that 's far awa'. I DO CONFESS THOU ART SAE FAIR. TuxE— "I do confess thou art sae fair." This song was altered by the poet into Scotch, from a poem by Sir Robert Ayton, private secretary to Anne, consort of James VI. "I think," says Burns, "that I have improved the simpUcity of the sentiments by giving them a Scots dress." t I DO confess thou art sae fair, I wud been owre the lugs ^ in luve, Had I na found the slightest prayer That lips could speak thy heart could move. I do confess thee sweet, but find Thou art sae thriftless o' thy sweets, Thy favours are the silly wind. That kisses ilka thing it meets, See yonder rosebud, rich in dew, Amang its native briers sae coy ; How sune it tines 3 its scent and hue "When pu'd and worn a common toy ! Sic fate, ere lang, shall thee betide. Though thou may gaily bloom a while ; Yet sune thou shalt be thrown aside Like ony common weed and vile. 1 Birch-wood. Ears. ■' Loses. * See p. 131— note. t The following are the old words :— "I do confess thou'rt smooth and fair, And I might have gone near to love thee ; Had I not found the slightest prayer That lips could speak had power to move thee. But I can let thee now alone. As worthy to be loved by none. " I do confess thou'rt sweet ; yet find Thee such an unthrift of thy sweets, Thy favours are but like the wind, That kisseth everything it meets ; And since thou canst with more than one, Thou 'rt worthy to be kiss'd by none. "The morning rose, that untouch'd stands, Arm'd with her briers, how sweetlv smells ! But, pluck'd and strain'd through ruder hands, Her sweet no longer with her dwells, But scent and beauty both are gone, And leaves fall from her, one by one. " Such fate, ere long, will thee betide, When thou hast handled been a while Like sun-flowers to be thrown aside, And I shall sigh while some will smile, To see thy love for more than one Hath brought thee to be loved by none." YON WILD MOSSY MOUNTAINS. TnjTE — " Yon wild mossy mountains." " This song," says the poet, "alludes to a part of my private history which it is of no consequence to the world to know." Yon wild mossy mountains sae lofty and wide, That nurse in their bosom the youth o' the Clyde, Where the grouse lead their coveys through the heather to feed. And the shepherd tends his flock as he pipes on his reed. Where the grouse lead their coveys through the heather to feed. And the shepherd tends his flock as he pipes on his reed. Not Cowrie's rich valleys, nor Forth's sunny shores, To me hae the charms o' yon wild mossy moors; For there, by a lanely, sequester'd clear stream. Resides a sweet lassie, my thought and my dream. For there, by a lanely, sequester'd clear stream. Resides a sweet lassie, my thought and my dream. Amang thae wild mountains shall still be my path, Hk stream foaming down its ain green narrow- strath ; For there, wi' my lassie, the day-lang I rove, While o'er us, unheeded, flee the sv/ift hours o* love. For there, wi' my lassie, the day-lang I rove. While o'er us, unheeded, flee the swift houra o' love. She is not the fairest, although she is fair ; O' nice education but sma' is her share ; Her parentage humble as humble can be ; But I lo'e the dear lassie because she lo'es me. Her parentage humble as humble can be, But I lo'e the dear lassie, because she lo'es me. To beauty what man but maun yield him a prize. In her armour of glances, and blushes, and sighs T And when wit and refinement hae polish'd her darts, They dazzle our een as they flee to our hearts. And when wit and refinement hae polish'd her darts. They dazzle our een as they flee to our hearts. But kindness, sweet kindness, in the fond spark- ling ee, Has lustre outshining the diamond to me ; And the heart-beating love, as I 'm clasp'd in her arms. Oh, these are my lassie's all-conquering charms ! And the heart -beating love, as I'm clasp'd in her arms. Oh, these are my lassie'sall-conqueringcharms? OH FOR ANE-AND-TWENTY, TAM! Tune—" The Moudiewort." And oh for ane-and-twenty, Tam ! And hey, sweet ane-and'-twent)-, Tam I I '11 leam my kin a rattlin' sang. An I saw ane-and-twenty, Tam. 148 SONGS. [1792. They snooP me sair, and liaud me down, And gar me look like bluntie,^ Tani ; But three short years will soon wheel rorm' - And then comes ane-and-twenty, Tam. A gleib o' lan',3 a claut o' gear,* Was left me by my anntie, Tam ; At kith or kin I needna spier,^ An 1 saw ane-and-twenty, Tam. They '11 hae me wed a wealthy coof ,* Though I mysel hae plenty, Tam ; But hear'st thou, laddiq — there 's my loof ''— I 'm thine at ane-and-twenty, Tam. BESS AND HER SPINNING-WHEEL. Tune—" The sweet lass that lo'es me." Oh, leeze me on myspinning- wheel, And leeze me on my rock and reel ; Frae tap to tae that deeds me bien,^ And haps^ me fieP*' and warm at e'en ! I'll set me down and sing and spin, While laigh descends the simmer sun, Blest wi' content, and milk and meal-7- Oh, leeze me on my spinning-wheel ! On ilka hand the burnies trot, 11 And meet below my theekit cot ; The scented birk and hawthorn white. Across the pool their arms unite, Alike to screen the birdies' nest, And little fishes' caller^"'^ rest : The sun blinks kindly in the biel,i3 Where blithe I tm-n my spinning-wheeL On lofty aiks the cushats^'* wail. And echo cons the doolfu'^'' tale ; The lintwhites in the hazel braes, Delighted, rival ither's lays : The craik^^ amang the clover hay, Tlie paitrick whirrin' o'er the ley. The swallow jinkin' round my shieV^ Amuse me at my spinning-wheel. Wi' sma' to sell, and less to buy, Aboon distress, below envy. Oh, wha wad leave this humble state. For a' the pride of a' the gi-eat ? Amid their flaring, idle toys. Amid their cumbrous, dinsome joys, Can they the peace and pleasure feel Of Bessy at her spinning-wheel? NITHSDALE'S T\T:LC0ME HASIE. This song was written to celebrate the return to Scot- land of Lady Winifred Maxwell, a descendant of the attainted Earl of Nithsdale. The music to which the poet comijosed the verses was by Captain Riddel of Glenriddel. The noble Maxwells and their powers Are coming o'er the Border, And they '11 gae big Terregle's towers, And set them a* in order. 1 Curb. 8 A portion of ground. B Ask. 6 Fool. 8 Comfortably. » Wraps. 11 Run. 12 Cool. 1* Wood-pigeon. 14 WoefaL " Cottage. 3 A simpleton. * A sum of money. T Hand. 10 .eoft. « Sheltered place. M Landi-alL And they declare Terregles f;iir, For their abode tliey choose it ; There 's no a heart in a' the land But 's lighter at the news o 't. Though stars in skies may disappear, And angry tempests gather : The happy hour may soon be near That brings us pleasant Aveather : The weary night o' care and grief May hae a joyfu' morrow ; So dawning day has brought relief — Fareweel our night o' sorrow I COXJNTRIE LASSIE. Tpne— " The Country Lass." I^"• simmer, when the hay v/as mawn, And corn waved green in ilka field. While clover blooms Avhite o'er the lea, And roses blaw in ilka bield ; ^ Blithe Bessie in the milking shiel,^ Says, "I '11 be wed, come o't what will : " Out spak a dame in wrinkled eild"^ — *' O' guid advisement comes nae ill. " It 's ye hae wooers mony ane. And, lassie, ye 're but young, ye ken ; Then wait a wee, and cannie wale,* A routhie butt, a routhie ben : ^ There's Johnnie o' the Buskie Glen, Fu' is his barn, fu' is his byre ; Tak this frae me, my bonny hen. It 's plenty beats the luver's fire." " For Johnnie o' the Buskie Glen, I dinna care a single flie ; He lo'es sae weel his craps and kye. He has nae luve to spare for me : But blithe 's the blink o' Hobble's ee, And weel I wat he lo'es me dear : Ae blink o' him I wadna gie For Buskie Glen and a' his gear." " Oh, thoughtless lassie, life's a f aught j^ The canniest gate,^ the strife ia sair : But ay f u'-hant is fechtin' best, A hungry care 's an unco care : But some will spend, and some will spare. And wilfu' folk maun hae their will ; Syne ^ as ye brew, my maiden fair, Keep mind that ye maun drink the yiU." " Oh, gear will buy me rigs o' land. And gear will buy me sheep and kye ; But the tender heart o' leesome ^ luve The gowd and siller canna buy ; We may be poor— Kobbie and I, Light ia the burden luve lays on ; Content and luve bring peace and joy — What mair hae queens upon a throne?" FAIR ELIZA This song is said to have been composed by the poet as an expression of t'le love which a Mr Hunter, a friend of his, entertained for a certain lady. Tlie 1 Sheltered place. * Wisely choose. 6 Struggle. •And. 2 Shod. » Age. « A home with plenty in it. 7 Easiest way. * Gladsome. I|il3s|. mm , I ® >^ "> S >. V = ^ ^T. 34.] SONGS. 149 gentleman, however, appears to have failed in his suit, for he went out to the West Indies, and died there a short time after his arrival. Turn again, thou fair Eliza, Ae kind blink before we pai-fc, Rue on thy despairing lover ! Canst thou break his faithf u' heart ? Turn again, thou fair Eliza ; If to love thy heart denies. For pity hide the cruel sentence Under friendship's kind disguise I Thee, dear maid, hae I offended? The offence is loving thee : Canst thou wreck his peace for ever "NVha for thine wad gladly die? TThile the life beats in my bosom. Thou shalt mix in ilka throe ; Turn again, thou lovely maiden, Ae sweet smile cat me bestow. 'Not the bee upon the blossom, In the pride o' sunny noon ; Not the little sporting fairy, All beneath the simmer moon ; Not the poet, in the moment Fancy lightens in his ee. Kens the pleasure, feels the rapture. That thy presence gies to me. OH, LUTE T^ILL VENTUEE IN. TusE— "The Posie." Oh, luve wiU venture in Where it daurna weel be seen ; Oh, luve will venture in "Where wisdom ance has been ; But I will down yon river rove, Amang the wood sae green— And a' to pu' a posie To my ain dear May. Tlie primrose I will pu', The firstling of the year ; And I will pu' the pink. The emblem o' my dear ; For she 's the pink o' womankind, And blooms without a peer — And a' to be a posie To my ain dear May. 1 11 pu' the budding rose, When Phoebus peeps in \-iew, For it 's like a baumy kiss O' her sweet, bonny mou' ; The hyacinth 's for constancy, Wi' its unchanging blue — And a' to be a posie To my ain dear May. The lily it is pure, And the lily it is fair. And in her lovely bosom I '11 jilace the lily there ; The daisy 's for simplicity, And unaffected air — And a' to be a jwsie To my ain dear 2iay. The hawthorn I will pu', Wi' its locks o' siller gray. Where, like an aged man. It stands at break of day. But the songster's nest within the bush I winna tak away — And a' to be a posie To my ain dear May. The woodbine I -rtII pu', AV'hen the evening stai* is near. And the diamond draps o' dew Shall be her een sae clear ; The violet 's for modesty, AMiich weel she fa's to wear — And a' to be a i^osie To my ain dear May. I '11 tie the posie round Wi' the silken band of love. And I '11 place it in her breast. And I '11 sAvear by a' above, That to my latest draught o' life The band shall ne'er remove — And this will be a posie To npy ain dear May. THE BANKS O' BOON. TtrsE— "Caledonian Hunt's Delight." This is a second version of the song which the poet composed in 1787 ; and although greatly inferior in many respects to the first, it has almost entirely su- perseded it. For the subject of the song, see the first version, p. 122. Ye banks and braes o' bonny Doon, How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair ; How can ye chant, ye little birds. And I sae weary, fu' o' care ! Thou 'U break my heart, thou warbling bird, That wantons through the flowering thorn : Thou minds me o' departed joys, Depai'ted — never to return ! Oft hae I roved by bonny Doon, To see the rose and woodbine twine ; And ilka bird sang o' its luve, And fondly sae did I o' mine. Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose, Fu' sweet upon its thorny tree ; And my fause luver stole my rose. But, ah ! he left the thorn wi' me. SIC A WIFE AS WILLIE HAD. Tdke— " The Eight Men of Moidart." Cunningham gives the following account of the lady said to be the heroine of this song : — " She was the wife of a farmer who lived near Burns at Eliisland. She was a very singular woman : 'tea,' she said, 'would be the ruin of the nation ; sugar was a sore evil ; wheaten bread was only fit for babes ; earthenware was a pickpocket; wooden floors were but fit for thrashing upon ; slated roofs, cold : feathers, good enough for fowls ; ' in short, she abhorred change, and, whenever anything new appeared, such as har, rows with iron teeth — ' Ay, ay,' she would exclaim, •ye '11 see the upshot." Of all modern things she disliked china most ; she called it 'brunt clay,' and said it was only fit for ' haudin' the broo o' stinkin' weeds,' as she called tea. On one occasion, a southern dealer in cups and saucers asked so much for his ware that he exasperated a peasant, who said, 'I canna buy, but I ken ane that will : ' ' Gang there,' said he, pointing to the house of Willie's wife : — ' dinna be blate or burd-mouthed ; ask a guid penny 150 SONGS. [1792- — she has the siller.' Away went the poor dealer, spread out liis wares before her, and summed up all by asking a double price. A blow from her cummoek was his instant reward, which not only fell on his pei-son, but damaged his china — 'I'll learn ye,' quoth she, as she heard the saucers jingle, 'to come wi' yer brazent English face, and yer bits 0' brunt clay to me!'" "Willie "Wastle dwalt on Tweed, The spot they ca'd it Linkum-doddie ; Willie was a wabster ^ guid, Could stown ^ a clue -wi' ony bodie : He bad a wife was dour and din, Oh, Tinkler Madgie was her mither ; Sic a wife as Willie had, I wadna gie a button for her. She has an ee — she has but ane, The cat has twa the very colour ; Five rusty teeth, f orbye ^ a stump, ^ A clapper-tongue wad deave a miller ; A whiskin' beard about her mou', Her nose and chin they threaten ither — Sic a wife as Willie had, I wadna gie a button for her. She 's bow -hough 'd, she 's hein-shiim'd, Ae limpin' leg, a hand-breed shorter ; She 's twisted right, she 's twisted left, To balance fair in ilka quarter : She has a hump upon her breast. The twin o' that upon her shouther — Sic a wife as Willie had. I wadna gie. a button for her. Auld baudrons * by the ingle ^ sits, And wi' her loof ^ her face a-washin* ; But Willie's wife is nae sae trig,^ She dights her grunzie ^ wi' a hushion ; * Her walie nieves 1^' like midden-creels. Her face wad fyle the Logan Water — Sic a wife as Willie had, I wadna gie a button for her. SMILING SPRING COMES IN REJOICING. TcNE—" The Bonny Bell." The smiling Spring comes in rejoicing, And surly Winter grimly flies ; Now crystal clear are the falling waters. And bonny blue are the sunny skies ; Fresh o'er the mountains breaks forth the morning, The evening gilds the ocean's swell ; All creatures joy in the sun's returning, And I rejoice in my bonny Bell. The flowery Spring leads sunny Summer, And yellow Autumn presses near. Then in his turn comes gloomy Winter, Till smiling Spring again appear. Thus seasons dancing, life advancing. Old Time and Nature their changes tell, But never ranging, still unchanging, I adore my bonny Boll. 8 Besides. 6 Palm. 8 Mouth, w Ample fists. 1 Weaver. » Stolen * Tlie cat. »Fire » Clean. » An old stocking. THE GALLANT WEAVER. TusE— " The Weavers' March." Where Cart * rins rowin' to the sea, By mony a flower and spreading tree. Their lives a lad, the lad for me, He is a gallant weaver. Oh, I had wooers aught or nine. They gied me rings and ribbons fine ; And I was fear'd my heart would tine,^ And I gied it to the weaver. My daddiesign'd my toeher-band,^ To gie the lad that has the land ; But to my heart I '11 add my hand. And gie it to the weaver. While birds rejoice in leafy bowers ; While bees delight in opening flowers ; While corn gi-ows green in summer showers, I '11 love my gallant weaver. SHE'S FAIR AND FAUSE. TcNE— " She 's Fair and Fause." She 's fair and fause that causes my smart, I lo'ed her meikle and lang ; She's broken her vow, she's broken my heart, And I may e'en gae hang. A coof 3 cam in wi' routh o' gear,^ And I hae tint ^ my dearest dear ; But woman is but warld's gear, Sae let the bonny lassie gang. Whae'er ye be that woman love, To this be never blind, Nae f erlie ^ 'tis, though fickle she prove, A woman has 't by kind. O woman, lovely woman fair ! An angel form 's fa'ii to thy share ; 'Twad been o'er meikle to gien ^ thee mair — I mean an angel mind. MY AIN KIND DEARIE, Tux\E— " The Lea-Rig." o. When o'er the hill the eastern star Tells bughtin-time ^ is near, my jo ; And owsen frae the furrow'd field Return sae dowf ^ and weary, O ; Down by the burn, where scented birks ^* Wi' dew are hanging clear, my jo, I '11 meet thee on the lea-rig,^i My ain kind dearie, O ! In mirkest ^^ glen, at midnight hour, I 'd rove, and ne'er be eerie,^^ O ; If through that glen I gaed to thee, My ain kind dearie, O ! Although the night were ne'er sae wild, And I were ne'er sae wearie, O, I'd meet thee on the lea-rig. My ain kind dearie, O ! ' Lose. 2 Marriage-deed. » Fool. * Abundance of wealth. 6 Lost. 6 Wonder. 7 Have given. « Folding-time. » Dull. 10 Birches. n Grassy ridge. » Darkest. 13 Frightened. ♦ The Cart is a river in Renfrewshire, which rues through the town of Paisley, celebrated for the labours of the loom. ^T. 34.] SONGS. 151 The lixinter lo'es the morning sun, To rouse the mountain deer, my jo ; At noon the fisher seeks the glen, Along the burn to steer, my jo ; Gie me the hour o' gloamin' gray. It maks my heart sae cheery, O, To meet thee on the lea-rig, My ain kind dearie, O ! MY 'vYIFE'S A WINSOME WEE THING. The following lively lines, the poet tells us, were written extempore to the old air of "My Wife's a Wanton Wee Thing : " — She is a winsome wee thing, She is a handsome wee thing, She is a bonny wee thing, This sweet wee wife o' mine. I never saw a fairer, I never lo'ed a dearer ; And neist my heart I '11 wear her, For fear my jewel tine.^ She is a winsome wee thing. She is a handsome wee thing, She is a bonny wee thing. This sweet wee wife o' mine. The warld's wrack we share o't. The warstle and the care o 't ; Wi' her I'll blithely bear it. And think my lot divine. ^ HIGHLAND MARY. Tune — "Katharine Ogle." This is another of those glorious lyrics inspired by the poet's passion for Highland Mary ; and which celebrates, in strains worthy of the occasion, their last interview, and her untimely and lamented death. *' The following song, " he says, in a letter to Thomson, enclosing the verses, "pleases me; I think it is in my happiest manner. The subject of the song is one of the most interesting passages of my youthful days ; and I own that I should be much flattered to see the verses set to an air which would insure celebrity. Perhaps, after all, it is the still glowing prejudice of my heart that throws a borrowed lustre over the merits of the composition." See p. 134 for an account of Mary. Ye banks, and braes, and streams around The castle o' IMontgomery, Green be your woods, and fair your flowers, Your waters never drumlie I'* There simmer first unfauld her robes, And there the langest tarry ; For there I took the last fareweel O' my sweet Highland Mary. How sweetly bloom'd the gav green birk ! ^ How rich the hawthorn's blossom ! As underneath their fragrant shade, I clasp'd her to ray bosom ! The golden hours, on angel wings. Flew o'er me and my dearie ; For dear to me, as light and life. Was my sweet Highland Mary ! Wi' mony a vow, and lock'd embrace, Our parting was f u' tender ; Be lost. 2 Muddy. f Birch, And, pledging aft to meet again, We tore oursels asunder ; But, oh ! fell Death's untimely frost. That nipt my flower sae early ! — ifow green 's the sod, and cauld 's the clay, That wraps my Highland Mary ! Oh, pale, pale now, those rosy lips, I aft hae kiss'd sae fondly! And closed for aye the sparkling glance That dwelt on me sae kindly ! And mouldering now in silent dust That heart that lo'ed me dearly — But still within my bosom's core Shall live my Highland Mary ! AULD EOB MORRIS. The two first lines of the following song were taken from an old ballad— the rest is the poet's : — There's auld Rob Morris that wons^ in yon glen, He 's the king o' guid fellows and wale ^ of auld men ; He has gowd in his coffers, he has owsen and kine. And ae bonny lassie, his darling and mine. She 's fresh as the morning the fairest in May ; She's sweet as the evening amang the new hay ; As blithe and as artless as lambs on the lea. And dear to my heart as the light to my ee. But oh ! she 's an heiress, — auld Robin's a laird. And my daddie has nought but a cot-house and yard ; A wooer like me maunna hope to come speed ; The wounds I must hide that will soon be my dead.' The day comes to me, but delight brings me nane ; The night comes to me, but my rest it is gane : I wander my lane like a night-troubled ghaist, And I sigh as my heart it wad burst in my breast. Oh, had she but been of a lower degree, I then might hae hoped she'd hae smiled upon me! Oh, how past descriving * had then been my bUss, As now my distraction no words can express ! -^ DUNCAN GRAY. This song was written on the model and to the tune of a coarse old ditty in Johnson's Museum, the name of the hero, and a line or two, being all that was retained. Du>'CAic Gray cam here to woo, Ha, ha, the wooing o 't. On blithe yule night when we were fou. Ha, ha, the wooing o 't. Maggie coost her head fu' high, Look'd asklent and unco skeigh,^ Gart poor Duncan stand abeigh ; ^ Ha, ha, the wooing o 't. Duncan fleech'd,'' and Duncan pray*d, Ha, ha, the wooing o 't ; 1 Dwells. * Describing. 7 Flattered. ' Choice. 5 DisdainfoL 8 Death. •AlooL 152 SONGS. [179: ! Meg was deaf as Ailsa Craig,* Ha, ha, the wooing o't, DuBcan sigh'd baith out and in, Grat^ his een baitli bleerfc and blin', Spak o' lowjjin' o'er a linn ; Ha, ha, the wooing o 't. Time and chance are but a tide ; Ha, ha, the wooing o 't ; Sbghted love is sair to bide ; Ha, ha, the wooing o 't. Shall I, like a fool, quoth he, For a haughty hizzie die ? She may gae to— France for me ! Ha, ha, the wooing o 't. How it comes let doctors tell ; Ha, ha, tlie wooing o 't ; Meg grew sick as he grew heal ; Ha, ha, the wooing o 't. Something in her bosom wrings, For relief a sigh she brings ; And oh, her een, they spak sic Ha, ha, the wooing o 't. Duncan was a lad o' grace ; Ha, ha, the wooing o 't ; Maggie's was a piteous case ; Ha, ha, the wooing o 't. Duncan couldna be her death, Swelling pity smoor'd ^ his wrath ; Now they 're crouse and canty ^ baith ; Ha, ha, the wooing o't. COCK UP YOUR BEAVEE. TnuB — " Cock up your beaver." The second stanza only of this song is Bums's — the first is old. When first my brave Johnnie lad Came to this town, He had a blue bonnet That wanted the crown ; But now he has gotten A hat and a feather, — Hey, brave Johnnie lad. Cock up your beaver ! Cock up your beaver. And cock it fu' sprush, We '11 over the Border And gie them a brush ; There 's somebody there We '11 teach better behaviour — Hey, brave Johnnie lad, Cock up your beaver ! BONNY PEG. The following lines first appeared in the Edinburgh Magazine for 1818. As I came in by our gate end. As day was waxin' weary, Oh, wha came tripping down the street, But bonny Peg, my dearie ! 2 Smothered. * A well-known rocky islet in the Frith of Clyde. 1 Wept. » Gheerfdl and happy. Her air sae sweet, and shape complete, Wi' nae proportion wanti'jg, The Queen of Love did never move Wi' motion mair enchanting. Wi' linked hands, we took the sands Adown yon winding river ; And, oh ! that hour and broomy bower. Can I forget it ever? THE TITHER MORN. To a Higliland Air. The tither morn, When I forlorn, Aneath an aik sat moaning, I did na trow ^ I'dseemyjo- Beside me gin the gloaming. But he sae trig^ Lap o'er the rig, And dawtingly ^ did cheer me. When I, what reck, Did least expec* To see my lad sae near me. His bonnet he, A thought ajee, Cock'd sprush when first he clasp 'd me ; And I, I wat,-' Wi' fainness grat,'' While in his grips he press'd me. Deil tak' the war ! I late and air Hae wish'd since Jock departed j But now as glad I 'm wi' my lad As short syne broken-hearted. Fu' aft at e'en Wi' dancing keen. When a' were blithe and merry, I cared na by, Sae sad was 1 In absence o' my dearie. But, praise be blest. My mind 's at rest, I'm happy wi' my Johnny; At kirk and fair, I 'se aye be there. And be as canty 's '^ ony. THE DEUK'S DANG O'ER MY DADDIE, O. Tune— "The deuk's dang o'er my daddie." The bairns gat out wi' an unco shout, The deuk s ^ dang o'er my daddie, O ! The fient may care, quo' the feirie ^ aiild wife, He was but a paidlin ^^ body, O ! He paidles out, and he paidles in. And he paidles late and early, O ! Thae seven lang years I hae lien by his side. And he is but a f usionless ^ caiiie, O ! Oh, hand your tongue, my feirie auld wife. Oh, hand youi- tongue now, Nansie, O I » Tliink. 2 Dear. * Lovingly. 6 Know. 7 Happy. 8 Duck. 10 'Wandering aimlessly about. « Xeat. « Wept. 3 Sturdy. 11 Sapless. ^T. 34,] SONGS. 153 I 've seen the day, and sae hae ye, Ye wadna been sae donsie,^ O ! I 've seen the day ye butter'd my brose, And cuddled^ me late and early, O; But downa do 's ^ come o'er me now, And, oh ! I feel it sairly, O ! HAPPY FKCKSTDSHIP. Cunningham frives the following account of this song, which fii-st appeared in his • edition of the poet's works : — " Bums, on one occasion, ^^as on a visit at a friend's house for two or three days ; and during his stay there a convivial party met, at which the bard was requested to favour the company with a poetical effusion. He promptly complied by writing the song in question. The original MS. is now in the possession of Captain Hendries, who commands a Scottish trading vessel, and who is nephew to the gentleman at whose festive board Burns was enter- tained on the evening alluded to." Here around the ingle ^ bleezang, "Wha sae happy and sae free ; Though the northern wind blaws free2dng, Frien'ship warms baith you and me. CHOKUS. Happy we ai-e a' thegither, Happy we '11 be yin and a' ; Time shall see us a' the blither. Ere we rise to gang awa'. See the miser o'er his treasure Gloating wi' a greedy ee ! Can he feel the glow o' pleasure That around us here we see ? Can the peer, in silk and ermine, Ca' his conscience half his own ; His claes^ are spun and edged wi' vermin. Though he stan' afore a thi-one ! Thus, then, let us a' be tassing^ Aff our stoups o' gen'roHs flame ; And, while round the board 'tis passing, Kaise a sang in frien'ship's name. Frien'ship maks us a' mair happy, Frien'ship gies us a' delight ; Frien'ship consecrates the drappie, Frien'ship briags us here to-night. OH, SAW YH MY DEABIE. TcsE — "Eppie M'Nab." Oh, saw ye my dearie, my Eppie M'!Ntab ? Oh, saw ye my dearie, my Eppie M'Nab? She 's down in the yard, she 's kissin' the laird, She winna come hame to her ain Jock K-ab. Oh, come thy ways to me, my Eppie M'Nab ! Oh, come thy ways to me, my Eppie M'Xab ! Whate'er thou hast done, be it late, be it soon, Thou 's welcome again to thy ain Jock Rab. What says she, my dearie, my Eppie M'Nab? What says she, my dearie, my Eppie M'Nab ? She lets thee to wit,^ that slie has thee forgot, And for ever disowns thee, her ain Jock Rab. t Pettish. 2 Fondled. » A phrase signifying the exhaustion of age. * Firesido- '" Clothes. • Tossing: T Know. Oh, had I ne'er seen thee, my Eppie M'Nab ! Oh, had I ne'er seen thee, my Eppie M'Nab ! As light as tlie air, as fause as thou's fair. Thou 's broken the heart o' thy ain Jock Kab. THE- CARLE OF KELLYBURN BRAES. TuxE— " Kellyburn Braes." This is an old song which the poet considerably modi- fied and amended. When Mrs Burns was informing Cromek of the alterations her husband had made on various old songs, she said of the following, " Robert gae this ane a terrible brushing : "— There lived a carle ^ in Kellyburn braes, •(Hey, and the rue grows bonny wi' thyme ;) And he had a -wife was the plague o' his days ; And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime. Ae day as the carle gaed^ up the lang glen, (Hey, and the rue grows bonny wi' thyme,) He met wi' the devU, says, "How do you fen?3" And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime. "I've got a bad wife, sir; that 's a' my complaint; (Hey, and the rue grows bonny wi' thyme,) For, saving your presence, to her ye 're a saint; And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime." "It's neither your stot^ nor your staig^ I shall cnwe, (Hey, and the rue grows bonny wi' thyme,) But gie me your wife, man, for her I must have, And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime." "Oh! welcome, most kindly," the blithe carle said, (Hey, and the rue grows bonny wi' thyme,) "But if ye can match her, ye 're waur than ye 're ca'd, And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime." The devil has got the auld wife on his back ; (Hey, and the rue grows bonny wi' thyme,) And, like a poor pedlar, he 's carried his pack. And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime. He 's carried her hame to his ain haUan-door : (Hey, and the rue grows bonny wi' thyme,) Syne bade her gae in, for a bitch and a whore. And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime. Then straight he makes fifty, the pick o' his band, (Hey, and the rue grows bonny wi* thyme,) Turn out on her guard in the clap of a hand ; And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime. The carlin* gaed through them like ony wud^ bear, (Hey, and the rue grows bonny wi' thyme,) Whae'er she gat hands on cam near her nae mair ; And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime. t Man. * Bullock. »WilT AND AWA'. Tune— '-Oh, Kenmure's on and awa', Wilhe." 'Tills song," says Cunningham, 'refers to the fortunes of the gallant Gordons of Kenmure in the -fatal ♦Fifteen.' The Viscount left Galloway with two hun- dred horsemen well armed ; he joined the other low- land Jacobites— penetrated to Preston — repulsed, and at last yielded to, the attack of General Cui-penter — iHill. 2 Swing in a rope. and perished on the scaflFold. He was a good as well- as a brave man, and his fato was deeply lamented. Th3 title has since been restored to the Gordon's line." Burns was, once at least, an invited guest at Kenmure Castle, near New Galloway. Oh, Kenmure 's on and awa', Willie ! Oh, Kenmure 's on and awa' ! And Kenmure's lord 's the bravest lord That ever Galloway saw. Success to Kenmure's band, Willie ! Success to Kenmure's band ; There 's no a heart that fears a Whig That rides by Kenmure's hand. Here 's Kenmure's health in wine, Willie ! Here 's Kenmure's health in wine ; There ne'er was a coward o' Kemnure's blude, Nor yet o' Gordon's line. Oh, Kenmure's lads are men, Willie ! Oh, Kenmure's lads are men ; Their hearts and swords are metal true — And that their faes shall ken. They '11 live or die wi' fame, Willie ! They'll live or die wi' fame ; But soon wi' sounduig victorie May Kenmure's lord come hame ! Here 's him that 's f/u- awa', Willie ! Here 's him that 's far awa' ! And here 's the flower that I lo'e best — The rose that 's like the snaw ! ^ MY COLLIER LADDIE. Tune—" The CoUier Laddie." 'I do not know," says Burns, "a blither old song than this ; " which he modified and altered, and then sent to the Museum. Oh, whare live ye, my bonny lass ? And tell me what they ca' ye ? My name, she says, is ilistress Jean, And I follow the Collier Laddie. My name, she says, is Mistress Jean, And I follow the Collier Laddie. Oh, see you not yon hills and dales. The sun shines on sae brawlie ! They a' are mine, and they shall be thine, Gin ye '11 leave your Collier Liddie. They a' are mine, and they shall be thine. Gin ye 'U leave your Collier Laddie. And ye shall gang in gay attire, Weel buskit ^ up sae gaudy ; And ane to wait at every hand. Gin ye '11 leave your Collier Laddie. And ane to wait at every hand. Gin ye '11 leave your CoUier Laddie. Though ye had a' the sun shines on. And the earth conceals sae lowly, I wad turn my back on you and it a'. And embrace ray Collier Laddie. I wad turn my back on you and it a'. And embrace my Collier Laddie. I can win my five pennies a day, And spen t at night f u' brawlie ; And mak my bed in the Collier's neuk,^ And lie down wi' my Collier Laddifli And mak my bed in the Collier's neuk. And lie down wi' my Collier Laddie. 1 Dressed. 2 Hut. 156 SONGS. [1792. liUve for luve is the bargain for me, Though the wee cot-house should haucl me ; And the world before me to win my bread, And fair fa' my Collier Laddie. And the warld before me to win my bread. And fair fa' mv Collier Laddie. FAREWEEL^O A' OUR SCOTTISH FAME. Tune—" Such a Parcel of Rogues in a Nation." '"Bums," says Cunningham, "has expressed senti- ments in this song -whicli ■were once popular in the north." The poet himself, indeed, appears to have been in the habit of expressing his feelings pretty freely regarding the Union. — "What," he exclaimed, on one occasion, "are aU the advantages which my country reaps from the Union that can counter- balance the annihilation of her independence, and even her very name ? Nothing can reconcile me to the terms, ^English Ambassador,' '■English Court,'" Ac. Eaeeweel to a' our Scottish fame, Fareweel our ancient gloiy ! Eareweel even to the Scottish name, Sae famed in martial story ! Now Sark rins o'er the Solway sands, And Tweed rins to the ocean, To mark where England's province stands — Such a parcel of rogues in a nation ! What force or guile could not subdue, Through many warlike ages, Is wrought now by a coward few, For hireling traitors' wages. The English steel we could disdain, Secure in valour's station ; But English gold has been our bane — Such a parcel of rogues in a nation ! Oh, would, ere I had seen the day That treason thus could sell us, My auld gray head had lien in clay, Wi' Bruce and loyal Wallace ! But pith and power, till my last hour, I '11 mal: this declaration ; We 're bought and sold for English gold — Such a parcel of rogues in a nation. HERE'S A HEALTH TO THEM THAT'S AWA'. TuifB — " Here's a health to them that's awa'." The poet's political predilections at this period of his life being somewhat marked, and of an ultra-liberal tendency, he is supposed to have thrown them into the following song, composed in honour of the lenders . of the liberal party in the House of Commons :— Here 's a health to them that 's awa', ' Here 'b a health to them that 's av/a' ; And wha winna wish guid luck to our cause, May never guid luck be their fa' ! It 's guid to be merry and wise, It's guid to be honest and true, It's guid to support Caledonia's cau.sc. And bide by the but! and the blue. Here 's a health to them tliat 's av/a', Here 's a health to them that 'a awa'. Here 'b a health to Charlie "' the chief of the clan. Although tliat his band be but sma'. ♦ The Right Hon. Chnrles Jnmes Fox. 'Bunr and blue formed the livery of Fox during the celebrated Westminster elections, and tlms came to be adopted as the colours of the Whig party generally. May Liberty meet wi' success ' May Prudence protect her frae evil ! May tyrants and tyranny tine in the mist. And Vvander their way to the devil I Here 's a health to them that 's awa', Here 's a health to them that 's awa' ; Here 's a health to Tammie, * the Norland laddie, That lives at the lug o' the law ! Here's freedom to him that wad read, Here 's freedom to him that wad write ! There 's nane ever fear'd that the truth should be heard But they wham the truth wad indite. ^ Here 's a health to them that 's awa', Here 's a health to them that 's awa'. Here's Chieftain M'Leod,t a chieftain worth gowd, Though bred amang mountains o' snaw ! Here 's a health to them that 's awa'. Here 's a hefdth to them tiiat "s awa' ; And wha winna wish guid luck to our cause, May never guid luck be their fa' ! TCNB- SONG. ■ I had a horse, I had nae mair." Gilbert Burns says that a Miss Jane Blackstock, who afterwards became Mrs Whiter, of Liverpool, was the heroine of this song. The poet, in a letter to Tliomson, said, " For private reasons, I should like to see it in print." Oh, poortith^ cauld and restless love. Ye -wreck my peace betAveen ye ; Yet poortith a' I could forgive, An 'twere na for my Jeanie. Oh, why sliould Fate sic pleasure have. Life's deai-est bands untwining ? Or why sae sweet a flower as love Depend on Fortune's shining ? This warld's wealth when I think on, Its pride, and a' the lave o 't— Fie, fie on silly coward man. That he should be the slave o 't ! Her een sae bonny blue betray How she rci^ays my pa.ssion ; But prudence is her o'erword** aye, She talks of rank and fashion. Oh, wha can prudence think upon, And sic a lassie by him? Oh, wha cjm prudence think upon, And sae in love as I am? How blest the humble cotter's fate ! He wooes his simple drarie ; The silly bogles, wealth and strde, Can never make them eerie.* GALA. WATER. There % braw, braw lads on Yarrow braes. That wander through the blooming heather ; 1 Indict— impeach. u Refrain. 2 Poverty. 4 Afraid. * Thomas, afterwards Lord, Ei-skine. t M'Leod of Dunvegan, Isle of Skye, and then M.P. for Inverness. ^T. 34.] SONGS. 157 But Yarrow braes ^ nor Ettrick shaws ^ Can match the lads o' Gala Water. But there is ane, ft. secret ane, Aboon them a' I lo'e him better ; And I '11 be his, and he '11 be mine, The bonny lad o' Gala "Water. Although his daddie was nae laird, And though I haena meikle tocher ; * Yet rich in kindest, truest love, We '11 tent our flocks by Gala Water. It ne'er was wealth, it ne'er was wealth. That oof t ^ contentment, peace, or pleasure ; The bands and bliss o' mutual love. Oh, that 's the chiefest warld's treasure ! LOED GREGORY. This sonpr was written in imitation of Dr Wolcot's (Peter Pindar) ballad on the same subject,* of which Burns says, in a letter to Thomson, " Pindar's 'Lord Grejrory' is beautiful. I have tried to give you a Scots version, which is at your service. Not that I intend to enter tlie lists with Peter— that would be presumption indeed ! My song, though much in- ferior in poetic merit, has, I think, more of the bal- lad simplicity in it." The idea of both songs, how- ever, is taken from an old strain. Oh, Tnirk,5 mirk is this midnight hour, And loud the tempest's roar ; A waefu' wanderer seeks thy tower — Lord Gregory, ope thy door ! An exile frae her father's ha', And a' for loving thee ; At least some pity on me shaw, K love it may na be. Lord Gregory, mind'st thou not the grove, By bonny Irwin-side, Where first I own'd that virgin love I lang, lang had denied ? How aften didst thou pledge and vow Thou wad for aye be mine ; And my fond heiu-t, itsel sae true. It ne'er mistrusted thiue. Hard is thy heart. Lord Gregory, And flinty is thy breast — Thou dart of heaven that flashest by, Oh, wilt thou give me rest ! 1 HiUs. * Boucrht 2 Woods. 6 Dark. 3 Much money. The following is Wolcot's version :— »' Ah, ope, Lord Gregory, thy door.' A midnight wanderer sighs, Hard rush the rain?, the tempests roar, And lightnings cleave the skies. *' Who comes with woe at this drear night — A pilgrim of the gloom ? If she whose love did once delight, My cot shall yield her room. " Alas ! thou heard'st a pilgrim mourn That once was prized by thee ; Think of the ring by yonder bum Thou gavest to love and me. *' But shouldst thou not poor Marian know, I 'il turn my feet and part ; And think the storms that round me blow Jar kinder than thv heart" Ye mustering thunders from above. Your willing victim see ! But spare, and pardon my fauso love His wrangs to Heaven and me ! OPEN THE DOOR TO ME, OH! " Oh, open the door, some pity.to show, Oh, open the door to me, oh ! Though thou hast been false, I '11 ever prove true, Oh, open the door to me, oh 1 " Cauld is the blast upon my pale cheek, But caulder thy love for me, oh ! The frost that freezes the life at my heart Is nought to my paius frae thee, oh I " The wan moon is setting behind the white wave, And time is setting with me, oh ! False friends, false love, farewell ! for nxair I '11 ne'er trouble them nor thee, oh ! " She has open'd the door, she has open'd it wide; She sees his pale corse on the plain, oh ! "My true love!" she cried, and sank down by his side, Never to rise again, oh ! YOUNG JESSIE. .Tune— "Bonny Dundee." This song was written in honour of Miss Janet Staig, daughter of the Provost of Dumfries, and afterwards the wife of Major William Miller, one of the sons of Patrick Miller of Dalswinton, the poet's landlord, in Dumfriesshire. The lady died in 1801, at the early age of twenty-six, and was long remembered in the district for her beauty and gentleness. TEUE-hearted was he, the sad swain o* the Yarrow, And fair are the maids on the banks o' the Ayr, But by the sweet side o' the Nith's winding riA'^er Are lovers as faithful and maidens as fair : To equal young Jessie seek Scotland all over; To equal yoiuig Jessie you seek it in vain ; Grace, beauty, and elegance fetter her lover. And maidenly modesty fixes the chain. Oh, fresh is the rose in the gay, dewy morning, And sweet is the lily at evening close ; But in the fair presence o' lovely young Jessie, Unseen is the lUy, unheeded the rose. Love sits in her smile, a wizard ensnaring ; Enthroned in her een he delivers his law : And stni to her charms she alone is a stranger— Her modest demeanour's the jew£l of a' ! THE POOR AND HONEST SODGER. Air—" The Mill, Min !*» A correspondent of Thomson's says, regarding the origin of this song : — " Burns, 1 have been informed, was one summer evening at the inn at BrowuhUl with a couple of friends, when a poor wayworn soldier passed the window : of a sudden, it struck the poet to call him in, and get the story of liis adventures ; after listening to which, he all at once fell into one of those fits of abstraction not unusual with him. He was lifted to the region where he had his 'garland 158 SONGS. [1793- and singing robes about him,' and the result was the admirable song which he sent you for ' The Mill, Mill, ! '" Mill-Mannoch, says Chambers, a sweet pastoral scene on the Coyl, near Coylton Kirk, is thought to have been the spot where the poet ima- gined the meeting of the lovers to have taken place. "When wild war's deadly blast was blawn, And gentle peace returning, Wi' mony a sweet babe fatherless, And mony a widow mourning ; I left the lines and tented field, Where lang I 'd been a lodger, My humble knapsack a' my wealth, A poor and honest sodger. A leal light heart was in my breast, My hand unstain'd wi' plunder. And for fair Scotia, hame again, I cheery on did wander. I thouglit upon the banks o* Coil, I thought upon my Nancy, I thought upon the witching smile That caught my youthful fancy. At length I reach'd the bonny glen Where early life I sported ; I pass'd the mill, and trysting thorn. Where Nancy aft I courted : Wlia spied ^ I but my ain dear maid, Down by her mother's dwelling ! And turn'd me round to hide the flood That in my een was swelling. Wi' alter'd voice, quoth I, *' Sweet lass, Sweet as yon hawthorn's blossom. Oh ! happy, happy may he be. That 's dearest to thy bosom ! My purse is light, I 've far to gang. And fain wad be thy lodger; I 've served tny king and coimtry lang — Take pity on a sodger." Sae wistfully she gazed on me, And lovelier was than ever; Quo' she, "A sodger ance I lo'ed. Forget him shall I never : Our humble cot, and hamely fare. Ye freely shall partake it. That gallant badge — the dear cockade — Ye 're welcome for the sake o 't." She gazed — she redden'd like a rose — Syne'-* pale like ony lily; She sank within my arms, and cried, "Art thou my ain dear Willie?" **By Him who made yon sun and sky. By whom true love 's regarded, I am the man ; and thus may still True lovers be rewarded ! " The wars are o'er, and I *m come hame. And find thee still true-hearted ; Though poor in gear, we 're rich in love, And mair, we 'se ne'er be parted." Quo' she, *' My grandsire left me gowd, A mailen^ plenish'd fairly ; And come, my faithful sodger lad, Thou 'rt welcome to it dearly ! " For gold the merchant ploughs the main, The farmer ploughs tne manor ; But glory is the sodger's prize. The sodger's wealth is honour : The brave poor sodger ne'er despise, Nor count him as a stranger ; Remember, he 's his country's stay In day and hour of danger. Saw. a Then. »rarm. MEG O' THE MILL. AiB— " Hey ! bonny lass, will you lie in a barrack ?" Oh, ken ye what Meg o' the Mill has gotten ? And ken ye what Meg o' the Mill has gotten? She has gotten a coof ^ wi' a claut o' siller,^ And broken the heart o' the barley miller. The miller was strappin', the miller was ruddy; A heart like a lord, and a hue like a lady ; The laird was a widdiefu', bleerit knurl ;^ She 's left the guid-fellow and ta'en the churL The miller he becht* her a heart leal and loving; The laird did address her wi' matter mair moving, A fine-pacing horse, wi' a clear-chain'd bridle, A whip by her side, and a bonny side-saddle. Oh, wae on the siller, it is sae prevailing ; And wae on the love that is fixed on a mailen ! ^ A tocher 's ^ nae word in a true lover's parle. But, gie me my love, and a fig for the warl' ! WELCOME TO GENERAL DUMOURIER. Some one, in the presence of the poet, having expressed joy at the desertion of General Dumourier from the army of the French Republic, in 1793, after having gained some splendid victories with it, in a few mo- ments he chanted, almost extempore, the following^ verses to the tune of "Robin Adair:" — You're welcome to despots, Dumourier; You 're welcome to despots, Dumoiirier ; How does Dampiere* do ? Ay, and Beumonvillef too? Why did they not come along with you, Du- I will fight France with you, Dumourier ; I will fight France with you, Dumourier ; I will fight France Avith you, I will take my chance with you ; By my soul I '11 dance a dance with you, Du- mourier. Then let us fight about, Dumourier ; Then let us fight about, Dumourier ; Then let us fight alaout. Till Freedom's spark is out, Then we '11 be damn'd, no doubt, Dumourier. THE LAST TIME I CAME O'ER THE MOOR. In this song the poet is supposed to have given expres- sion to certain feelings of illicit love which it is known he entertained for the beautiful and fasci- nating Mrs Riddel of Woodley Park, for a further account of whom, see p. 170. It is but just to remember, however, and charitable to believe, that the poet, with an eye to artistic effect, may have purposely heightened his colours in order to increase the general effect of his picture. The last time I came o'er the moor. And left Maria's dwelling. 1 liOUt. • Ill-tempered, bleared dwarf. ' Farm. 2 Plenty of money. * Offered. « Dowery. * One of Dumouricr's generals. t An emissary of the Convention's. 1 ^T.35.] SONGS. What throes, what tortures passing cure, "Were in my bosom swelling : Condemned to see my rival's reign, While I in secret languish ; To feel a fire in every vein, Yet dare not speak my anguish. Love's veriest -wretch, despairing, I Fain, fain my crime would cover : The unweeting groan, the bursting sigh, Betray the guilty lover. I know my doom must be despair. Thou wilt nor canst relieve me ; But, O Maria, hear my prayer, For pity's sake, forgive me ! Tlie music of thy tongue I heard. Nor wist while it enslaved me ; I saw thine eyes, yet nothing fear'd, Till fears no more had saved me. The unwary sailor thus aghast The wheeling torrent viewing, In circling horrors yields at last In oveiTiVhelming ruin ! BLITHE HAE I BEEN. Tone—" Liggeram Cosh." The "Lesley is sae fair and coy" of this song was the beautiful Miss Lesley Baillie with whom tlie poet told Mrs Dunlop he was almost in love, and whom he made the heroine of the song entitled, " Bonny Lesley," (p. 145.) She appears to have been one of those goddesses who were eternally crossing his path, and whose attractions formed, as his brother Gilbert tells us, so many under-plots in the drama of his all- embracing love. Blithe hae I been on yon hUl, As the lambs before me ; Careless ilka thought aiid free. As the breeze flew o'er me. Now nae langer sport and play, Mirth or sang can please me ; Lesley is sae fair and coy. Care and anguish seize me. ^j- Heavy, heavy is the task. Hopeless love declaring : Trembling, I dow nocht but glower,^ Sighing, dumb, despairing ! If she winna ease the thraws ^ In my bosom swelling ; Underneath the grass-green sod. Soon maun be my dwelling. A LOGAN BEAES. TiTNE— "Logan Water." The poet, in a letter to Thomson, enclosing this song, says, regarding its origin : — " Have you ever, my dear sir, felt your bosom ready to burst with indigna- tion on reading of those mighty villains who divide kingdom against kingdom, desolate provinces, and lay nations waste, out of the wantonness of ambition, or often from still more ignoble passions? In a mood of this kind to-day, I recollected the air of 'Logan Water,' and it occurred to me that its querulous melody probably had its origin from the plaintive indignation of some swelling, sufifering heart, fired at the tyrannic strides of some public destroyer; and overwhelmed with private distress. 1 Dare nought but stare. 'Throes. the consequence of a country's ruin. If I have dfcne anything at all like justice to my feelings, the follow- ing song, composed in three quarters of an hour's meditation in my elbow-chair, ought to have some merit." The two last lines of the first stanza the poet took from a very pretty song to the same air, written by Mr Jolin Mayne, author of a poem en- titled, " The Siller Gun." O Logan, sweetly didst thou glide That day I was my Willie's bride ! And years sinsyne hae o'er us run. Like Logan to the simmer sun. But now thy flowery banks appear Like drumlie ^ Winter, dark and drear, While my dear lad maun face his faes, Far, far frae me and Logan braes ! Again the merry month o' May Has made our hills and valleys gay ; The birds rejoice in leafy bowers. The bees hum round the breathing flowers : Blithe morning lifts his rosy eye, And evening's tears are tears of joy : My soul, delightless, a' surveys. While Willie 's far frae Logan braes. Within yon milk-white hawthorn bush, Amang her nestlings sits the thrush ; Her faithf u' mate will share her toil, Or wi' his song her cares beguile : But I, wi' my sweet nurslings here, Nae mate to help, nae mate to cheer. Pass widow'd nights and joyless days "While Willie 's far frae Logan braes. Oh, wae upon you, men o' state, i That brethren rouse to deadly hate ! * As ye make mony a fond heart mourn, Sae may it on your heads return ! How can your flinty heaiis enjoy The widow's tears, the orphan's cry ? But soon may peace bring hapjjy days And Willie hame to Logan braes ! THERE WAS A LASS, AND SHE WAS FAIR. Tune— " Bonny Jean." ' I have just finished the following ballad," says the poet to Thomson, "and as I do think it is in my best style, I send it to you." The heroine of this song was Miss Jane M'Murdo, the eldest daughter of John M'Murdo, Esq., chamberlain to the Duke of Queens- berry, and who resided, with a family of charming and accomplished daughters, at the ducal seat of Drumlanrig, a few miles from the poet's farm. A frequent guest at this gentleman's table, he ap- pears to have lived on terms of intimacy with the entire family. The heroine, he tells us, he did not paint in the rank which slie held in life ; but in the dress and character of a cottager. There was a lass, and she was fair. At kirk and market to be seen. When a' the fairest maids were met, The fairest maid was bonny Jean. And aye she wrought her raammie's wark, And aye she sang sae merrilie : The blithest bird upon the bush Had ne'er a lighter heart than she. But hawks will rob the tender joys That bliss the little lintwhite's nest : And frost will blight the fairest flowers. And love will break the soundest rest. 1 Clouded and rainy. i6o SONGS. [1793. Yonng Eobie was the brawest lad, The flower and pride of a' the glen* And he had owsen, sheep, and kye, And wanton naigies ^ nine or ten. He gaed wi' Jeanie to the tryste,^ He danced wi' Jeanie on the down ; And, lang ere witless Jeanie wist, Her heart was tint,^ her peace was stown. As in the bosom o' the stream, The moonbeam dwells at dewy e'en ; So trembling, pui'e, was tender love Within the breast o' bonny Jean. And now she works her mammie's wark. And aye she sighs wi' care and pain ; Yet wist na what her ail might be. Or what wad mak her weel again. But did na Jeanie's heart loup light, And did na joy blink in her ee, As Robie tauld a tale o' love Ae e'enin' on the lily lea ? The sun was sinking in the west, The birds sang sweet in ilka grove ; His cheek to hers he fondly prest, And whisper'd thus his tale o' love : — O Jeanie fair, I lo'e thee dear ; Oh, canst thou think to fancy me? Or wUt thou leave thy mammie's cot, And learn to tent ^ the farms wi' me ? At barn or byre thou shalfe na drudge, Or naething else to trouble thee ; But stray amang the heather-bells. And tent the waving corn wi' me." Now what could aitless Jeanie do ? She had nae will to sa}' him na ; At length she blush'd a sweet consent, And love was aye betv/een them twa. PHILLIS THE FAIR. TcTlE— " Robin Adair." Miss Philadelphia M'Murdo, one of the daughters of John M'Murdo, Esq., mentioned above, and who afterwards became Mrs Norman Lock hart of Carn- wath, was the heroine of this sonf^. The poet is sup- posed to have written the lines at the request of his friend, Stephen Clarke the musician, who taught the young lady music, and was nearly in love with his channing pupil, " Phillis the fair." Whilt; larks with little wing Fann'd the pui-e air, Tasting tlie breathing sirring, Forth I did fare : Gay the sun's golden eye Peep'd o'er the mountains hisU ; Sucli thy morn ! did I cry, Phillis the fair. In each bird's careless song Glad did I slmre ; While yon wild flowers among, Chance led me there : Sweet to the opening day Rosebuds bent the dewy spray ; Such thy bloom ! did I say, Phillis the fair. 1 Ilorses. * Stolen. SLost 6 Mind. Dovni in a shady walk Doves cooing were ; I maik'd the cruel hawk Caught in a snare : So kind may Fortune be, Such make his destiny ! He who would injure thee, Phillis the fair. HAD I A CAYE. TuKE— " Robin Adair." Mr Alexander Cunningham, a writer to the signet in Edinburgh, and a warm friend of the poet's, had wooed and, as he thought, won, a young lady of great beauty and accomplishments ; but another lover having presented himself, with zueightier c\a,ims to her regard than poor Cunningham possessed, "The fickle, faithless queen. Took the carl, and left her Johnnie ;" and appears to have cast him off with as little cere- mony as she would a piece of faded frippery. The poet, in the following lines, has endeavoured to ex- press the feelings of his friend on the occasion : — Had I a cave on some wild, distant shore. Where the winds howl to the waves' dashing roar; There would I weep my woes. There seek my lost repose. Till grief my eyes should close, Ne'er to wake more. Falsest of womankind, canst thou declare All thy fond plighted vows fleeting as air ! To thy new lover hie. Laugh o'er thy perjury, Then in thy bosom cry What peace is there ! BY ALLAN STREAM I CHANCED TO EOYE. Tone—" Allan Water." In a letter to Thomson, dated August 1793, enclosing this song, the poet eays : — "I walked out yesterday evening with a volume of the Museum in my hand, when, turning up ' Allan Water,' as thu words ap- peared to me rather unworthy of so fine an air, I f,at and raved under the shade of an old thorn, till I wrote one to suit the measure. I may be wrong, but I think it not in my worst style. Bravo I say I ; it is a good song. Autumn is my propitious season. I make more verses in it than all the year else." By Allan stream I chanced to rove. While Phoebus sank beyond Benledi ; The winds were whispering through the grove, The yellow com was waving ready : I listen'd to a lover's sang, And thought on youthfu' pleasures many ; And aye the wild wood echoes rang — Oh, deaiiy do I love thee, Annie I Oh, happy be the woodbine bower, Nae nightly bogle make it eerie ;i Nor ever sorrow staiu the hour, The place and time I met my dearie ! Her head upon my throbbing breast. She, sinking, said, "I'm thine for ever !" While mony a kiss the seal imprest, The sacred vow, — we ne'er should sever. I Fr^htsome. ^T.35.] SONGS. i6i The haunt o' Spring 's the primrose brae, The Simmer joys the flocks to follow ; How cheery, through her shortening day, Is Autumn in her weeds o' yellow ! But can they melt the glowing heart, Or chain the soul in speechless pleasure, Or through each nerve the rapture dart, like meeting her, our bosom's treasure ? OH, WHISTLE, AND I'LL COME TO YOU, MY LAD. Tune— "Whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad." "The old air of 'Whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad,'" says the poet to Thomson, "I admire very much, and yesterday I set the following verses to it:"— Oh, whistle, and I '11 come to you, my lad, Oh, whistle, and I '11 come to you, my lad : Though father and mither and a' should gae mad, Oh, whistle, and I '11 come to you, my lad. But warily tent ^ when you come to coui't me, And come na unless the back yett ^ be a-jee ; Syne up the back stile, and let naebody see. And come as ye were na comin' to me. At kirk, or at market, whene'er ye meet me. Gang by me as though that ye cared na a fiie ; But steal me a blink o' your bonny black ee, Yet look as ye were na looking at me. Aye vow and protest that ye care na for me. And whiles ye may lightly-^ my beauty a wee ; But court na anither, though jokin' ye be, Por fear that she wile your fancy frae me. ADOWN WINDING NITH. TUHB — "The Mucking o' Geordie's Byi*e." The Phillis of this song is thought to have been Miss Philadelphia M'Murdo, the heroine of the lines to " Phillis the Fair," in the preceding page. Adown winding Nith I did wander. To mark the sweet flowers as they spring ; Adown winding Nith I did wander, Of Phillis to muse and to sing. Awa' wi' your belles and your beauties. They never wi' her can compare : Wliaever has met wi' my Phillis, Has met wi' the queen o' the fair-. The daisy amused my fond fancy, So artless, so simple, so wild ; Thou emblem, said I, o' my Phillis, For she is Simplicity's cliild. The rosebud 's the blush o' my charmer, Her sweet balmy lip when 'tis prest : How fair and how pure is the lily, But fairer and purer her breast ! Yon knot of gay flowers in the arbour, They ne'er wi' my Phillis can vie : Her breath is the breath o' the woodbine, Its dew-drop o' diamond her eye. 1 Carefully heed. 2 Gate. 8 Disparage. Her voice is the song of the morning. That wakes through the green-spreading gi'ove, When Phoebus peeps over the mountains, On music, and pleasure, and love. But beauty how fraU and how fleeting, The bloom of a fine sum.mer's day ! Wliile -worth in the mind o' my Piullis WUl flourish without a decay. COME, LET MB TAKE THEE. AiE— "CauldKail." Come, let me take thee to my breast, And pledge we ne'er shall sunder; And I shall spurn as vUest dust The warld's wealth and grandeur : And do I hear my Jeanie ovnv That equal transports move her? I ask for dearest life alone, That I may live to love her. Thus in my arms, wi' a' thy charms, I clasp my countless treasure ; I '11 seek nae mair o' heaven to share Than sic a moment's pleasure : And by thy een, sae bonny blue, I swear I 'm thine for ever ! And on thy lips I seal my vow, And break it shall I never ! DAINTY DAVIE. This is an improved version of a song which the poet wrote some years before for tlie Museum, and which 1 will be found at p. 136. The old song which fur- | nished the air is said to have been composed on a | somewhat indelicate incident that occurred in the ! life of the Rev. David Williamson, during the times ! of the Persecution in Scotland. This- worthy, it j is affirmed, after having married seven wives, died i minister of St Cuthbert's, Edinburgh. | Now rosy May comes in wi' flowers. To deck her gay green-spreading bowers ; And now comes in my happy hours To wander wi' my Davie. Meet me on the warlock knowe. Dainty Davie, dainty Davie ; There I'll spend the day wi' you, My ain dear dainty Davie. * The crystal waters round us fa'. The merry birds are lovers a'. The scented breezes round us blaw, A-wandering wi' my Davie. When purple morning starts the hare. To steal upon her early fare. Then through the dews I will repair, To meet my faithf u' Davie. When day, expiring in the west, The curtain draws o' nature's r^, I flee to his arms I lo'e best. And that 's ray ain dear Du.vie, BEIJCE'S ADDEESS TO HIS AEMY AT BANNOCKBUEN. Tune—" Hey, tuttie taitie." " There is a tradition," says the poet, in a letter to Thomson, enclosing this glorious ode, "that the old I62 SONGS. 1.^793' air, ' Uey tuttie taitie.' wiis Robert Eruce's march at the battle of Banuockburn. This thought, in my solitary wanderings, has warmed me to a pitch of en- thusiasm on the theme of liberty and independence which I have thrown into a kind of Scottish ode, fitted to the air, that one might suppose to; be the gallant Scot's address to his heroic followers on that eventful morning." This ode, says Professor Wilson — the grandest out of the Bible— is sublime ! Scots, -wha hae \vi' "Wallace bled, Scots, wham Bruce has often led ; Welcome to your gory bed. Or to Victory ! Now 's the day, and now 's the hour ; See the front o' battle lour ; See approach proud Edward's power — Chains and slavery ! "Wha will be a traitor knave ? Wha can fill a coward's grave ? Wha sae base as be a slave ? Let him turn and flee ! Wha, for Scotland's king and law, Freedom's sword will strongly draw ; Freeman stand, or freeman fa', Let him follow me ! By Oppression's woes and pains ! By your sons in servile chains ! We will drain our dearest veins. But they shall be free ! Lay the proud usurpers low ! Tyrants fall in every foe ! Liberty's in every blow ! — Let us do or die I No more a-winding the course of yon river. And marking sweet flowerets so fair ; No more I trace the light footsteps of jjleasure. But sorrow and sad sighing care. Is it that Summer 's forsaken our valleys, And grim, surly Winter is near? No, no ! the bees humming round the gay roses Proclaim it the pride of the year. Fain would I hide what I fear to discover, Yet long, long too well have I known ; All that has caused this wreck in my bosom Is Jenny, fair Jenny alone. Time cannot aid me, my griefs are immortal. Nor hope dare a comfort bestow : Come then, enamour'd and fond of my anguish, . Enjoyment I '11 seek in my woe. \ THOU HAST LEFT ME EVER. Tone— "Pee him, father." The poet, in sending these verses to Thomson, says — " 1 do not give them for any merit they have. I com- posed them about the ' back o' midnight,' and by the leeside of a bowl of punch, which had overset every mortal in company except the Muse." Thou hast left me ever, Jamie ! Thou hast left me ever ; Thou hast left me ever, Jamie ! Thou hast left me ever. Aften hast thou vow'd that death Only should us sever ; Now thou 'st left thy lass for aye — I maun see thee never, Jamie, I '11 see thee never ! Thou hast me forsaken, Jamie ! Thou hast me forsaken ; Thou hast me forsaken, Jamie ! Thou hast me forsaken. Thou canst love anither jo, While my heart is breaking : Soon my weary een I '11 close — Never mair to waken, Jamie, Ne'er mair to waken ! Tune FAIR JENNY. ' Saw ye my father.' "Where are the joys I have met in the morning, That danced to the lark's early song? Where ia the peace that awaited my wandering. At evening the wild woods among ? DELUDED SWAIN, THE PLEASURK TusE— " The Collier's Bonny Lassie." Deluded swain, the pleasure The fickle fair can give thee Is but a fairy treasure — Thy hopes will soon deceive thee. The billows on the ocean. The breezes. idly roaming. The clouds' uncertain motion — They are but types of woman. Oh ! art thou not ashamed To doat upon a feature ? If man thou wouldst be named. Despise the sUly creature. Go, find an honest fellow ; Good claret set before thee : Hold on till thou art mellow, And then to bed in glory. MY SPOUSE, NANCY. TcNE— " My Jo, Janet." "Husband, husband, cease j^our strife. Nor longer idly rave, sir ; Though I am your wedded wife. Yet I am not your slave, sir." "One of two must still obey, Nancy, Nancy ; Is it man, or woman, say, My spouse, Nancy?" " If 'tis still the lordly word, Service and obedience ; I '11 desert my sovereign lord, And so, good-by, aliegiauce !" "Sad will I be, so bereft, Nancy, Nancy ; Yet I '11 try to make a shift, My sjiouse, Nancy." "My poor heart then break it must, ]My last hour I 'm near it : When you lay me in the dust, Think, think how you will boar it.** J ^.T. 35.] SONGS. 163 "I will liops and trust in Heaven, Nancy, Nancy; Strength to bear it will be given, My spouse, Nancy," *' Well, sir, from the silent dead, Still I '11 try to daunt you ; Ever round your midnight bed Horrid sprites shall haunt you." "I'll wed another, like my dear Nancy, Nancy ; Then all hell will fly for fear, My spouse, Nancy." OH, WEEE MY LOYE YON LILAC FAIR. TuxE — "Hughie Graham." Tte first two stanzas only of this song are by Bums ; the other two are old. Oh, were my love yon lilac fair, AYi' purple blossoms to the spring ; And I a bird to shelter there, When wearied on my little wing. How I wad mourn, when it was torn, By autumn wild, and winter rude ! But* I wad sing, on wanton wing, When youthfu' May its bloom renew'd. Oh, gin my love were yon red rose. That grows upon the castle wa', And I mysel a drap o' dew, Into her bonny breast to fa' ! Oh ! there, beyond expression blest, I 'd feast on beauty a' the night ; Seal'd on her silk-saft faulds to rest, TiU fley'di awa' by Phoebus' light ! THE LOVELY LASS OF INYERNESS. TcNE— " The Lass of Inverness." Bums'g most successful imitation of the old style of ballad composition, says Cromek, seems to be in *' The Lovely Lass of Inverness." The lovely lass of Inverness Nae joy nor pleasure can she see ; For e'en and morn she cries, alas ! And aye the saut tear blin's her ee : Drumossie Moor — Drumossie day — A waefu' day it was to me ! For there I lost my father dear. My father dear, and brethren three. Their winding-sheet the bluidy clay, Their graves are growing green to see : And by them lies the dearest lad That ever blest a woman's ee ! Now wae to thee, thou cruel lord, A bluidy man I trow thou be ; For mony a heart thou hast made sair That ne'er did wrang to thine or thee. /■ A EED, RED R6SE. TcsE—" Graham's Strathspey." This song was composed by the poet as an improve- ment of a street ballad, which is said to have been 1 Frightened. written by a Lieutenant Ilinches, as a farewell to his sweetheart, when on the eve of parting. Oh, my luve 's like a red, red rose. That 's newly sprung in June : ' Oh, my luve 's like the melodie That 's sweetly play'd in tune. As fair art thou, my bonny lass. So deep in luve am I ; And I will luve thee still my dear, Till a' the seas gang dry. Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear, And the rocks melt wi' the sun : I will luve thee still, my dear. While the sands o' life shall run. And fare thee weel, my only luve ! And fare thee weel a while ! And I will come again, my luve, Though it were ten thousand mile. A VISION. The following lines were written amid the ruins of Lincluden Abbey, a favourite haunt of the poet's. He contributed a version somewhat different to the Scofs Musical Museum ;— As I stood by yon roofless tower. Where the wa'-flower scents the dewy air, Where the howlet^ mourns in her ivy bower, And tells the midnight moon her care ; The winds were laid, the air was still, The stars they shot along the sky ; The fox was howling on the hill. And the distant-echoing glens reply. The stream, adown its hazelly path. Was rushing by the ruin'd wa's. Hasting to join the sweeping Nith, Whose distant roaring swells and fa's. The cauld blue North was streaming forth Her lights, wi' hissin', eerie din : Athort the lift they start and shift. Like Fortune's fa-rours, tint 2 as win. By heedless chance I turn'd mine eyes. And, by the moonbeam, shook to see A stem and stalwart ghaist arise, Attired as minstrels wont to be. Had I a statue been o' stane, His daring look had daunted me ; And on his bonnet graved was plain, The sacred posy— " Liberty ! " And frae his harp sic strains did flow. Might roused the slumbering dead to hear; But, oh ! it was a tale of woe. As ever met a Briton's ear ! He sang wi' joy the former day, He, weeping, wail'd his latter times ; But what he said it was nae play, — I winna venture 't in my rhymes. GUT OVER THE FORTH. ToxB—" Charlie Gordon's Welcome Hame." Out over the Forth I look to the north, But what is the north and its Highlands to lOwL a Lost 1 64 SONGS, [1794- The south nor the east gie ease to my breast. The far foreign land, or the wild-rolling sea. But I look to the west, when I gae to rest. That happy my dreams and my slumbers may be; For far in the west lives he I lo'e best, . The lad that is dear to my baby and me. JEANIE'S BOSOM. Tune—" Louis, what reck I by thee ?' Louis, what reck I by thee, Or Geordie on his ocean? Dyvor,^ beggar loons to me — I reign in Jeanie's bosom. Let her crown my love her law, And in her breast enthrone me : King and nations — swith, awa' ! Keif -randies, 2 I disown ye ! POR THE SAKE OF SOMEBODY. Tune—" For the Sake of Somebody." My heart is sair — I dare na tell — My heart is sair for Somebody ; I could wake a winter night For the sake o' Somebody. Oh-hon ! for Somebody ! Oh-hey! for Somebody! I coiild range the world around. For the sake o' Somebody ! Ye Powers that smile on virtuous love, Oh, sweetly smile on Somebody ! Frae ilka danger keep him free, And send me safe my Somebody. Oh-hon ! for Somebody ! Oh-hey ! for Somebody ! I wad do — what wad I not? For the sake o' Somebody ! WILT THOU BE MY DEAEIE. AiB— " The Sutor'3 Dochter." Wil/T thou be my dearie ? When sorrow wrings thy gentle heart, WUt thou let me cheer thee ? By the treasure of my soul. That's the love I bear thee ! I swear and vow that only thou Shall ever be my dearie. Only thou, I swear and vow, Shall ever be my dearie. Lassie, say thou lo'es me ; Or, if thou wilt na be my ain, Say na thou 'It refuse me :. If it winna, canna be, Thou, for thine may choose me, Let me, lassie, quickly die, Trusting that thou lo est mo. Lassie, let me quickly die. Trusting that thou lo'es me. ^ Bankrupt. a Thieving-beggara. LOVELY POLLY STEWAET. TPNE— " Ye're welcome, Charlie Stewart." The heroine of this song was the daughter of a Mr William Stewart, a neighbour of the poet's at Ellis- land, and was, when he first knew her, a handsome blooming girl, just bursting into womanhood. She married a wealtliy gentleman early in life ; but, unfor- tunately, from some act of indiscretion, she fell from "her high estate," and sunk to the lowest depths of poverty and degradation ; and is said, on the autho- rity of Mr Chamljers, to have been forced to support herself, towards the end of her life, by her laboui'S as a laundress in MaxwelUown. O LOVELY Polly Stewart ! O charming Polly Stewart ! There 's ne'er a flower that blooms in Slay That 's half so fair as thou art. The flower it blaws, it fades and fa's, And art can ne'er renew it ; But worth and truth eternal youth Will gie to Polly Stewart. May he whose arms shall fauld thy chai-ms Possess a leal and true heart ; To him be given to ken the heaven He grasps in Polly Stewart ! O lovely Polly Stewart ! O charming Polly Stewart ! There 's ne'er a flower that blooms in May That 's half so sweet as thou art. TO MAEY. Ttob— " At Setting Day." Could aught of song declare my pains. Could artful numbers move thee, The Muse should tell, in labour'd strains, O Mary, how I love thee ! They who but feign a wounded heart May teach the lyre to languish ; But what avails the pride of art, . When wastes the soul with anguish? Then let the sudden bursting sigh The heart-felt pang tliscover ; Ajid in the keen, yet tender, eye, Oh, read th' imploring lover. For well I know tliy gentle mind Disdains art's gay disguising ; Beyond what fancy e'er refined. The voice of nature prizing. WAE IS MY HEART. TratK— " "Wae is my heart." Wae is my heart, and the tear 's- in my ee ; Lang, lang, joy's been a stranger to me : Forsaken and friendless, my burden I bear. And the sweet voice of pity ne'er sounds in my ear. Love, thou hast pleasures, and deep hae I loved ; Love, thou hast sorrows, and sair hae I i)roved ; But this bruised heart that now bleeds in my breast, I can feel by its throbbings will soon be at rest. Oh, if I were, where happy I hae been, Down by yon stream, and yon bonny castle- green ; For there he is wandering, and musing on me, Wha wad soon dry the tear frae liis PMlhs's ee. Mr. 36.] SONGS. 165 HERE'S TO THY HEALTH, MY BONITY LASS. TcxE— " Laggan Bum." Here 's to thy health, my bonny lass, Guid night and joy be wi' thee ; I '11 coihe nae mair to thy bower-door, To tell thee that I lo'e thee. Oh, dinna think, my jjretty innk. But I can live without thee : I vow and swear I dinna care, How liing ye look about ye. Thou'rt aye sae free informing me Thou hast nae mind to marry ; I '11 be as free infoi'ming thee Nae time hae I to tarry. I ken thy friends try ilka means Frae wedlock to delay thee ; Depending on some higher chance — But Fortune may betray thee. I ken they scorn my low estate. But that does never grieve me ; But I 'm as free as any he, Sma' siller will relieve me. I'll count my health my greatest wealth Sae lang aa I '11 enjoy it : I '11 fear nae scant, I '11 bode nae want, As lang 's I get employment. But far-off fowls hae feathers fair. And aye until ye try them : Though they seem fair, still have a care, They may prove waur than I am. But at twal at night, when the moon shines bright. My dear, I '11 come and see thee ; For the man that lo'es his mistress weel, Nae travel makes him weary. ANNA, THY CHARMS. TuxB— " Bonny Mary." Anxa, thy charms my bosom fire, And waste my soul with care ; But ah ! how bootless to adnaire, "When fated to despair ! Yet in thy presence, lovely fair, To hope may be forgiven ; For sure 'twere impious to despair, So much in sight of heaven. MY LADY'S G0T7N, THERE'S GAIRS UPON'T. TnuB— " Gregg's Pipes." My lady's gown, there 's gairs^ upon 't, And gowden flowers sae rare upon't ; But Jenny's jimps^ and jirkinet,-^ My lord thinks meikle mair upon't. My lord a-hunting he is gane. But hounds or hawks wi' him are nane ; By Colin's cottage lies his game, If Colin'a Jenny be at hame. My lady 's white, my lady 'a red. And kith and kin o' Caasillis' blude ; 1 A triangular piece of cloth inserted at the bottom of a robe. ^ A kind of stays. s Bodice. But her ten-pund lands o' tocher guid Were a' the charms his lordship lo'ed. Out o'er yon muii', out o'er yon moss, Whare gor-cocks through the heather pass. There wons auld Colin's bonny lass, A lily in a wilderness. Sae sweetly move her gentle limbs. Like music-notes o' lovers' hymns : The diamond dew in her een sae blue, "Where laughing love sae wanton swims. My lady 's dink,^ my lady's drest, The flower and fancy o' the west ; But the lassie that a man lo'es best. Oh, that 's the lass to inak him blest. JOCXEY'S TA'EN THE PARTING KISS. Tuin: — "Bonny Lassie, tak a Man." Jockey's ta'en the parting kiss. O'er the mountains he is gane ; And with him is a' my bliss, Nought but griefs with me remain. Spare my luve, ye winds that blaw, Plashy sleets and beating rain ! Spare my luve, thou feathery snaw. Drifting o'er the frozen plain ! When the shades of evening creep O'er the day's fair gladsome ee, Sound and safely may he sleep. Sweetly blithe his waukening be I He will think on her he loves, Fondly he '11 repeat her name ; For where'er he distant roves. Jockey's heart is still at hame. OH, LAY THY LOOF m mNE^ LASS. TiJXE — " Cordwainers' March." Oh, lay thy loof 2 in mine, lass. In mine, lass, in mine, lass ; And swear on thy white hand, lass. That thou wilt be my ain. A slave to love's unbounded sway. He aft has %vrought rae meikle wae j But now he is my deadly fae. Unless thou be my ain. There 's mony a lass has broke my rest. That for a blink =* I hae lo'ed best ; But thou art queen within my breast, For ever to remain. Oh, lay thy loof in mine, lass. In mine, lass, in mine, lass ; And swear on thy white hand, lass, That thou wilt be my ain. OH, M ALLY'S MEEK, MALLY^S SWEET. Cunningham gives (he following account of the origin of this song : — " The poet was cue day walking along the High Street of Dumfries, when he met a young woman from the country, who, with her shoes and stockings packed carefully up, and her petticoats kilted, * Which did gently sbaw Her straight bare legs that whiter were than snaw,' Neat, ttiin. Palm. 3 Short space. i66 SONGS. [1794. was proceeding: towards the Galloway side of the Nith. This sight, by no means so unusual then as now, influenced the Muse of Burns, and the result •was this exquisite lyric." As I was walking up the street, A barefit maid I chanced to meet ; But oh, the road was very hard For that fair maiden's tender feet. Oh, Mally's meek, Mally's sweet, Mally 's modest and discreet, Mally 's rare, Mally 's fair, Mally 's every way complete. It were mair meet that those fine feet Were weel laced up in silken shoon. And 'twere more fit that she should sit Within yon chariot gilt aboon. Her yellow hair, beyond compare, Comes trinkling down her swan-like neck ; And her two eyes, like stars in skies, Would keep a sinking ship frae wreck. THE BANKS OF CREE. Tune— "The Banks of Cree." Lady Elizabeth Heron having composed an air entitled "The Banks of Cree," in remembrance of a beauti- ful and romantic stream of that name, ' ' I have writ- ten," says the poet, " the following song to it, as her ladyship is a particular friend of mine." Here is the glen, and here the bower. All underneath the birchen shade ; The village-bell has told the hour — Oh, what can stay my lovely maid? 'Tis not Maria's whispering call ; 'Tis not the balmy-breathing gale, Mixt with some warbler's dying fall, The dewy star of eve to hail. It is Maria's voice I hear ! So calls the woodlark in the grove, His little faithful mate to cheer — At once 'tis music, and 'tis love. And art thou come ? and art thou true ? Oh, welcome, dear, to love and me ! And let us all our vows renew Along the flowery banks of Cree. ON THE SEAS AND FAR AWAY. Tune— "O'er the hills and far away." How can my poor heart be glad, When absent from my sailor lad? How can I the thought forego, He 's on the seas to meet the foe ? Let me wander, let me rove. Still my heart is with my love : Nightly dreams, and thoughts by day, Are with him that 's far away. On the seas and far away, On stormy seas and far away ; Nightly dreams, and thoughts by day, Are aye with him that 's far away. When in summer noon I faint. As weary flocks around me pant, Haply in the scorching sun My sailor's thundering at his gtm : Bullets, spare my only joy! Bullets, spare my darling boy ! Fate, do with me what you may — Spare but him that 's far away ! At the starless midnight hour, When winter rules with boundless power; As the storms the forest tear, And thunders rend the howling air, Listening to the doubling roar, Surging on the rocky shore, All I can — I weep and pray, For his weal that 's far away. Peace, thy olive wand extend, And bid wild War his ravage end, Man with brother man to meet. And as a brother kindly greet : Then may Heaven with iirosi^erous gales Fill my sailor's welcome sails, To my arms their charge convey — My dear lad that 's far away. CA' THE YO^VES. This is an improved version, which the poet prepared for his friend Thomson, of a song aheady given i at p. 141. I Ca' the yowes to the knowes, ! Ca' them whare the heather grows, i Ca' them whare the burnie rowes. My bonny dearie ! Hark the mavis' evening sang Sounding Cluden's woods amang ! Then a faulding let us gang. My bonny dearie. We '11 gae down by Cluden side, Through the hazels spreading wide, O'er the waves that sweetly glide, To the moon sae clearly. Yonder Cluden's silent towers, Where at moonshine midnight hours, O'er the dewy bending flowers, Fairies dance sae cheery. Ghaist nor bogle shalt thou fear ; Thou 'rt to love and heaven sae dear, Nocht of ill may come thee near, My bonny deaiie. Fair and lovely as thou art, Thou hast stown my very heart ; I can die — but canna part — My bonny dearie ! SHE SAYS SHE LOE'S ME BEST OF A'. Tune—" Onagh's Waterfall." JIis3 Jean Lorimer, the flaxen-haired Chlorls of this and other fine lyrics, has been once or twice alluded to already ; but as the poet has celebrated her beauty of person and charms of manner in no less than eleven songs, some of which are amongst the finest he ever wrote ; and as her lot in life, for one so beau- tiful and attractive, was singularly unfortunate, a brief outline of her history will be found interesting — for the leading incidents of wliich wo are indebted to the diligence and research of Mr Robert Cham- bers. Her fatlier, Mr William Lorimer, was a pros- f)erou3 farmer at a place called Kcmmis Hall, on the >aDks of th^ Nith, near Dumfries, and with whom the poet was on terms of the closest intimacy. Here ^T. 36.] SONGS. 167 he first saw and admired tliis charming creature, who, though not yet nineteen, was now in the full hloom of her dazzling beauty, and destined to task his Muse to its highest heaven of invention. She had, of course, no lack of suitors, many of whom were men of worth and honour; but, unfortunately for her- self, her choice fell upon a young gentleman of the name of Whelpdale, a native of the county of Cum- berland, who had settled as a farmer in the neigh- bourhood of Moffat, and with whom she eloped one night from her father's house to Gretna Green, where they were married. But, a few short months after this romantic affair, her husband, who was natu- rally of reckless and extravagant habits, fled from the district to avoid his creditors, leaving his wife to return to her father's without a penny to support her. She did not see him again for twenty-three years ! And it was while residing with her parents, in this abandoned condition, that the poet first made her acquaintance, and sang her beauty and her sorrows. A few years after her desertion, how- ever, when the poet's lyre was mute, and the hand that tuned it in her praise was mouldering in the dust, her father met with a series of losses that reduced him to the brink of poverty, and she was forced to accept of a situation as an under gover- ness in a gentleman's family. Having supported herself for many years by her services in this capa- city, she one day accidentally heard that her husband was imprisoned at Carlisle for debt, after having wandered about the country for years, and squan- dered some four or five fortunes that had been left him by different relations. With a woman's yearn- ing for the lover of her youth, she went to see him ; but when he was pointed out to her, he was so changed, she scarcely knew him ; and it was only when he pronounced her name, that she recognised, in the broken-down and bloated figure before her the gay gallant with whom she had fled from her father's house some twenty years before ! After a few visits, as the infatuated man seemed utterly incapable of re- forming, she parted with him, never to meet again. Some years afterwards, when friendless and unprotect- ed, she stept from the paths of honour, fell from her respectable position in society, and for a time "had her portion with weeds and outworn faces ! " For years after this she is said to have been in a condition little above beggary, leading a kind of wandering life, and occasionally acting as a domestic servant. Ulti- mately, however, through the exertions of a benevo- lent gentleman to whom she had disclosed her his- tory, she was rescued from this wretched state, and became housekeeper to a gentleman residing in Newington, Edinburgh, where she remained for some years. But having at last been seized with consumption, which compelled her to leave her situation, she retired to an obscure abode in Middle- ton's Entry, Potterrow ; and after lingering there for some time in loneliness and suffering, supported by the charity of strangers, she died in September 1831, and was buried in Newington churchyard. Sae flaxen were her ringlets. Her eyebrows of a darker hue, Bewitcliingly o'er -arching Twa laugliing een o' bonny blue. Her smiling sae wOing, Wad make a wretch forget his woe ; What pleasure, what treasiire. Unto these rosy lips to grow ! Such was my Chloris' bonny face, When first her bonny face I saw ; And aye my Chloris' dearest charm, She says she lo'es me best of a'. Like harmony her motion ; Her pretty ankle is a spy, Betraying fair proportion, Wad mak a saint forget the sky. Sae warming, sae charming. Her faultless form and gracef u' air ; nk feature— auld Nature Declared that she could do nae mair. Hers are the willing chains o' love. By conquering beauty's sovereign law ; And aye my Chloris' dearest charm, She says she lo'es me best o' a'. Let others love the city. And gaudy show at sunny noon ; Gie me the lonely valley. The dewy eve, and rising moon ; Fair beaming and streaming. Her silver light the boughs amang ; AVhile falling, recalling. The amorous thrush concludes his s; There, dearest Chloris, wilt thou rove By wimplmg bum and leafy shaw, And hear my vows o' truth and love, And say thou lo'est me best of a' ? THE LOVER'S MORNING SALUTE TO HIS MISTRESS. TuNK— "Deil tak the wars." "Having been out in the country dining with a friend," (Mr Lorimer of Kemmis Hall,) says the poet in a letter to Thomson, "I met with a lady, [Mrs Whelp- dale — 'Chloris,'] and as usual got into song, and on returning home composed the following : " — Sleep'st thou, or wakest thou, fairest creature ? Rosy Mom now lifts his eye, Numbering ilka bud which nature Waters wi' the tears o' joy : Now through the leafy woods. And by the reeking floods, Wild nature's tenants, freely, gladly, stray ; The lintwhite in his bower . Chants o'er the breathing flower; * The laverock to the sky Ascends wi' sangs o' joy, While the sun and thou arise to bles,s the day. Phoebus, gilding the brow o' morning, Banishes Uk darksome shade. Nature gladdening and adorning ; Such to me my lovely maid. Wlien absent frae my fair, The murky shades o' care With startless gloom o'ercast my sullen sky; But when, in beauty's light. She meets my ravish'd sight, When through my very heart Her beaming glories dart — 'Tis then I wake to life, to light, and joy.+ CHLORIS. Regarding the following lines, the poet says :— '• Hav- ing been on a visit the other day to my fair Chloris — that is the poetic name of the lovely goddess of my inspiration — she suggested an idea, which, on my return home, I wrought into the following song : " — * Vabiatioh.— " Now to the streaming founiain. Or up the heathy mountain, The hart, hind, and roe, freely, wildly-wanton stray; In twining hazel bowers His lay the linnet pours ; The laverock to the sky," &c. t Vab.— " When frae my Chloris parted, Sad, cheerless, broken-hearted. Then night's gloomy shades, cloudy, dark, o'ercast my sky ; But when she charms my sight, In pride of beauty's light : When through my very heart Her beaming glories dart, 'lis then, 'tis then I wake to life and joy.' 1 68 SONGS. [1794. My Chloris, mark liow green the groves. The primrose banks how fair ; The balmy gales awake the flowers, And wave thy flaxen hair. The laverock shnns the palace gay, And o'er the cottage sings ; Por nature smUes as sweet, I ween, To shepherds as to kings. Let minstrels sweep the skUfu' string In lordly lighted ha' : The shepherd stops his simple reed, Blithe, in the birken shaw.i The princely revel may survey Our rustic dance wi' scorn ; But are their hearts as light as ours. Beneath the nculk-white thorn? The shepherd in the flowery glen, In shepherd's phrase will woo; The courtier tells a finer tale — But is his heart as true? These wild-wood flowers I 've pu'd, to deck That spotless breast o' thine ; The courtier's gems may witness love — But 'tisna love like mine. TO CHLOKIS. The following lines, says the poet, were "written on the blank leaf of a copy of the last edition of my poems, and presented to the lady whom, with the most ardent sentiments of real friendship, I have so often sung under the name of Chloris :" — 'Tis Friendship's pledge, my young, fair friend, Nor thou the gift refuse, Nor with unwilling ear attend The moralising Muse. Since thou, in all thy youth and charms, Must bid the world adieu, (A world 'gainst peace in constant arms,) To join the friendly few ; Since thy gay mom of life o'ercast, Chill came the tempest's lower ; (And ne'er misfortune's eastern blast Did nip a fairer flower ;) Since life's gay scenes must charm no more, Still much is left behind ; Still nobler wealth hast thou in store — The comforts of the mind ! Thine is the self -approving glow- On conscious honour's part ; And— dearest gift of Heaven below— Thine friendship's truest heart. The joys refined of sense and taste. With every Muse to rove : And doubly were the poet blest, These joys could he improve. AH, CHLORIS I TuNK— "Major Graham.'* This is another of those beautiful lyrics, the fruit of the poet's acquaintance with the charming Chloris — 1 Birch wood. the lightning of whose eye, to use his own words, was the godhead of Parnassus, and the witchery of her smile the divinity of Helicon ! Ah, Chloris ! since it mayna be That thou of love wilt hear ; If from the lover thou maun flee, Yet lei the friend be dear. Although I love my Chloris mair Than ever tongue could tell ; My passion I will ne'er declare, I '11 say, I wish thee welL Though a* my daily care thou art. And a' my nightly dream, I '11 hide the struggle in my heart. And say it is esteem. SAW YE ]VIY PHELY? TuNB — "When she cam ben she bobbit." Oh, saw ye my dear, my Phely ? Oh, saw ye my dear, my Phely ? She 's down i' the grove, she 's wi' a new love. She winna come hame to her Willy. What says she, my dearest, my Phely ? What says she, my dearest, my Phely ? She lets thee to wit that she has thee forgot, And for ever disowns thee, her WiUy. Oh, had I ne'er seen thee, my Phely ! Oh, had I ne'er seen thee, my Phely ! As light as the air, and fause as thou's fair — Thou's broken the heart o' thy Willy. HOW LONG AND DREAB.Y IS THE NIGHT! To a Gaelic Air. How long and dreary is the night, When I am frae my dearie ! I sleepless lie frae e'en to mom. Though I were ne'er sae weary. I sleepless lie frae e'en to morn. Though I were ne'er sae weary. When I think on the happy days I spent wi' you, my dearie. And now what lands between \is lie. How can I be but eerie ?i And now what lands between xis lie. How can I be but eerie ? How slow ye move, ye heavy hours, As ye were wae and weary ! It wasna sae ye glinted^ by When I was wi' my dearie. It wasna sae ye glinted by When I was wi' my dearie. UIFBOVEI) VEBSIOK. TcNE— "Cauld Kail in Aberdeen.* How long and dreary is the night, When I am frae my dearie I I restless lie frae e'en to morn, Though I were ne'er sae weary. 1 Lonely. s GUded. 1 ^T. 36.] SON'GS. 169 For oh ! her lanely niglits are lang And oh, her di'eams are eei'ie ; And oh, her widow'd heart is sair, That 's absent frae her dearie. ■\Mien I think on the lightsome days I spent wi' thee, my dearie ; And now wliat seas between us roai* — How can I be but eerie ? How slow ye move, ye heavy hours ! The joyless day how dreary ! It wasna sae ye glinted by, AVhen I was Avi' my dearie. LET NOT W0MA2T E'ER COMPLAIN. TcxE— "Duncan Gray." "Ihave been at ' Duncan Gray,' " says the poet to Thom- son, "to dress it into English; but all I can do is deplorably stupid. For instance :" — Let not woman e'er complain Of inconstancy in love ; Let not woman e'er complain Fickle man is apt to rove : Look abroad through nature's range, Nature's mighty law is change ; Ladies, would it not be strange, Man should then a monster prove ? Mark the winds, and mark the skies; Ocean's ebb, and ocean's flow : Sun and moon but set to rise. Hound and roimd the seasons go : Why then ask of silly man To oppose great Nature's plan ? "We '11 be constant while we can — You can be no more, you know. THE CHAEMING MONTH OF MAY. The poet having given the following English dress to an old Scotch ditty, says, in transmitting it to Thom- son :— " You may think meanly of this ; but if you saw the bombast of the original you would be sur- prised that I had made so much of it." It was the charming month of May, When all the flowers were fresh and gay, One morning, by the break of day, The youthful, charming Chloe ; From peaceful slumber she arose, Girt on her mantle and her hose, And o'er the flowery mead she goes. The youthful, charming Chloe. Lovely was she by the dawn, Youthful Chloe, charming Chloe, Tripping o'er the pearly lawn. The youthful, charming Chloe. The feather'd people you might see, Perch'd all around, on every tree. In notes of sweetest melody. They hail the charming Chloe ; Till painting gay the eastern skies, The glorious sun began to rise, Out-iivall'd by the radiant eyes Ox youthful charming Chloe. LASSIE WI' THE LINT-WHITE LOCKS. TuxE— " Rothemurghe's Rant." 'Ihis piece," says the poet, "has at least the merit of being a regular pastoral : the vernal morn, the sum- mer noon, the autumnal evening, and the winter night, are regularly rounded." Now nature deeds ^ the flowery lea. And a' is young and sweet like thee ; Oh, wilt thou share its joy wi' me. And say thou 'It be my dearie, O? Lassie wi' the lint-white locks, Bonny lassie, artless lassie. Wilt thou wi' me tent 2 the flocks ? Wilt thou be my dearie, O ? And when the welcome simmer-shower Has cheer'd ilk drooping little flower, We '11 to the breathing woodbine bower At sultry noon, my dearie, O. When Cynthia lights, wi' silver ray. The weary shearer's ^ hameward way ; Through yellow waving fields we '11 stray, And talk o' love, my dearie, O. And when the howling wintry blast Disturbs my lassie's midnight rest ; Enclasped to my faithfu' breast, I 'U comfort thee, my dearie, O. FAREWELL, THOU STREAM. TuNB— "Nancy's to the greenwood gane." This song appears to be an improved version of the one entitled, "The last time I came o'er the moor," (p. 158,) with the substitution of the name Eliza for that of Maria. This change probably arose from the poet's quarrel with Mrs Riddel having rendered her name distasteful to him. See the introduction to the song entitled, "Canst thou leave me thus, my Katy?" iu the following page. Farewell, thou stream that winding flows Around Eliza's dwelling ! Memory ! spare the cruel throes Within my bosom swelling : Condemn'd to drag a hopeless chain. And yet in secret languish ; To feel a fire in every vein, Nor dare disclose my anguish. Love's veriest wretch, unseen, unknown, I fain my griefs would cover ; The bursting sigh, th' unweeting groan, Betray the hapless lover. 1 know thou doom'st me to despair. Nor wilt, nor canst, relievo me ; But oh, Eliza, hear one prayer — For pity's sake forgive me ! The music of thy voice I heard, Nor wist while it enslaved me ; I saw thine eyes, yet nothing fear'd, 'TiU fears no more had saved me : The unwary sailor thus aghast, The wheeling torrent viewing ; 'Mid circling horrors sinks at last In overwhelming ruin. 1 Clothes. »Tend. « Beapei^. I/O SONGS. L1794. O PHILLY, HAPPY BE THAT DAY. Tune— "The Sow's Tail." O Philly, happy be that day, When roving through the gather'd hay, My youthfu' heart was stown away, And by thy charms, my Philly. O "Willy, aye I bless the grove Where first I own'd my maiden love, Whilst thou didst pledge the Powers above To be my ain dear Willy. HE. As songsters of the early year Are ilka day mair sweet to hear, So ilka day to me mair dear, And charming is my PhiUy. SHE. As on the brier the budding rose Stni richer breathes and fairer blows, So in my tender bosom grows The love I bear my Willy. HE. The milder sun and bluer sky That crown my harvest cares wi' joy. Were ne'er so welcome to my eye As is a sight o' Philly. The little swallow's wanton wing, Though wafting o'er the flowery spring. Did ne'er to me sic tidings bring As meeting o' my WUly. HE. The bee that through the sunny hour Sips nectar in the opening flower. Compared wi' my delight is poor, Upon the lips o' PhUly. SHE. The woodbine in the dewy weet When evening shades in silence meet, Is nocht sae fragrant or sae sweet As is a kiss o' Willy. HE. Let Fortune's wheel at random rin, And fools may tyne, and knaves may win ; My thoughts are a' bound up in ane. And that 's my ain dear Philly. SHE. What 's a' the joys that gowd can gie ? I carena wealth a single flie ; The lad I love 's the lad for me, And that 's my ain dear WUly. CONTENTED WI' LITTLE. TuNR— " Lumps 0' Pudding." This song is entitled to more than ordinary attention, as it appears the poet meant it for a personal sketch ; for, in a letter to Thomson, thanking him for the present of aplcture of " The Cotter's Saturday Night," by David Allan, the leading painter of the day, he Bays :— " Ten thousand thanks for your elegant jpre- sent. ... I have some thoughts of suggesting to you to prefix a vignette of me to my song, 'Contented •wi' little, and cantie wi' mair,' in order that the por- trait of my face, and the picture of my mind, may go down the stream of time together." Contented wi' little, and cantie ^ wi' mair, AYhene'er I forgather 2 vvi' sorrow and care, I gie them a skelp,^ as they 're creeping alang, Wi' a cog o' guid swats,'* and an auld Scottish sang. I whiles claw the elbow o' troublesome thought ; But man is a sodger, and life is a f aught ; My mirth and guid humour are coin in my pouch, And my freedom's my laii-dship nae monarch, dare touch. A towmond ^ o' trouble, should that be my fa', A night o' guid-fellowship sowthers ^ it a' : When at the blithe end o' our journey at last, Wha the deil ever thinks o' the road he has past ? Blind Chance, let her snapper and stoy te '' on her way ; Be 't to me, be 't frae me, e'en let the jade gae : ^ Come ease or come travail; come pleasure or pain; My warst word is— "Welcome, and welcome again ! " CANST THOU LEAVE ME THUS, MY KATY? TCNK—" Roy's Wife." This song, whicb the poet says he composed in two or three turns across his little room, was meant as a representation of the kindly feelings whicli he now once more began to entertain for his former beauti- ful and fascinating friend, Mrs Riddel of "Woodley Park. Having been a frequent and welcome guest at the house of this kind and accomplished lady, whom he passionately admired, (see the song, " The last time I came o'er the moor," p. 158,) he is said, on one occasion, while under the influence of the wine he had taken at table, and the alluring charms of his fair hostess's conversation and manner, to have so far forgot himself as to attempt to kiss her— an indignity, however, which she punished by withdrawing her friendship. During the continuance of this coldness, which lasted for nearly two years, he weakly gave vent to his wrath and wounded pride in two or three lam- poons and other satirical effusions ; but ultimately a kindlier feeling took possession of him, under the influence of which he composed this song, and sent it to the lady as a kind of peace-offering. To her honour be it said, she not only had tlie magnanimity to forgive him, but, in order to soothe his ruflled feelings, and help to heal the breach that kept them separate, she replied to his song in a similar strain of poetic licence.* The poet, it will be observed, 1 Happy. 2 Meet. s Whack. * Flagon of ale. * Twelvemonth. « Solders. T Stagger and stumble. 8 siut go. ♦ The following are the pieces which Mrs Riddel sent to the poet in reply to his song : — Tune— " Roy's Wife." " Tkll me that thou yet art true, And a' my wrongs shall be forgiven ; And when this heart proves fause to thee, Yon sun shall cease its course in heaven. " Stay, my Willie— yet believe me. Stay, my Willie — yet believe me, For, ah I thou know'st na every pang Wad wring my bosom, shouldst thou leave me. " But to think I was betray'd. That falsehood e'er our loves should sunder I To take tlic floweret to my breast, And find the guilcfu' serpent under. " Could I hope thou'dst ne'er deceive, Celestial pleasures might I choose 'em, ^T. 36.] SONGS. 171 with the usual freedom of the sons of Apollo, ad- dresses her as a mistress, and in that character she replies to him. It is gratifying to know that they ultimately became thoroughly reconciled ; and after Ills untimely and lamented death, he had no warmer eulogist than Maria Riddel. Is this thy plighted, fond reward, Thus cruelly to part, my Katy? Is this thy faithful swain's regard — An aching, broken heart, my Katy? Canst thou leave me thus, my Katy? Canst thou leave me thus, my Katy ? "Well thou knowest my aching heart — And canst thou leave me thus for pity ? Farewell ! and ne'er such sorrows tear That fickle heart of thine, my Katy ! Thou mayst find those will love thee dear — But not a love like mine, my Katy ! 'WHA IS THAT AT MY BOWER-DOOR? TuKK— '-Lass, an I come near thee." The following quaint ditty, it appears, was suggested to the poet by an old song in Ramsay's "Tea-Table Miscellany," entitled, "The Auld Man's Address to the Widow :"— "Wh A is that at my bower-door? Oh, wha is it but Findlay? Then gae yere gate,^ ye'se nae be here ! — Indeed,'niaun I, quo' Findlay. "What mak ye sae like a thief? Oh, come and see, quo' Findlay ; Before the mom ye '11 work mischief — Indeed will I, quo' Findlay. Gif ^ I rise and let you in,— Let me in, quo' Findlay ; Ye '11 keep me waukin wi' your din — Indeed will I, quo' Findlay. In my bower if ye should stay, — Let me stay, quo' Findlay ; I fear ye '11 bide^ till break o' day — Indeed will I, quo' Findlay. Way. 2 If. 3 Remain. I'd slight, nor seek in other spheres That heaven I'd find within thy bosom. *' Stay, my Willie — yet believe me, Stay, my Willie — yet believe me, For ah I thou know'st na every pang Wad wring my bosom, shouldst thou leave me.' " To thee, loved Nith, thy gladsome plains, Where late with careless thought I ranged, Thou;.'h prest with care, and sunk in woe, To tliee I bring a heart unchanged. I love thee, Nith, thy banks and braes. Though Memory there my bosom tear, For there he roved that broke my heart, Yet to that heart, ah, still how dear ! *• And now your banks and bonny braes But waken sad remembrance' smart; The very shades I held most dear Now strike fresh anguish to my heart : Deserted bower ! where are they now — Ah I where the garlands that I wove With faithful care, each morn to deck The altars of ungrateful love ? *' The flowers of spring, how gay they bloom'd, When last with him I waudcr'd here ! The flowers of spring are pass'd away For wintry horrors, dark and drear. Ton 03ier'd .stream, by whose lone banks My songs have luH'd him oft to rest, Is now in icy fetters lock'd — Cold as my false love's frozen breast " Hera this night if ye remain, — I '11 remain, quo' Findlay ; I dread ye '11 ken the gate again ;— Indeed will I, quo' Findlay. "What may pass within this bower, — Let it pass, quo' Findlay ; Ye maun conceal till your last hour ;- Indeed will I, quo' Findlay. THE CARDIN'OT. TcxK— "Salt-fish and Dumplings." I COFT^ a stane o' haslock^ woo, To mak a coat to Johnny o 't ; For Johnny is my only jo, I lo'e him best of ony yet. The cardin' o 't, the spinnin' o 't, The warpin' o 't, the winnin' o 't ; "When ilka ell cost me a groat, The tailor staw^ the linin' o 't. For though his locks be lyart gray. And though his brow be held aboon ; Yet I hae seen him on a day The pride of a' the parishen. THE PIPER. A PBAGMENT. There came a piper out o' Fife, I watna what they ca'd. him ; He play'd our cousin Kate a spring When fient a body bade him ; And aye the mair he hotch'd and blew, The mair that she forbade him. JENNY M'CRAW. A FRAGMENT. Jenny M'Cbaw, she has ta'en to the heather, Say, was it the Covenant carried her thither ; Jenny M'Craw to the mountains is gane. Their leagues and their covenants a' she has ta'en ; My head and my heart now, quo' she, are at rest. And as for the lave, let the deil do his best. THE LAST BRAW BRIDAL. A FRAGMENT. TriE last braw bridal that I was at, 'Twas on a Hallowmas day. And there was routh^ o' drink and fun, And mickle mirth and play. The bells they rang, and the carlines' sang. And the dames danced in the ha' ; The bride went to bed wi' the silly bridegroom. In the midst o' her kimmers*' a'. 1 Bought. 2 Ilause-lock— the wool from the throat— the finest of the flock. 8 Stole. * Plenty. » Old women. « Women. 172 SONGS. [1794. LINES ON A MEREY PLOUGHMAN. As I was a wandering ae morning in spring, I heard a merry ploughman sae sweetly to sing ; And as he was singin' thae words he did say, Jhere's nae life like the i)loughman's in the month o' sweet May. rhe laverock in the morning she '11 rise f rae her nest, And mount in the air wi' the dew on her breast ; And wi' the merry ploughman she'll whistle and sing; And at night she'll return to her nest back again. THE WINTER OF LIFE. Tune— "Gil Morice." But lately seen in gladsome green, The woods rejoiced the day; Through gentle showers the laughing flowers In double pride were gay : But now our joys are fled On winter blasts awa' ! Yet maiden May, in rich array, Again shall bring them a'. But my white pow,^ nae kindly thowe,^ Shall melt the snaws of age ; My trunk of eild,** but^ buss or bield,^ Sinks in Time's wintry rage. Oh ! age has weary days, And nights o' sleepless pain ! Thou golden time o' youthfu' prime. Why comest thou not agaia! I'LL AYE CA' IN BY YON TOWN. Tune — " I'll gae nae mair to yon town." I 'll aye ca' in by yon town, And by yon garden green, again ; I '11 aye ca' in by yon town. And see my bonny Jean again. There 's nane sail ken, there 's nane sail guess, What brings me back the gate again ; But she, my fairest, faithfu' lass. And stowlins^ we sail meet again. She '11 wander by the aiken tree. When trystin'-time draws near again ; And when her lovely form I see, Oh, haith, she 's doubly dear again ! I'll aye ca' in by yon town, And by yon garden green, again ; I '11 aye ca' in by yon town, And Bee my bonny Jean again. THE GOWDEN LOCKS OF ANNA« Tune — "Banks of Banna." **A. Dumfries maiden," says Cunningham, "with a light foot and a merry eye, was the heroine of this clever song. Burns thought so well of it himself that he recommended it to Thomson ; but the latter-^ aware, perhaps, of the free cliuracter of her of the 1 Head. * Without. 2 Thaw. » Shelter. s Aged trunk. « Secretly. gowden locks, excluded it, though pressed to publish it by the poet. Irritated, perliaps, at Thomson's re- fusal, he wrote the additional stanza, by way of post script, in defiance of liis colder-blooded critic." Yestreen I had a pint o' wine, A place Avhere body saw na ; Yestreen lay on this breast o' mine The gowden locks of Anna. The hungry Jew in wilderness, Rejoicing o'er his manna, Was naething to my hinny bliss Upon the lips of Anna. Ye monarchs tak the east and west, Frae Indus to Savannah ! Gie me within my straining grasp The melting form of Anna. There I '11 despise imperial charm::. An empi-ess or sultana, While dying raptures in her arms I give and take with Anna ! Awa', thou flaunting god o' day ! Awa', thou pale Diana ! nk star gae hide thy twinkling ray, When I 'm to meet my Anna, Come, in thy raven plumage, Night ! Sun, moon, and stars withdrawn a' ; And bring an angel pen to write My transports wi' my Anna ! POSTSCEIPT. The kirk and state may join, and tell To do such things I maunna : The kirk and state may gae to hell, And I '11 gae to my Anna. She is the sunshine o' my ee, — To live but^ her I canna; Had I on earth but wishes three. The first should be my Anna. Tune- had I THE WYTE. •" Had I the wyte ?— she bade me." Had I the wyte,^ had I the wyte, Had I the wyte ? — she bade me ; She watch'd me by the hie-gate side. And up the loan she shaw'd me ; And when I wadna venture in, A coward loon she ca'd me ; Had kirk and state been in the gate, I lighted when she bade me. Sae craftilie she took me ben,'* And bade me make nae clatter ; *'For our ramgunshoch, glum* guidman Is o'er ayont the water : " Whae'er shall say I Avanted grace. When I did kiss and dawt^ her, Let him be planted in my place, Syne say I was a fautor. Could I for shame, could I for shame. Could I for shame refused her ? And wadna manhood been to blame Had I unkindly used her? He claw'd lier wi' the ripplin-kame, And blae and bluidy bruised her ; When sic a husband was fi'ue hame. What wife but wad excused her? 1 Without. * Hugged, coarse. 2 Blame. 6 Fondle. »In. MT. 36.] SONGS. 173 I (lighted 1 aye her een sae blue. And baun'd the cruel randy ;^ And weel I wat her willing? mon' "NVas e'en like sugar-candy. At gloamin'-shot it was, I trow, I lighted on the Monday ; But I cam through the Tysday's dew. To wanton "Willie's brandy. CALEDONIA. TusE— "Caledonian Hunt's Delight." There was once a day — ^but old Time then was young— That bi-ave Caledonia, the chief of her line, From some of your northern deities sprung, (Who knows not that brave Caledonia's divine ?) From Tweed to the Orcades was her domain, To hunt, or to pasture, or do what she would : Her heavenly relations there fixed her reign, And pledged her their godheads to warrant it good. A lambkin in peace, but a lion in wm*. The pride of her kindred the heroine grew : Her grandsire, old Odin, triumphantly swore, ""Whoe'er shall provoke thee th' encounter shall rue ! " "With tUlage or pasture at times she would sport, To feed her fair flocks by her green rustling com; But chiefly the woods were her favourite resort, Her darling amusement the hounds and the horn. Long quiet she reign'd ; till thitherward steers A flight of bold eagles from Adria's strand : Repeated, successive, for many long years, They darken'd the air, and they plunder'd the land: Their pounces were murder, and terror their cry, They 'd ccnquer'd and ruin'd a world beside ; She took to her liills, and her arrows let fly — The daring invaders they fled or they died. The fell harpy-raven took wing from the north. The scourge of the seas, and the di-ead of the shore 1 The wild Scandinavian boar issued forth To wanton in carnage, and wallow in gore ; O'er countiies and kingdoms their fury prevail'd, No arts could appease them, no arms could repel ; But brave Caledonia in vain they assaU'd, As Largs well can witness, and Loncartie telL The Cameleon-savage disturb'd her repose. With tumult, disquiet, rebellion, and strife ; Provoked beyond bearing, at last she arose, And robb'd him at once of his hopes and his life: The Anglian lion, the terror of France, Oft prowling, ensanguined the Tweed's silver flood: But, taught by the bright Caledonian lance. He leajn'd to fear in his own native wood. Thus bold, independent, unconquer'd, and free. Her bright course of glory for ever shall run : For brave Caledonia immortal must be ; I 'U prove it from Euclid as clear as the stm : Wiped. 3 Scold. Eectangle-triangle, the figure we 11 choose. The upright is Chance, and old Time is the base ; But brave Caledonia 's the hypothenuse ; Then, ergo, she'll match them, and match them always. . THE FAREWELL. Tcira— "It \ras a' for our rightfu' king." It was a' for our rightfu' king We left fidr Scotland's strand ; It was a' for our rightfu' king We e'er saw Irish land, my dear. We e'er saw Irish land. Now a' is done that men can do. And a' is done in vain ; My love and native land farewell. For I maun cross the main, my dear. For I maun cross the main. He tum'd him right, and round about, Upon the Irish shore ; And gae his bridle-reins a shake, With adieu for evermore, my dear. With adieu for evermore. The sodger frae the wars returns. The sailor frae the main ; But I hae parted frae my love. Never to meet again, my dear. Never to meet again. "When day is gane, and night is come. And a' folk bound to sleep ; I think on him that 's far awa'. The lee-lang night, and weep, my dear, The lee-lang night, and weep. OH, STEER HER UP. TuKE — " Oh, steer her up and haud her gaun." Oh, steer^ her up and haud her gaun — Her mither 's at the mill, jo ; And gin she winna tak a man. E'en let her tak her will, jo : First shore 2 her wi' a kindly kiss. And ca' anither gill, jo ; And gin she tak the thing amiss. E'en let her flyte^ her fill, jo. Oh, steer her up, and be na blafce,* And gin she tak it ill, jo. Then lea'e the lassie tQl her fate. And time nae longer spUl, jo : Ne'er break your heart for ae rebiite,^ But think upon it still, jo ; That gin the lassie winna do 't, Ye '11 fin' anither will, jo. BONNY PEG-A-RAMSAY. TuKH— "Cauld is the e'enin' blast." Caum) is the e'enin' blast O' Boreas o'er the pool ; And dawin' it is dieary When birks are bare at Yule. 1 Stir. 2 Try. ' Scold. * Bashfal- « Rebuke. 174 SOA^GS. [1794. Oh, cauld blaws the e'enin' blast When bitter bites the frost, And in the mirk and dreary drift The hills and glens are lost. Ne'er sae murky blew the night That drifted o'er the hill, But bonny Peg-a-Eamsay Gat grist to her mill. HEE BALOU! Tuns—" The Highland Balou." Concerning this song, Cromek says— "The time when the moss-troopers and cattle-drivers on the Borders began their nightly depredations was the first Michael- mas moon. Cattle-stealing formerly was a mere foraging expedition ; and it has been remarked that many of the best families in the north can trace their descent from the daring sons of the mountains. The produce (by way of dowry to a laird's daughter) of a Michaelmas moon is proverbial ; and by the aid of Lochiel's lanthorn (the moon) these exploits were the most desirable things imaginable. In the ' Hee Balou ' we see one of those heroes in the cradle." Hee balou ! ^ my sweet wee Donald, Picture o' the great Clanronald ; Brawlie kens our wanton chief Wlia got my young Highland thief. Leeze me on thy bonny craigie, An thou live, thou 'It steal a naigie : Travel the country through and through, And bring hame a Carlisle cow. Through the Lawlands, o'er the Border, "Weel, my baby, may thou f urder : '■^ Herry^ the louns o' the laigh countrie. Syne to the Highlands, hame to me. HERE'S HIS HEALTH IN WATER. TuiTK— " The Job of Journeywork." Although my back be at the wa', And though he be the fautor ; Although my back be at the wa', Yet, here 's his health in water ! Oh ! wao gao by his wanton sides, Sae brawlie 'a he could flatter ; Till for his sake I 'm slighted sair, And dree* the kintra clatter. ' But though my back be at the wa', And though he be the fautor ; But though my back be at the wa', Yet, here 's his health in water ! AMANG THE TREES, WHERE HUMMING BEES. TuNB— " The king of France, he rode a race." Amang the trees, where humming bees At buds and flowers were hinging, O, Auld Caledon drew out her drone, And to her pipe was singing, O ; * A cradle-lullaby phrase used by nurses. * Prosper. * J'lunder. * Country talk. * Bear. 'Twas pibroch, sang, strathspey, or reels, She dirl'd them aff fu' clearly, O, When there cam a yell o' foreign scxueels, That dang her tapsalteerie,^ O. Their capon craws, and queer ha ha's, They made our lugs^ grow eerie,^ O ; The hungry bike^ did scrape and pike,^ Till we were wae and weary, O ; But a royal ghaist,^ wha ance was cased A prisoner aughteen year awa'. He fired a fiddler in the north That dang them tapsalteerie, O, CASSILLIS' BANKS. Tune— Unknown. Now bank and brae are claithcd in green. And scatter'd cowslips sweetly sjiring ; By Girvan's fairy-haunted stream The birdies flit on wanton wing. To Cassillis' banks, when e'ening fa's, There, wi' my Mary, let mefiee, There catch her ilka glance of love, The bonny blink o' Mary's ee ! The chield wha boasts o' warld's walth Is af ten laird o' meikle care ; But Mary, she is a' mine ain— Ah ! fortune canna gie me mair ! Then let me range by Cassillis' banks, Wi' her, the lassie dear to me, And catch her ilka glance o' love, The bonny blink o' Mary's ee ! BANNOCKS O' BARLEY. Tune—" The Killogie." Bannocks o' bear-meal. Bannocks o' barley ; Here 's to the Highlandman's Bannocks o' barley ! Wha in a brulzie,' Will first cry a parley ? Never the lads wi The bannocks o' barley ! Bannocks o' bear-meal. Bannocks o' barley ; Here 's to the Highlandman's Bannocks o' barley ! Wha, in his wae-days, Were loyal to Charlie ? Wha but the lads wi' The bannocks o' barley? SAE FAR AWA'. Tdne—" Dalkeith Maiden Bridge.* Oh, sad and heavy should I part. But for her sake sae far awa' ; Unknowing what my way may thwart, My native land, sae far awa'. ThoTi that of a' things Maker art. That form'd this fair sae far awa*. 1 Topsy-torvy. * Bund. ? Broil. - Ears. 6 Pick. » Weary. « Ghost. JET. 36.] SONGS, 175 Gie body strength, then I '11 ne'er start At this, my Avay, sae far awa'. How true is love to pure desert, So love to her sae far awa' : And nocht can heal my bosom's smart While, oh ! she is sae far awa'. Nane other love, nane other dart, I feel but hei's, sae far awa' ; But fairer never touch'd. a heart Than hers, the fair, sae far awa'. HER FLOWING LOOKS. TcsE— Unknown. This small piece is said to have been an extemporane- ous eflfusion on a youns lady of great beauty whom the poet met one day on the streets of Mauchline. It was found among his MSS., and first printed by Cromek. Her flowing locks, the raven's wing, Adown her neck and bosom hing ; How sweet unto that breast to cliiig, And round that neck entwine her ! Her lips are roses wat wi' dew. Oh, what a feast her bonny mou' ! Her cheeks a mair celestial hue, A crimson still diviner. THE HIGHLAND LADDIE. TuxB — "If thou 'It play me fair play." This sonp was composed on the basis of some Jacobite verses, entitled, " The Highland Lad and the Low- land I^sie.'' The bonniest lad that e'er I saw. Bonny laddie, Highland laddie, Yv'ore a plaid, and was fu' braw, Bonny Highland laddie. On his head a bonnet blue, Bonny laddie, Highland laddie ; His royal heart was firm and true, Bonny Highland laddie. Trumpets sound, and cannons roar, Bouny lassie, Lowland lassie ;. And a' the hills wi' echoes roar, Bonny Lowland lassie. Glory, honour, now invite. Bonny lassie. Lowland lassie. For freedom and my king to fight. Bonny Lowland lassie. The sun a backward course shall take, Bonny laddie. Highland laddie, Ere aught thy manly courage shake. Bonny Highland laddie. Go ! for yoursel procure renown. Bonny laddie. Highland laddie ; And for your lawful king his crown, Btmny Highland laddie. THE LASS THAT MADE THE BED TO ME. TusE— "The lass that made the bed to me." The poet, in his notes to the Mxneum, says regarding this song : — " ' The bonny lass that made the bed to me' w;is composed on an amour of Charles II., when skulking in the north, about Aberdeen, in the time of the usurpation. He formed «ne petite affaire with a daughter of the house of Port Letham, who was the lass that made the bed to him I " When Januar' ■wind was blawing cauld. As to the north I took my way. The mirksome^ night did me enfauld, I knew na where to lodge till day. By my good luck a maid I met, Just in the middle o' my care ; And kindly she did me invite To walk into a chamber fair. I how'd fu' low unto this maid. And thank'd her for her courtesie I boVd f u' low unto this maid. And bade her make a bed for me. She made the bed baith large and wide, Wi' twa white hands she spread it down, She put the cup to her rosy lips. And drank, " Young man, now sleep ye soun'. " She snatch'd the candle in her hand. And frae my chamber went wi' speed ; But I call'd her quickly back again, To lay some mair below my head. A cod she laid below my head. And served me wi' due respect ; And, to salute her wi' a kiss, I put my arms about her neck. "Hand off your hands, young man," she says, " And dinna sae uncivil be : Gif ye hae ony love for me, Oh, wrang na my vii'ginitie !" Her hair was like the links o' gowd. Her teeth were like the ivorie ; Her cheeks like lilies dijit in wine. The lass that made the bed to me. Her bosom was the driven snaw, Twa drifted heaps sae fair to see ; Her limbs the polish'd marble stane. The lass that made the bed to me. I kiss'd her owre and owre again, And aye she wist na what to say ; I laid her between me and the wa' — The lassie thought na lang till day. Upon the morrow, when we rose, I thank'd her for her courtesie ; But aye she blush'd, and aye she sigh'd. And said, "Alas! ye've ruin'd me." I clasp'd her waist, and kiss'd her syne. While the tear stood twinkling in her ee; I said, "My lassie, dinna cry. For ye aye shidl mak the bed to me." She took her mither's Holland sheets, And made them a' in sarks to me : Blithe and merry may she be. The lass that made the bed to me. The bonny lass made the bed to me, The braw lass made the bed to me ; I'll ne'er forget, till the day I die, The lass that made the bed to me ! 1 Darksomp. 176 SONGS. [1794. i THE LASS OF ECOLEFECHAN. Tc2?E — " Jacky Latin." Gat ye me, oh, gat ye me, Oh, gat ye me wi' naething ? Eock and reel, aud spmnin' wheel, A mickle quarter basin. Bye attonr,! my gutcher^ has A heigh house and a laigh ane, A' forbye my bonny sel, The toss of Ecclefechan. Oh, haud your tongue now, Luckie Laing, Oh, haud your tongue and jauner j"^ I held the gate till you I met, Syne I began to wander : I tint^ my whistle and my sang, I tint my peace and pleasure ; But your green graff ^ now, Luckie Laing, Wad airt^ me to my treasure. THE COOPEE O' CUDDIE. Tune— "Bob at the Bowster." The cooper o' Cuddie cam here awa' ; He ca'd the girrs'' out owre us a' — And our guidwife has gotten a ca' That anger'd the silly guidman, O. We '11 hide the cooper behind the door. Behind the door, behind the door, We '11 hide the cooper behind the door, And cover him under a mawn,^ O. He sought them out, he sought them in, Wi', Deil hae her I and, Deil hae him ! ^ But the body he was sae doited^ and blin'. He wistna where he was gaun, O. They cooper'd at e'en, they oooper'd at mom, Till our guidman has gotten the scorn; On ilka brow she 's planted a horn, And swears that there they shall stan', O. THE HIGHLAND WIDOW'S LAMENT. Oh ! I am come to the low countrie, Och-on, och-on, och-rie ! Without a penny in my purse To buy a meal to me. It wasna sae in the Highland hillfl, Och-on, och-on, och-rie ! Nae woman in the country wide Sae happy was as me. For then I had a score o' kye, Och-on, och-on, och-rie ! Feeding on yon hills so high. And giving milk to me. And there I had threescore o' yowes, Och-on, och-on, och-rie ! Skipping on yon bonny knowes, And casting woo' to me. I was the happiest of a' the clan, Sair, sair may I repine ; For Donald was the brawest man, And Donald he was mine. 1 Besides. «Lost. 7 Hoops. 2 Grandsire. ' Grave. 8 Basket. 3 Complaining. Direct. Stupi(L Till Charlie Stuart cam at last, Sae far to set us free ; My Donald's arm was wanted then For Scotland and for me. Their waefu* fate what need I tell? Right to the wrang did yield : My Donald and his country fell Upon Culloden field. Och-on, O Donald, oh ! Och-on, och-on, och-rie ! Nae woman in the warld wide Sae wretched now as me. THERE WAS A BONNY LASS. There was a bonny lass, And a bonny, bonny lass, And she lo'ed her bonny laddie dear; Till war's loud alarms Tore her laddie frae her arms, Wi' mony a sigh and a tear. Over sea, over shore, Where the cannons loudly roar. He still was a stranger to fear ; And nocht could him quaU, Or his bosom assail, But the bonny lass he lo'ed sae dear. OH, WAT YE WHAT MY MINNIE DID? Oh, wat ye what my minnie did, My minnie did, my minnie did. Oh, wat ye what my minnie did. On Tysday 'teen to me, jo ? She laid me in a saft bed, A saft bed, a saft bed, She laid me in a saft bed, And bade gtiid e'en to me, jo. And wat ye what the parson did. The parson did, the jjarson did, And wat ye what the parson did, A' for a penny fee, jo ? He loosed on me a lang man, A mickle man, a straiig man. He loosed on me a lang man. That might hae worried me, jo. And I was but a young thing, A young tiling, a young thing, And I was but a young thing, Wi' nane to pity me, jo. I wat the kirk was in the wyte,^ In the wyte, in the wyte. To pit a young thing in a fright, And loose a man on me, jo. OH, GUID ALE COMES. CHORUS. Oh, guid ale comes, and guid ale goes, Guid ale gars'-! ^e sell my hose, Sell my hose, aud pawn ftiy shoon, Guid tde keeps my heart aboon. 3 Makes. ^T. 36.] SONGS. ^77 I had sax owsen in a pleugh, They drew a' wed oneugh ; I sell'd Aem a* just aue by ane ; Guid ale keeps my heart aboon. Guid ale hauds me bare and busy. Gars me moop^ wi' the servant hizzie,' Stand i' tlie stool when I hae done ; Guid ale keeps my heart aboon. COMING THEOUGH THE BHAES O' CUPAR. Donald Brodie met a lass Coming o'er the braes o' Cupar ; Donald, wi' his Highland hand, Eifled ilka charm about her. CHORUS. Coming o'er the braes o' Cupar, Coming o'er the braes o' Cupar, HigUand Donald met a lass. And i-ow'd his Highland plaid about her. "Weel I wat she was a quean, "Wad made a body's mouth to water ; Our Mess John, wi' his auld gray pow,^ His haly lips wad licket at her. Off she started in a fright, And through the braes as she could bicker;^ But souple Donald quicker flew, And in his arms he lock'd her sicker. ^ GTHD E'EN TO YOU, KIMMEE. TcsB— «• We 're a' nod din." Guid e'en to you, kimmer,* And how do ye do? Hiccup, quo' kimmer, The better that I 'm fou. "VVe 're a' noddin, nid, nid, noddin. We 're a' noddin at our house at hame. Kate sits i' the neuk,^^ Suppin' hen broo ; ^ Deil tak Kate, An she be na noddin too ! How 's a' wi' you, kimmer. And how do ye fare ? A pint o' the l>est o 't. And twa pints mair. How 's a' wi' you, kimmer. And how do ye thrive ? How mony bairns hae ye? Quo' kimmer, I hae live. Are they a' Johnny's ? £h ! atweel, na : Twa o' them were gotten When Johnny was awa'. Cats like milk. And dog3 like broo. Lads like hisses weel. And lasses lads too. We 're a' noddin, nid, nid, noddin. We 're a' noddin at our house at hame. » Romp. *Run. ? Ck>mer. 2 Wench, ssurp. » Broth. 'Head. •Lass. MEG 0' THE MILL. TcxE—" Jackie Hume's Lament." This second version of « Mego' the Mill," (p. 158,) pre- pared by the poet for the Museum, was founded on an old ditty, which he altered and amended. Oh, ken ye what Meg o' the Mill has gotten, And ken ye what Meg o' tlie Mill has gotten? A braw new naig^ wi' the tail o' a rottan. And that 's what Meg o' the MUl has gotten. Oh, ken ye what Meg o' the Mill lo'es dearly? And ken ye what Meg o' the Mill lo'es deai'ly? A dram o' guid strunt'^ in a morning early, And that 's what Meg o' the LIill lo'es dearly. Oh, ken ye how Meg o' the Mill was married. And ken ye how Meg o' the Slill was married ? The priest he was oxter'd,- the clerk he was carried. And that 's how Meg o' the Mill was married. Oh, ken ye how Meg o' the Mill was bedded. And ken ye how Meg o' the Mill was bedded ? The groom gat sae fou, 2 he fell twa-fauld beside it, And that 's how Meg o' the Mill was bedded. YOUNG JAMIE, PRIDE OF A' THE PLAIN. Tune— "The Carlin 0' the Glen." Young- Jamie, pride of a' the plain, Sae gallant and sae gay a swain ; Through a' our lasses he did rove. And reign'd resistless king of love : But now, wi' sighs and starting tears, He sti-ays among the woods and briers ; Or in the glens and rocky caves, TTia sad complaining dowie^ raves : "I wha sae late did range and rove. And changed with every moon my love, I little thought the time was near Repentance I should buy sae dear : The slighted maids my torments see. And laugh at a' the pangs I dree ;^ "While she, my cruel, scornfu' fair. Forbids me e'er to see her mair ! " COMING THEOUGH THE RYE. TujTE — "Coming through the rye." Coming through the rye, poor body, Coming through the rye. She draiglet** a' her petticoatie. Coming through the rye. O Jenny 's a' wat, poor body, Jenny 's seldom dry ; She di-aiglet a' her petticoatie, Coming through the rye. Gin'' a body meet a body Coming through the rye ; Gin a body kiss a body — Need a body cry ? 1 A riding-horse. * Sridly. « Soiled, bespattered. 2 Whisky. 3 Drunk. » Suffer. TIf. 178 SONGS. [1795 Gin a body meet a body- Coming througli the glen ; Gin a body kiss a body — Need the waiid ken? THE CAELES OF DYSAET. Tune— "Hey, ca' through." Up wi' the carles ^ o' Dysart And the lads o' Buckhaven, And the kimmers^ o' Largo, And the lasses o' Leveu. Hey, ca' through, ca'3 through, For we hae mickle ado ; Hey, ca' through, ca' through, For we hae mickle ado. "We hae tales to tell. And we hae sangs to sing; "We hae pennies to spend, And we hae pints to bring. "We '11 live a' our days. And them that come behin'. Let them do the like, And spend the gear they win. x IS THERE, FOR HONEST POVERTY. TuNK — " For a' that and a' that." Of the following song— one of the most striking and characteristic effusions of his Muse — he says, evi- dently in a strain of affected depreciation: — "A great critic on songs says that love and wine are the exclusive themes for song-writing. The follow- ing is on neither subject, and is consequently no nong ; but will be allowed, I think, to be two or three pretty good prose thoughts inverted into rhyme." Is there, for honest poverty, That hangs his head, and a' that ? The coward slave, we pass him by, We dare bo poor for a' that ! For a' that, and a' that. Our toils obscure, and a' that ; The rank is but the guinea-stamp. The man 's the gowd for a' that ! What though on hamely fare we dine. Wear hodden gray, and a' that ; Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine, A man 's a man for a' tl/at ! For a' that, and a' that. Their tinsel show, and a' that ; The honest Inan, though e'er sae poor, Is king o' men for a' that ! Ye see yon birkie,* ca'd a lord, Wha struts, and stares, and a' that ; Though hundreds worship at his word. He 's but a coof * for a' that : For a' that, and a' that. His riband, star, and a' that ; The man of independent mind, He looks and laughs at a' that ! 1 Men. »Puah. 3 "Women. « Fool. * Primarily, the word sSgnlfles a lively, mettlesome young fellow ; but here the poet's meaning would be better rendered by the wordsi— a proud, affected per- son. A king can mak a belted knight, A marquis, duke, and a' that ; But an honest man 's aboon his might, Guid faith he maunna^ fa' that ! For a' that, and a' that. Their dignities, and a' that. The pith o' sense, and pride o' worth. Are higher ranks than a' that. Then let us pray that come it may — As come it will for a' that — That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth, May bear the gree, and a' that ; For a' that, and a' that, It 's comin' yet for a' that, That man to man, the warld o'er, Shall brothers be for a' that ! O LASSIE, ART THOU SLEEPING YET? Tune—" Let me in this ae night." This beautiful lyric the poet composed on the model of an older one— the base metal of which, as with a magician's touch, he has transmuted into gold. O LASSIE, art thou sleeping yet, Or art thou waking, I would wit ? For love has bound me hand and foot, And I would fain be in, jo. Oh, let me in this ae night. This ae, ae, ae night. For pity's sake this ae night. Oh, rise and let me in, jo ! Tliou hear'st the winter wind and weet, Nae star blinks through the driving sleet : Tak pity on my weary feet. And shield me frae the rain, jo. The bitter blast that round me blaws. Unheeded howls, unheeded fa's : The cauldness o' thy heart 's the cause Of a' my grief and pain, jo. HER ANSWER. Oh, tell na me o' wind and rain. Upbraid na me wi' cauld disdain ! Gae back the gate ye cam again, I winna let ye in, jo. I tell you now tliis ae night, This ae, ae, sie night; And auce for a', this ae night, I winna let you in, jo. Tlie snellest^ blast, at mirkest hours. That round the pathless wanderer pours, Is nocht to what poor she endures That's trusted faithless man, jo. The sweetest flower that deck'd the mead. Now trodden like the vilest weed ; Let simple maid the lesson read, Tlie weud may be her ain, jo. The bird that charm'd his summer-day Is now the cruel fowler's prey ; Let witless, trusting woman say- How aft her fate 's the same, jo. I '* lie maunna fa' that"->'ae must not tiy that. s Sharpest. ^T. 37.] SOiVGS. 179 THE HERON ELECTION BALLADS. BALLAD L Although the three following ballads make no pretension to anything higher than mere electioneering squibs, (lashed off in the heat of political excitement to serve certain party purposes, and ouglit therefore to be judged only by the standard applied to all such ephe- meral pvoductions, they are yet in many respects highly characteristic, and worthy of preservation, if for nothing more than the rich vein of biting satire that pervades them. They were written by the poet in sup- port of his friend Mr Heron of Kerroughtree, wlio contested, in the Whig interest, the election to the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright in February 1795. The Tory, or Government candidate, was a Mr Gordon of Balmaghie, a gentleman of small means and little personal influence, but who was supported by the interest of his uncle, Mr Murray of Broughton, one of the largest landowners in the district, and also by that of the Earl of Galloway. Whom will you send to London town, To Parliament, and a' that ? Or wha in a' the country round The best deserves to fa' that ? For a' that, and a' that. Through Galloway and a* that ; Where is the laird or belted knight That best deserves to fa' that ? Wha sees Kerroughtree's open yett,* And wha is 't never saw that if Wha ever wi' Kerroughtree met, And has a doubt of a' that ? For a' that, and a' that, Here 's Heron yet for a' that I The independent patriot. The honest man, and a' that. Though wit and worth in either sex, St Mary's Isle can shaw that ; Wi' dukes and lords let Selkirk mix, And weel does Selkirk fa' that. For a' that, and a' that. Here 's Heron yet for a* that ! The independent commoner Shall be the man for a' that. But why should we to nobles jouk?^ And it 's against the law that ; For why, a lord may be a gouk^ Wi' ribbon, star, and a' that. For a' that, and a' that. Here 's Heron yet for a' that ! A lord may be a lousy loun Wi' ribbon, star, and a' that. A beardless boy comes o'er the hills Wi' uncle's purse and a' that ; But we '11 hae ane frae 'mang oursels, A man we ken, and a' that. For a' that, and a' that, Here's Heron yet for a' that ! For we 're not to be bought and sold Like naigs, and nowt,* and a' that. Then let us drink the Stewartry, Kerroughtree's laird, and a' that. Our representative to be. For weel ho 's worthy a' that. For a' that, and a' that. Hero 'a Heron yet for a' that ! A House of Commons such as he. They would be blest that saw that. J Gate. 8F00L «Bend. * Catae. BALLAD n. TaxE— " Fy, let us a' to the bridal." Ft, let us a' to Kirkcudbright, For there will be bickering there ; For Murray's light horse are to muster. And oh, how the heroes will swear ! And there will be Murray, ^ commander. And Gordon, 2 the battle to win ; Like brothers they '11 stand by each other, Sae knit in alliance and kin. And there will be black-nebbit Johnnie,^ The tongue o' the trump to them a' ; An he gets na hell for his haddiu' The deil gets na justice ava' ; And there will be Kempleton's birkie,* A boy na sae black at the bane. But, as for his fine nabob fortune. We '11 e'en let the subject alane. And there will be Wigton's new sheriff, * Dame Justice fu' brawlie has sped. She 's gotten the heart of a Bushby, But, Lord I what's become o' the head? And there will be Cardoness,^ Esquire, Sae mighty in Cardoness' eyes, A wight that will weather damnation, For the devil the prey will despise. And there wQl be Kenmure,^ sae generous I Whose honour is proof to the storm ; To save them from stark reprobation. He lent them his name to the firm. But we winna mention Redcastle,^ The body, e'en let him escape ! He 'd venture the gallows for siller. An 'twere na the cost o' the rape. And where is our king's lord -lieutenant, Sae famed for his gratefu' return ? The billie is getting his questions. To say in St Stei^hen's the morn. And there will be Douglases ^ doughty. New-christening towns far and near; Abjuring their democrat doings. By kissing the of a peer. And there will be lads o' the gospel, Muirhead,^*^ wha's as guid as he 's true ; And there will be Buittle's apostle, ^^ Wha's mair o' the black thjin the blue. And there will be folk frae St Mary's, A house o* great merit and note. 1 Murray of Broughton. ' Gordon of Balmaghie. 8 Mr John Bushby, a sharp-witted lawyer, for whom the poet had no little aversion. * William Bushby of Kempleton, brother of the above, who had made a fortune in India, but which was popularly thought to have originated in some question- able transactions connected with the ruinous affair of the Ayr Bank before he went abroad. 6 Mr Bushby Maitland, son of John, and recentlyap- pointed Sheriff of Wigtonshire. * David JIaxwell of Cardoness. 1 Mr Gordon of Kenmure. « Mr Lawrie of Redcastle. 9 Messrs Douglas of Carlinwark gave the name of Castle Douglas to a village which rose in their neigh- bourhood—now a populous town. 10 Rev. Mr Muirhead, minister of Urr. " Rev. George Maxwell, aiinister of Buittle. i8o SONGS. [1795. The deil ane but honours them highly, — The deil ane will gie them his vote ! And there will be wealthy young Richard,^ Dame Fortune should hing by the neck ; For prodigal, thriftless, bestowing, His merit had won him respect. And there will be rich brother nabobs, Though nabobs, yet men of the first,'-^ And there will be Collieston's^ whiskers, And Quintin,* o' lads not the warst. And there will be stamp-office Johnnie,^ Tak tent how ye purcliase a dram ; And there will be gay Cassencame, And there will be gleg Colonel Tarn ;*> And there will be trusty Kerroughtree,^ Whase honour was ever his law, If the virtues were pack'd in a parcel, His worth might be sample for a'. And strong and respectfu's his backing, The maist o' the lairds wi' him stand ; Nae gipsy-like nominal barons, Whase property 's paper, but lands. And can we forget the auld Major, 8 "NVha '11 ne'er be forgot in the Greys, Our flattery we '11 keep for some ither. Him only it 's justice to praise. And there will be maiden Kilkerran,^ And also Barskimming's guid knight,^" And there will be roaring Birtwhistle,^i Wha luckily roars in the right. And there, frae the Mddisdale border, "Will mingle the Maxwells in droves ; Teugh Johnnie,^^ stanch Geordie,^^ and Walie,i4 That griens for the fishes and loaves. And there will be Logan M'Dowall,^ Sculduddery and he will be there ; And also the wild Scot o' Galloway, Sodgering, gunpowder Blair. ^^ Then hey the chaste interest o' Broughton, And hey for the blessings 'twill bring ! It may send Balmaghie to the Commons, In Sodom 'twould make him a king ; And hey for the sanctified Murray, ^^ Our land wha wi' chapels has stored ; He founder'd his horse amang harlots, But gied the auld naig to the Lord. 1 Richard Oswald of Auchincruive. 2 The Messrs Hannay. » Mr Copland of CoUieston. * Quintin M'Adam of Craigengillan. 6 Mr John Syme, distributor of stamps, Dumfiries. « Colonel Goldic of Goldielea. 1 Mr Heron of Kerroughtroe, the Whig candidate. 8 Major Ileron, brother of the above. » Sir Adam Fergiison of Killcerran. u Sir William Miller of Barskimming, afterwards a judge, with the title of Lord Glenlee. " Mr Birtwliistle of Kircudbright. M Mr Maxwell of Terrauffhty. i» George Maxwell of Carruchan. 1* Mr Wellwood Maxwell, w Captain M'Dowall of Logan. !• Mr Blair of Dunsky, 1' Mr Murray of Broughton, who had abandoned bis wife, and eloped with a lady of rank. JOHN BUSHBY'S LAMENTATION. BALLAD in. Mr Heron having gained the election, after a hard and hotly-contested struggle, the poet raised a song of triumph over his discomfited foes, singling out for special castigation his crafty old opponent, John Bushby, factotum to the Earl of Galloway. 'TwAS in the seventeen hundred yfiar O' Christ, and ninety-five. That year I was the wae'est man O' ony man alive. In March, the three-and-twentieth day, The sun raise clear and bright ; But oh, I was a waef u' man Ere to-fa' o' the night. Yerl GaUoway lang did rule this land Wi' equal right and fame, And thereto was his kinsman join'd. The Murray's noble name ! Yerl Galloway lang did rule the land. Made me the judge o' strife ; But now Yerl Galloway's sceptre 's broke, And eke my hangman's knife. 'Twas by the banks o' bonny Dee, Beside Kirkcudbright towers. The Stewart and the Murray there Did muster a' their powers. The Murray, on the auld gray yaud,i Wi' winged spurs did ride. That auld gray yaud, yea, Nid'sdale rade. He staw^ upon Nidside. An there had been the yerl himsel, Oh, there had been nae play ; But Garlies was to London gane, And sae the kye might stray. And there was Balmaghie, I ween. In the front rank he wad shine ; But Balmaghie had better been Drinking Madeira wine. Frae the Glenkens came to otir aid A chief o' doughty deed ; In case that woi-th should wanted be, O' Kemnure we had need. And there, sae grave. Squire Cardoness Look'd on till a' was done ; Sae in the tower o' Cardoness, A howlet sits at noon. And there led I the Bushbjrs a* ; My gamesome Billy Will, And my son Maitland, wise as brave, My footsteps f ollow'd still. The Douglas and the Heron's name, We set nought to their score : The Douglas and the Heron's name Had felt our weight before. But Douglases o' weight had we, A pair o' trusty lairds, For building cot-houses sae famed. And christening kail-yaixls. And by out banners mnrch'd Muirhead, And Bnittlo wasna slack ; Whose haly iiriestliood nano can stain, For wha can dye the black ? Mar' — i — «Stol JET. 37.] SONGS. 181 THE DUMFRIES YOLUNTEEES. Ipse—" Push about the jorum." Burns havin" joined the Dumfries Volunteers when they were formed early in 1795, sijrnalised that patri- otic event by the composition of the following bal- lad, which afterwards became very popular throuprh- out the district. It was first given to the public through the columns of the Dumfries Journal, in May of the same year, and did more, says Cunning- ham, " to right the mind of the rustic part of the population than all the speeches of Pitt and Dun- das, or the chosen Five-and-Forty." Does haughty Gaul invasion threat? Then let the louns beware, sir ; There 's wooden walls upon our seas, And volunteers on shore, sir. The iS'ith shall rin to Corsincon, The Grijf el sink in Solway, Ere we permit a foreign foe On British ground to rally ! We '11 ne'er permit a foreign foe On British ground to rally. Oh, let us not, like snarling curs, In wrangling be divided ; Till, slap ! come in an unco loun, And wi' a rung^ decide it. Be Britain stiU to Britain true, Amang oursels imited ; For never but by British hands Maun British wrangs be righted ! For never, &c. The kettle o' the kirk and state. Perhaps a clout may fail in 't ; But deil a foreign tinkler loun Shall ever ca' a nail in *t. Our fathers' bluid the kettle bought. And wha wad dare to spoil it? By heavens ! the sacrilegious dog Shall fuel be to boil it ! By heavens, &c. The wretch that wad a tyrant own, And the wretch, his true-sworn brother, Wha would set the mob aboon the throne, May they be damn'd together ! Wha will not sing "God save the King" Shall hang as high 's the steeple ; But while we sing "God save the King," We '11 ne'er forget the People. But while we sing, &c. OH, WAT YE WHA'S IN YON TOWN? Tcss— "I'll aye ca' in by yon town." Miss Lucy Johnston, in celebration of whose beauty and accomplishments the poet wrote this song, was the daughter of Wynne Johnston, Esq., of Hilton. Having married Richard Alexander Oswald of Auch- incruive, in the county of Ayr, the poet first met her while residing with her husband in the neigh- bourhood of Dumfries, and in his character, and out of compliment to him. sought to do her honour. All her beauty and accomplishments, however, could not save her from an untimely and lamented death. Having gone to Lisbon in search of health, she died there of consumption a few years after her marriage. Now haply down yon gay green shaw She wanders by yon spreading tree : Eow blest ye flowers that round her blaw, Ye catch the glances o' her ee ! 1 Cudgel Oh, wat ye wha *s in yon town. Ye see the e'enin' sun upon? The fairest dame 's in yon town, That e'enin' sun is shining on. How blest ye birds that round her sing, And welcome in the blooming year ! And doubly welcome be the spring. The season to my Lucy dear. The sun blinks blithe on yon town. And on yon bonny braes of Ayr ; But my delight in yon town. And dearest bliss is Lucy fair. Without my love, not a' the charms O' Paradise coiild yield me joy ; But gie me Lucy in my arms. And welcome Lapland's dreary sky ! My cave wad be a lover's bower. Though raging winter rent the air ; And she a lovely little flower, That I wad tent and shelter there. Oh, sweet is she in yon town The sinking sun 's gane down upon ; A fairer than 's in yon town His setting beam ne'er shone upon. If angry fate is sworn my foe. And suffering I am doom'd to bear, I careless quit aught else below. But spare me — spare me, Lucy, dear ! For while life's dearest blood is warm Ae thought frae her shall ne'er depart. And she — as fairest is her form ! She has the truest, kindest heart ! Oh, wat ye wha's in yon town. Ye see the e'enin' sun upon ? The fairest dame 's in yon town That e'enin' sun is shining on. ADDRESS TO THE WOODLAEK. TuHK— ** Where '11 bonny Ann lie ;" or, "Loch-Eroch Side." Oh, stay, sweet warbling woodlark, stay. Nor quit for me the trembling spray ; A hapless lover courts thy lay. Thy soothing, fond complaining. Again, again that tender part, That I may catch thy melting art ; For surely that wad touch her heuii Wha kills me wi' disdaining. Say, was thy little mate unkind, And heard thee as the careless wind? Oh, nocht but love and sorrow join'd, Sic notes o' woe could wauken. Thou tells o' never-ending care, O' speechless grief and dark despair : For pity's sake, sweet bird, nae mair ! Or naiy poor heart is broken ! 1 82 so^'GS. [1795. 02^ CHLOKIS BEING ILL. TcTNE— "Aye wakin', 0." This and the four following pieces are four of the eleven lyrics for which we are indebted to the beauty and charms of Miss Jean Lorimer, as men- tioned at p. 166. Can I cease to care ? Can I cease to languish, While my darling fair Is on the couch of anguish ? Long, long the night. Heavy comes the morrow, While my soul's delight Is on her bed of sorrow. Every hope is fled. Every fear is terror ; Slumber even I dread. Every dream is horror. Hear me, Powers divine ! Oh, in pity hear me ! Take aught else of mine, But my Chloris spare me ! EOELORN, MY LOVE, NO COMFORT NEAE. TuNK— "Let me in this ae night " FoELORN, my love, no comfort near, Far, far from thee, I wander here ; Far, far from thee, the fate severe At which I most repine, love. Oh, wert thou, love, but near me ; But near, near, near me ; How kindly thoa wouldst cheer me. And mingle sighs with mine, love ! Around me scowls a wintry sky, That blasts each bud of hope and joy ; And shelter, shade, nor home have I, Save in those arms of thine, love. Cold, alter'd Friendship's cruel part, To poison Fortune's ruthless dart — Let me not break thy faithful heart. And say that fate is mme, love. But dreary though the moments fleet, Oh, let me think we yet shall meet ! That only ray of solace sweet Can on thy Chloris shine, love. FRAGMENT— CHLORIS. TusB— " Caledonian Hunt's Delight* Why, why tell thy lovef , Bliss he never must enjoy ? Why, why undeceive him, And give all his hopes the lie? Oh "why, while Fancy, raptured, slumbers, Chloris, Cliloris all the theme ; Why, why wouldst thou, cruel. Wake thy lover from his dream ? MARK YONDER P03IP. TcNB— "Deil tak the "Wars." Mark yonder pomp of costly fashion, Round the wealthy, titled bride : But when compared Avith real passion. Poor is all that princely pride. What are the showy treasures ? What are the noisy pleasures ? The gay gaudy glare of vanity and art : The polish'd jewel's blaze May draw the wondering gaze. And courtly grandeur bright The fancy may delight. But never, never can come near the heart. But did you see my dearest Chloris In simplicity's array, Lovely as yonder sweet opening flower is, Shrinking from the gaze of day ; Oh then, the heart alarming. And all resistless charming, In Love's delightful fetters she chains the will- ing soul ! Ambition would disown The world's imperial crown, Even Avarice wovdd deny His worshipp'd deity, And feel through every vein Love's raptm-es. roll. OH, BONNY WAS YON ROSY BRIER. Oh, bonny was yon rosy brier. That blooms sae far frae haunt o' man j And bonny she, and ah, how dear ! It shaded frae the e'enin' sun. Yon rosebuds in the morning dew, How pure amang the leaves sue green ; But purer was the lover's vow They witness'd in their shade yestreen. All in its rude and prickly bower. That crimson rose, how sweet mid fair! But love is far a sweeter flower Amid life's thorny path o' care. The pathless wild and wimpling burn, Wi' Chloris in my arms, be mine ; And I the world, nor wisli, nor scorn, Its joys and gi-iefs alike resign. CALEDONIA. TuNK— " Humours of Glen." " The heroine of this sonp," says Cunningham, "was Mrs Burns, who so charmed the poet by singing it with taste and feeling, that he declared it to be one of his luckiest lyrics." Theib groves o' sweet myrtle let foreign lands reckon, Whore bright-beaming summers exalt their Jicrfume ; earer to me yon lone glen o' green breckan,-'' Wi' the burn steaUng under the lang yellov broom ; 1 Fern. JET. 37.1 SONGS. 183 Fai" dearer to me are yon liumble broom bowers, Where the blue-bell and gowan lurk lowly unseen ; For there, lightly tripping among the wild flowers, A-listening the linnet, aft wanders my Jean. Though rich is the breeze in their gay sunny valleys, And cauld Caledonia's blast on the wave ; Their sweet-scented woodlands that skirt the proud palace What are they ? — The haunt o' the tyrant and slave! The slave's spicy forests, and gold-bubbling foun- tains, The brave Caledonian views wi' disdain ; He wanders as free as the winds of his moun- tains. Save Love's willing fetters — the chains o' his Jean. TWAS NA HER BONNY BLUE EE. Tpxk—" Laddie, lie near me." 'TwAS na her bonny blue ee was my ruin ; Fair though she be, that was ne'er my undoing : 'Twas the dear smile when naebody did mind us, Twas the bewitching, sweet, stown glance o' kindness. Sair do I fear that to hope is denied me, Sair do I fear that despair maun abide me ! But though fell Fortune should fate us to sever, Queen shall she be in my bosom for ever. Mary, I 'm thine vri' a passion sincerest, And thou hast plighted me love o' the dearest ! And thou'rt the angel that never can alter — Sooner the sua in his motion would falter. HOW CRUEL ARE THE PARENTS ! ALTERED FROM AN OLD ENGLISH SONG. TcsE— " John Anderson, my Jo." How cruel are the parents Who riches only prize. And to the wealthy booby Poor woman sacrifice ! Meanwhile the hapless daughter Haa but a choice of strife — To shun a tyrant father's hate, Become a wretched wife. The ravening hawk pursuing. The trembling dove thus flies, To shun impelling ruin A while her pinion tries ; Till of escape despairing. No shelter or retreat. She trusts the ruthless falconer. And drops beneath his feet ! LAST MAY A BRAW WOOER. TcNB— "The I/)thian Lassie." Last May a braw wooer cam down the lang glen, And sair wi' his love he did deave me ; I said there was naething I hated like men, The deuce gae wi 'm, to believe, believe me, The deuce gae wi 'm, to believe me ! He spak o' the darts in my bonny black een, And vow'd for my love he was dying ; I said he might die when he liked for Jean, The Lord forgie me for lying, for lying, The Lord forgie me for lying ! A weel-stocked mailen^ — himsel for the laird — And man-iage aff-hand, were his proffers : I never loot on that I kenn'd it, or cared, But thought I might hae waur offers, waur offers. But thought I might hae waur offers. But what wad ye think ? in a fortnight or less— The deil tak his taste to gae near her! He up the lang loan to my black cousin Bess, Guess ye how, the jad ! I co\ild bear her, could bear her. Guess ye how, the jad ! I could bear her. But a' the neist week, as I fretted wi' care, I gaed to the tryst o' Dalgamock, And wha but my fine fickle lover was there I I glower'd^ as I 'd seen a warlock, a warlock, I glower'd as I'd seen a warlock. But owre my left shouther I gae him a blink, Lest neebors might say I was saucy ; My wooer he caper'd as he 'd been in drink, And vow'd I was his dear lassie, dear lassie, And vow'd I was his dear lassie. I spier'd^ for my cousin fu' couthy and sweet. Gin she had recover'd her hearin', And how her new shoon fit her auld shachl't * feet, But, heavens ! how he fell a swearin', a swearin', But, heavens ! how he fell a swearin' ! He begg'd, for guidsake, I wad be his wife, Or else I wad kill him wi' sorrow ; Sae e'en to preserve the poor body his life, I think I maun wed him to-morrow, to-mor- row, I think I maun wed him to-morrow. THIS IS NO MY ALN- LASSIE. Tu>'K — " This is no my ain house." I SEE a form, I see a face. Ye weel may wi' the fairest place ; It wants to me the witching grace, The kind love that 's in her ee. Oh, this is no my ain lassie, Fair though the lassie be ; Oh, weel ken I my ain lassie. Kind love is in her ee. She 's bonny, blooming, straight, and tall, And lang has had my heart in thrall ; And aye it charms my very saul, The kind love that 's in her ee. A thief sae pawkie' is my Jean, To steal a blink, by a' unseen ; But gleg 6 as light are lovers' een, When kind love is in the ee. It may escape the courtly sparks, It may escape the learned clerks ; But weel the watching lover marks The kind love that 's in her ee. 1 Farm. * Distorted. * Stared. 6 Sly. 3 Inquired. € Quick. V6/i SOJVGS. [1796. NOW SPEIN-G HAS CLAD THE GEOYE IN GEEEN. A SCOTTISH SONG. This song was wi'itten by the poet to soothe the wounded feelings of his friend, Mr Alexander Cun- ningham, writer to the signet, who, as stated at p. 160, had suffered, and to all appearance deeply, from the heartless conduct of a jilt. Now spring has clad the grove in green, And strew'd the lea wi' flowers : The furrow'd, waving com is seen Eejoice in fostering showers ; "While ilka thing in nature join Their sorrows to forego, Oh, why thus all alone are mine The weary steps of woe ? The trout within yon wimpling burn Glides swift, a silver dart, And, safe beneath the shady thorn, Defies the angler's ait : My life was ance that careless stream, That wanton trout was I ; But love, wi' unrelenting beam, Has scorch'd my fountains diy. The little floweret's peaceful lot, In yonder cliff that grows, "Which, save the linnet's flight, I wot, Nae ruder visit knows, "Was mine ; till love has o'er me past. And blighted a' my bloom. And now, beneath the withering blast, My youth and joy consume. The waken'd laverock, warbling, springs, And climbs the early sky, Winnowing blithe her dewy wings In morning's rosy eye ; As little reckt I sorrow's power. Until the flowery snare O' witching love, in luckless hour, Made me the thrall o' care. Oh, had my fate been Greenland snows, Or Afric's burning zone, "Wi' man and nature leagued my foes. So Peggy ne'er I 'd known ! The wretch whose doom is, "Hope nae mair," "What tongue his woes can tell ! "Within whase bosom, save despair, Nae kinder spirits dwell. THE DEAN OF FACULTY. A BALLAD. TuKB— ♦' The Dragon of Wantiey." In 1795, a season of great national sufTering had given rise to a spirit of discontent, which manifested itself in public meetings, mobbings, and other unmistakable indications of a period of fierce political excitement. Amongst the many gatlierinps of the time, one of the most important was held at Edinburgh, at which the Honourable Henry Eiskine, Dean of the Faculty of Advocates, presided. But the Tory members of tho Scottish bar, considering their chief, while thus en- gaged, as " agitating the giddy and ignorant multi- tude, and cherishing such humours and dispositions as directly tended to overturn the laws," were mor- tally offended, and determined at the next election to the deanship to oppose his return. Accordingly, on the 12th of January 179G, Mr Erskine, although universally popuhir with all parties, and ono of the ablest men at the Scottish bar, was rejected by a ma- jority of 123—33 only having voted for him— and Mr Dundas of Arniston, then toru Advocate, elected in his stead. On this subject, therefore, and out 01 feeliugs of regard for his old friend and patron, Erskine, the poet composed the following satirical ballad. The "pious Bob " of this piece was the son of the Lord President Dundas, who took no notice of a certain elegy which the poet had composed anray, "When Colin met me in the grove, And told me tender tales of love. Was ever swain so blithe as he, So kind, so faithful and so free? In spite of all my friends could say, Young Colin stole my heart away. FAIEEST OF THE FAIR. It is too barefaced to take Dr Percy's charm- ing song, and, by means of transposing a few English words into Scots, to offer to pass it for a Scots song. — I was not acquainted with the editor until the first volume was nearly finished, else, had I known in time, I would have pre- vented such an impudent absurdity. The following is a complete copy of Percy's beautiful lines :— Nancy, wilt thou go with me, Nor sigh to leave the flaunting town ? Can silent glens have charms for thee, The lowly cot and russet gown ? No longer drest in silken sheen, No longer deck'd with jewels rare. Say, canst thou quit each courtly scene, Where thou wert fairest of the fair ? Nancy, when thou 'rt far away, Wilt thou not cast a wish behind ? Say, canst thou face the parcliing nay, Nor shrink before the wintry wind ? Oh, can that soft and gentle mien Extremes of hardship learn to bear ; Nor, sad, regret each courtly scene, Where thou wert fairest of the fair ? O Nancy ! canst thou love so time, Through perils keen with me to go. Or when thy swain mishap shall rue, To share with him the pang of woe ? Say, should disease or pain befall, Wilt thou assume the nurse's care, Nor wistful those gay scenes recall, Where thou wert fairest of the fair? And when at last thy love shall die, Wilt thou receive his parting breath? Wilt thou repress each struggling sigh. And cheer with smiles the bed of death ? And wilt thou o'er his breathless cUiy Strew flowers, and drop the tender tear, Nor then regret those scenes so gay Where thou wert fairest of the fair ? " This," writes Bums, "is perhaps the most beauti- ful ballad in the English language." THE BLAITHRIE OT. The following is a set of this song, which was the earliest song I remember to have got by heart. When a child, an old woman sung it to me, and I picked it up, every word, at first hearing. Willy, weel I mind, I lent you my hand To sing you a song which you did me command ; But my memory 's so bad, I had almost forgot That you call'd it the gear and the blaithrie o 't. 1 '11 not sing about confusion, delusion, nor pride, I Ml sing about a laddie was for a virtuous bride ; For virtue is on ornament that time will never rot, And preferable to gear and the blaithrie o 't Though my lassie hae nae scarlets nor silks to put on. We envy not tlie greatest that sits upon the throne ; I wad rather hae my lassie, though she cam in her smock, Than a princess wi' the gear and the tlaithrie o 't. Though we hae nae horses nor menzie * at command ; We will toil on our foot, and we'll work wi' our hand'; And when wearied without rest, we '11 find it sweet in any spot, And we '11 value not tlie gear and the blaithrie o '^ If we hae ony babies, we '11 count tliem as lentT Hae we less, hae we mair, we will aye be content ; For they say they hae mair pleasure that wins but a groat Than the miser wi' his gear and the blaithrie o 't. I'll not meddle wi' the affaij-s o' the kirk or the queen; They're nae matters for a sang, let them sink, let them swim ; On your kirk I'll ne'er encroach, but I '11 hold it still remote, 5ae tak this for the gear and the blaithrie o't. MAY EVE, OR KATE OF ABERDEEN. "Kate of Aberdeen" is, I believe, the work of poor Cunningham the player ; of whom the following anecdote, though told before, deserves a recital. A fat dignitary of the church coming past Cunningham one Sunday, as the poor poet was busy plying a fisliing-rod in some stream near Durham, bis native county, his reverence reprimanded Cunningham very severely for such an occupation on such a day. The poor poet, with that inoffensive gentleness of manners which was his peculiar characteristic, replied, that he hoped God and his reverence would for- give his seeming profanity of that sacred day, "as he had no dinner to eat hut what lay at the bottom of that pool /" This, Mr Woods, the player, who knew Cunningham we'll, and es- teemed him much, assured me was true. The silver moon's enamour'd beam Steals softly through the night, To wanton with the winding stream, And kiss reflected light. To beds of state go, balmy Sleep, Where you 've so seldom been. Whilst I May's wakeful vigils keep With Kate of Aberdeen I The nymphs and swains expectant wait, In primrose chaplets gny, Till morn unbars her golden gate, And gives the promised May. The nymphs and swains shall all declare The promised May, when seen, Not half so fragrant, half so fair, As Kate of Aberdeen ! I '11 tune my pipe to playful notes, And rouse yon nodding grove ; Till new-waked bii-ds distend their throats, And hail the maid I love. At her approach, the lark mistakes, And quits the new-dress'd green : Fond bii-cl ! 'tis not the morning breaks ; 'Tis Kate of Aberdeen I Now blithesome o'er the dewy mead, Where elves disportive play ; The festal dance young sheplierds lead. Or Ring their love-tuned lay. Till May in morning robe draws nigh, And claims a Virgin Queen ; The nymphs and swains, exulting, cry, Here 's Kate of Aberdeen J « Menzie = Retinue, followera. REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONG. 197 TWEED-SIDE. In Ramsay's Tm-tahle Miscellanjf, he tells us that about thii-ty of the songs ia that publica- tion were the works of some young gentlemen of his acquaintance, which songs are marked with the letters D. C, &;c.--01d Mr Tytler of Wood- houselee, the wortliy and able defender of the beauteous Queen of Scots, told me that the songs marked C- in the Tea-table were the composi- tion of a Mr Crawford, of the house of Achnames, who was afterwards unfortvmately drowned coming from France. As Tytler was most inti- mately acquainted with Allan Kamsay, I think the anecdote may be depended on. Of conse- quence, the beautiful song of Tweed-side is JVIr Crawford's, and indeed does great honour to his poetical talents. He was a Robert Crawford ; the Mary he celebrates was a Mary Stewart, of the Castie-MUk family,* afterwards married to a Mr John Ritchie. I have seen a song, calling itself the original Tweed-side, and said to have been composed by a Lord Yester. It consisted of two stanzas, of which I still recollect the first — "When Maggy and I was acquaint, I carried my noddle fa' high ; Nae liutwliite on a' tlie green plain, Nor gowdspink, sae happy as I : But I saw her sae fair, and I lo'ed : I woo'd, but I cam nae great speed ; So now I maun wander abroad, And lay my banes far frae the Tweed, f The following is Crawford's song, which is still popu- lar: — "What beauties doth rioi-a disclose ! How sweet are her smiles upon Tweed '. Yet Mary's, still sweeter than those, Both nature and fancy exceed. Nor daisy, nor sweet blushing rose, Nor all the gay flowers of the field. Nor Tweed, gliding gently thi'ough those, Such beauty and pleasui'e do yield. The warblers are heard in the grove. The linnet, the lark, and the thrush. The blackbird and sweet cooing dove With music enchant every bush. Come, let us go forth to the mead. Let us see how the primroses spring. We'll lodge in some village on Tweed, And love while the feather'd folks sing. How does my love pass the long day ? Does Mary not tend a few sheep ? Do they never carelessly stray ? While happily she lies asleep ? * In a copy of Cromek's Reliques of Burns there is the following note on this passage in Sir Walter Scott's handwriting : — " Miss Mary Lillias Scott was the eldest daughter of John Scott of Harden, and well known in the fashionable world by the nick-name of Cadie Scott, I believe, because she went to a masked ball in such a disguise. I remember her, an old lady, distinguished for elegant manners and high spirit, though struggling under the disadvantages of a nari-ow income, as her fathei-'s estate, being entailed on heirs male, went to another branch of the Harden family, then called the High Chester family. I have heard a hundred times, from those who lived at the period, that Tweed-side, and the song called Mary Scott, tlie Flower of YaiTow, were both written upon this much-admired lady, and could add much proof on the subject, did space permit." t The following is the other stanza : — To Slaggy my love I did tell, Saut tears did my passion expre.ss ; Alas ! for I lo'ed her o'er well, And the women lo'e sic a man less. Her heart it was frozen and cauld. Her pride had my ruin decreed ; Therefore I will wander abroad. And lay my banes far frae the Tweed. Tweed's murmurs should lull her to rest, Kind nature indulging my bliss, To case the soft pains of my breast, I 'd steal an ambrosial kiss. 'TIs she does the virgin excel, No beauty with her may compare ; love's graces ai'ound her do dwell. She '3 fairest, where thousands are fair, Say, charmer, whera do thy flock stray ? Oh ! tell me at noon where ihey feed ; Is it on the sweet wending Tay, -, Or pleasanter banks of the 'Isveed ? THE POSIE. It appears evident to me that Oswald com- posed his " Roslin Castle " on the modulation of this air. * — In the second part of Oswald's, in the three first bars, he has either hit on a wonderful similarity to, or else he has entirely borrowed, the three first bars of the old air ; and the close of both tunes is almost exactly the same. The old verses to which it was sung, when I took down the notes from a country girl's voice, had no great merit. — The following is a specimen : — There was a pretty may.i and a milkin' she went, Wi' her red rosyxjhceks and her coal black hair ; And she has met a young man a comin' o'er the bent, With a double and adieu to thee, fair may. Oh, where are ye goln', my ain pretty may, Wi' thy red rosy cheeks and thy coal black hair ? TTnto the yowes a milkin', kind sir, she says, With a double and adieu to thee, fail- may. What if I gang alang wi' thee, my ain pretty may, Wi' thy red rosy cheeks, and thy coal black hair? Wad I be aught the warse 0' that, kind sir, she says. With a double and adieu to thee, fair may. MARY'S DREAM. The Mary here alluded to is generally sup- posed to be Miss Mary M'Ghie, daughter to the Laird of Airds, in Galloway. The poet was a Mr John Lowe,+ who likewise wrote another beautiful song, called Pompey's Ghost. — I have seen a poetic epistle from him in North Ame- rica, where he now is, or lately was, to a lady in Scotland. — By the strain of the verses, it ap- peared that they allude to some love affair. The moon had climb'd the highest hill Which rises o'er the source of Dee, And from the eastern summit shed Her silver. light on tower and tree, When Mary laid her down to sleep, Her thoughts on Sandy far at sea ; When, soft and low, a voice she heard, Saying, " Mary, weep no more for me I" 1 Jfaid. * This is a mistake— Oswald was not the composer of Roslin Castle. t He was a native of Kenmore in Galloway, and was employed as a tutor in the family of M'Ghie of Airds, about 1770, when the- incident recorded in the song occurred. Miss Mary M'Ghie, a daughter of his em- ployer's, having been betrothed to a young gentleman of the name of Miller, who was at this time unfortun- ately lost at sea, Lowe commemorated the melancholy event in the above beautiful song. He afterwards emigrated to the United Stales, where he made an unfortunate marriage, the grief occasioned by which drove him into dissipated habits that brought him to an early grave. 198 REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONG. She from her pillow gently raised Her head to ask who there might be ; She saw young Sandy shivering stand, With visage pale and hollow ee : Mary dear 1 cold is my clay, It lies beneath a stormy sea ; Far, far from thee I sleep in death, — So, Mary, weep no more for me ! Three stormy nights and stormy days We toss'd upon the raging main, And long we strove our bark to save, Eut all our striving was in vain. Even then, when horror chill'd my blood. My heart was fiU'd with love for thee ; The storm is past, and I at rest, So, Mary, weep no more for me ! maiden dear, thyself prepare, We soon shall meet upon that shore Where love is free from doubt and care, And thou and 1 shall part no more. Loud crow'd the cock, the shadow fled, No more of Sandy could she see ; But soft the passing spirit said, " Sweet Mary, weep no more for me !" THE MAID THAT TENDS THE GOATS. BY ME DUDGEON. This Dudgeon is a respectable farmers son in Berwickshire. Tip amang yon cliffy rocks, Sweetly rings the rising echo, To the maid that tends the goats, Lilting o'er her native notes. Hark, she sings, Young Sandie's kind, And he's promised aye to lo'e me, Here's a brooch, I ne'er shall tine, Till he's fairly married to me. Drive away, ye drone Time, And bring about our bridal day. Sandy herds a flock o' sheep, Aften does he blaw the whistle, In a strain sae vastly sweet, Lam'ies listening dare na bleat ; He's as fleet's the mountain roe, Hardy as the Highland heather, Wading through the winter snow, Keeping aye his flock together ; But wi' plaid and bare houghs He braves the bleakest northern blast. Brawly he can dance and sing, Canty glee or Highland cronach : Nane can ever match his fling. At A reel, or round a ring ; Wightly can lie wield a rung, In a brawl he's aye the baughtcr; A' his praise can ne'er be sung By the langest winded sangster. Sangs that sing o' Sandy, Seem short, though they were e'er sae lang. I TTISH MY LOVE WERE IN A MIRE. I NEVER heard more of the words of this old song thctn the title. The old song began with these characteristic words :— 1 wish my love were in a mire, That I might pu' her out again. The verses in the Museum are merely a translation from Sappho by Ambrose Phillips :— Blest as the immortal gods is he, The youth who fondly sits l>y thee, And hears and sees thee all the while, So softly speak and sweetly smile. 'Twas this bereaved my soul of rest, And raised such tumults in my breast. For while I gazed, in transport toss'd. My breath was gone, my voice was lost. My bosom glow'd, the subtle flame Ran quick through all my vital frame ; O'er my dim eyes a darkness hung. My ears wilh'hollow murmurs rung. In dewy damps my limbs were chill'd , My blood with gentle horrors thrill' d ; My feeble pulse forgot to play : I fainted— sunk— and died away. ALLAN WATER. This Allan Water, which the composer of the music has honoured with the name of the air, I have been told is Allan Water in Strathallan. WniT numbers shall the Muse repeat, What verse be found to praise my Annie ; On her ten thousand graces wait, Each swain admires and owns she's bonny. Since first she strode the happy plain. She set each youthful heart on fire ; Each nymph does to her swain complain. That Annie kindles new desire. This lovely, darling, dearest care. This new delight, this charming Annie, Like summer's dawn she's fresh and fair. When Flora's fragrant breezes fan ye. All day the am'rous youths convene, Joyous they sport and play before her ; All night, when she no more is seen. In joyful dreams they still adore her. Among the crowd Amyntor came. He look'd, he loved, he bow'd to Annie ; His rising sighs express his flame, His words were few, his wishes many. With smiles the lovely maid replied, Kind shepherd, why should I deceive ye ? Alas ! your love must be denied, This destined breast can ne'er relieve ye. Young Damon came with Cupid's art, His wiles, his smiles, his charms beguiling ; He stole away my virgin heart ; Cease, poor Amyntor ! cease bewailing.' Some brighter beauty you may find ; On yonder plain the" nymphs are many ; Then choose some heai-t that's unconflned, And leave to Damon his own Annie. THERE 'S NAE LUCK ABOUT THE HOUSE.* This is one of the most beautiful songs in the Scots, or any other, language. — The two lines, And will I see his face again ? And will I hear him speak ? as well as the two preceding oues, are un- equalled, almost by anything I ever heard or read; and the lines. The present moment is our aiu. The neist we never saw, are worthy of the j5rst poet. It is long posterior to Ramsay's days. About the year 1771, or 1772, ♦ William Julius Mickle, a native of Langholm, on the Borders, and well known as the translator of Camoens's immortal poem, " The Lusiad," was the author of this song. Ue was born iu 1734, and died In 1788. REMARKS GN SCOTTISH SONG. 199 it came first ou the streets as a ballad ; and I suppose the composition of the song was not much anterior to that period. There's nae luck about the house, There 's nae luck at a' ; Tliere 's little pleasure in the house, When our guLdinan 's awa'. And are you sure the news is trae ? And do you say he 's weel ? Is this a time to speak of wai-k ? Ye jades, lay by your wheel 1 Is this a time to spin a thread, When Colin 's at the door 1 Eeach me my cloak, I'll to the quay. And see him come ashore. And gie to me my bigonet, My bishop's satin gown ; ¥or I maun tell the bailie's 'wife That Coliu's in the town. My turken slippers maun gae on, My stockings pearly blue ; 'Tis a' to pleasure my guidman, For he 's baith leal and true. Eise, lass, and mak a clean fireside, Put on the muckle pot ; Q-ie little Kate her button gown, And Jock his Sunday coat ; And mak their shoon as black as slaes, Their hose as white as snaw ; 'Tis a' to pleasure my guidman. For he 's been lang awa'. There's twa fat hens upo' the coop, Been fed this month and mair ; Mak haste and thraw their necks about, That Colin weel may fare ; And mak the table neat and trim ; Let eveiy thing be braw ; For who kens how my Colin fared When he was far awa'. Sae true his heart, sae smooth his speech, His breath like caller air, Mis V fry foot Imth music in't, As he comes up the stair. And shall I see his face again f And shall I hear him speak ? 1 'm downright giddy wi' the thought, In truth I 'm like to greet. If Colin 's weel, and weel content, I hae nae mair to crave ; And gin I live to mak him sae, I 'm blest aboon the lave. And shall I see his face again ? 4c. TAERY WOO. This is a very pretty song ; hut I fancy that the following first half-stanza, as well as the tune itself, is much older than the rest of the words. Oh, tarry woo is ill to spin, Card it weel e'er ye begin ; Card it weel and draw it sma'. Tarry woo's the best of a'. GEAMACHEEE. The song of Gramachree was composed by Mr Poe, a counsellor at law in Dublin. This anec- dote I had from a gentleman who knew the lady, the "Molly," who is the subject of the song, and to whom Mr Poe sent the first manuscript of these most beautiful verses. I do not remember any single line that has more true pathos than How can she break the honest heart that wears her in ita core .' But as the song is Irish, it had nothing to do in this collection. As down on Banna's banks I stray' d, One evening in May, The little birds in blithest notes Made vocal every spray : They sang their little notes of love ; They sang them o'er and o'er, Ah I gramachree, mo challie nouge, Mo Molly Astore. Tlie daisy pied, and all the sweets The dawn of nature yields ; ^ The primrose pale, the violet blue, Lay scattar'd o'er the fields ; Such fragrance in the boiom lies Of her whom I adore. Ah I gramachree, mo challie nouge, Mo Molly Astore. I laid me down upon a bank. Bewailing my sad fate. That doom'd me thus the slave of lore, And cruel Molly's hate. How can she break the honest heart That wears her in its core I Ah ! gramachree, mo challie nouge. Mo Molly Astore. You said you loved me, Molly dear ; Ah ! why did I believe ? Yes, who could think such tender words Were meant but to deceive ? That love was all I ask'd on earth. Nay, Heaven could give no more. Ah ! gramachree, mo challie nouge, Mo Molly Astore. Oh ! had I all the flocks that graze. On yonder yellow hill ; Or low'd for me the num'rous herds. That yon green pastures fill ; "With her I love I 'd gladly share My kine and fleecy store. Ah ! gramachree, mo challie nouge. Mo Molly Astore. Two turtle doves above my head, Sat courting on a bough ; I envy'd them Uieir happiness. To see them bill and coo ; Such fondness once for me she show'd, But now, alas ! 'tis o'er ; Ah ! gramachree, mo challie nonge, Mo Molly Astore. Then fare thee well, my Molly dear. Thy loss I still shall moan ; Whilst life remains in Strephon's heart, 'Twill beat for thee alone. Though thou art false, may Heaven on thee Its choicest blessings pour 1 Ah ! gramachree, mo challie nouge, Mo Molly Astore. THE COLLIER'S BONNY LASSIE. The first half stanza is much older than the days of Eamsay. — The old words began thus : — Thk collier has a dochter, and, oh, she 'a wonder bonny ; A laird he was that sought her, rich baith in lands and money. She wad nae hae a laird, nor wad she be a lady ; But she wad hae a collier, the colour o' her daddie. The verses in the Museum are very pretty ; bnt Allan Ramsay's songs have always nature to recom mend them : — The Collier has a daughter, And oh, she 's wonder bonny ! A laird he was that sought her, Rich baith in land and money. 2CO REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONG. The tutors watclrd the motion Of this young honest lover, But love is like the ocean ; Wha can. its deeps discover I He had the heart to please ye, And was by a' respected, His airs sat round him easy, Genteel, but unaffected. The Collier's bonny lassie, Fair as the new-blown lily, Aye sweet and never saucy, Secured the heart of Willie. He loved beyond expression, The charms that were about her," And panted for possession. His life was dull without her. After mature resolving, Close to his breast he held her In saftest flames dissolving, He tenderly thus tell'd her — " My bonny Collier's daughter Let naething discompose ye, 'Tis no your scanty tocher Shall ever gar me lose ye : For I have gear in plenty, And love says 'tis my duty To ware what Heaven has lent mo, Upon your wit and beauty." 3VIY Am KIND DEAEIE, O. The old words of this song are omitted here, though much more beautiful thaa these in- serted; which were mostly composed by poor Fergusson, in one of his merry humours. The old words began thus : — I'll rowe thee o'er the lea-rig, My ain kind dearie, O, 1*11 rowe thee o'er the lea-rig. My ain kind dearie, 0. Although the night were ne'er sae wat, And I were ne'er sae weary, 0, I'll rowe thee o'er the lea-rig, My ain kind dearie, O. The following are Fergusson's verses : — Nab herds wi' kent and collie there Shall ever come to fear ye, 0, But laverocks whistling in the air, Shall woo, like me, their doai'ie, ! While others herd their lambs and ewes, And toil for world's gear, my jo. Upon the lee my pleasure growa, Wi' you, my kind dearie, O 1 Will ye gang o'er the lea-rig. My ain kind dearie, O ? And cuddle tlicre sae kindly wi' me, My kind dearie, 0? At thorny dike, and birkin tree, We '11 daff, and ne'er be weary, ! They '11 sing ill e'en frae you and me, Mine ain kind dearie, ! MABT SCOTT, THE FLOWER OF YARROW. Mr Robertson, in his statistical account of the parish of Selkirk, says, that Mary Scott, the Flower of Yarrow, was descended from the Dry- hope, and married into the Harden family. Her daughter was married to a predecessor of the E-esent Sir Francis Elliot of Stobbs,.and of the te Lord Heathfield. There is a circumstance in their contract of marriage that merits attention, and it strongly marks the predatory spirit of the times. The father-in-law agrees to keep his daughter for some time after the marriage ; for which the son-in-law binds himself to give him the profits of the first Michaelmas moon.* Allan Ramsay's version is as follows : — Happt's the love which meets return, When in soft flame souls equal burn ; But words are wanting to discover The torments of a hapless lover. Ye registers of heaven, relate. If looking o'er the roils of fate. Did you there see me mark'd to mariow, Mary Scott, the flower of Yarrow. Ah, no ! her form 's too heavenly fair. Her love the gods alone must share ; While mortals with despair explore her. And at a distance due adore her. O lovely maid ! my doubts beguile. Revive and bless me with a smile : Alas, if not, you'll soon debar a Sighing swain on the banks of Yarrow. Be hush'd, ye fears ! I '11 not despair, My Mary's tender as she 's fair ; Tlien I '11 go tell her all mine anguish, She is too good to let me languish ; With success crown'd, I '11 not envy The folks who dwell above the sky ; When Mary Scott 's become my marrow, We '11 make a paradise of Yarrow. DOWN THE BURN, DAVIE. I HAVE been informed that the tune of " Down the Burn, Davie," was the composition of David Maigh, keeper of the blood slough-hounds, be- longing to the Laird of Riddel, in Tweeddale. When trees did bud, and fields wore green, And broom bloom'd fair to see ; When Mary was complete fifteen. And love laugh'd in her ee ; Blithe Davie's blinks her heart did move, To speak her mind thus free, " Gang down the burn, Davie, love, And I shall follow thee." Now Davie did each lad surpass That dwalt on yon burn side, And Mary was the bonniest lass. Just meet to be a bride ; Her cheeks were rosy, red and white, Her een were bonny blue ; Her looks were like Aurora bright, Her lips like di-oppiug dew. As down the burn they took their way, What tender tales they said I His cheek to hers he aft did lay, And with her bosom play'd ; Till baith at length impatient grown To be mair fully blest, In yonder vale they lean'd them down- Love only saw the rest. Wliat pass'd I guess was harmless play, And naething sure unmeet ; For ganging hame, I heard them say. They liked a walk sae sweet ; And that they al'tcn should retiurn Sic pleasure to renew. Quoth JIary, " Love, I like the bum, And aye shall follow you." * The time when the moss-troopers and cattle- reavers on the Borders began of yore their nightly depredations. REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONG. 201 BUNK O'ER THE BUEX, SWEET BETTIE. The old words, all that I remember, are, — Blink over the burn, sweet Betty, It is a cauld winter night ; It rains, it hails, it thunders, The moon she gies nae light : It's a' for the sake o' sweet Betty That ever I tint my way ; Sweet, let me lie beyond thee Until it be break o' day. Oh, Betty will bake my bread. And Betty will brew my aie, And Betty will be my love. When I come over the dale ; Blink over the burn, sweet Betty, Blink over the burn to me, And while I hae life, dear lassie. My ain sweet Betty thou 's be." THE BLITHESOME BEIDAL.* I FIND the "Blithesome Bridal" in James "Watson's collection of Scots Poems printed at Edinburgh, in 1706. This collection, the pub- lisher says, is the first of its nature which has been published in our own native Scots dialect — it is now extremely scarce. The entire song is much too long for quotation ; but the following verses, describing the guests who were to be present and the dishes to be provided for them, will convey a very fair idea of its merit : — Come, fye, let us a' to the wedding. For there will be lilting thei-e, For Jock will be married to Maggie, The lass wi' the gowden hair. And there will be lang kail and castocks, And bannocks o' barley-meal : And there will be guid saut herring, To relish a cog o' guid ale. And there will be Sandy the sutor, And Will wi' the meikle mou, And there will be Tam the blutter, With Andrew the tinkler, I trow ; And there will be bow-legg'd Robie, With thumbless Katie's gudeman, And there will be blue-cheek'd Bobbie, And Laurie, the laird of the land. And there will be sow-libber Patie, And plookie-faced Wat o' the mill ; Capper-nosed Francis and Gibbie, That wons i' the howe o' the hiU ; And there will be Alister Sibbie, Wha in wi' black Bessie did mool, With snivelling Lillie and Tibbie, The lass that stands aft on the stool. And there will be fadges and brochan, Wi' routh o' gude gabbocks o' skate ; Powsowdie and drammock and crowdie, And caller nowt feet on a plate ; And there will be partans and buckies, And whitings and spoldings anew ; With singed sheep heads and a haggis, And scadlips to sup till ye spew. And there will be lapper'd milk kebbuck, And sowens, and carles, and laps ; Wi' swats and well-scraped paunches, And brandy in stoups and in caps ; * There appeai-s to be some dubiety about the authorship of this humorous ballad, it having been as- signed to Sir William Scott of Thirlestane and Fitincis Cempill of Beltrees. And there will be meal-kail and porridge, Wi' skirk to sup till ye rive, And roasts to roast on a brander, Of flewks that were taken alive. Scrapt haddocks, wilks, dulse, and tangle, And a mill o' guid sneeshin to prie. When weary wi' eating and drinking, We 'U rise up and dance till we die; Then fye let's a' to the bridal. For there will be lilting there, For Jock '11 be married to Maggie, The lass wi' the gowden hair. JOHN HAY'S BONNY LASSIE. John Hay's "Bonny I-assie" was the daughter of John Hay, Eail or Marquis of Tweeddale, and the late Countess Dowager of Kosburgh. She died at Broomlands, near Kelso, some time be- tween the years 1720 and 1740. She 's fresh as the spring, and sweet as Aurora, When birds mount and sing, bidding day a good- morrow ; The sward o' the mead, enamell'd wi' daisies, Look wither'd and dead when twinn'd of her graces. But if she appear where verdures invite her, The fountains run clear, and flowers smell the sweeter; 'Tis heaven to be by when her wit is a-flowing, Her smiles and bright een set my spirits a-glowing. THE BONNY BRUCKET LASSIE. The first two lines of this song are all of it that is old- The rest of the song, as well as those songs in the Museuin marked T. , are the works of an obscure, tippling, but extraordinary body of the name of Tytler, commonly known by the name of Balloon Tytler, from his having projected a balloon : a mortal, who, though he drudges about Edinburgh as a common printer, with leaky shoes, a sky-lighted hat, and knee- buckles as unlike as George-by-the-grace-of-God, and Solomon-the-son-of -David ; yet that same unknown drunken mortal is author and compiler of three-fourths of Elliot's pompous Encyclo- pedia Britannica, which he composed at half -a- guinea a week ! The bonny bracket lassie, She 's blue beneath the een ; She was the fairest lassie That danced on the green : A lad he lo'ed her dearly. She did his love return ; But he his vows has broken. And left her for to mourn. "My shape," says she, "was handsome, My face was fair and clean ; But now I 'm bonny bracket. And blue beneath the een : My eyes were bright and sparkling, Before that they turn'd blue ; But now they're dull with weepiflg, And a', my love, for you. " Oh, could I live in darkness. Or hide me in the sea, Since my love is unfaithful, And has foreaken me. No other love I suflfer'd Within my breast to dwell j In nought have I offended. But loving him too welL" Her lover heard her mourning. As by he chanced to pass ; And press'd unto his bosom The lovely bracket lass. 202 REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONG. "My dear," said he, "cease grieving j Since that your love is ti'ue, My bonny brucket lassie, I'll faithful prove to you." SAE MERRY AS WE TWA HAE BEEN. This song is beautiful. — The chorus in par- ticular is truly pathetic. I never could learn anything of its author. CHORtTS. Sae merry as we twa hae been, Sae merry as we twa hae been ; My heart it is like for to break, When I think on the days we hae seen. A lass that was laden with care Sat heavily under a thorn ; I listen'd a while for to hear. When thus she began for to mourn : Whene'er my dear shepherd was there, The birds did melodiously sing. And cold nipping winter did wear A face that resembled the spring. Our flocks feeding close by his side, He gently pressing my hand, I view'd the wide world in its pride, And laugh'd at the pomp of command " My dear," he would oft to me say, " What makes you hard-hearted to me ? Oh ! why do you thus turn away From him who is dying for thee ? " But now he is far from my sight. Perhaps a deceiver may prove, Which makes me lament day and night, That ever 1 granted my love. At eve, when the rest of the folk Were merrily seated to spin, I set myself under an oak. And heavily sigh'd for him. THE BANKS OF FORTH. This air is Oswald's. " Here's anither— it's no a Scots tune, but it passes for ane — Oswald made it himsel, I reckon. He has cheated mony a ane, but he canna cheat Wandering Willie." — Sia Waltee Scott. The following is the song as given in the Mustum, :— Yk sylvan powers that rule the plain. Where sweetly winding Fortha glides, Conduct me to those banks again. Since there my charming Maiy bides. Those banks that breathe their vernal sweets, Where every smiling beauty meets ; Where Jlary's charms adorn the plain, And cheer the heart of every swain. Oft in the thick embowering groves, Where birds their music chirp aloud, Alternately we sung our loves, And Fortha's fair meanders view'd. The meadows wore a general smile, Love was our banquet all the while ; The lovely prospect charm'd the eye, To where the ocean met the sky. Once on the grassy bank reclined Where Forth ran by in murmurs deep, It was my happy chance to find The charming Mary luU'd asleep ; My heart then leap'd with inward bliss, I softly Btoop'd, and stole a kiss ; She waked, she blush'd, and gently blamed, " Why, Damon I are you not ashamed ?" Ye sylvan powers, ye rural gods. To whom we swains our cares impart, Restore me to those blest abodes, And ease, oh ! ease my love-sick heart I Those happy days again restore, When Mary and I shall part no more ; When she shall lill these longing arms, And crown my bliss with all her charms. THE BUSH ABOON TRAQUAIR. This is another beautiful song of Mr Craw- ford's composition. In the neighboiirhood of Traquair, tradition still shows the old " Bush ; "■ which, when I saw it in the year 1787, was com- posed of eight or nine ragged birches. The Earl of Traquair has planted a clump of trees iiear by, which he calls " The new Bush." Hear me, ye nymphs, and every swain, I '11 tell how Peggy grieves me ; Though thus I languish and complain, Alas ! she ne'er believes me. My vows and sighs, like silent air, - Unheeded never move her ; The bonny bush aboon Traquair, Was where I first did love her. That day she smiled and made me glad. No maid seem'd ever kinder ; I thought mysel the luckiest lad. So sweetly there to find her. I tried to soothe my amorous flame In words that I thought tender ; If more there pass'd, I 'ra not to blame, I meant not to offend her. Yet now she scornful flees the plain. The fields we then frequented ; If e'er we meet, she shows disdain. She looks as ne'er acquainted. The bonny bush bloom'd fair in May, Its sweets I '11 aye remember ; But now her frowns make it decay ; It fades as in December. Ye rural powers, who hear my strains, Why thus should Peggy grieve nie ? Oh J make her partner in my pains ; Then let her smiles relieve me. If not, my love will turn despair. My passion no more tender ; I'll leave the bush aboon Traquair, To lonely wilds I '11 wander. CROMLBT'S LILT. The following interesting account of this plaintive dirge was communicated to Mr Riddel by Alexander Fraser Tytler, Esq., of Wood- houselee :— " In the latter end of the 16th century, the Chisholms were proprietors of the estate of Cromleck, (now possessed by the Drummonds.) The eldest son of that family was very much, attached to the daughter of Stirling of Ardoch, commonly known by the name of Fair Helen of Ardoch. "At that time the opportunities of meeting between the sexes were more rare, consequently more sought after than now ; and the Scottish ladies, far from priding themselves on exten- sive literature, were thought sufficiently book- learned if they could make out the Scriptures in their mother tongue. Writing was entirely out of the line of female education. At that period ihe most of our young men of family sought a fortune or found a grave in France. Cromleck, when he went abroad to the war, was obliged to REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONG. 203 leave the management of his correspondence with his mistress to a lay -brother of the monastery of Dunblane, in the immediate neighbourhood of Cromleck, and near Ai'doch. This man, unfor- tunately, was deeply sensible of Helen's charms. He artfully prepossessed her with stories to the disadvantage of Cromleck ; and, by misinterpret- ing, or keeping up the letters and messages in- trusted to his care, he entirely irritated both. All connexion was broken off bet"wixt them : Helen was inconsolable, and Cromleck has left behind him, in the ballad called ' Cromlet's LUt,' a proof of the elegance of his genius, as well as the steadiness of his love. " When the artful monk thought time had suflBciently softened Helen's sorrow, he proposed •himself as a lover : Helen was obdurate ; but at last, overcome by the persuasions of her brother, with whom she lived, and who, having a family of thirty-one children, was probably very well pleased to get her off his hands — she submitted rather than consented to the ceremony ; but there her compliance ended ; and, when forcibly put into bed, she started quite frantic from it, screaming out, that after three gentle raps on the wainscot, at the bed-head, she heard Crom- leck's voice, crying, ' O Helen, Helen, mind me !' Cromleck soon after coming home, the treachery of the confidant was discovered — her maiTiage annulled — and Helen became Lady Cromleck." iV.5.— Marg. Murray, mother to these thirty- one children, was daughter of Murray of Strewn, one of the seventeen sons of Tullybardine, and whose youngest son, commonly called the Tutor of Ardoch, died in the year 1715, aged 111 years. The following is a copy of this ballad as it appears in the Museum : — SmOT all thy vows, false maid, Are blown to air, And my poor heart betray'd To sad despair, Into some wilderness, ily grief I will express, And thy hard-heartedness, cruel fair ! Have I not graven our loves • On every tree In yonder spreading groves. Though false thou be ? "Was not a solemn oath Plighted betwixt us both — Thou thy faith, I my troth- Constant to be ? Some gloomy place I '11 find, Some doleful shade, "Where neither sun nor wind E'er entrance had : Intb that hollow cave. There will I sigh and rave, Because thou dost behave So faithlessly. Wild fruit shall be my meat, 1 '11 drink the spring, Cold earth shall be my seat ; For covering, I'll have the staiTy sky My head to canopy, Until my soul on high Shall spread its wing. I'll have no funeral fire, Nor tears for me ; Ko grave do I desire Nor obsequy. The courteous redbreast he "With leaves will cover me, And Eing my elegy With doleful voice. And when a ghost I am I '11 visit thee, thou deceitful dame. Whose cruelty Has kill'd the fondest l.eart That e'er felt Cupid's dart, And never can desert From loving thee. MY DEARIE, IF THOU DIE. Anotheb beautiful song of Crawford's. LovB never more shall give me pain, My fancy 's fix'd on thee. Nor ever maid my heart shall gain, My Peggy, if thou die. Thy beauty doth such pleasure give, ■Thy love 's so true to me, Without thee I can never live, My dearie, if thou die. If fate shall tear thee from my breast, How shall I lonely stray ? In dreary dreams the night I '11 waste, In sighs, the silent day. I ne'er can so much virtue find. Nor such perfection see ; Then I '11 renounce all woman-kind, My Peggy, after thee. No new-blown beauty fires my heart. With Cupid's raving rage ; But thine, which can such sweets impart, Must all the world engage. 'Twas this that like the morning sun Gave joy and life to me ; And when its destined day is done, With Peggy let me die. Ye powers that smile on virtuous love, And in such pleasure share ; You who its faithful flames approve. With pity view the fair : Restore my Peggy's wonted charms, Those charms so dear to me ! Oh ! never rob them from these arms ! I 'm lost if Peggy die. SHE ROSE AND LET ME IN. The old set of this song, which is still to be found in printed collections, is much prettier than this ; but somebody, I believe it was Ramsay,* took it into his head to clear it of some seeming indelicacies, and made it at once more chaste and more duU. The Museum version is as follows : — The night her silent sables wore And gloomy were the skies, Of glittering stars appear'd no more Than those in Nelly's eyes. When to her father's door I came, • Where I had often been, I begg'd my fair, my lovely dame, To rise and let me in. But she, with accents all divine, Did my fond suit reprove, And while she chid my rash design, She but inflamed my love. * " No, no; it was not Ramsay. The song still remains in his Tea-Table Miscdlany, and the Orpheus Cdle- donius, and even in Herd's Collection, in its primitive state of indelicacy. The verses in the Museum were retpuched by an able and masterly hand, who has thus presented us with a song at once chaste and elegant, without a single idea to crimson the cheek of modesty, or cause one pang to the innocent heart." — Stsshousb. 204 REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONG. Her beauty oft had pleased before, While her bright eyes did roll ; But virtue only had the power To charm my very soul. Oh, -who would cruelly deceive, Or from such beauty part ! I loved her so, I could not leave The charmer of my heart. My eager fondness I obey'd, Resolved she should be mine, Till Hymen to my arms coavey'd My treasure so divine. Now happy in my Nelly's love, Transporting is my joy, No greater blessing can I prove, So blest a man am I. Eor beauty may a while retain, The conquer'd fl:.ttering mart, But virtue only is the chain Holds, never to depart. WllJi YE GO TO THE EWE-BTTGHTS,! MARION? I AM not sure if this old and charming air be of "the South, as is commonly said, or of the North of Scotland. Tliere is a song apparently as ancient as "Ewe-bughts, Marion," which sings to the same time, and is evidently of the North— it begins thus :— The Lord c' Gordon had three dochters, Mary, Marget. and Jean, They wad na stay at bonny Castle Gordon, But awa' to Aberdeen. The old ballad begins thus : — "Will ye go to the ewe-bughts, jrarion, And wear in the sheep wi' me ? The sun shines sweet, my Marion, But nae half sae sweet as thee. Marion 's a bonny lass. And the blitlie blink's in her eo; And fain wad I marry Marion, G-in Marion wad marry me. LEWIE GORDON. This air is a proof how one of our Scotch tunes comes to be composed out of another. I have one of the earliest copies of the song, and it has prefixed — "Tune— 'TaiTy Woo'"— of which tune a different set has insensibly varied into a different air.— To a Scots critic, the pathos of the line, '« Though his back be at the wa'," must bo very striking. It needs not a Jacobito prejudice to be affected with this song. The supposed author of " Lewie Gordon " was a Mr Geddes, i^riest at Shenval in the Ainzie. Oh I send Lewie Gordon hame, And the lad I maunna name ; Though his back be at the wa'. Here's to him that's far awa' ! Oh hon 1 my IIi>, 'and man ! Oh, my bonny Iligi.and man ; Weel would I my true-love ken, Ajuang ten thousand Highland men. Ob, to see his tartan trews, Bomiet blue, and laigh-hoel'd shoes ; * Bheep-foldfli Philabeg aboon his knee ; That's tlie lad that I'll gang wi' ! Oh, hon 1 &c. The princely youth that I do mean Is fitted for to be king ; On his breast he wears a star, You'd take him for the god of var-. Oh, hon I &c. Oh, to see this princely on© Seated on a royal throne ! Disasters a' would disappear, Then begins the Jub'lee year I Oh, hon I &c. Lord Lewie Gordon, younger brother to the Duke of Gordon, commanded a detachment for the Young Che- valier in the afiair of 1745-6, and acquitted himself with great gallantry and judgment. He died in 1754. THE WAUKING O' THE FAULD. Theee are two stanzas still sung to this tune, which J take to be the origihal song whence Ramsay composed his beautiful song of that name in the Gentle Shej)herd. It begins *' Oh, will ye speak at our town. As ye come frae the fauld," &c. I regret that, as in many of our old songs, the delicacy of this old fragment is not equal to its wit and humour. The following is Eamsay's version :— Mt Peggie is a young thing, Just enter'd in her teens : Pair as the day, and sweet as Slay, Pair as the day, and always gay, My Peggie is a young thing. And I'm not very auld ; Yet well I like to meet her at The wanking o' the fauld. My Peggie speaks sae sweetly Whene'er we meet alane ; I wish nae mair to lay my care, I wish nae mair of a' that's rare. My Peggie speaks sae sweetly, To a' the lave I 'm cauld ; But she gars a' my spirits glow At waulking o' the fauld. My Peggie smiles sae kindly Whene'er I whisper love. That I look down on a' the town, That I look down upon a crown. My Peggie smiles sae kindly, It makes me blithe and bauld ; And naething gies me sic delight As waulking o' the fauld. My Peggie sings sae saftly When on my pipe I play ; By a' the rest it is confess'd. By a' the rest, that she sings best: My Peggy sings sae saftly, And in her Bangs are tauld. With innocence, the wale o' sense, At waulking o' the fauld. \ OH ONO CHRIO.* DrBlaoklock informed me that this song was composed on the infamous massacre at Glencoe. On I was not I a weary wight I Maid, wife, and widow in one night I * A vitiated pronunciation of " OcAoi'w ock rie"—tk Gaelic exclamation expressly© of deep swxow and affliction. REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONG. 205 When in my soft and yielding arms, Oh ! when most I thought him free from harms. Even at the dead time of the night They broke my bower, and slew my knight. With ae lock of his jet-black hair I'll tie mv heart for evermair ; Nae sly-tongued youth, nor flattering swain, Shall e'er untie this knot again ; Thine still, dear youth, that heart shall be, Nor pant for aught save heaven and thee. I'LL NEVER LEAVE THEE. This is another of Crawford's songs, but I do not think in liis happiest manner. What an absurdity to join such names as Adonis and Mary together ! One day I heard 3Iary say, How shall I leave thee ; Stay, dearest Adonis, stay, Why wilt thou grieve me ? CORN-RIGS ARE BONNY. All the old words that ever I could meet to this air were the following, which seem to have been an old chorus : — Oh, com-rigs and rye-rigs, Oh, corn-rigs are bonny ; And, where'er you meet a bonny lass, Pi'een up her cockernony. BIDE YE YET. There is a beautiful song to this tune, be- ginning, "Alas, my son, you little know," which is the composition of Miss Jenny Graham, of Dumfries. Alas ! my son, you little know The son-ows that from wedlock flow ; Farewell to every day of ease When you have got a wife ta please. Sae bide ye yet, and bide ye yet, Ye little ken what's to betide ye yet; The half o' that will gane ye yet, Gif a wayward wife obtain ye yet. Tour hopes are high, your wisdom small, Woe has not had you in its thrall ; The black cow on your foot ne'er trod, Which gars you sing along the road. Sae bide ye yet, &c. Sometimes the rock, sometimes the reel,. Or some piece of the spinning-wheel, She'll drive at you, my bonny chiel. Ami send you headlang to the deil. Sae bide ye yet, Osoui, Down they droop'd as in despair. On her slumber I encroaching, Panting came to steal a kiss ; Cupid smiled at me approaching, Seem'd to say, "There's nought amiss." With eager wishes I drew nigher, This fair maiden to embrace ; My breath grew quick, my pulse beat higher. Gazing on her lovely face. The nymph, awaking, quickly check'd me, Starting up, with angry tone ; "Thus," says she, "do you respect me? Leave me quick, and hence begone." Cupid for me interposing. To my love did bow full low ; She from him her hands unloosing, In contempt struck down his bow. Angry Cupid from her flying, Cried out, as he sought the skies, •' Haughty nymphs, their love denying, Cupid ever shall despise." As he spoke, old Care came wandering, With him stalk'd destructive Time ; Winter froze the streams meandering, Nipt the roses in their prime. Spectres then my love surrounded, At their back marcli'd chilling Death J WhiLst she, frighted and confounded. Felt their blasting, pois'nous breath : As her charms were swift decaying. And the furrows seized her cheek ; Forbear, ye fiends I I vainly crying, Waked in the attempt to speak. THE TEARS OF SCOTLAND. Dr Blacklock told mo that Smollett, who was at the bottom a great Jacobite, composed 208 REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONG. these beautiful and pathetic verses on the infa- mous depredations of the Duke of Cumberland after the battle of Culloden. MoTTRK, hapless Caledonia, mourn, Thy banish'd peace, thy laurels torn I Thy sons for valour long renown'd. Lie slaughter'd on their native ground : Thy hospitable roofs no more Invite the stranger to the door; In smoky ruins sunk they lie, The monuments of cruelty. The wretched owner sees, afar, His all become the pi-ey of war ; Bethinks him of his babes and wife, Then smites his breast, and curses life. Thy swains are famish'd on tlie rocks Wiiere on?e they fed their wanton Hocks : Thy ravish'd virgins shriek in vain ; Thy infants perish on the plain. What boots it then, in every clime. Through the wide-spreading waste of time, Thy martial glory, crown'd with praise. Still shone with undiminish'd blaze : Thy towering spirit now is broke, Thy neck is bended to the yoke : What foreign arms could never quell By civil rage and rancour fell. The rural pipe and meiry lay No more shall cheer the happy day : No social scenes of gay delight Beguile the dreary winter night : No strains, but those of sorrow, flow. And nought be heard but sounds of woe : While the pale phantoms of the slain Glide nightly o'er the silent plain. Oh ! baneful cause— oh ! fatal morn. Accursed to ages yet unborn ! The sons against their father stood ; Tlie parent shed his children's blood ! Yet, when the rage of battle ceased, The victor's soul was not appeased ; The naked and foi'lorn must feel Devouring flames and mui'dering steel. The pious mother, doom'd to death, Forsaken, wanders o'er the heath, The bleak wind whistles round her head, Her helpless orphans cry for bread; Bereft of shelter, food, and friend, She views the shades of night descend ; And, stretch'd beneath tlie inclement skies, Weeps o'er her tender babes, and dies. Whilst the warm blood bedews my veins, And unimpair'd remembrance reigns, Resentment of my country's fate Within my filial breast shall beat ; And, spite of her insulting foe, My sympathising verse shall flow : Mourn, hapless Caledonia, mourn Thy banish'd peace, thy laurels torn I AH! THE POOR SHEPHERD'S MOURNPUL PATE.* Tpsb— «« Galashiels." The old title, "Sour Plums o' Galashiels," probably was the beginning of a song to this air, which is now lost. The tune of Oalanhiels was composed about the beginning of the present century by the Laird of Galashiels' piper. An I the poor shepherd's mournful fate, When doom'd to love and languish, * William Hamilton of Bangour, an amiable and accompliahed gentleman, and one of our sweetest lyric poets, was the author of this son;. To bear the scornful fair one's hate. Nor dare disclose his anguish ! Yet eager looks and dying sighs My secret soul discover ; While rapture, trembling through mine eyes, Reveals how much I love her. The tender glance, the redd'ning cheek, O'erspread with rising blushes, A thousand various ways they speak, A thousand various wishes. For oh ! that form so heavenly fair, Those languid eyes, so sweetly smiling. That artless blush and modest air, So fatally beguiling ! The every look and every grace So charm whene'er I view thee, Till death o'ertake me in the chase, Still will my hopes pursue thee : Then when my tedious hours are past, Be this last blessing given, Low at thy feet to breathe my last, And die in sight of heaven. MILL, BULL, O. The original, or at least a song evidently prior to Ramsay's, is still extant. It runs thus : — As I cam down yon waterside, And by yon shellin-hill, 0, There I spied a bonny bonny lass, And a lass that I loved right weel, 0, CHOaus. The mill, mill, 0, and the kill, kill, 0, And the coggin o' Peggy's wheel, 0, The sack and the sieve, and a' she did leave. And danced the miller's reel, 0. WALY, WALY. In the west country I have heard a different edition of the second stanza. — Instead of the four lines, beginning with, *'When cockle- shells," &c., the other way ran thus :— Oh, wherefore need I busk my head, Or wherefore need I kame my hair. Sin my fause luve has me forsook. And says he '11 never luve me mair. Oh, waly, waly, up yon bank, And waly, waly, down yon brae. And waly by yon burn side, Where I and my love were wont to gae. Oh, waly waly, love is bonny A little while, when it is new ; But when it's auld it waxeth cauld, And fades away like morning dew. When cockle shells turn siller bells, And mussels grow on every tree, When frost and snaw shall warm us a', Then shall my love prove ti'ue to me- I leant my back unto an aik, I thought it was a trustie tree ; But first it bow'd, and syne it brake, And sae did my fause' love to me. Now Arther Seat shall be my bed, The sheets shall ne'er be filed by me: Saint Anton's well shall be my drink, Since my true love 's forsaken me. ^rart'mas wind, whan wilt thou blaw, And shake the preen leaves alT the tree I gentle death, wlian wilt tliou cum. And tak a life that wearies me ? 'TIs not the frost that freezes fell. Nor blawing snaw's incleniencie ; 'Tis not Bio cauld that makes me cry, But my love's heart grown cauld to me. REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONG. !09 ■Wli«n -we cam in by Glasgow town, We were a comely sight to see ; My love was clad in velvet black, And I mysel in cramasie. But had I wist before I kisst, That love had been sae ill to win, I had lockt my heart in a case of gowd, And pinn'd'it wi' a siller pin. Oh, oh ! if my young babe were bom, And set upon the nurse's knee, And I mysel were de^id and gone ; For a maid again I '11 never be. DUNCAN GEAY. Dr Blacklock informed me that he had often heard the tradition that this air was composed l>y a carman in Glasgow. DTJMBAETON DRTBIS. This is the last of the West Highland airs ; and from it, over the whole tract of country to the confines of Tweed-side, there is hardly a tnne or song that one can say has taken its origin from any place or transaction in that part of Scotland. — The oldest Ayrshire reel is Stew- arton Lasses, which was made by the father of the present Su* "Walter Montgomery Cunning- ham, alias Lord Lysle ; since which period there has indeed been local music in that country in great plenty. — Johnnie Faa is the only old song which I could ever trace as belonging to the extensive county of Ayr. Dumbarton drums beat bonny, 0, When they mind me of my dear Johnnie, 0, How happy am I When my soldier is by, While he kisses and blesses his Annie, 0, 'Tis a soldier alone can delight me, O, JFor his graceful looks do unite me, ; While guarded in his arms, I '11 fear no war's alarms, Neither danger nor death shall e'er fright me, 0. My love is a handsome laddie, O, (Jenteel, but ne'er foppish nor gaudy, 0, Though commissions are dear. Yet I '11 buy him one this year. For he shall serve no longer a caddie, O ; A soldier has honour ?,nd bravery, 0, Unacquainted with rogues and their knavery, 0, He minds no other thing, But the ladies or the King, For every other care is but slavery, 0. Then I '11 be the captain's lady, O ; Farewell all my friends and my daddy, O ; I'll wait no more at home, But I '11 follow with the drum. And whene'er that beats I '11 be ready, 0. Dumbarton drums sound bonny, O, They are sprightly like my dear Johnnie, ; How happy shall I be, When on my soldier's knee, And he kisses and blesses his Annie, 1 CAULD KAIL IN ABERDEEN. This song is by the Duke of Gordon.— The old verses are, Therk's cauUl kail in Aberdeen, And castocks in Strathbogle ; When ilka Lid maun hae his lass, Then fye gie me my cog^ie. There's Johnnie Smith has got a wife, That scrimps him o' his coggie, If she were mine, upon my life I wad douk her in a boggle. CHORUS. My coggie, sirs, my coggie, sirs, I cannot want my coggie : I wadna gie my three-girt cap For e'er a quean in Bogie. "The 'Cauld Kail' of his Grace of Gordon," says Cunningham, "has long been a favourite in the north, and deservedly so, for it is full of life and manners. It is almost needless to say that kail is colewort, and much used in broth ; that castocks are the stalks of a common cabbage ; and that coggie is a wooden dish for holding porridge: it is also a drinking vesseL" There 's cauld kail in Aberdeen, And castocks in Stra'bogie ; Gin I but hae a bonny lass. Ye 're welcome to your coggie ; And ye may sit up a' the night. And drink till it be braid day-light — Gie me a lass baith clean and tight. To dance the Reel o' Bogie. In cotillons the French excel ; John Bull loves country-dances ; The Spaniards dance fandangos well ; Mynheer an allemande prances : In foursome reels the Scots delight. At threesome they dance wondrous ligh^ But twasome ding a' out o' sight. Danced to the Reel o' Bogie. Come, lads, and view your partners well. Wale each a blithesome rogie ; I'll tak this lassie to mysel. She looks sae keen and vogie ! Now, piper lad, bang up the spring ; The country fashion is the thing. To prie their mous e'er we begin To dance the Reel o' Bogie. Now ilka lad has got a lass, Save yon auld doited fogie ; And ta'en a fling upo' the grass. As they do in Stra'bogie ; But a' the lasses look sae fain. We canna think ourscls to hain. For they maun hae their come-again ; To dance the Reel o' Bogie. Now a' the lads hae done their best, Like true men o' Stra'bogie ; We'll stop a while and tak a rest. And tipple out a coggie. Come now, my lads, and tak your glasa^ And tiy ilk other to surpass. In wishing: health to every lass To dance the Reel o' Bogie. FOR LACK OF GOLD. The country girls in Ayrshire, instead of the line — " She me forsook for a great duke," say, " For Athole's duke she me forsook ;* which I take to be the original reading. This song was written by the late Dr Anstin,* * "The doctor gave his woes an airing in song, and then married a very agreeable and beautiful lady, by whom he had a numerous family. Nor did Jean Dram- mond, of Megginch, break her heart when James, Duke of Athole, died : she dried her tears, and gave her hand to Lord Adam Gordon. The song is creditable to the author."— CusaiaoHAJt- 2IO REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONG. physician at Edinburgh. — He had courted a lady, •to whom he wa^ shortly to have been married ; but the Duke of Athole, having seen her, be- came so much in love with her, that he made proposals of marriage, which were accepted of, and she jilted the doctor. For lack of gold she 's left me, oh I And of all that's dear bereft me, oh 1 For Athole's duke, she me forsook, And to endless care has left me, oh I A star and garter have more art Than youth, a true and faithful heart. For empty titles we must part, And for glitt'ring show she's left me, oh ! No cruel fair shall ever move My injured heart again to love, Through distant climates I must rove, Since Jeanie she has left me, ohl Ye powers above, I to your care Resign my faithless lovely fair, Your choicest blessings be her share, Though she 's for ever left me, oh ! HERE'S A HEALTH TO MY TRUE LOVE, &c. This song is Dr Blacklock's. He told me ■^hat tradition gives the air to our James IV. of Scotland. To me what are riches encumber'd with care I To me what is pomp's insignificant glare J Ifo minion of fortune, no pageant of state, Shall ever induce me to envy his fate. Their personal graces let fops idolise, Whose life is but death in a splendid disguise ; But soon the pale tyrant his right shall resume. And all their false lustre be hid in the tomb. Let the meteor discovery attract the fond sage. In fruitless researches for life to engage ; Content with my portion, the rest I forego, Nor labour to gain disappointment and woe. Contemptibly fond of contemptible self, "While misers their wishes concentre in pelf; Let the godlike delight of imparting be mine, Enjoyment reflected is pleasure divine. Extensive dominion and absolute power. May tickle ambition, perhaps for an liour ; But power in possession soon loses its charms, "While conscience remonstrates, and terror alarms. With vigour, oh, teach me, kind Heaven, to sustain Those ills which in life to be suffer'd remain ; And when 'tis allow'd me the goal to descry, For my species I lived, for myself let me die. HEY TUTTI TAITL I HAVE met the tradition universally over Scotland, and particularly about Stirling, in the neighbourhood of the scene, that this air •was Robert Bruce's march at the Battle of Ban- nockbum. TAK YOUR AULD CLOAK ABOUT YE. A PATIT of this old song, according to the English set of it, is quoted in Shakespeare. Ik winter when the rain rain'd cauld, And frost and snaw on ilka hill, And Boreas, with his blasts sae bnnld, Was threat'nin; a' our kje to kill : Then Bell my wife, wha loves na strife, She said to me right hastily, Get up, goodman, save Cromie's life, And tak your auld cloak about ye. My Cromie is a useful cow, And she is come of a good kyne ; Aft has she wet the bairns' mou. And I am laith that she should tyne. Get up, goodman, it is fu' time, The sun shines in the lift sae hia ; Sloth never made a gracious end, Go tak your auld cloak about ye. My cloak was ance a good gray cloak, When it was fitting for my wear ; But now it's scantly worth a groat, For I have worn't this thirty year. Let's spend the gear that we have won. We little ken the day we'll die ; Then I'll be proud, since I have sworn To have a new cloak about me. In days when our King Robert rang. His trews they cost but half a crown ; He said they were a groat o'er dear, And call'd the tailor thief and loun. He was the king that wore a crown. And thou the man of laigh degree, 'Tis pride puts a' the country down, Sae tak thy auld cloak about thee. YE GODS, WAS STREPHON'S PICTURE BLEST?* Tune— << Fourteenth of October." The title of this air shows that it alludes to the famous King Crispian, the patron of the honourable corporation of shoemakers. St Cris- pian's day falls on the 14th of October, old style, as the old proverb tells : — " On the fourteenth of October, Was ne'er a sutor i sober." Yb gods, was Strephon's picture blest With the fair heaven of Chloe's breast? Move softer, thou fond flutt'ring heart. Oh, gently throb, too fierce thou art. Tell me, thou brightest of thy kind, For Strephon was the bliss design'd ? For Strephon's sake, dear charming maid. Didst thou prefer his wand'rlng shade ? And thou bless'd shade, that sweetly art Lodged so near my Chloe's heart. For me the tender hour improve. And softly tell how dear I love. Ungrateful thing .' it scorns to hear Its wretched master's ardent prayer, Ingrossing all that beauteous heaven That Chloe, lavish maid, has given. 1 cannot blame thee : were I lord Of all the wealth these breasts afford ; I'd be a miser too, nor give An alms to keep a god alive. Oh I smile not thus, my lovely fair. On these cold looks that lifeless are : Prize him whose bosom glows with fii'e With eager love and soft desire. 'Tis true thy charms, powerful maid I To life can bring the silent shade : Thou canst surpass the painter's art, And real warmtli and flames impart. But, oh I it ne'er can love like me, I over loved, and loved but thee : Then, charmer, grant my fond request ; Say, thou canst love, and make me blest. 5 Shoemaker. • This song was composed by Hamilton of Bangour on licarJng that n young lady of beauty and rank wore liis picture In her bodoiu. REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONG. 211 SINCE EOBB'D OF ALL THAT CHARMT) MY VIEW. The old name of this air is "The Blossom o' ttie Basijberry." The song is Dr Blacklock's. As the song is a long one, vre can only give the first and last verses : — Since robb'd of all that charm'd my view, Of all my soul e'er fancied fair, Ye smiling native scenes adieu, With each delightful object there ! Oh ! wlien my heart revolves the joys "Which in your sweet recess I knew, The last dread shock, which life destroys. Is heaven compared with losing you 1 Ah me ! had Heaven and she proved kind, Then full of age, and free from care, How blest hud I my life resign'd, "Where first I breathed this vital air : But since no flatt'ring hope remains. Let me my wretched lot pursue ; Adieu ! dear friends and native scenes 1 To all but grief and love, adieu ! YOUNG DAMON. Tdxs— " Highland Lamentation." This air is by Oswald.* Amidst a rosy bank of flowers Young Damcn mourn'd his forlorn fate. In sighs he spent his languid hours, And iM'eathed his woes in lonely state ; Gay joy no more shall ease his mind. No wanton sports can soothe his care, Since sweet Amanda proved unkind, ^ And left him full of black despair. His looks, that were as fresh as mom. Can now no longer smiles impart ; His pensive soul on sadness borne. Is rack'd and torn by Cupid's dart ; Turn, fair Amanda, cheer your swain, Unshroud him from this vale of woe ; Range every charm to soothe the pain That in his tortured breast doth grow. KIRK WAD LET ME BE. Tradition in the western parts of Scotland tells that this old song, of which there are still three stanzas extant, once saved a covenanting clergyman out of a scrape. It was a little prior to the Revolution — a period when being a Scots covenanter was being a felon — that one of their j clergy, who was at that very time hunted by the ! merciless soldiery, fell in by accident with a party of the military. The soldiers were not exactly acquainted with the person of the rever- , end gentleman of whom they were in search ; j but, from suspicious circumstances, they fancied j that they had got one of that cloth and oppro- brious persuasion among them in the person of this stranger. "Mass John," to extricate him- self, assumed a freedom of manners very unlike the gloomy strictness of his sect ; and, among other convivial exhibitions, sung (and, some tra- ditions say, composed on the spur of the occa- sion) "Kirk wad let me be," with such effect, that the soldiers swore he was a d d honest fellow, and that it was impossible he could be- * The words are by Fergusson. long to those hellish conventicles ; and so gave him his liberty. The first stanza of this song, a little altered, is a favourite kind of dramatic interlude acted at country weddings in the soutli-west parts of the kingdom. A young fellow is dressed up like an old beggar; a peruke, commonly made of carded tow, represents hoary locks; an old bonnet ; a ragged plaid, or surtout, bound with a straw rope for a girdle ; a pair of old shoes, with straw ropes twisted round his ankles, as is done by shepherds in snowy weather : his face they disguise as like wretched old age as they can : in this plight he is brought into the wed- ding house, frequently to the astonishment of strangers, who are not in the secret, and begina to sing — ' ' Oh, I am a silly auld man, My name it is auld Glenae," * &c. He is asked to drink, and by and bv t^ dance, which, after some uncouth excuses, he is prevailed on to do, the fiddler playing the tune, which here is commonly called "Auld Glenae;'* in short, he is all the time so plied -with liquor that he is understood to get intoxicated, and, with all the ridiculous gesticulations of an old drunken beggar, he dances and staggers until he falls on the floor ; yet still, in aU his riot, nay, in his rolling and tumbling on the floor, with, some or other drunken motion of his body, he beats time to the music, till at last he is sup- posed to be carried out dead drunk. There are many versions of this Nithsdale song ; onfr of the least objectionable is as foUows : — I AM a silly puir man, Gaun hirplin owre a tree ; For courting a lass in the dark The kirk came haunting me. If a' my rags were off, And nought but hale claes on, Oh, I could please a young lass . As well as a richer man. The parson he ca'd me a rogue, The session and a' thegither. The justice he cried, You dog. Your knavery I '11 consider : Sae I drapt down on my knee And thus did humbly pray, Oh, if ye '11 let me gae free, My hale confession ye'se hae. 'Twas late on tysday at e'en, "When the moon was on the grass ; Oh, just for charity's sake, I was kind to a beggar lass. She had begg'd down Annau s Lochmaben and Hightae ; But deil an awmous she got. Till she met wi' auld Glenae, &c. ide, JOHNNY FAA, OR THE GIPSY LADDIE. The people in Ayrshire begin this song — "The gipsies cam to my Lord Cassilis' yett." — They have a great many more stanzas in this song than I ever yet saw_ in any printed copy. The castle is still remaining at Maybolo wliero his lordshii) shut up his wayward spouse, and kept her for life. t Glenae, on the small river Ae, in Annandale ; the seat and designation of an ancient branch, and the present representative, of the gallant but unfortunate Dalzels of Carnwath.— This is the Author's note. 212 REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONG. The gipsies came to our lord's gate, And wow but tiiey sang sweetly ; They sang sae sweet, and sae complete, That down came the fair lady. When she came tripping down the stair, And a' her maids before her, As soon as they saw her weel-fard face, They coost the glamour o'er her. " Gar tak frae me this gay mantile, And bring to me a plaidie ; For if kith and kin an A a' had sworn, I'll follow the gipsy laddie. " Yestreen I lay in a weel-made bed, And my good lord beside me ; This night I'll lie in a tenant's barn, Whatever shall betide me." Oh ! come to your bed, says Johnny Faa, Oh ! come to your bed, my dearie ; For I vow and swear by the hilt of my sword That your lord shall nae mair come near ye. "I'll go to bed to my Johnny Faa, And I '11 go to bed to my dearie ; For I vow and swear by what pass'd yestreen That my lord shall nae mair come near me. " I'll mak a hap to my Johnny Faa, And I '11 mak a hap to my dearie ; And he's get a' the coat gaes round. And my lord shall nae mair come near me." And when our lord came hame at e'en, And speir'd for his fair lady, The tane she cried, and the other replied, She's awa' wi' the gipsy laddie. " Gae saddle to me the black, black steed, Gae saddle and make him ready ; Before that I either eat or sleep I'll gae seek my fair lady." " And we were fifteen well-made men, Although we were na bonny ; And we were a' put down for ane, A fair, young, wanton lady. TO DAUNTON ME. The two following old stanzas to this time tave some merit : — To daunton me, to daunton me, Oh, ken ye what it is that '11 daunton me ? — There's eighty-eight and eighty-nine. And a' that I hae borne sinsyne. There's cess and press, i and Presbytrie, I think it will do meikle for to daunton me. But to wanton me, to -wanton me. Oh, ken ye what it is that wad wanton me ? To see guid corn upon the rigs, And banishment amang tlie Whigs, And right restored wliere right sud be, I think it would do meikle for to wanton me. ABSENCE. A SONG in the manner of Shenstone. The Bong and air are hoth by Dr Blacklock. The following are two stanzas of this strain >— Yb harvests that wave in the breeze, As far as the view can extend ; Te mountains umbrageous with trees. Whose tops so majestic ascend ; Tour landscape what joy to survey. Were Melissa with me to admire ! Then the harvests would glitter how pay. How majestic the mountains aspire I > Boot and lot. Ye zephyrs that visit my fair, Ye sunbeams around her that play, Does her sympathy dwell on my care, Does she" number the hours of my stay? First perish ambition and wealth, First perish all else that is dear, E'er one sigh should escape her by stealth, E'er my absence should cost lier one tear. I HAD A HOESE, AND I HAD NAE MAIR. This story is founded on fact. A John Hunter, ancestor of a very respectable farming family, who live in a place in the parish, I think, of Galston, called Bar-mill, was the luckless hero that "had a horse and had nae mair." — For some little youthful follies he found it necessary to make a retreat to the West High- lands, where "he fee'd himself to a Highland laird," for that is the expression of all the oral editions of the song I ever heard. The present Mr Hunter, who told me the anecdote, is the great grandchild of our hero. I HAD a horse, and I had nae mair, I gat him frae my daddy ; My purse was light, and heart was sair, But my wit it was fu' ready. And sae I thought me on a time, Outwittens of my daddy, To fee mysel to a lawland laird, Wha had a bonny lady. I wrote a letter, and thus began,— "Madam, be not offended, I'm o'er the lugs in love wi' you, And care not though ye kend it : For I get little frae the laird, And far less frae my daddy, And I would blithely be the man Would strive to please my lady." She read my letter, and she leugh, " Ye needna been sae blate, man ; You might hae come to me yoursel, And tauld me o' your state, man : You might hae come to me yoursel, Outwittens o' ony body. And made John Gowkston of the laird, And kiss'd his bonny lady." Then she pat siller iu my purse, We drank wine iu a coggie ; She fee'd a man to rub my liorse, And wow but I was vogie 1 But I gat ne'er sae sair a fleg. Since I cam frae my daddy. The laird came, rap, rap, to the yett^ When I was wi' his lady. Then she pat me below a chair, And happ'd me wi' a plaidie ; But I was like to swarf wi' fear. And wish'd me wi' my daddy. The laird went out, he saw nae me, I went when I was ready ; I promised, but I ne'er gaed back To kiss my bonny lady. tJP AND WABN A', WILLIE. This edition of the song I got from Tom NIel, of facetious fame, in Edinburjjh. The expression " Up and warn a', Willie," alludes to the Cran- tara, or warning of a clan to arms. Not under- standing this, tho Lowlanders in the west and south Bay, *'Up and leaur them a," &c. REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONG, 213 AULD EOB MOKRIS. It is remark-woi-tby that the song of "Hooly and Fairly," in all the old editions of it, is called "The Drunken Wife o' Galloway," which localises it to that country. UITHBB. There's Auld Rob Morris that wins in yon glen, He's the king o' gude fallows, and wale o' auld men; Has fourscore o' black sheep, and fourscore too, And auld Rob Morris is the man ye maun loo. DOUGHTEB. Haud your tongue, mither, and let that abee, I'or his eild and my eild can never agree ; They'll never agree, and that will be seen, For "he is foui'score, and I'm but fifteen. Haud you tongue, doughter, and lay by your pride, For he 's be the bridegroom, and ye's be the bride ; He shall lie by your side, and kiss ye too, Auld Rob Morris is the man ye maun loo. DOUGHTER. Auld Rob Morris, I ken him fu' weel, His back sticks out like ony peat-creel ; He 's out-shinn'd, in-kneed, and ringle-eed too, Auld Rob Morris is the man I '11 ne'er loo. Though auld Rob Morris be an elderly man, Yet his auld brass it will buy a new pan ; Then, doughter, ye shouldna be sae ill to shoo, For auld Bob Morris is the man ye maun loo. DOUGHTEB. But auld Rob Morris I never will hae. His back is sae stiflF, and his beard is grown gray ; I had rather die than live wi' him a year, Sae mair of Rob Morris I never will hear. The " Drunken wife o' Galloway" is in another strain : the idea is original, and it cannot be denied that the author, whoever he was. has followed up the concep- tion with great spirit. A few verses will prove this. Oh ! what had I ado for to marry, My wife she drinks naething but sack and canary ; I to her friends complain'd right early, Oh ! gin my wife wad drink hooly and fairly. JTooly and fairly ; hooly and fairly, Oh ! gin my wife wad drink hooly and fairly I First she drank Crommie, and syne she drank Garle, Then she has drunken my bonny gray mearie, That carried me through the dub and the lairie, Oh ! gin my wife wad drink hooly and fairly ! The very gray mittens that gaed on my ban's, To her ain neibour wife she has laid them in pawns, "Wi' my bane-headed staff that I lo'ed sae dearly, Oh I gin my wife wad drink hooly and fairly ! I never was given to wrangling nor strife. Nor e'er did refuse her the comforts of life ; Ere it come to a war, I 'm aye for a parley, Oh ! gin my wife wad drink hooly and fairly ! A pint wi' her cummers I wad her allow ; But when she sits down she fills hereell fou' ; "And when she is fou' she's unco camstrarie, Oh 1 gin my wife wad drink hooly and fairly ! An when she comes hame she lays on the lads, And ca's a' the Lisses baith limmera and jads ; And I my ain sell an auld cuckold carlle, Oh ! gin my wife wad drink hooly and fairiy 1 NANCY'S GHOST. This son^ is by Dr Blacklock. An ! hapless man. thy perjured vow Was to thy Nancy's heart a grave ! The damps of death bedew'd my brow "Whilst thou the dying maid could save I Thus spake the vision, and withdrew ; From Sandy's cheeks the crimson fled; Guilt and Despair their arrows threw, And now behold the traitor dead ! Hemember, swains, my artless strains, To plighted faith be ever true ; And let no injured maid complain She finds false iiandy live in you ! TUNE YOUR FIDDLES, &c. This song was composed by the Rev. John Skinner, nonjuror clergyman at Linshart, near Peterhead, He is likewise author of "Tulloch- gorum," "Ewie wi' the Crooked Horn," "John. o' Badenyon," &;c., and, what is of still more consequence, he is one of the worthiest of man- kind. He is the author of an ecclesiastical history of Scotland. The air is by Mx Marshall, butler to the Duke of Gordon — the first com- poser of strathspeys of the age. I have been told by somebody, who had it of Marshall him- self, that he took the idea of his three most cele- brated pieces, " The Marquis of Huntley's Reel," " His Farewell," and " IVIiss Admu-al Gordon's Reel," from the old air, "The German Lairdie." TuNK your fiddles, tune them sweetly, Play the Marquis' Reel discreetly; Here we are a band completely Fitted to be jolly. Come, my boys, be blithe and gaucie, Every youngster choose his lassie, Dance wi' life, and be not saucy, Shy, nor melancholy. Lay aside your sour grimaces, Clouded brows, and drumlie faces ; Look about and see their graces, How they smile delighted. Now 's the season to be merry. Hang the thoughts of Charon's ferry ; Time enough to turn camstary, When we're old and doited. GIL MORICK* This plaintive ballad ought to have been called Child Morice, and not Gil Morice. In its present dress, it has gained immortal honour from Mr Home's taking from it the groundwork of his fine tragedy of "Douglas." But I am of opinion that the present ballad is a modem composition, — perbaps not much above the age of the middle of the last century ; at least I should be glad to see or hear of a copy of the present words prior to 1650. That it was taken from an old ballad, called "Child Maurice," now lost, I am inclined to believe ; but the pre- sent one may be classed with " Hardy knute," "Kenneth," " Duncan, the Laird of Woodhouse- lee," "Lord Livingston," " Bmnorie," "The Death of Monteith," and many other modern productions, which have been swallowed by many readers as ancient fragments of old poems. This beautiful plaintive tune was composed by Mr M'Gibbon, the selecter of a collection of Scots tunes. In addition to the observations on Gil Morice, * Mr PInkerton remarks that, in many parts of Scot- land, "Gill" at this day signifies "Cliild," as is the case in the Gaelic; thu^, "Gilchrist" means the '•Child of Christ." — "Child" seems also to have been tlie customary appellation of a young nobleman, v.hen about fifteen years of age. 214 REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONC I add that, of the songs which Captain Eiddel mentions, "Kenneth" and "Duncan" are juve- nile compositions of Mr M'Kenzie, "The Man of Feeling." — M'Kenzie's father showed them in MS. to Dr Blacklock as the productions of his son, from which the doctor rightly prognosti- cated that the young poet would make, in his more advanced years, a respectable figure in the world of letters. This I had from Blacklock, WHEN I UPON THY BOSOM LEAK* This song was the work of a very worthy face- tious old fellow, John Lapraik, late of Dalfram, near Muirkirk, which little property he was obliged to sell in conseqvience of some connexion as security for some persons concerned in that villanous bubble, the Aye Bank. He has often told me that he composed this song one day when his wife had been fretting over their mis- fortunes. When I upon thy bosom lean, And fondly clasp thee a' my ain, I jrlory in the sacred ties That made us ane wha ance -were twain : A mutual flame inspires us baith, The tender look, the melting kiss : Even years shall ne'er destroy our love, But only gie us change o' bliss. Hae I a wish 1 it's a' for thee ; I ken thy wish is me to please ; Our moments pass sae smooth away, That numbers on us look and gaze, Weel pleased they see our happy days. Nor Envy's sel find aught to blame ; And aye when weary cares arise, Thy bosom still shaU be my hame. I'll lay me there, and take my rest. And if that aught disturb my dear, I'll bid her laugh her cares away, And beg her not to drap a tear : Hae I a joy ? it's a' her ain ; United still her heart and mine ; They're like the woodbine round the tree, That's twined till death shall them disjoin. THE HIGHLAND CHARACTER; OK, GABB OF OLD GAUL. This tune was the composition of Gen. Reid, and called by him "The Highland, or 42d Regi- ment's March." The words are by Sir Hai-ry Erskine. In the garb of old Gaul, with the fire of old Rome, From the heath-covcr'd mountains of Scotia we come, Where the llomaiis eiideavour'd our country to gain ; iiut our ancestors fought, and they fought not in vain. No effeminate customs our sinews unbrace, No luxurious tables enervate our race, Our loud-sounding pipe bears the true martial strain, So do we the old Scottish valour retain. ♦ This is the song "that some kind husband had addrest to some sweet wife," alluded to in the "Epistle to J. Lapraik." There was ae sang amang the rest, Aboon them a' it pleased me best. That some kind husband had addrest To some sweet wife : It thrlU'd the heart-strings through the breast, A' to the life. We 're tall as the oak on the mount of the vale, As swift as the roe which the hound doth assail. As the full moon in autumn our shields do appear, Minerva would dread to encounter our spear. As a storm in the ocean when Boreas blows. So are we enraged when v,-e rush on our foes ; We sons of the mountains, tremendous as rocks. Dash the force of our foes with our thvuidering strokes. LEADER-HAUGHS AND YARROW. There is in several collections the old song of " Leader- Haughs and Yarrow." It seems to have been the work of one of our itinerant min- strels, as he calls himself, at the condition of his song, "Minstrel Burn." When Phcebus bright, the azure skies With golden rays enlight'neth. He makes all Nature's beauties rise. Herbs, trees, and flowers he quickeneth : Amongst all those he makes his choice, And with dehght goes thorow, With radiant beams and silver streams O'er Leader-Haughs and Yarrow. W^hen Aries the day and night In equal length divideth, Auld frosty Saturn takes his flight, Nae langer he abideth ; Then Flora Queen, with mantle gi-een, Casts aff her former sorrow, And vows to dwell with Ceres' sel. In Leader-Haughs and Yarrow. Pan playing on his aiten reed. And shepherds him attending. Do hero resort their flocks to feed, The hills and haughs commending. With cur and kent upon the bent, Sing to the sun, good-morrow. And swear nae fields mair pleasure yields Than Leader-Haughs and Yarrow. A house there stands on Leadei'side,* Surmounting my dcscriving. With rooms sae rare, and windows fair. Like Dedalus' contriving : Men passing by, do aften cry. In sooth it hath nae marrow ; It stands as sweet on Leaderside, As Newark does on Yarrow. A mile below wha lists to ride. They'll hear the mavis singing; Into St Leonard's banks she'll bide. Sweet birks her head o'erhinging ; The lintwhite loud and Progne proud, With tuneful throats and narrow, Into St Leonard's banks they sing As sweetly as in Yarrow. The lapwing lilteth o'er the lee. With nimble wing she sporteth ; But vows she '11 flee far frae the tree Where Philomel resorteth : By break of day the lark can say, I'll bid you a good-morrow, I'll streek my wing, and, mounting, sing O'er Leader-Haughs and I'arrow. Park, Wanton-waws, and Wooden-cleugb, The East and Western Mainses, The wood of Lauder's fair enough. The corn is good in Blainshes ; Where aits are fine, and sold by kind, That if ye search all thorow Mearns, Buchan, Mar, nane better are Than Leader-Haughs and Yarrow. In Burmill Bog, and Whiteslade Shaws, The fearful hare she haunteth ; * Thirlstane Castle, an ancient seat of the Earl of Lauderdale. REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONG. 215 Brig-haugh and Braidwoodshiel she knaws, And Chapel-wood frequenteth ; Yet when she irks, to Kaidsly birks She rins. and sighs for sorrow, That she should leave sweet Leader-Haughs, And cannot win to Yarrow. TThat sweeter music wad ye hear Than hounds and beagles crying? The started hare rins hard with fear, Upon her speed relying : But yet her strength it fails at length, Nae beilding can she burrow, In Sorrel's field, Cleckman, or Hag's, And sighs to be in Yarrow. For Rockwood, Ringwood, Spoty, Shag, With sight and scent pursue her, Till, ah ! her pith begins to flag, Nae cunning can rescue her : O'er dub and dyke, o'er sengh and syke, She '11 rin the fields all thorow. Till fail'd, she fa's in Leader-Haughs, And bids fare we el to Yarrosr. Sing Erslington and Cowdenknows, "Where Homes had ance commanding ; Ani Drygrange with the milk-white ewes, 'Twixt Tweed and Leader standing ; The birds that flee throw Reedpath trees, And Gledswood banks ilk morrow, May chant and sing — Sweet Leader-Haughs, And bonny howms of Yarrow. But Minstrel Bum cannot assuage His grief while life endureth, To see the changes of this age, That fleeting time procureth : Tor mony a place stands in hard case, "Where blithe fowk kend nae sorrow, "With Homes that dwelt on Leaderside, And Scots that dwelt on Yarrow. THIS IS NO ilY AIN HOUSE. The first half stanza is old, the rest is Eam- say's. The old words are — Oh, this is no my ain house, My ain house, my ain house ; This is no my ain house, I ken by the biggin 't. Bread and cheese are my door-cheeks. My door-cheeks, my door-cheeks ; Bread and cheese are my door-cheeks. And pancakes the riggin 't. This is no my ain wean, My ain wean, my ain wean ; This is no my ain wean, I ken by the greetie 't. I'll tak the curchie aff my head, Aff my head, aff my head ; I '11 tak the curchie aff my head, And row 't about the feetie 't. The tnne is an old Highland air, called "Shuan iruish willighan." LADDIE, LIE NEAR ME. This song is by Dr Blacklock. Hark, the loud tempest shakes the earth to its centre, How mad were the task on a journey to venture; How dismal's my prospect, of life I am weary, Oh, listen, my love, I beseech thee to hear me, Hear me, hear me, in tenderness hear me ; All the lang winter night, laddie, lie near me. Nights though protracted, though piercing the weather. Yet summer was endless when we were together ; Now since thy absence I feel most severely, Joy is extinguish'd and being is dreary, ' Dreary, dreary, painful and dreary ; All the long winter night, laddie, lie near me. THE GABERLUNZIE MAN.* The Gaberlunzie Man is supposed to com- memorate an intrigue of James V. Mr Callander of Craigforth published, some years ago, an edition of "Christ's Kirk on the Green," and the " Gaberlunzie Man," with notes critical and historical. James V. is said to have been fond of Gosford, in Aberlady parish ; and that it was suspected by his contemporaries that, in his fre- quent excursions to that part of the country, he had other purposes in view besides golfing and archery. Three favourite ladies — Sandi- lands, Weir, and Oliphant (one of them resided at Gosford, and the others in the neighbourhood) —were occasionally visited by their royal and gallant admirer, which gave rise to the followiDig satirical advice to his Majesty, from Sir David Lindsay, of the Mount, Lord Lyon.!" Sow not yere seed on Sandilands, Spend not yere strength in "Weir, And ride not on yere Oliphants, For gawing 0' yer gear. Thh pawky auld carle came o'er the lea, "Wi' many good e'ens and days to me, Saying. Guidwife, for your courtesie, Will ye lodge a silly poor man ? The night was cauld,'the carle was wat, And down ayont the ingle he sat ; My daughter's shoulders he 'gan to clap. And cadgily ranted and sang. Oh, wow ! quo' he, were I as free As first when I saw this countrie. How blithe and merry wad I be ! And I wad never think lang. He grew canty, and she grew fain ; But little did "her auld minny ken What thir slee twa togither were sayin', When wooing they were sae thrang. And oh, quo' he, an ye were as black As e'er the crown of my daddy's hat, 'Tis I wad lay thee on my back. And awa' wi' me thou should gang. And oh, quo' she, an I were as white As e'er the snaw lay on the dike, I 'd deed me braw, and lady like, And awa' with thee I'd gang. Between the twa was made a plot ; They raise awee before the cock, And wilily they shot the lock, And fast to the bent are they gane. Up in the morn the auld wife raise, And at her leisure put on her claise ; Syne to the servant's bed she gaes. To speer for the silly poor man. She gaed to the bed where the beggar lay, The strae was cauld, he was away ; She clapt her hand, cried, dulefu' day I For some of our gear will be gane. Some ran to coffer, and some to kist. But nought was stown that could be mist, She danced her lane, cried, Praise be blest I I have lodged a leal poor man. Since naething's awa', as we can learn. The kirn 's to kirn, and milk to earn, Gae but the house, lass, and wauken my bairn, * A wallet-man, or tinker, who appears to have been formerly a Jack-of-all-trades. t Sir David was Lion King-at-Arms xmder James V. 2l6 REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONG. And bid her come quickly ben. The servant gaed where the daughter lay, The sheets were cauld, she was away, And fast to her guidwife did say, She's aff with the Gaberlunzie man. Oh, fy ! gar ride, and fy ! gar rin, And haste ye find these traitors again; For she's be burnt, and he's be slain, The wearifu' Gaberlunzie man. Some rade upo' horse, some ran a-foot, The wife was wud, and out o' her wit, She could na gang, nor yet could she sit, But aye did curse and did ban. Meantime far hind out o'er the lea, Fu' snug in a glen where nane could see, The twa, with kindly sport and glee. Cut frae a new cheese a whang. The priving was good, it pleased them baith ; T6 lo'e for aye he gae her his aith : Quo' she, to leave thee I will be laith, My winsome Graberlunzle man. Oh, kenn'd my minnie I were wi' you, Dl-fardly wad she crook her mou. Sic a poor man she 'd never trow, After the Ckiberlunzie man. My dear, quo' he, ye 're yet o'er young, And hae nae learned the beggar's tongue, To follow me frae town to town, And carry the Gaberlunzie on. Wi' cauk and keel I '11 win your bread, And spindles and whorles for them wha need, Whilk is a gentle trade indeed, To carry the Gaberlunzie on. I'll bow my leg, and crook my knee, And draw a black clout o'er my ee ; A cripple, or blind, they will ca' me. While we shall be merry and sing. THE BLACK EAGLE. This song is by Dr Fordyce, whose merits as prose writer are well known. Haek ! yonder eagle lonely wails ; His faithful bosom grief assails ; Last night I heard him in my dream, When death and woe were all the theme. Like that poor bird I make my moan, I grieve for dearest Delia gone ; With him to gloomy rocks 1 fly, He mourns for love, and so do L 'Twas mighty love that tamed his breast, 'Tis tender grief that breaks his rest ; He droops his wings, he hangs his head, Since she he fondly loved was dead. With Delia's breath my joy expired, 'Twas Delia's smiles my fancy fired ; Like that poor bird, I pine, and prove Nought can supply the place of love. Dark as his feathers was the fate That robb'd him of his darling mate ; Dimm'd is the lustre of his eye, That wont to gaze the sun-bright sky. To him is now for ever lost The heart-felt bliss he once could boast; Thy sorrows, hapless bird, display An image of my soul's dismay. JOHNNIE COPE. This satirical song was composed to com- memorate General Cope's defeat at Prestonpans in 1745, when he marched against the Clans. The air was the tune of an old song, of wliich I have heard some verses, but now only remem- ber the title, which was, "Will ye CO to the coals in the mominu?" Cope sent a challenge frae Dunbra- — Charlie, meet me, an ye daur, And I '11 learn you the art of war. If you '11 meet me i' the mornins-. Hey, Johnnie Cope, are ye waking yet ? Or are your drums a-beating yet ? If ye were waking I would wait To gang to the coals i' the morning. When Charlie look'd the letter upon. He drew his sword the scabbard from, Come follow me, my merry, meiry men. To meet Johnnie Cope i' the morning. Now, Johnnie Cope, be as good 's your word. And tiy our fate wi' fire and sword, And dinna tak wing like a frighten'd bird, That 's chased frae its nest i' the morning. When Johnnie Cope he heard of this, He thought it wadna be amiss To hae a horse in readiness To flee awa' i' the morning. Py, Johnnie, now get up and rin, The Highland bagpipes make a din, It 's best to sleep in a hale skin, Tor 'twill be a bluidy mornLug. Ton's no the tuck o' England's drum, But it 's the war-pipes' deadly strum ; And poues the claymore and the gun — It will be a bluidy morning. When Johnnie Cope to Dunbar came, They speir'd at him, "Where's a' your men? "The deil confound me gin I ken, For I left them a' i' the morning." Now, Johnnie, trouth ye was na blate, To come wi' the news o' your ain defeat, And leave your men in sic a strait, Sae early i' the morning. Ah ! faith, quo' Johnnie, I got a fleg. With their claymores and philabeg ; If I face them again, deil break my leg, Sae I wish you a good morning. Hey, Johnnie Cope, are ye waking yet ? Or are your drums a-beating yet? If ye were waking I would wait To gang to the coals i' the morning. CEASE, CEASE, MY DEAR FEIEND, TO EXPLORE. The song is by Dr Blacklock; I believe, but I am not quite certain, that the air is his too. Ceask, cease, my dear friend to explore From whence and how piercing my smart ; Let the chaims of the nymph I adore Excuse and interpret my heart. Then how much I admire ye shall prove. When like me ye are taught to admire. And imagine how boundless my love. When you number the charms that inspire. Than sunshine more dear to my sight, To my life more essential than air. To my soul she is perfect delight. To my sense all that's pleasing and flair. The swains who her beauty behold, With transport applaud every charm, And swear tliut the breast must be cold Which a beam so intense cannot warm. Does my boldness oflfend my dear maid f Is my fondness loquacious and free ? Are my visits too frequently paid ? Or my converse unworthy of thee ? REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONG. 217 Yet when grief was too big for my breast, Aud labour'd iu sighs to complain, Its struggled I oft have supprest, And silence imposed on my pain. Ah. Strephon, how vain thy desire. Thy numbers and music how vain. While merit and fortune conspire The smiles of the nymph to obtain. Yet cease to upbraid the soft choice, Though it ne'er should determine for thee : If my heart in her joy may rejoice, Unhappy thou never canst be. AULB KOBIN GEAT. This air was formerly called " The Bridegroom Greets when the Sun Gangs Dowti. " The words are by Lady Ann Lindsay, of the Balcarras family. When the sheep are in the fauld, and a' the kje at And a' the weary warld to sleep are gane : The waes of my heart fa' in showers frae my ee, When my guidman sleeps sound by me. Young Jamie lo'ed me weel, and he sought me for his bride, But saving a crown he had naethLng else beside ; To make that crown a pound, my Jamie gaed to sea, And the crown and the pound were baith for me. He hadna been gane a year and a day, When my father brak his arm, and my Jamie at the sea. My mither she fell sick, and our cow was stown away ; And auld ILobin Gray came a courting to me. My father couldna work, and my mither couldna spin, I toil'd day and night, but their bread I couldna win ; Auld Rob maintain'd them baith, and wi' tears in his ee. Said, " Jenny, for their sakes, oh, many me." My heart it said nae, for I look'd for Jamie back. But the wind it blew high, and the ship it was a wrack ; The ship it was a wrack, why didna Jenny die, And why do I live to say, Wae 's me ? My father ai^ued sair, though my mither didna speak, She lookit in my face till my heai-t was like to break ; Sae they gied him my hand, though my heart was in the sea, And auld Bobin Crray is a guid man to me. I hadna been a -wife a week but only four, When, sitting sae mournfully at the door, I saw my Jamie's wraith, for I rouldna think it he, Till he eaid, " I 'm cOme back for to marry thee." Oh, sair did we greet, and mickle did we say, We took but ae kiss, and we tore ourselves away; I wish I were dead ! but I 'm no like to die, Aud why do I live to say, Wae 'e me ! I gang like a ghaist, and I carena to spin, I darena think on Jamie, for that wad be a Bin ; But I '11 do my best a guid wife to be, for auld Bobin Gray is kind unto me. DONALD AND FLORA.* This is one of those fine Gaelic tunes preserved from time immemorial in the Hebrides; they * " Tliis fine ballad," says Cunningham, " is the com- position of Hector Macneil. Esq., author of the cele- brated poem, * Will and Jean,' and other popular seem to be the groundwork of many of our finest Scots pastoral tunes. The words of this song were written to commemorate the unfortunate expedition of General Burgoyne in America, in 1777. When men-y hearts were gay. Careless of aught but play, Poor Flora slipt away, Sad'ning to Mora;*" Loose flow'd her coal black hair. Quick heaved her bosom bai'e, As thus to the troubled air She vented her sorrow : — " Loud howls the northern blast, Bleak is the dreary waste ; Haste thee, Donald, haste, Haste to thy Flora ! Twice twelve long months are o'er, Since, on a foreign shore, You promised to fight no more. But meet me in Mora. " 'Where now is Donald dear?' Maids cry with taunting sneer ; *Say is he still sincere To his loved Flora?' Parents upbraid my moan. Each heart is turned to stone ; Ah I Flora, thou 'rt now alone, Friendless in Mora 1 "Come, then, oh come away! Donald, no longer stay ;— Where can my rover stray From his loved Flora? Ah ! sure he ne'er can he False to his vows and me — Oh. Heaven ; is not yonder he Boimding o'er Mora ?" "Never, ah! wretched fair ! (Sigh'd the sad messenger,) Never shall Donald mair Meet his loved Flora ! Cold, cold beyond the main, Donald, thy love, lies slain : He sent me to Foothe thy pain. Weeping in Mora. "Well fought our gallant men, Headed by brave Burgoyne, Our heroes were thrice led on To British glory. But, ah ! though our foes did flee, Sad was the loss to thee, Wh.ile every fresh victory Drown'd us in sorrow. " ' Here, take this trusty blade, (Donald expiring said,) Give it to yon dear maid, Weeping in Mora. Tell her, O Allan ! tell, Donald thus bravely fell. And that in his last farewell He thought on his Flora.'" Mute stood the trembling fair, Speechless with wild despair, Then, striking her bosom bare, Sigh'd out, "Poor Flora !" O Donald ! oh, well a day ! Was all the fond heart could say ; At length the sound died away Feebly, in Mora. works. Hector Macneil was looked up to as Scotland's hope in song when Burns died ; his poems flew over the north like wildfire, and half a dozen editions were bought up in a year. The Donald of the song was Captain Stewart, who fell at the battle of Saratoga, and Flora was a young lady of Athole, to whom he was be- trothed." * A small valley in Athole, so named by the two lovers. 2l8 REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONG. THE CAPTIVE RIBBAND. This air is called "Eobie donna Goracli.*' Dear Myra, the captive ribband 's mine, 'Twas all my faithful love could gain ; And would you ask me to resign The sole reward that crowns my pain ? Go, bid the hero who has run Through fields of death to gather fame, Go, bid him lay his laurels down, And all his well-earn'd praise disclaim. The ribband shall its freedom lose, Lose all the bliss it had with you, And share the fate I would impose On thee, wert thou my captive too It shall upon my bosom live, Or clasp me in a close embrace ; And at its fortune if you grieve. Retrieve its doom and take its place. THE BRIDAL O'T. This song is the work of a Mr Alexander Ross, late schoolmaster at Lochlee, and author of a beautiful Scots poem called "The Fortxmate Shepherdess." They say that Jockey '11 speed well o't, They say that Jockey 'II speed weel o 't, Tor he grows braAver ilka day — I hope we'll hae a bridal o't : For yesternight, nae farder gane, The backhouse at the side wa' o 't, He there wi' Meg was mirden seen— I hope we '11 hae a bridal o 't. An we had but a bridal o 't, An we had but a bridal o 't, We 'd leave the rest unto guid luck, Although there should betide ill o 't ; Tor bridal days are merry times. And young folks like the comin' o't. And scribblers they bang up their rhymes, And pipers hae the bumming o't. The lasses like a bridal o 't, The lasses like a bridal o 't, Their braws maun be in rank and file, Although that they should guide ill o't : The bottom o' the kist is then Turn'd up unto the inmost o't, The end that held the kecks sae clean, Is now become the teemest o't. The bangster at the threshing o 't, The bangster at the threshing o 't, Afore it comes is fidgin fain. And ilka day's a clashing o't : He'll sell his jerkin for a groat, His Under for anither o't. And e'er he want to clear his shot, His sark'U pay the tither o't. The pipers and the f ddlers o 't, The pipers and the fiddlers o't, Can smell a bridal unco far, And like to be the meddlers o't; Fan * thick and threefold they convene, Ilk ane envies the tither o 't. And wishes nane but him alane May ever see anither o't. Tan they hae done wi' eating o't, Fan they hae done wi' eating o 't, For dancing they gae to the green. And aiblins to the beating o't : He dances best that dances fast. And loups at ilka reesingo't, And claps his hands frae hough to hough. And furls about the feezings o 't. TODLEK HAME. This is perhaps the first bottle song that ever was composed. The author's name is unknown. When I 've a saxpence under my thumb, Then I'll get credit in ilka town : But aye when I 'm poor they bid me gae by ; Oh, poverty parts good company. Todlen hame, todlen hame, Coudna my love come todlen hame ? Fair fa' the goodwife, and send her good sale, She gies us white bannocks to drink her ale, Syne if her tippeny chance to be sma', We '11 tak a good scour o 't, and ca 't awa'. Todlen hame, todlen hame. As round as a neep come todlen hame. My kimmer and I lay down to sleep. And twa pint-stoups at our bed-feet ; And aye when we waken'd, we drank them dry, What think ye of my wee kimmer and I ? Todlen but, and todlen ben, Sae round as my love comes todlen hame. Leeze me on liquor, my todlen dow, Ye 're aye sae good humour'd when weeting your mou; When sober sae sour, ye '11 fight wi' a flee, That 'tis a blithe sight to the bairns and me, When todlen hame, todlen hame, When round as a neep ye come todlen hame. Fan, when— the dialect of Angus. THE SHEPHERD'S PREFERENCE. This song is Dr Blacklock's.— I don't know how it came by the name ; but the oldest appel- lation of the air was, " AYhistle and I '11 come to you, my lad." It has little afiinity to the tune commonly known by that name. In May, when the daisies appear on the green, And flowers in the field and the forest are seen; Where lilies bloom'd bonny, and hawthorns up sprung, A pensive young shepherd oft whistled and sung. But neither the shades nor the sweets of the flowers. Nor the blackbirds that warbled in blossoming bowers, Could brighten his eye or his ear entertain. For love was his pleasure, and love was his pain. The shepherd thus sung, while his flocks all around Drew nearer and nearer, and sigh'd to the sound ; Around, as in chains, lay the beasts of the wood, With pity disarm'd and with music subdued. Young Jessy is fair as the spring's early flower. And Mary sings sweet as the bird in her bower; But Peggy is fairer and sweeter than they, With looks like the morning, with smiles like the day. JOHN O' BADENYON. This excellent song is the composition of my worthy friend, old Skinner, at Linshart. When first I cam to be a man Of twenty years or so, I thought myself a handsome youth. And fain the world would know ; In best attire I slept abroad. With si)irits »)risk and gay, And here and there, and everywhere, Was like a mora in May. No care had I, nor fear of want. But rambled up and down, And for a beau I might have pass'd In country or in town ; I still was pleased where'er I went, And when I was alone, I tuned my pipe and pleased myself Wi' John o' Badenyon REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONG. 219 Now iu the days of youthful prime, A mistress I must liud, For love, they say, gives one an air, And even improves the mind : On Phillis, fair above the rest, Kind fortune fix'd my eyes ; Her piercing beauty struck my heart, And she became my choice : To Cupid, then, with hearty prayer, I offer'd many a vow ; And danced, and sung, and sigh'd, and swore, As other lovers do : But, when at last I breathed my flame, I found her cold as stone ; I left tlie jilt, and tuned my pipe To John o' Dadenyon. When lovt had thus my heart beguiled With foolish hopes and vain ; To friendship's port I steei-'d my course, And laugh'd at lover's pain ; A friend I got by lucky chance, 'Twas something like divine. An honest friend's a precious gift, And such a gift was mine : And now, whatever might betide, A happy man was I. In any strait I knew to whom I freely might apply : A ?trait soon came, my friend I tried ; He heard, and spurn'd my moan ; I hied me home, and pleased myself, With John o' Badenyon. I thought I should be wiser next. And would a patriot turn, Began to dote on Johnny Wilkes, And cry up Parson Home. Their manly spirit I admired. And praised their noble zeal, Who had with flaming tongue and pea Maintain'd the public weal ; But ere a month or two had past, I found myself betray'd, 'Twas sc7/ and party after all, For all the stir they made ; At last I saw these factious knaves Insult the very throne, I cursed them a', and tuned my pipe To John o' Badenyon. And now, ye youngsters everjrwhere, Who want to make a show. Take heed in time, nor vainly hope, For happiness below ; What you may fancy pleasure her3 Is but an empty name, For girls, and friends, and books, and so, You'll find them all the same. Then be advised, and warning take From such a man as me, I'm neither Pope, nor Cardinal, Nor one of high degree : You'll find displeasure everywhere; Then do as I have done, E'en tune your pipe, and please yourself With John o' Badenyon. A WAUKRIPE MINNIE.* I PICKED up this old song and tune from a country girl in Nithsdale.— I never met with it ekewhere in Scotland : — Whare are you gaun, my bonny lass ? Whare are you gaun, my hinriie? She answer'd me right saucilie — An errand for my minnie. Oh, whare live ye, my bonny lass ? Oh, whare live ye, my hinnie ? — By yon burn-side, gin ye maun ken. In a wee house wi' my minnie. ♦ A watchful mother. But I foor up the glen at e'en To see my bonny lassie ; And lang before the gray morn cam She wasn& half sae saucie. Oh, weary fa' the waukrife cook. And the foumart Lay his crawin ! He wauken'd the auld wife frae her sleep A wee blink or the dawin. An angry wife I wat she raise, And o'er the bed she brought her. And wi' a mickle hazel rung She made her a weel-pay'd dochter. Oh, fare thee weel, my bonny lassl Oh, fare thee weel, my hinnie ! Thou art a gay and a bonny lass. But thou hast a waukrife minnie. The editor thinks it respectful to the poet to preserve the verses he thus recovered. — R. B. TULLOCHGORUM. This first of songs is the masterpiece of my old friend Skinner. He was passing the day, at the town of CuUen, I think it was [he should have said Ellori] in. a friend's house, whose name was Montgomery. Mrs Montgomery observing, en loassant, that the beautiful reel of Tullochgorum wanted words, she begged them of Mr Skinner, who gratified her wishes, and the wishes of every lover of Scotch song, in this most excel- lent ballad. These particulars I had from the author's son, Bishop Skinner, at Aberdeen. Come, gie's a sang, Montgomery cried. And lay your disputes all aside ; What signifies 't for folks to chide For what was done before them ? Let Whig and Tory all agree, •Wliig and Tory, Whig and Tory, Whig and Tory all agree, To drop their Whig-mig morum. Let Whig and Tory all agree To spend the night in mirth and glee, Andcheerful sing alang wi' me The Reel 0' Tullochgorum. Oh, Tullochgorum '8 my delight, It gars us a' in ane unite. And ony sumph that keeps up spite, In conscience I abhor liim : For blithe and cheerie we'll be a'. Blithe and cheerie, blithe and cheeri^ Blithe and cheerie we '11 be a' And mak a happy quorum : For blithe and cheerie we'll be a', As lang as we hae breath to draw. And dance, till we be like to fa'. The Reel 0' Tullochgorum. What needs there be sae great a fraise Wi' dringing dull Italian lays ? I wadna gie our ain Sti-aths'peys For half a hunder score 0' 'em. They're dowf and dowie at the best, Dowf and dowie, dowf and dowie, Dowf and dowie at the best, Wi' a' their variorum ; They're dowf and dowie at the best, Their allegros and a' the rest ; They canna please a Scottisii taste, Compared wi' Tullochgorum. Let -warldly worms their minds oppress Wi' fears o' want and double cess, And sullen sots themsels distress Wi' keeping up decorum : Shall we sae sour and sulkv sit. Sour and sulky, sour and ?ulky. Sour and sulky shall we sit, Like old philosophorum ? 220 REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONG, Shall we sae sour and sulky sit, TTi' neither sense, nor mirth, nor wit, Nor ever try to shake a fit To the Eeel o' Tullochgomni ? May choicest blessings e'er attend Each honest, open-hearted friend, And calm and quiet be his end, And all that's good watch o'er him May peace and plenty be his lot, Peace and plenty, peace and plenty, Peace and plenty be his lot, And dainties a great store o' 'em ; May peace and plenty be his lot, Unstain'd by any vicious spot, And may he never want a groat. That's fond o' Tullochgorum I But for the sullen frampish fool That loves to be oppression's tool, May envy gnaw his rotten soul, And discontent devour him I May dool and sorrow be his chance, Dool and sorrow, dool and sorrow, Dool and sorrow be his chance. And nane say, Wae 's me for him ! May dool and soitow be his chance, Wi' a' the ills that come frae I'rance, Whae'er he be that winna dance The Eeel o' Tullochgonim ! AULD LANG SYNE. Ramsat here, as is usual with him, has taken the idea of the song, and the first line, from the old fragment, which may he seen in the Museum, vol. V. Should auld acquaintance be forgot. And never thought upon. The flames of love extinguish'd, And freely past and gone ? Is thy kind heart now grown so cold. In that loving breast of thine. That thou canst never once reflect On auld lang syne ? If e'er I have a house, my dear, That truly is call'd mine, And can afford but countiy cheer. Or ought that's good therein ; Though thou wert rebel to the king, And beat with wind and rain, Assure thyself of welcome love, For auld lang syne. THE EWIE "WT THE CROOKED HORN. Another excellent song^ of old Skinner's. Oh, were I able to rehearse My ewie's praise in proper verse, I'd sound it out as loud and flerco As ever piper's drone could blaw. The ewie wi' the crookit horn Weel deserved baith garse and com ; Sic a ewie ne'er was born Hereabout, nor fur awa', Sic a ewie ne'er was born Hereabout, nor far awa'. I never needed tar nor keil To mark her upo' hip or heel, Her crookit horn did just as wcel To ken her l)y amo' them a' ; She never threateu'd scab nor rot, But keepit aye her ain jog trot, Baith to the fauld and to the cofc, Was never sweir to lead nor ca' ; Baith to the fauld and to the cot. Was never sweir to lead nor ca'. Cauld nor hunger never dang her, "Wind nor i-ain could never wrang her ; Ance she lay an ouk, and langer, Out aneath a wreath o' snaw : Whan ither ewies lap the dyke. And ate the kail for a' the tyke. My ewie never play'd the like, But tyc'd about the barnyard wa' ; My ewie never play'd the like, But tyc'd about the barnyard wa'. A better nor a thriftier beast Nae honest man could weel lino wist, Puir silly thing, she never misi To hae ilk year a lamb or rwa. The first she had I gae to Jock, To be to him a kind of stock, And now the laddie has a flock Of mair nor thirty head to ca', And now the laddie has a flock Of mair than thirty head to ca*. The neist I gae to Jean ; and now The bairn's sae braw, has fauld sae fu*. That lads sae thick come here to woo, They 're fain to sleep en hay or straw. I lookit aye at even' for her, For fear the foumart might devour her, Or some mischanter had come o'er her. Gin the beastie bade awa'. Or some mischanter had come o'er her. Grin the beastie bade awa'. Yet last ouk, for a' my keeping, (Wha can speak it without weeping ?) A villain cam when I was sleeping, And sta' my ewie, horn and a' ; I sought her sair upo' the morn. And down aneath a buss o' thorn, * I got my ewie's crookit horn. But ah, my ewie was awa' ! I got my ewie's crookit horn. But ah, my ewie was awa*. Oh ! gin I had the loun that did it^ Sworn I have as weel as said it, Though a' the warld should forbid it, I wad gie his neck a thra' : I never met wi' sic a turn As this sin' ever I was bom. My ewie wi' the crookit horn. Puir silly ewie, stown awa' I My ewie wi' the crookit horn. Puir silly ewie, stown av.a' HUGHIE GEAHAM. There are several editions of this hallad. — This here inserted is from oral tradition in Ayr- shire, where, when I was a hoy, it was a popular song. — It originally had a simple old tune, Avhich I have forgotten. OrrR Lords are to the mountains gane, A hunting o' the fallow deer, And they have grippet Hughie Graham, For stealing o' the bishop's mare. And they hae tied him hand and foot. And led him up through Stirling toun ; The lads and lassies mot him there, Cried, Hughie Graham, thou art a loon. Oh, lowse my right hand ft-ee, he snys, And put my braid sword in the same. He's no in Stirling toun this day Daur tell the tale to Hughie Graham. Up then bespake the brave Whitefoord, As he sat by the bishop's knee, Five hundred white stota I '11 gie you, If ye '11 let Hughie Graham gae free. Oil, baud your tongue, the bishop says, And wi' your pleading let me be ; For though ten Grahams were in his coat, Hughie Giuham thia Jav siiall die. REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONG, 221 Up then bespake the fair Whitefoord, As she sat by the bishop's knee ; Pive hundred white pence I '11 gie you, If ye '11 gie Hughie Gri-aham to me. Oh, haud your tong\ie now, lady fair, And wi' your pleading let it be ; Although ten Grahams were in his coat, It's for my honour he maun die. They 've taen him to the gallows knowe. He looked to the gallows tree, Yet never colour left his cheek, Nor ever did he blink his ee. At length he looked round about. To see whatever he could spy : And there he saw his auld father. And he was weeping bitterly. Oh, haud your tongue, my father dear, And w^i' youi' weeping let it be ; Thy weeping's sairer on my heart Than a' that they can do to me. And ye may gie my brother John My swoi-d that's bent in the middle clear; And let him come at twelve o'clock. And see me pay the bishop's mare. And ye may gie my brother James My sword that's bent in the middle brown; And bid him come at four o'clock, And see his brother Hugh cut down. Remember me to Maggy my wife. The neist time ye gang o'er the moor ; Tell her she staw'the bishop's mare, Tell her she was the bishop's whore. And ye may tell my kith and kin I never did disgi-ace their blood ; And when they meec the bishop's cloak To mak it shorter by the hood. A SOUTHLAND JENNY. This is a popular Ayrshire song, thongh the notes were never taken down before. It, as well as many of the ballad tunes in this collection, was written from Mrs Bvu-ns's voice. The following verse of this strain will suffice : — A SocTHLAjn) Jenny that was right bonny, She had for a suitor a Norlan' Johnnie ; But he was siccan a bashfu' wooer That he could scarcely speak unto her. But blinks o' her beauty and hopes o' her siller. Forced him at last to tell his mind till 'er ;. My dear, quo' he, we'll nae longer taiTy, €rin ye can love me, let 's o'er the muir and marry. 3nr TOCHER'S THE JEWEL. This tune is claimed by Nathaniel Gow. It is notoriously taken from " The Muckin' o' Geordie's Byre." It is also to be found, long prior to Nathaniel Gow's era, in Aird's " Selec- tion of Airs and Marches," the first edition, Tinder the name of *'The Highway to Edin- burgh." THEN, GUIDWIFE, COUNT THE LAWIN*. Thb chorus of this is part of an old song, one stanza of which I recollect : — Every day my wife tells me That ale and brandy will ruin me ; But if guid liquor be my dead. This shall be written on my head— . Oh, guidwife, count the lawin'. THE SOGEB LADDIE. The first verse of this is old ; the rest is by Eamsay. The tune seems to be the same with, a slow air called "Jacky Hume's Lament," or "The Holliu Buss," or "Ken ye what Meg o* the IVIill has gotten ! " Mr soger laddie is over the sea. And he '11 bring gold and silver to me, And when he comes hame he will make me his lady ; My blessings gang wi' him, my soger laddie. My doughty laddie is handsome and brave. And can as a sodger and lover behave; He 's true to his country, to love he is steady- There 's few to compare wi' my soger laddie. Oh, shield him, ye angels, frae death in alarms, Return him with laurels to my longing arms. Syne frae all my care ye '11 pleasantly free me. When back to my wishes my soger ye gie xae. Oh, soon may his honours bloom fair on his brow, As quickly they must, if he get but' his due ; For in noble actions his courage is ready, Which makes me delight in my soger laddie. WHERE WAD BONNY ANNIE LIE? The old name of this tune is, — Whare'U our guidman lie ? A silly old stanza of it runs thu3 — Oh, whare '11 our guidman lie, Guidman lie, guidman lie. Oh, whare '11 our guidman lie, Till he shute o'er the simmer ? Up amang the hen-bawk?, The hen-bawks, the hen-bawks Up amang the hen-bawks, Among the rotten timmer. Ramsay's song is as follows — Oh, where wad bonny Annie lie? Alane nae mair ye maunna lie ; Wad ye a guidman tiy, Is that the thing ye 're lacking? Oh, can a lass sae young as I Venture on the bridal tye ? Syne down wi' a guidman lie ? I'm fley'd he'd keep me waukin. Never judge until ye try ; Mak me your guidman, I Shanna hinder you to lie And sleep till ye be weary. What if I should wauking he, When the ho-boys ai'e gaun by. Will ye tent me when I cry. My dear, I'm fiaint and eerie ? ^. In my bosom thou shalt lie, When thou waukrife art, or dry. Healthy cordial standing by Shall presently revive thee. To your will I then comply ; Join us, priest, and let me icj. How I'll wi' a guidman lie, Wha can a cordial gie me. GALLOWAY TAM. I HAVE seen an interlude (acted on a wedding) to this tune, called "The Wooing of the Maiden." These entertainments are now much worn out>in 222 REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONG. this part of Scotland. Two are still retained in Nithsdale, viz., "Silly Puir Auld Glenae," and this one, "The Wooing of the Maiden." Oh, Galloway Tarn cam here to woo, "We 'd better liae gien him the bawsent cow, For our lass Bess may curse and ban The wanton wit o' Galloway Tam. A cannie tongue and a glance fu' gleg, A buirdly back and a lordly leg, A heart like a fox and a look like a lamb — Ob, these are the marks o' Galloway Tam. Oh, Galloway Tam came here to shear, "We 'd better hae gien him the guid gray meare, He kiss'd the gudewife and he dang'd the guidman, And these are the tricks o' Galloway Tam, He owed the kirk a twalmonth's score, And he dofPd his bonnet at the door ; The loon cried out wha sung the psalm, " There's room on the stool for Galloway Tam !" Te lasses o' Galloway, frank and fair, Tak tent o' yer hearts and something mair ; And bar your doors, your windows steek, For he comes stealing like night and sleep : Oh, nought frae Tam but wae ye '11 win, He '11 sing ye dumb and he'll dance ye blin' ; And aflf your balance he '11 cowp ye then — Tak tent o' the deU and Galloway Tam, *' Sir," quoth Mess John, " the wanton deil Has put his birn 'boon gospel kiel, And boujid yere cloots in his black ban' :" " For mercy loos 't ! " quo' Galloway Tam. "In our kirk-fauld we maun ye bar. And smear your fleece wi' covenant tar. And pettle ye up a dainty lamb," — " Among theyowes," quo' Galloway Tam, Eased of a twalmonth's graceless deeds. He gaylie dofifd his sackloth weeds, And 'mang the maidens he laughing cam' — " Tak tent o' your hearts," quo' Galloway Tam. A cannie tongue and a glance fu' gleg, A buirdly back and a lordly leg, A heart like a fox, and a look like a Iamb — Oh, these are the marks o' Galloway Tam. AS I CAM DOWN BY YON CASTLE WA' This is a very popular Ayrshire song. As I cam down by yon castle wa', And in by yon garden green. Oh, there I spied a bonny bonny lass, But the flower-borders were us between, A bonny bonny lassie she was, As ever mine eyes did see ; Oh, five hundred pounds would I give For to have such a pretty bride as thee. To have such a pretty bride as me, Young man ye are sairly mista'en ; Though ye were king o' fair Scotland, I wad disdain to be your queen, Talk not so very high, bonny lass. Oh, talk not so very, very high ; The man at the fair, that wad sell, He maun learn at the man that wad buy. I trust to climb a far higher tree, And herry a far richer nest, Tak this advice o' me, bonny lasSy Humility wad set thee best. LORD RONALD, MY SON. This air, a very favourite one in Ayrshire, ifl evidently the original of Lochaber. In tliis manner most of our finest more modem airs have had their origin. Some early minstrel, or musical shepherd, composed the simple artless original airs ; which being picked up by the more learned musician, took the improved form they bear. O'ER THE MOOR AMANG THE HEATHER. This song is the composition of Jean Glover, a gu'l who was not only a whore but also a thief, and in one or other character has visited most of the correction houses in the West. She was bom, I beUeve, in Kilmarnock, — I took the song down from her siuging, as she was strolling through the country with a sleight-of-hand, blackguard. CoMiN' through the craigs o' Kyle, Amang the bonny blooming heather. There I met a bonny lassie. Keeping a' her yowes thegither. O'er the moor among the heather. O'er the moor amang the heather, There I met a bonny lassie, Keeping a' her yowes thegither. Says I, my dearie, where is thy hame, In moor or dale, pray tell me whether ? She says, I tent the fleecy flocks That feed amang the blooming heather. We laid us down upon a bank, Sae warm and sunny was the weather, She left her flocks at large to rove Amang the bonny blooming heather. While thus we lay she sang a sang, Till echo rang a mile and farther, And aye the burden o' the sang Was o'er the moor amang the heather. She charm'd my heart, and aye sinsyne> I couldna think on ony ither ; By sea and sky she shall be mine ! The bonny lass amang the heather. TO THE ROSEBUD. This song is the composition of one Johnson, a joiner in the neighbourhood of Belfast. The tune is by Oswald, altered, evidently, from " Jockie's Gray Breeks." All hall to thee, thou bawmy bud, Thou charming child o' simmer, hail; Ilk fragrant thorn and lofty wood Does nod thy welcome to the vale. See on thy lovely faulded form. Glad Phoebus smiles wi' cheering eye, While on thy head the dewy morn Has shed the tears o' silent joy. The tuneful tribes frae yonder bower Wi' Bangs of joy tliy presence hail ; Then haste, thou bawmy, fragrant flower. And gie thy bosom to the gale. And see the fair, industrious bee. With airy wheel and soothing hum. Flies ceaseless round tliy parent tree. While gentle breezes, trembUng, come. If ruthless Liza pass this way. She'll pu' thee frae tliy tliorny stem ; A while thou 'It grace her virgin breast^ Sut soon thou 'It fade, my bonny gem. REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONG. 223 Ah ! short, too short, thy rural relpn, And yield to fate, alas ! thou must : Bright emblem of the virpin train, Thou blooms, alas ! to mix wi' dust. Sae bonny Liza hence may learn, ■\Vi' every youthfu' maiden gay, That beauty, like the simmer's rose, In time shall wither and decay. THE TEARS I SHED JMUST EVER FALL. This song of genius was composed by a Miss Cranstoun.* It wanted four lines to make all the stanzas suit the music, which I added, and are the first four of the last stanza. The tears I shed must ever fall ; I weep not for an absent swain, For time can past delights recall. And parted lovers meet again. I weep not for the silent dead, Their toils are past, their sorrows o'er, And those they loved their steps shall tread. And death shall join, to part no more. Though boundless oceans roll between, If certain that his heart is near, A conscious transport glads the scene. Soft is the sigh, and sweet the tear. E'en when by death's cold hand removed, We mourn the tenant of the tomb, To think that even in death he loved. Can cheer the terrors of the gloom. But bitter, bitter is the tear Of her who slighted love bewails ; No hopes her gloomy prospect cheer, No pleasing melancholy hails. Hers are the pangs of wounded pride, Of blasted hope, and wither'd joy : The prop she lean'd on pierced her side. The flame she fed burns to destroy. In vain does memory renew The scenes once tinged in transport's dye ; The sad reverse soon meets the view. And turns the thought to agony. Even conscious virtue cannot cure The pangs to every feeling due ; Ungenerous youth, thy boast how poor To steal a heart, and break it too ! No cold approach, no dlter'd mien, Just what would make suspicion start ; No pause the dire extremes bettueen, — He made me blest, and broke mj heart 1 Hope from its only anchor torn, Neglected, and neglecting all. Friendless, forsaken, and forlorn. The tears I shed must ever fall. DAINTY DAVEE. This song, tradition says, and the composition itself confirms it, was composed on the Rev. David Williamson's begetting the daughter of Jjady Cherrytrees with child, while a party of dragoons were searching her house to apprehend him for being an adherent to the solenm league and covenant. The pious woman had put a lady's nightcap on him, and had laid him a-bed with her own daughter, and passed him to the * She was the sister of George Cranstoun, one of the senators of the College of Justice in Scotland, and be- came the second wife of the celebrated Professor Du- gald Stewart, whom she outlived for many years, having died in July 1838, at the age of seventy-one. soldiery as a lady, her daughter's bedfellow. A mutilated stanza or two are to be found in Herd's collection, but the original song consists of five or six stanzas; and were their delicacy equal to th^ir %cit and humour, they would merit a place in any collection. The first stanza is aa foUows : — Being pursued by the dragoons, "Within my bed he was laid down ; And weel I wat he was worth his room, For he was my dainty Davie. Ramsay's song, "Lucky Nansy," though he calls it an old song with additions, seems to be all his own, except the chorus : I"was aye telling you, Lucky Nansy, lucky Nansy, Auld springs wad ding the new, But ye wad never trow me. Which I should conjecture to be part of a song, prior to the affair of Williamson. The following is the version of "Lucky Nansy" by Bamsay of which the poet speaks : — While fops, in soft Italian verse, Ilk fair ane's een and breast rehearse, While sangs abound, and sense is scarce, These lines I have indited : But neither darts nor arrows here, Venus nor Cupid shall appear. And yet with these fine sounds I swear, The maidens are delighted. I was aye telling you, Lucky Nansy, lucky Nansy, Auld springs wad ding the new, But ye wad never trow me. Nor snaw with crimson will I mix. To spread upon my lassie's cheeks, And syne th' unmeaning name prefix, Miranda, Chloe, Phillis. I'll fetch nae simile from Jove My height of ecstasy to prove. Nor sighing, thus present my love With roses eke and lilies. I was aye telling you, &c. But stay— I had amaist forgot My mistress, and my sang to boot. And that's an unco faut, I wot : But, Nansy, 'tis nae matter. Ye see I clink my verse wi' rhyme. And, ken ye, that atones the crime ; Forbye, how sweet my numbers chime, And slide away like water ! I was aye telling you, &c. Now ken, my reverend sonsy fair. Thy runkled cheeks and lyart hair. Thy haff-shut een and hodling air, Are a' my passion's fuel. Nae skyring gowk, my dear, can see. Or love, or grace, or heaven in thee ; Yet thou hast charms enow for me. Then smile, and be na cruel. Leeze me on thy snawy pow. Lucky Nansy, lucky Nansy ; Dryest wood will eithest low. And, Nansy, sae will ye now. Troth I have sung the sang to you. Which ne'er anither bard wad do; Hear, then, my charitable vow. Dear, venerable Nansy, But if the warld my passion wrang, And say ye only live in sang, Ken, I despise a slandering tongue, And sing to please my fancy. Leeze me on thy, &c. BOB O' DUNBLANE. Eamsat, as usual, has modernised this song. The original, which I learned on the spot from my old hostess in the principal inn there, is : — Lassie, lend me your braw hemp heckle. And I'll lend you my thripplin-kame ; My heckle is broken, it canna be potlen. And we'll gae dance the bob o' Dunblane. Twa gaed to the wood, to the wood, to the wood, Twa gaed to the wood— three came hame : An it be na weel bobbit, weel bobbit, weel bobbit, An it be na weel bobbit; we '11 bob it again. I insert this song to introduce the following anecdote, which I have heard well authenti- cated : — In the evening of the day of the battle of Dunblane, (Sheriff-Muir,) when the action was over, a Scots officer in Argyle's army ob- served to his Grace that he was afraid the rebels would give out to the world that they had gotten the victoiy. — "Weel, weel," returned his Grace, alluding to the foregoing ballad, "if they think it be na weel bobbit, we'll bob it again." GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. The letters of Robert Burns, extending as they do over the greater portion of his life, and written under the influence of the varying feelings of the moment, are most valu- able in leading us to forai a true estimate of the man. Much there undoubtedly is in them which is stilted and unreal ; but against this there is much that illustrates his genius, his sturdy independence, his strong common sense, and vivid perceptions of men and things. From the very first he seems to have had a strong sense of his ex- traordinary endowments ; and as his friends about him endorsed his own opinion, and the circle of his admirers extended, we see from his letters how much his humble position and the obscurity of his life chafed his spirit, — we see how, when he had become the most famous man in his country-side, and when his wonderful talents were beginning to attract the attention of the great world of which he knew so little, his own irregularities seemed to preclude the hope that ever he would be able to take advantage of his great gifts, or the recognition which awaited them, — we see how, in the full triumph of his Edinburgh success, with all that was greatest and best in his country doing him honour, his hopes rose high ; — we follow him throughout his wan- derings in his dearly-loved native land, perhaps the happiest period of his life, and throughout the too brief days of his success, when a life of independence seemed to be before him — alas ! never to be realised ; and almost the last letter he ever wrote leaves him dying broken in heart and broken in his fortunes, begging from a relation a ten- pound note to save him from the anticipated horrors of a jail. During his lifetime, and at his death, his character was fiercely assailed. More than sixty years afterwards, at the time of the Centenary celebrations in honom* of his memory, much was said and written by certain of his countrymen as to the grossness of his life. We may, we think, venture to state here, that to the more charitable among his country- men, the wholesale condemnation of Burns as a hbertine and blasphemer in certain quarters, gave rise to much surprise and astonishment. It seems to us that in the poetry and correspondence of Burns, we have the most remarkable instance in modern times, of a man of genius laying bare his whole heart and mind to his countrymen. Had he lived in some large city, where the private doings of even a celebrated man escape general notice, the occasion for alluding to the dark side of his Hfe would never have occurred to him, and possibly there would have been fewer slips from the path of rectitude to chronicle, for there was much in Burns's temperament which led him to defy his censors, and seems almost to have led him into sin in sheer contempt of petty censors, who were so much his inferiors in intellectual endowments. To those who know anything of the lives of literary men of oui* own day, where all is so fair outside, there will be no difiiculty in finding parallels, — with this much in favour of the poet, that we know from his poems and correspondence, that under all his seeming contempt for the proprieties; shame and contrition were gnawing at his vitals ; and while pres- byteries, kirk-sessions, and the "unco guid" who were busy with his doings, were being made the victims of his wild and ^ring hmnour, he was sufiering through his own accusing conscience the punishment which awaits every true and honest man, who, knowing what is right, is tempted of the devil and his own evil passions, and is worsted in the conflict. The man who reads attentively his poems and correspondence, and all that has been wTitten and said of him by his contemporaries, must be of a purity which will find itself sadly out of place in a sinful world, even at the present day, if he can find it in his heart to judge him by the common standards. His letters. 226 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. while they add to our high estimate of the genius and ability of the poet, show us that he was the constant correspondent and intimate friend of the men and women of talent and position in his own district, where his frailties were known to all, — and this before he was known beyond his own locality, and was as yet unstamped by the approval of a general or metropolitan audience. This alone should convince the most censorious, that he was something higher and better than the dissolute and reckless man of genius many wish to consider him. Let us hear no more accusations against him, and no more apologies for him. Let us think of him with deep sympathy for his errors and misfortunes ; let us think of the manliness and uprightness which never failed him throughout many worldly cares and trials ; and let us be proud of him, for in his works we have the highest manifestation of true " poetic genius " our country has yet known. We quote the criticisms of several of the more eminent of his countrymen as to the value of his correspondence : — Professor Wilson says, " The letters of Burns are said to be too elaborate, the ex- pression more studied and artificial than belongs to that species of composition. Now the truth is, Burns never considered letter writing ' a species of composition,' subject to certain rules of taste and criticism. That had never occurred to him, and so much the better. But hundreds, even of his most famihar letters, are perfectly artless, though still most eloquent, compositions. Simple we may not call them, so rich are they in fancy, so overflowing in feeling, and dashed off every other paragraph with the easy boldness of a great master conscious of his strength, even at times when, of all things in the world, he was least solicitous about display : while some there are so solemn, so sacred, so religious, that he who can read them with an unstirred heart can have no trust, no hope, in the immortality of the soul." Lockhart observes, " From the time that Burns settled himself in Dumfriesshire, he appears to have conducted with much care the extensive correspondence in which his celebrity had engaged him ; it is, howevor, very necessary in judging of these letters, and drawing inferences from their language as to the real sentiments and opinions of the writer, to take into consideration the rank and character of the persons to whom they were severally addressed, and the measure of intimacy which really subsisted between them and the poet. In his letters, as in his conversation, Burns, in spite of all his pride, did something to accommodate himself to his company : and he who did write the series of letters addressed to Mrs Dunlop, Dr Moore, Mr Dugald Stewart, Miss Chalmers, and others, eminently distinguished as these are by purity and noble- ness of feeling, and perfect propriety of language, presents himself, in other eflfusions of the same class, in colours which it would be rash to call his own. That he should have condescended to any such compliance must be regretted ; but, in most cases, it would probably be quite unjust to push our censure further than this." Professor Walker says, " The prose writings of Burns consist almost solely of his correspondence, and are therefore to be considered as presenting no sufficient criterion of his powers. Epistolary effusions, being a sort of written conversation, participate in many of the advantages and defects of discourse. They materially vary, both in subject and manner, with the character of the person addressed, to which the mind of their author for the moment assumes an affinity. To equals they are familiar and negligent, and to superiors they can scarcely avoid that transition to careful effort and studied correctness, which the behaviour of the writer would undergo, when entering the presence of those to whom his talents were his only introduction. Burns, from the lowness of his origin, found himself inferior in rank to all his correspondents, except his father and brother ; and, although the superiority of his genius should have done more than correct this disparity of condition, yet between pretensions so incom- mensurable it is difficult to produce a perfect equality. Burns evidently labours to reason himself into a feeling of its completeness, but the very frequency of his efforts betrays his dissatisfaction with their success, and he may therefore be considered as writing under the influence of a desire to create or to preserve the admiration of his correspondents. In this object he must certainly have succeeded ; for, if his letters are deficient in some of the charms of epistolary writing, the deficiency is supplied by others. If they occasionally fail in colloquial ease and simplicity, they abound in genius, in richness of sentiment, and strength of expression. The taste of Burns, according to the judgment of Professor Stewart, was not sufficiently correct and refined to relish chaste and artless prose, but was captivated by writers who labour their periods into a pointed and antithetical brilliancy. What he preferred he would natu- rally be ambitious to imitate ; and though he might have chosen better models, yet those which were his choice he has imitated with success. Even in poetry, if we may judge from his few attempts in Enghsh heroic measure, he was as far from attaining, GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. 22/ and perhaps from desiring to attain, the flowing sweetness of Goldsmith, as he is in his letters from aiming at the graceful ease of Addison, or the severe simplicity of Swift. Burns in his prose seems never to have forgot that he was a poet ; but, though his style may be taxed with occasional luxui-iance, and with the admission of crowded and even of compounded epithets, few will deny that genius is displayed in their invention and application, as few will deny that there is eloquence in the harangue of an Indian sachem, although it be not in the shape to which we are accustomed, nor pruned of its flowers by the critical exactness of a British orator. " It is to be observed, however, that Burns could diversify, his style with great address to suit the taste of his various correspondents : and that when he occasionally swells it into declamation, or stiffens it into pedantry, it is for the amusement of an individual whom he knew it would amuse, and should not be mistaken for the style which he thought most proper for the public. The letter to his father, for whom he had a deep veneration, and of whose applause he was no doubt desirous, is written with care, but with no exuberance. It is grave, pious, and gloomy, like the mind of the person who was to receive it. In his correspondence with Dr Blair, Mr Stewart, Mr Graham, and Mr Erskine, his style has a respectful propriety and a regulated vigour, which show a just conception of what became himself and suited his relation with the persons whom he addressed. He writes to Mr Nichol in a vein of strong and ironical extravagance, which was congenial to the manner, and adapted to the taste, of his friend. To his female correspondents, without excepting the venerable Mrs Dunlop, he is lively, and sometimes romantic ; and a skilful critic may perceive his pen under the influence of that tenderness for the feminine character which has been already noticed. In short, through the whole collection, we see various shades of gravity and care, or of sportive pomp and intentional affectation, according to the familiarity which subsisted between the writer and the person for whose exclusive perusal he WTote : and before we estimate the merit of any single letter, we should know the character of both correspondents, and the measure of their intimacy. These remarks are suggested by the objections of a distinguished critic to a letter which was communicated to Mr Cromek, without its address, by the author of this critique, and which occurs in the *Reliques of Burns.' The censure would perhaps have been softened, had the critic been aware that the timidity which he blames was no serious attempt at fine writing, but merely a playful effusion in mock-heroic, to divert a friend whom he had formerly succeeded in diverting with similar sallies. Bums was sometimes happy in short com- plimentary addresses, of which a specimen is subjoined. It is inscribed on the blank- leaf of a book presented to Mrs Graham of Fintray, from which it was copied, by that lady's permission : — *T0 MRS GRAHAM OF FINTRAY. * It is probable. Madam, that this page may be read when the hand that now writes it shall be mouldering in the dust : may it then bear witness that I present you these volumes as a tribute of gratitude, on my part ardent and sincere, as your and Mr Graham's goodness to me has been generous and noble ! May every child of yours, in the hour of need, find such a friend as I shall teach every child of mine that their father found in you. ' Robert Burns.' " The letters of Burns may on the whole be regarded as a valuable offering to the public. They are curious, as evidences of his genius, and interesting, as keys to his character ; and they can scarcely fail to command the admiration of all who do not measure their pretensions by an unfair standard." " The prose works of Bums," says Jeffrey, "consist almost entirely of his letters. They bear, as well as his poetry, the seal and impress of his genius : but they contain much more bad taste, and are written with far more apparent labour. His poetry was almost all written primarily from feeling, and only secondarily from ambition. His letters seem to have been nearly all composed as exercises, and for display. There are few of them written with simplicity or plainness : and, though natural enough as to the sentiment, they are, generally, very strained and elaborate in the expression. A very great proportion of them, too, relate neither to facts nor feelings peculiarly connected with the author or his correspondent, but are made up of general declamation, moral reflections, and vague discussions— all evidently composed for the sake of effect." Readers of the present day will more readily endorse the opinion of Cunningham, who says, " In the critic's almost wholesale condemnation of the prose of Burns, the world has not concurred : he sins somewhat, indeed, in the spirit of Jeffrey's descrip- 228 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. tion, but his errors are neither so serious nor so frequent as has been averred. In truth, his prose partakes largely of the character of his poetry : there is the same earnest vehemence of language : the same happy quickness of perception : the same mixture of the solemn with the sarcastic, and the humorous with the tender ; and the presence everywhere of that ardent and penetrating spirit which sheds light and communicates importance to all it touches. He is occasionally turgid, it is true ; neither is he so simple and unaffected in prose as he is in vterse : but this is more the fault of his education than of his taste. His daily language was the dialect of his native land ; and in that he expressed himself with almost miraculous clearness and precision : the language of his verse corresponds with that of his conversation : but the etiquette of his day required his letters to be in English ; and in that, to him, almost foreign tongue, he now and then moved with little ease or grace. Yet though a peasant, and labouring to express himseK in a language alien to his lips, his letters yield not in interest to those of the ripest scholars of the age. He wants the colloquial ease of Cowper, but he is less minute and tedious : he lacks the withering irony of Byron, but he has more humour, and infinitely less of that * pribble prabble " which deforms the noble lord's correspondence and memoranda." No. I. TO WILLIAM BURNESS.* Irvine, Dec. 27, 1781. Honoured Sm, — I have purposely delayed writing, in the hope that I should have the plea- sure of seeing you on new-year's day ; but work comes so hard upon us that I do not choose to be absent on that account, as well as for some other little reasons which I shall tell you at meeting. My health is nearly the same as when you were here, only my sleep is a little sounder, and on the whole I am rather better than otherwise, though I mend by very slow degrees. The weakness of my nerves has so debilitated my mind that I dare neither review past wants, nor look forward into futurity ; for the least anxiety or perturbation in my breast produces most unhappy effects on my whole frame. — Sometimes, indeed, when for an hour or two my spirits are alightened, I glimmer a little into futurity ; but my principal, and indeed my only pleasurable, employment, is looking back- wards and forwards in a moral and religious way ; I am quite transported at the thought that ere long, perhaps very soon, I shall bid an eternal adieu to all the pains, and imeasiness, and disquietudes of tliis weary life ; for I as- sure you I am heartily tired of it ; and, if I do not very much deceive myself, I could con- tentedly and gladly resign it. •'The soul, uneasy, and confined at home, Rests and expatiates in a life to come." It is for this reason I am more pleased with the 15th, 16th, and 17th verses of the 7th chapter of Revelations than with any ten times as * "One of the most striking letters in the Collec- tion," (Cromek'B Reliquee of Lurns,) says Jeffrey, "and to us one of the most interesting, is the earliest of the whole series, being addressed to his father in 1781, six or seven years before his name had been heard out of his own family. Tiie author was then a common flax-dresser, and his fatlier a ])Oor peasant ; yet tliere is not one trait of vulgarity, either in thought or expression; but, on the contrary a dignity and elevation of sentiment which must liave been con- sidered as a good omen in a youth of much higher condition." many verses in the whole Bible, and would not exchange the noble enthusiasm with which they inspire me, for all that this world has to offer. As for this world, I despair of ever making a figure in it. I am not tormed for the bustle of the busy, nor the flutter of the gay. I shall never again be capable of enter- ing into such scenes. Indeed, I am altogether unconcerned at the thoughts of this life. I foresee that poverty and obscurity probably await me, and I am in some measure prepared, and daily preparing, to meet them. I have but just time and paper to return you my grateful thanks for the lessons of virtue and piety you have given me, which were too much neglected at the time of giving them, but which I hope have been remembered ere it is yet too late. Present my dutiful respects to my mother, and my compliments to Mr and Mrs Muir; and with wishing you a merry new-year's day, I shall conclude. — I am, honoured sir, your dutiful son, ROBEBT BUENESS.t P.8. — My meal is nearly out, but I am going to borrow till I get more. No. IL TO MR JOHN MURDOCH, SCHOOLMASTER, STAPLES INN BUILDINGS, LONDON. LooHLKA, Jan. 15, 1783. Deae Sir, — ^As I have an opportunity of sending you a letter without putting you to that expense which any production of mine would but ill repay, I embrace it with pleasure, to tell you that I have not forgotten, nor ever will forget, the many obligations I lie under to your kindness and friendship. I do not doubt, sir, but you wiU wish to t At this time Burns was working as a heckler, (a dresser of flax.) A few days, after the workshop was burnt to the ground, and he had to begin the world anew. GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. 229 know what has been the result of all the pains of an indulgent father, and a masterly teacher ; and I wish I could gratify your curiosity with Buch a recital as you would be pleased with ; but that is what I am afraid will not be the case. I have, indeed, kept pretty clear of vi- cious habits; and, in this respect, I hope my conduct will not disgrace the education I have gotten ; but as a man of the world I am most miserably deficient. One would have thovight that, bred as I have been, under a father who has figured pretty well as un hoinme des af- faires, I might have been what the world calls a pushing, active fellow ; but to tell you the truth, sir, there is hardly anything more my reverse. I seem to be one sent into the world to see and observe ; and I very easUy compound with the knave who tricks me of my money, if there be anything original about him, which shows me human natiu-e in a different light from anything I have seen before. In short, the joy of my heart is to "study men, their manners, and their ways," and for this darhng subject I cheerfully sacrifice every other con- sideration. I am quite indolent about those great concerns that set the bustling, busy sons of care agog ; and if I have to answer for the present hour, I am very easy with regard to any- thing further. Even the last, worst shift of the unfortunate and the wretched * does not much terrify me-; I know that even then my talent for what country-folks call "a. sensible crack," when once it is sanctified by a hoary head, would procure me so much esteem that even then I would learn to be happy. However, I am under no apprehensions about that ; for though indolent, yet so far as an extremely de- licate constitution permits, I am not lazy ; and in many things, especially in tavern matters, I am a strict economist, — not, indeed, for the sake of the money, but one of the principal parts in my composition is a kind of pride of sto- mach ; and I scorn to fear the face of any man living : above everything, I abhor as hell the idea of sneaking into a corner to avoid a dun — possibly some pitiful, sordid wretch, who in my heart I despise and detest. 'Tis this, and this alone, that endears economy to me. In the matter of books, indeed, I am very profuse. My favourite authors are of the sentimental kind, such as Shenstone, particularly his "Elegies;" Thomson; "Man of Feehng," — a book I prize next to the Bible ; " Man of the World;" Sterne, especially his "Sentimental Journey; " Macpherson's " Ossian," fee. ;— these are the glorious models after which I endeavour to form my conduct; and 'tis incongruous, 'tis absurd, to suppose that the man whose mind glows with sentiments lighted up at their sacred flame — the man whose heart dis- tends with benevolence to all the human race — he "who can soar above this little scene of things" — can descend to mind the paltry concerns about which the terrae-filial race fret, and fume, and vex themselves ! Oh, how the glorious triumph swells my heart ! I forget that I am a poor, insignificant devil, xumoticed * The last shift alluded to here must be the condition of an itinerant beggar.— Cueeik. and unknown, stalking up and down fairs and markets, when I happen to be in them, reading a page or two of mankind, and " catching the manners living as they rise," whilst the men of business jostle me on every side, as an idle encumbrance in their way. But I daresay I have by this time tired your patience ; so I shall conclude with begging you to give Mrs Murdoch — not my compliments, for that is a mere commonplace story, but my warmest, kindest wishes for her welfare ; and accept of the same for yourself, from, dear sir, vours, k B.t t John Murdoch kept the school of Lochlea, and •was for a time the teacher of Robert Burns and his brother Gilbert. He appears to have been a man of parts, and a willing: teacher of clever and promising pupils. He removed to London, where he heard of the fame of his former pupil with much surprise. He died in London in April 1824. He published several edu- cational works of some note in their day, and taught English to several eminent personages, Talleyrand among the number. He said of Burns and his brother Gilbert : — " Gilbert always appeared to me to possess a more lively imagination, and to be more of a wit, than Robert, t attempted to teach them a little church music ; here they were left far behind by all the rest of the school. Robert's ear, in particular, was remarkably dull, and his voice untunable ; his countenance was generally grave, and expressive of a serious, contem- plative, and thoughtful mind. Gilbert's face said, ' Mirth, with thee I mean to live ;' and certainly if any person who knew the two boys had been asked which of them was most likely to court the Muses, he would surely never have guessed that Robert had a propensity of that kind." The following is Mr Murdoch's reply to the letter of Burns : — LoxDON, Oct. 20, 1787. My dear Sir, — As my friend Mr Brown is going from this place to your neighbourhood, I embrace the op- portunity of telling you that I am yet alive, tolerably well, and always in expectation of being better. By the much- valued lettei-s before me, I see that it was my duty to have given this intelligence about three years and nine months ago ; and have nothing to allege as an excuse but that we poor, busy, bustling bodies in London are so much taken up with the various pursuits in which we are here engaged, that we seldom think of any person, creature, place, or thing, that is absent. But this is not altogether the case with me ; for I often think of you. and Hornie, and Russdl, and an un- fathomed depth, and lowan brunstane, all in the same minute, although you and they are (as I suppose) at & considerable distance. I flatter myself, however, with the pleasing thought that you and I shall meet some time or other, either in Scotland or England. If ever you come hithei', you will have the satisfaction of seeing your poems relished by the Caledonians in London, full as much as they can be by those of Edinburgh. We frequently repeat some of your verses in our Caledonian Society ; and you may believe that I am not a little vain that I have had some share in cultivating such a genius. I was not absolutely certain that you were the author till a few days ago, when I made a visit to Mre Hill, Dr M 'Comb's eldest daughter, who lives in town, and who told me that she was informed of it byu letter from her sister in Edinburgh, with whom you had been in company when in that capital. Pray let me know if you have any intention of visit- ing this huge, overgrown metropolis. It would aflford matter for a large poem. Here you would have an opportunity of indulging your views in the study of mankind, perhaps to a greater degree than in any city upon the face of the globe; for the inhabitants of London, as you know, are a collection of all nations, kindreds, and tongues, who make it, as it were, the centre of their commerce. Present my respectful compliments to Mrs Bnrness, to my dear friend Gilbert, and all the rest of her amiable children. May the Father of the universe bless you all with those principles and dispositions that the best of parents took such uncommon pains to instil 230 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. No. III. TO MR JAMES BURNESS, WRITER, MONTROSE.* LocHLEA, June21, 1783. Dear Sir, — My father received your favour of the 10th current, and as he has been for some months very poorly in health, and is in his own opinion (and, indeed, in almost every- body's else) in a dying condition, he has only, with great difficulty, written a few farewell lines to each of his brothers-in-law. For this melancholy reason, I now hold the pen for him to thank you for your kind letter, and to assure yow, sir, that it shall not be my fault if my father's correspondence in the north die with him. My brother writes to John Caird, and to him I must refer you for the news of our family. I shall only trouble you with a few particu- lars relative to the wretched state of this coun- try. Our markets are exceedingly high ; oat- meal, 17d. and 18d. per peck, and not to be got even at that price. We have indeed been pretty well supplied with quantities of white pease from England and elsewhere, but that re- source is likely to fail us, and what will become of us then, particularly the very poorest sort, Heaven only knows. This country, till of late, was flourishing incredibly in the manufacture of silk, lawn, and carpet weaving ; and we are still carrying on a good deal in that way, but much reduced from what it was. We had also a fine trade in the shoe way, but now entirely ruined, and hundreds driven to a starving con- dition on account of it. Farming is also at a very low ebb with us. Our lands, generally speaking, are mountainous and barren; and our landholders, full of ideas of farming, ga- thered from the English and the Lothians, and other rich soils in Scotland, make no allow- ance for the odds of the quality of land, and consequently stretch us much beyond what in the event we will be found able to pay. We are also much at a loss for want of proper me- thods in our improvements of farming. Neces- sity compels us to leave our old schemes, and few of us have opportunities of being well in- formed in new ones. In short, my dear sir, into your mincls from your earliest infancy. May you live as he did ; if you do, you can never be unTiappy. I feel myself grown serious all at once, and affected' in a manner I cannot describe. I shall only add that it is one of the greatest pleasures I promise myself before I die, that of seeing the family of a man whose memory I revere more than tiiat of any person that ever I was acquainted with.— I am, my dear friend, yours sin- cerely, John Murdoch. * This gentleman, (the son of an elder brother of my father,) when he was very young, lost his parent, and having discovered in his repositories some of my fa- ther's letters, he requested tliat the correspondence might be renewed. My father continued till the last year of his life to correspond with his nephew, and it ■was afterwards kept up by my brother. Extracts from some of my brother's letters to his cousin are intro- duced in this edition for the purpose of exhibiting the poet before he had attracted tiie notice of the public, and in his domestic family relations afterwards.— Gil- BSRT Bdrns. He was grandfather of Sir Alexander Burncs, author of "Travels in Bokhara." since the unfortunate beginning of this Ameri- can war, and its as unfortunate conclusion, this country has been, and still is, decaying very fast. Even in higher life, a couple of our Ayrshire noblemen, and the major part of our knights and squires, are all insolvent. A miserable job of a Douglas, Heron, & Co.'s bank, which no doubt you heard of, has un- done numbers of them ; and imitating English and French, and other foreign luxuries and fop- peries, has ruined as many more. There is a great trade of smuggling carried on along our coasts, which, however destructive to the in- terests of the kingdom at large, certainly en- riches this corner of it, but too often at the expense of our morals. However, it enables individuals to make, at least for a time, a splen- did appearance ; but Fortune, as is usual with her when she is uncommonly lavish of her favours, is generally even with them at the last ; and happy were it for numbers of them if she would leave them no worse than when she found them. My mother sends you a small present of a cheese ; 'tis but a very little one, as our last year's stock is sold off; but if you co-uld fix on any correspondent in Edinburgh or Glasgow, we would send you a proper one in the season. Mrs Black promises to take the cheese under her care so far, and then to send it to you by the Stirling carrier. I shall conclude this long letter with assuring you that I shall be very happy to hear from you, or any of our friends in your country, when opportunity serves. My father sends you, probably for the last time in this world, his warmest wishes for your welfare and happiness ; and my mother and the rest of the family desire to enclose their kind compliments to you, Mrs Burness, and the rest of your family, along with those of, dear sir, your afifectionate cousin, R. B. No. IV. TO MISS ELIZA .* LOCHLKA, 1783. I VERILY believe, my dear Eliza, that the pure genuine feelings of love are as rare in the world as the pure genuine principles of virtue and piety. This I hope will account for the uncommon style of all my letters to you. By uncommon, I mean their being written in such a hasty manner, which, to tell you the truth, has made me often afraid lest you should take me for some zealous bigot, who conversed with his mistress as he would converse with his mi- nister. I don't know how it is, my dear, for though, except your company, there is nothing on earth gives me so much pleasure as writing to you, yet it never gives me those giddy rap- tures so much talked of among lovers. I have * The name of the lady to whom this and the three succeeding letters were addressed was Ellison Begbie. She was a superior servunt in the family of Mr Mont- gomery of Colisfield — hence a song addressed to her, "Montgomery's Peggy."— Sec p. 115. GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. 231 often thought that if a well-grounded affection be not really a part of virtue, 'tis something extremely akin to it. Whenever the thought of my Eliza warms my heart, every feeling of humanity, every principle of generosity kindles in my breast. It extinguishes every dirty spark of malice and envy which are but too apt to infest me. I grasp every creature in the arms of universal benevolence, and equally partici- pate in the pleasures of the happy, and sympa- thise with the miseries of the unfortunate. I assure you, my dear, I often look up to the Divine Disposer of events with an eye of gra- titude for the blessing which I hope He intends to bestow on me in bestowing you. I sincerely wish that He may bless my endeavours to make your life as comfortable and happy as possible, both in sweetening the rougher parts of my natural temper, and bettering the unkindly circumstances of my fortune. This, my dear, is z, passion, at least in my view, worthy of a man, and I will add worthy of a Christian. The sordid earthworm may profess love to a woman's person, whilst in reahty his affection is centred in her pocket; and the slavish drudge may go a-wooing as he goes to the horse-market to choose one who is stout and firm, and, as we may say of an old horse, one who will be a good drudge and draw kindly. I disdain their dirty, puny ideas. I would be heartUy out of humour with myself, if I thought I were capable of having so poor a notion of the sex which was designed to crown the pleasures of society. Poor devils ! I don't envy them their happiness who have such notions. For my part I propose quite other pleasures with my dear partner. R. B. No.V. TO THE SAME.* LOCHLEA, 1783. My dear Eliza, — I do not remember, in the course of your acquaintance and mine, ever to liave heard your opinion on the ordinary way of falling in love amongst people in our station in life ; I do not mean the persons who pro- ceed in the way of bargain, but those whose affection is really placed on the person. Though I be, as you know very well, but a very awkward lover myself, yet, as I have some opportunities of observing the conduct of others who are much better skilled in the affair of courtship than I am, I often think it ■ s owing to lucky chance, more than to good management, that there are not more unhappy marriages than usually are. It is natural for a young fellow to like the acquaintance of the females, and customary for him to keep them company when occasion serves : some one of them is more agreeable to him than the rest; there is something, he knows not what, pleases him, he knows not * Burns, in these letters, moralises occasionally very happily on love and marriage. They are, in fact, the only sensible love-lettera we have ever soen. MOTHKBWfiLL. how, in her company. This I take to be what is called love with the greater part of us ; and I must own, my dear Eliza, it is a hard game such a one as you have to play when you meet with such a lover. You cannot refuse but he is sincere ; and yet though you use him ever so favourably, perhaps in a few months, or at furthest in a year or two, the same unaccount- able fancy may make him as distractedly fond of another, whilst you are quite forgot. I am aware that perhaps the next time I have the pleasure of seeing you, you may bid me take my own lesson home, and tell me that the passion I have professed for you is perhaps one of those transient flashes I have been describing; but I hope, my dear Eliza, you will do me the justice to believe me, when I assure you that the love I have for you is founded on the sacred principles of virtue and honour, and by consequence so long as you continue possessed of those amiable qualities which first inspired my passion for you, so long must I continue to love you. Believe me, my dear, it is love like this alone which can render the marriage state happy. People may talk of flames and raptures as long as they please, and a warm fancy, with a flow of youthful spirits, may make them feel something like what they describe ; but sure I am the nobler faculties of the mind with kindred feelings of the heart can only be the foundation of friendship, and it has always been my opinion that the mar- ried life was only friendship in a more axalted degree. If you will be so good as to grant my wishes, and it should please Providence to spare us to the latest period of fife, I can look forward and see that even then, though bent down with wrinkled age, — even then, when all other worldly circumstances will be indifferent to me, I will regard my Eliza with the tender- est affection, and for this plain reason, because she is still possessed of these noble qualities, improved to a much higher degree, which first inspired my affection for her. " Oh happy state when souls each other draw Where love is liberty and nature law 1 " I know were I to speak in such a style to many a girl who thinks herself possessed of no small share of sense, she would think it ridicu- lous ; but the language of the heart is, my dear Eliza, the only courtship I shall ever xise to you. When I look over what I have written, I am sensible it is vastly different from the ordinary style of courtship ; but I shall make no apology — I know your good-nature will ex- cuse what your good 'sense mav see amiss. R. B. No. VI. TO THE SAME.t LOCHLEA, 1783. I HAVE often thought it a peculiarly unlucky circumstance in love, that though in every t Mr Chambers thinks'it probable that "my dear Eliza" was the heroine of the poet's song, "From thee, Eliza, I must go."— See p. 120. GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. other situation iu life telling tlie trutli is not only the safest, but actually by far the easiest, way of proceeding, a lover is never under greater difficulty in acting, or more puzzled for expression, than when his passion is sincere, and his intentions are honourable. I do not think that it is so difficult for a person of ordi- nary capacity to talk of love and fondness which are not felt, and to make vows of constancy and fidelity which are never intended to be per- formed, if he be villain enough to practise such detestable conduct ; but to a man whose heart glows with the principles of integrity and truth, and who sincerely loves a woman of ami- able person, uncommon refinement of sentiment and purity of manners — to such a one, in such circumstances, I can assure you, my dear, from my own feelmgs at this present moment, courtship is a task indeed. There is such a number of foreboding fears and distrustful anxieties crowd into my mind when I am in your company, or when I sit down to write to you, that what to speak or what to write I am altogether at a loss. There is one rule which I have hitherto practised, and which I shall invariably keep with you, and that is, honestly to tell you the plain truth. There is something so mean and unmanly in the arts of dissimulation and false- hood that I am surprised they can be acted by any one in so noble, so generous a passion as virtuous love. No, my dear Eliza, I shall never endeavour to gain your favoilr by such detesiable practices. If you will be so good and 60 generous as to admit me for your part- ner, your companion, your bosom friend through life, there is nothing on this side of eternity shall give me greater transport ; but I shall never think of purchasing your hand by any arts unworthy of a man, and, I wiU add, of a Christian. There is one thing, my dear, which I earnestly request of you, and it is this — ^that you would soon either put an end to my hopes by a peremptory refusal, or cure me of my fears by a generous consent. It would oblige me much if you would send me a line or two when convenient. I shall only add further that, if a behaviour regulated (though perhaps but very imperfectly) by the rules of honour and virtue, if a heart devoted to love and esteem you, and an earnest endea- vour to promote your happiness ; if these are qualities you would wish in a friend, in a hus- band, I hope you shall ever find them in your real friend and sincere lover, R. B. No. VII. TO THE SAME. LOCHLEA, 1783. I OUOHT, in good manners, to have acknow- ledged the receipt of your letter before this time, but my heart was so shocked at the con- tents of it that I can scarcely yet collect my thoughts so as to write you on the subject. I will not attempt to describe what I felt on receiving your letter. I read it over and over, again and again, and though it w^as in the po- litest language of refusal, still it was peremp- tory ; " you were sorry you could not make me a return, but you wish me," what, without you I never can obtain, " you wdsh me all kind of happiness." It would be weak and unmanly to say that without you I never can be happy ; but sm-e I am that sharing life wdth you w^ould have given it a relish, that, wanting you, I can never taste. Your uncommon personal advantages and your superior good sense do not so much strike me ; these possibly may be met with in a few instances in others ; but that amiable goodness, that tender feminine softness, that endearing sweetness of disposition, with all the charming ofispring of a warm, feeling heart — these I never again expect to meet with in such a degree in this world. All these charming qualities, heightened by an education much beyond anything I have ever met in any woman I ever dared to approach, have made an impression on my heart that I do not think the world can ever efiace. My imagination has fondly flattered itself with a wish, I dare not say it ever reached a hope, that possibly I might one day call you mine. I had formed the most delightful images, and my fancy fondly brooded over them; but now I am wretched for the loss of what I really had no right to expect. I must now think no more of you as a mistress ; still I presume to ask to be admitted as a friend. As such I wish to be allowed to wait on you, and, as I expect to remove in a f ew daj'^s a little further ofi", and you, I supi^ose, will soon leave this place, I wish to see or hear from you soon ; and if an expression should perhaps escape me rather too warm for friendship, I hope you will par- don it in, my dear Miss (pardon me the dear expression for once) . R. B. No. VIII. TO MR JAMES BURNESS, MONTROSE. LooHLEA, JieS. 17, 1784. Dear Cousin", — I would have returned you my thanks for your kind favour of the 13 th of December sooner, had it not been that I waited to give you an account of that melan- choly event, which, for some time past, we have from day to day expected. On the 13th current I lost the best of fathers. Though, to be sure, we have had long warning of the impending stroke ; still the feelings of nature claim their part, and I cannot recollect the tender endearments and parental lessons of the best of friends and ablest of instructors without feeling what perhaps the calmer dic- tates of reason would partly condemn. I hope my father's friends in your country will not let their connexion in this place die with him. For my part I shall ever with plea- sure, with pride, acknowledge my connexion with those who were allied by the ties of blood and friendship to a man whose memory I shall ever honour and revere. GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE, 233 I expect, therefore, my clear sir, you will not neglect auy opportunity of letting uie hear from you, which will very much oblige, my dear cousin, yours sincerely, It. B. No. IX. TO MR JAMES BURNESS, MONTROSE. MosSGiKL, Aug. 1784. We have been surprised with one of the most extraordinary phenomena in the moral world which I daresay has happened in the course of this half- century. AVe have had a party of [the] Presbytery of [the] Relief, as they call them- selves, for some time in this country. A pretty thriving society of them has been in the burgh of Irvine for some years past, till about two y eai-s ago, a Mrs Buchan from Glasgow came among them, and began to spread some fanatical no- tions of religion among them, and in a short time made many converts; and, among others, their preacher, Mr White, who, upon that account, has been suspended and formally deposed by his brethren. He continued, how- ever, to preach in private to his party, and was supported, both he and their spiritual mother, as they afiect to call old Buchan, by the con- tributions of the rest, several of whom were in good ciixumstances ; till, in spring last, the populace rose and mobbed Mrs Buchan, and put her out of the town; on which all her followers voluntarily quitted the place like- wise, and with such precipitation, that many of them never shut their doors behind them : one left a washing on the green, another a cow bellowing at the crib without food, or anybody to mind her, and after several stages, they are fixed at present in the neighbourhood of Dumfries. Their tenets are a sti-ange jumble of enthusiastic jargon ; among others, she pretends to give them the Holy Ghost by "breathing on them, which she does with pos- tures and practices that are scandalously in- decent ; they have likewise disposed of all their effects, and hold a community of goods, and live nearly an idle life, carrying on a great farce of pretended devotion in bams and woods, where they lodge and lie all together, and hold likewise a community of women, as it is another of their tenets that they can com- mit no moral sin. I am personally acquainted with most of them, and I can assure you the above mentioned are facts. This, my dear sir, is one of the many in- stances of the folly of leaving the guidance of sound reason and common sense in matters of religion. A\'henever we neglect or despise these sacred monitors, the whimsical notions of a pertur- bated brain are taken for the immediate inlluences of the Deity, and the wildest fana- ticism, and the most inconstint absmdities, will meet with al>ettor3 and converts. Nay, I Lave often thought that the more out of the way and ridiculous the fancies are, if once they are sanctified under the sacred name of re- ligion, the unhappy mistaken votaries are the more fii'mly glued to them.* R. B. No. X. TO MISS -•t My dear Countrywoman, — I am so impa- tient to show you that I am once more at peace with you, that I send you the book I mentioned directly, rather than wait the uncertain time of my seeing you. I am afraid I have mislaid or lost Collins's poems, which I promised to Miss Irvine. If I can find them, I will forward them by you : if not, you must apologise for me. I know you will laugh at it when I tell you that your piano and you together have played the deuce somehow about my heart. My breast has been widowed these many months, and I thought myself proof against the fascinating witchcraft; but I am afraid you will *' feelingly convince me what I am." I say, I am afraid, because I am not sure what is the matter with me. I have one miserable bad symptom; when you whisper, or look kindly to another, it gives me a draught of damnation. I have a kind of wayward wish to be with you ten minutes by yourself, though what I would say. Heaven above knows, for I am sure I know not. I have no formed design in all this ; but just, in the nakedness of my heart, write you down a mere matter-of-fact story. You may perhaps give yourself airs of distance on this, and that will completely cure me ; but I wish you would not; just let us meet, if you please, in the old beaten way of friendship. * Mr Cunningham says of the Buchanites, they "were a small community of enthusiasts, who believed the time to be at hand when there would neither be marriage nor friving in marriage — when the ground, instead of thistles and heather, would yield spontane- ously the finest fruits — when all things under the sun would be in common— and 'our lady,' so they called Sirs Buchan, reign spiritual queen of the earth. At first they held the doctrine of immediate translation ; but a night spent in wild prayer, wild song, and wilder sermons on the top of a cold hill rebuked this part ot their belief, but strengthened tliem in the opinion re- garding their empire on earth, and confirmed ' our lady' in the resolution of making a tour through her imaginary dominions. She accordingly moved towards Nitiisdale with all her people— some were in carts, some on horseback, and not a few on foot. She rode in ft'ont upon a white pony ; and often halted to lecture them upon the loveliness of the land, and to cheer them with food from what she calletl her 'garner of mercy,' and with drink from a large cup called * the comforter.' She addressed all people as she passed along with much mildness, and spoke tn them in the language of their callings. ' James JIacleish,' she said to a gar- dener, who went to see her, * quit Mr Copland's garden, and come and work in that of the Lord.' 'Thank ye,' answered James, 'but He was na owre kind to the last gardener He had.* 'Our lady' died at Auchengibardhill in Galloway, and her followers were dispei-sed— a few of the more resolute believers took a farm : the women spun and made large quantities of linen ; the men jdoughed and sowed, and made articles o.f turnery — their lives were inoffensive and their manners gentle — they are now all dead and gone." t This letter is supposed by Cromek to have been written to the Peggy mentioned in the poet's common- l>lace book. Chambers, however, is of opinion that it beloncs to a later period, and was addressed to a lady with whom Burns became acquainted dui-ing his first Highland excui-sion. 234 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. I will not subscribe myself your liumble servant, for that is a phrase, I think, at least fifty miles off from the heart; but I will conclude with sincerely wishing that the great Protector of innocence may shield you from the barbed dart of calumny, and hand you by the covert snare of deceit. 11. B. No. XI. TO MR JOHN RICHMOND, EDINBURGH.* MossGiEL, Feb. 17, 1786. My dear Sir, — I have not time at present to upbraid you for your silence and neglect ; I shall only say I received yours with great pleasure. I have enclosed you a piece of rhyming ware for your perusal. I have been very busy with the Muses since I saw you, and have composed, among several others, " The Ordination," a poem on Mr M'Kin- lay's being called to Kilmarnock; "Scotch Drink," a poem ; " The Cotter's Saturday Night;" "An Address to the Deil," &c. I have likewise completed my poem on "The Twa Dogs," but have not shown it to the world. My chief patron now is Mr Aiken in Ayr, who is pleased to express great approba- tion of my works. Be so good as to send me Fergusson, by Connel,t and I will remit you the money. I have no news to acquaint you with about Mauchline, they are just going on in the old way. I have some very important news with respect to myself, not the most agreeable — news that I am sure you cannot guess, but I shall give you the particulars another time. I am extremely happy with Smith ;+ he is the only friend I have now in Mauchline. I can scarcely forgive your long neglect of me, and I beg you will let me hear from you regularly by Connel. If you would act your part as a friend, I am sure neither good nor bad fortune should strange or alter me. Excuse haste, as I got yours but yesterday. — I am, my dear sir, yours, Robert Bueness. No. XII. TO MR JOHN KENNEDY. § MossGiEL, March 3, 1786. Sir, — I have done myself the pleasure of complying with your request in sending you my Cottager. If you have a leisure minute, I * John Richmond was an early companion of the poet's, and was at this time pursuing his studies in the metropolis previous to settling in Mauchline as a country solicitor. lie lived long after the poet, and gave Allan Cunningham much valuable information regarding the early life of Burns. He was present with the poet at the scene which suggested "The Jolly Beggars." + The Mauchline carrier. i James Smith, then a shopkeeper in Mauchline, was the other friend who was present on the same occasion : hu went abroad, and died in the West Indies. It is to him the epistle is addressed, beginning, " Dear Smith, the sleeest, paukie thief." S Mr Kennedy was employed in the capacity of clerk or sub-factor to the Earl of Dumfries, at whose seat, Dumfries House, near Mauchline, ho at this time re- sided. He subsequently became factor to the Marquis of BrcadalboQc. should be glad you would copy it and return me either the original or the transcript, as I have not a copy of it by me, and I have a fiiend who wishes to see it. Now, Kennedy, if foot or horse E'er bring you in by Mauchline Corse,* Lord, man, there's lasses tliere wad force A hermit's fancy; And down the gate in faith they're worse, And mair unchancy. But, as I 'm sayin', please step to Dow's, And taste sic gear as Jolinnie brews, Till some bit callan bring me news That you are there ; And if we dinna haud a bouze I'se ne'er drink mair. It's no I like to sit and swallow, Then like a swiue to puke and wallow ; But gie me just a true good fallow, Wi' right engine. And spunkie ance to make us mellow, And then Ave '11 shine. Now, if ye 're ane o' warld's folk, Wha rate the wearer by the cloak, And sklent on poverty their joke, Wi' bitter sneer, Wi' you no friendship will I troke, Kor cheap nor dear. But if, as I 'm informed weel, Ye hate, as ill's the verra deil. The flinty heart that canna feel, Come, sir, liere 's tae you I Hae, there's my haun', I wiss you weel, And gude be wi' you I R. B. * The village market cross. No. XIII. TO MR ROBERT MUIR, KILMARNOCK.jI MOSSGIEL, Marcli 20, 1786. Dear Sir, — I am heartily sorry I had not the pleasure of seeing you as you returned through Mauchline; but as I was engaged, I could not be in town before the evening. I here enclose you my " Scotch Drink," and " may the follow with a blessing for your edification." I hope, sometime before we hear the gowk,^ to have the pleasure of seeing you at Kilmarnock, when I intend we shall have a gill between us, in a mutchkin stoup; which will be a great comfort and consolation to, dear sir, your humble servant, Robert Bxjrness. No. XIV. TO MR AIKEN. MOSSGIEL, AprH 3, 1786. Dear Sir, — I received your kind letter with double pleasure, on account of the second flat- tering instance of Mrs C.'s notice and approba- tion. I assure you I "Turn out the brunt side o' my shin," as the famous Ramsay of jingling memory says, at such a patroness. Present her my most grateful acknowledgments in your very Muir was an intimate friend of the poet's ; hisnamo appears in the list of subscribers to the Edinburgh edi- tion of his works for forty copies. ^ The cuckoo. GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. ^35 best manner of telling truth. I have inscribed the following stanza on the blank leaf of Miss More's work.* My proposals for publishing I am just going to send to press. I expect to hear from you by the first opportunity.— I am ever, dear sir, yours, Egbert BuRNESS.f No. XV. TO MR M'WHINNIE, WRITER, AYR. MosSGiEL, April 17, 1786. It is injuring some hearts, those hearts that elegantly bear the impression of the good Cre- ator, to say to them you give them the trouble of obliging a friend ; for this reason, I only tell you that I gratify my own feelings in requesting your friendly offices with respect to the enclosed, because I know it will gratify yours to assist me in it to the utmost of your power. I have sent you four copies, as I have no less than eight dozen, which is a great deal more than I shall ever need. Be sure to remember a poor poet militant in your prayers. He looks forward with fear and trembling to that, to him, important moment which stamps the die with — with — with, per- haps, the eternal disgrace of, my dear sir, your humble, afi&icted, tormented, ROBEBT BUBNS. No. XVI. TO MR JOHN KENNEDY. MossGiEL, Aj^ril 20, 1786, Sra, — By some neglect in Mr Hamilton, I did not hear of your kind request for a subscription paper till this day. I will not attempt any acknowledgment for this, nor the manner in which I see your name in Mr Hamilton's sub- scription list. Allow me only to say, sir, I feel the weight of the debt. I have here likewise enclosed a small piece, the very latest of my productions.^ I am a good deal pleased with some sentiments myself, as they are just the native querulous feelings of a heart which, as the elegantly melting Gray Bays, " Melancholy has marked for her own." Our race comes on apace ; that much ex- pected scene of revelry and mirth; but to me it brings no joy equal to that meeting with which your last flattered the expectation of, sir, your indebted humble servant, R. B. weeks I shall probably set the press agoing. I am much hurried at present, otherwise your diligence, so very friendly in my subscription, should have a more lengthened acknowledg- ment fi'om, dear sir, your obliged servant, R. B. No. XVII. TO MR JOHN KENNEDY. MossGiEL, May 17, 1786. Dear Sm, — I have sent you the above hasty copy as I promised. § In about three or four * See "Lines to Mr3 C .," p 50. t This was the last time the poet spelt his name according to tl»c wont of his forefathei's. The Miss More alluded to was Hannah More. J " The >Iountain Daisy." 3 '-The Epistle to Rankine." No. XVIII. TO JOHN BALLANTYNE, OF AYR. Junt 1786. Honoured Sir, — My proposals came to hand last night, and knowing that you would wish to have it in your power to do me a service as early as anybody, I enclose you half-a-sheet of them. I must consult you, first opportunity, on the l^ropriety of sending my quondam friend, Mr Aiken, a copy. If he is now reconciled to my character as an honest man, I would do it with all my soul; but I would not be beholden to the noblest being ever God created, if he imagined me to be a rascal. Apropos, old Mr Armour prevailed with him to mutilate that unlucky paper yesterday. Would you believe it? — though I had not a hope, nor even a wish, to make her mine after her conduct ; yet, when he told me the names were all out of the paper, my heart died within me, and he cut my veins with the news. Perdition seize her false- hood ill R.B. No. XIX. TO MR DAVID BRICE.m MossGiEL, Junt 12, 1786. Dear Brice, — I received your message by G. Paterson, and as I am not very throng at present, I just write to let you know that there is such a worthless, rhyming reprobate as your humble servant still in the land of the living, though I can scarcely say in the place of hope. \\ have no news to tell you that will give me any pleasure to mention or you to hear. Poor, ill-advised, ungrateful Armour came home on Friday last.** You have heard all the particulars of that affair, and a black affair it is. What she thinks of her conduct now, I don't know; one thing I do know — she has made me completely miserable. Never man loved, or rather adored, a woman more than I did her ; and, to confess a truth between you and me, I do still love her to distraction after all, though I won't tell her so if I were to see her, which I don't want to do. My poor dear unfortunate Jean ! how happy have I been in thy arms ! It is not the losing her that makes me so unhappy, but for her sake I feel most severely : I foresee she is in the road to, I am afraid, eternal ruin. Iklay Almighty God forgive her ingratitude and perjury to me, as I from my very soul for- give her ; and may His grace be with her and II Alluding to the destruction of the marriage-lines between the poet and Jean. •f David Brice, then a shoemaker in Glasgow, on of the poet's early friends. *• From Paisley, whither she had gone to reside, to be out of the way of the poet. 236 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. bless her in all her future life ! I can have no nearer idea of the place of eternal punishment than what I have felt in my own breast on her account. I have tried often to forget her ; I have run into all kinds of dissipation and riots, mason-meetings, drinkiug-matches, and other mischief, to drive her out of my head, but all in vain. And now for a grand cure ; the ship is on her way home that is to take me out to Jamaica; and then, farewell, dear old Scotland ! and farewell, dear ungrateful Jean ! for never never will I see you more.' You will have heard that I am going to com- mence poet in print ; and to-morrow my works go to the press. I expect it will be a volume of about two hundred pages — it is just the last foolish action I intend to do ; and then turn a wise man as fast as possible. — Believe me to be, dear Brice, your friend and well-wisher, R.B, No. XX. TO MR ROBERT AIKEX. Ayeshiee, July 1783. SlE, — I was with Wilson, my printer, t'other day, and settled all our bygone matters be- tween us. After I had jjaid him all demands, I made him the offer of the second edition, on the hazard of being paid out of the first and readi- est, which he declines. By his account, the paper of a thousand copies would cost about twenty-seven pounds, and the printing about fifteen or sixteen : he offers to agree to this for the printing, if I will advance for the paper, but this, you know, is out of my power ; so farewell hopes of a second edition till I grow richer ! an epoch which, I think, will arrive at the payment of the British national debt. There is scarcely anything hurts me so much in being disappointed of my second edition as not having it in my power to show my grati- tude to Mr Ballantyne, by publishing my poem of *'The Brigs of Ayr." I would detest my- self as a wretch, if I thought I were capable in a very long life of forgetting the honest, warm, and tender delicacy with which he enters into my interests. I am sometimes pleased with myself in my grateful sensations ; but I believe, on the whole, I have very little merit in it, as my gratitude is not a virtue, the conse- quence of reflection; but sheerly the instinctive emotion of my heart, too inattentive to allow worldly maxims and views to settle into selfish habits. I have been feeling all the various rotations and movements within, respecting the Excise. There are many things plead strongly against it ; the uncertainty of getting soon into busi- neai; the consequences of my follies, which may perhaps make it impracticable for me to stay at home; and besides I have for some time been pining under secret wretchedness, from causes which you pretty well know — the pang of disappointment, the sting of pride, with some wandering stabs of remorse, which never fail to settle on my vitals like vultures, when attention is not called away by the calls of so- ciety, or the vagaries of the Muse. Even in the hour of social mirth, my gaiety is the madness of an intoxicated criminal under the hands of the executioner. All these reasons urge me to go abroad, and to all these reasons I have only one ans.ver — the feelings of a father. This, in the present mood I am in, overbalances every- thing that can be laid in the scale against it. You may perhaps think it an extravagant fancy, but it is a sentiment that strikes home to my very soul : though sceptical in some points of our current belief, yet, I think, I have every evidence for the reality of a life beyond the stinted bourn of our present existence ; if so, then how should I, in the presence of that tremendous Being, the Author of existence, — how should I meet the reproaches of those who stand to me in the dear relation of chil- dren, whom I deserted in the smiling innocency of helpless infancy ? Thou great unknown Power ! — Thou Almighty God ! who hast light- ed up reason in my breast, and blessed me with immortality ! — I have frequently wandered from that order and regularity necessary for the perfection of Thy works, yet Thou hast never left me, nor forsaken me ! Since I wrote the foregoing sheet, I have seen something of the storm of mischief thickening over my folly-devoted head. Should you, my friends, my benefactors, be successful in your applications for me,* perhaps it may not be in my power in that way to reap the fruit of your friendly efforts. What I have written in the preceding pages is the settled tenor of my present resolution; but should inimical circum- stances forbid me closing with your kind offer, or enjoying it only threaten to entail further misery . . . To tell the truth, I have little reason for complaint ; as the world, in general, has been kind to me fully up to my deserts. I was, for some time past, fast getting into the pining distrustful snarl of the misanthrope. I saw myself alone, unfit for the struggle of life, shrinking at every rising cloud in the chance- directed atmosphere of fortune, while, all de- fenceless, I looked about in vain for a cover. It never occurred to me, at least never with the force it deserved, that this world is a busy scene, and man, a creature destined for a progressive struggle ; and that, however I might possess a warm heart and inoffensive maimers, (which last, by the by, was rather more than I could well boast,) still, more than these passive quali- ties, there was something to be done. Whea all my schoolfellows and youthful compeerd (those misguided few excepted who joined, to use a Gentoo phrase, the " hallachores " of th« human race) were striking off with eager hope and eai-nest intent, in some one or other of the many paths of busy life, I was " standing idle in the marketplace," or only left the chase of the butterfly fi-om flower to flower, to hunt fancy from whim to whim. You see, sir, that if to know one's errors were a probability of mending them, I stand a fair chance; but, according to the reverend Westminster divines, though conviction must precede conversion, it is very far from always implying it. K B. * Alluding to the efTorts which wove heins made tt) procure him ao appoiutmuut in the E^Lcise. GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. 237 Jfo. XXI. TO MRS DUNLOP OF DUXLOP* AYRsniEE, Jul^ 1783. Madam, — I am truly sorry I was not at home I yesterday, when I was so much honoured with I your order for my copies, and incomparably more I by the handsome compliments you are pleased to I pay my poetic abilities. I am fully persuaded j that there is not any class of mankind so feel- j ingly alive to the titillations of applause as the sons of Parnassus : nor is it easy to conceive } how the heart of the poor bard dances with rapture, when those whose character in life gives them a right to be polite judges honour him with their approbation. Had you been thoroughly acquainted with me, madam, you could not have touched my darling heart-chord more sweetly than by noticing my attempts to celebrate your illustrious ancestor, the saviour of his country. " Great patriot hero ! ill-requited chief ! " The first book I met with in my early years, v.'hich I perused with pleasure, was " The Life of Hannibal ; " the next was '" The History of Sir William Vv'allace : " for several of my earlier years I had few other authors ; and many a solitary hour have I stole out, after the labo- rious vocations of the day, to shed a tear over their glorious but unfortunate stories. In those boyish days I remember in particular * This excellent person died 24th May 1815, full of days and honour, in the 85th year of her acre ; leaving a numerous ofTsprinc-. many of whom have distinguished themselves in various parts of the British dominions. Frances "Wallace, the only daughter and ultimately the heiress of Sir Thomas Wallace of Craigie in Ayr- shire, was horn about the yenr 1731, and at the age of I seventeen became the wife of John Dunlop, Esq. of ) Dunlop, in the same county. Although she brought I her husband a very large fortune, together with the mansion of Craigie, beautifully situated on the Ayr, she was content to spend the whole of her man-ied and I dowager life, with tiie exception of occasional visits, in retirement at Dunlop. While she treated Burns with uniform affability and Ivindness, there was an unaffected dignity in her whole character which seems to have at once exercised a salutary resti-aint over him, and raised his mind, when in communication with hers, to the exercise ot its best powers. Tlie mind of 3Irs Dunlop, oyerflowing with benevolent feelings, delighted in those fine emotions of the Ayi-shire poet whUih found ex- pression in the Verses to a Mouse, the Stanzas on a Winter Night, and the noble poem "The Cotter's Satur- day Night," which fii-st attracted her attention to tlie bard. Bums, on the other hand, glowed at finding in the heritrix of an ancient family and historical honours a heart as warm and philanthropic as his own. After the death of Bimis, Mrs Dunlop paid a visit to Dr Currie at Liverpool, in order to consiUt with him respecting the publication of the poet's works. Dr Currie had already perused her letters to Burns, which he !;ad found amongst the poet's papers ; and he ex- pressed an anxious wish tiuit she would allow of their publication, in connexion with those of Burns to her- self. But Mrs Dunlop entertained an insurmountable repugnance to all public appearances, and, notwith- standing Dr Cunio's a.~surances of the value of her compositions, both on their own account, and as ren- dering Bui-ns's letters the more intelligible, she poiitlvelv refused to allow them to ^ee the light. She concluded her interview by half jestingly yurchasing had: her letters from him one by one, laying down a letter of EaniL/s fvr '.';;<.!i of her own. till she obtained the whole. She ; 1 satisfied to Dunlop House. These lett : • iMit her family feel that they would not her wiiliej i.w sivicg them to Uie worid.— L i.^:::.-„i;s. being struck with that part of "Wallace's story where these lines occur — " Syne to the Leglen wood, when it was late, To make a silent and a safe retreat." I chose a fine summer Sunday, the only day my line of life allowed, and walked half-a- dozen of miles to pay my respects to the Leg- len wood, with as much devout enthusiasm as ever pilgrim did to Loretto ; and, as I explored every den and dell where I could suppose my heroic countryman to have lodged, I recollect (for even then I was a rhymer) that my heart glowed with a wish to be able to m.ake a song on him in some measure equal to his merits. K. R No. XXIL TO MONS. JAMES SMITH, MAUCHLINK MossGiEL, Monday Morning, 1786. My DEAR Sir, — I went to Dr Douglas yes- terday, fully resolved to take the opportunity of Captain Smith; but I found the doctor with a Mr and Mrs White, both Jamaicans, and they have deranged my plans altogether. They as- sure him, that to send me from Savannah la Mar to Port Antonio wiU cost my master, Charles Douglas, upwards of. fifty pounds ; besides running the risk of throwing myself into a pleuritic fever in consequence of hard travelling in the sun. On these accounts, he refuses sending me with Smith ; but a vessel sails from Greenock on the 1st of September, right for the place of my destination. The captain of her is an intimate friend of Mr Gavin Hamilton's, and as good a fellow as heart could wish : with him I am destined to go. Where I shall shelter, I know not, but I hope to weather the storm. Perish the drop of blood of mine that fears them ! I know their worst, and am prepared to meet it : — "I'll laugh, and sing, and shake my leg, As lang 's I dow." On Thursday morning, if you can muster aa much self-denial as to be out of bed about seven o'clock, I shall see you as I ride through to Cumnock. After all. Heaven bless the sex ! I feel there is stiU happiness for me anaong them : — "O woman, lovely woman ! Heaven design'd you To temper man ! — we had been brutes without you ! ^ R. B. No. XXIIL TO JOHX EICHMOND, EDINBURGH. MossGiKL, July 9, 1786. With the slncerest grief I read your letter. You are truly a son of misfortune. I shall be extremely anxious to hear from you how your health goes on ; if it is any way re-establishing, or if Leith promises well ; in short, how you feel in the inner man. No news worth anything : only godly Bryan was in the inquisition yesterday, and half the countryside aa witnesses against him. He stu] ^T§« A^T^ XJ:^ir&JK%iTT 23^^ GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. stands out steady and denying : but proof was led yesternight of circumstances highly sus- picious; almost de facto ; one of the servant- girls made ftiith that she upon a time rashly entered into the house, to speak, in yoiir cant, "in the hour of cause." I have waited on Armour since her return home ; not from the least view of reconciliation, but merely to ask for her health, and to you I will confess it, from a foolish hankering fond- ness, very ill placed indeed. The mother forbade me the house, nor did Jean show that penitence that might have been expected. However, the priest, I am informed, will give me a certificate as a single man, if I comply with the rules of the Church, which for that very reason I intend to do. I am going to put on sackcloth and ashes this day. I am indulged so far as to appear in my own seat. Peccavi, pater, miserere mei. My book will be ready in a fortnight. If you have any subscribers, return them by Connell. The Lord stand with the righteous. Amen, amen. R B. No. XXIV. TO MR DAVID BRICE, SHOEMAKER, GLASGOW. MossGiEL, July 17, 17S6. I HAVE been so throng printing my poems that I could scarcely find as much time as to write to you. Poor Armour is come back again to Mauchline, and I went to call for her, and her mother forbade me the house, nor did she herseK express much sorrow for what she has done. I have already appeai'ed publicly in church, and was indulged in the liberty of standing in my own seat. I do this to get a certificate as a bachelor, which Mr Auld has promised me. I am now fixed to go for the West Indies in October. Jean and her friends insisted much that she should stand along with me in the kirk, but the minister would not allow it, which bred a great trouble, I assure you, and I am blamed as the cause of it, though I am sure I am innocent ; but I am very much pleased, for all that, not to have had her company. I have no news to tell you that I remember. I am really happy to hear of your welfare, and that you are so well in Glasgow. I must certainly see you before I leave the country. I shall expect to hear from you soon, and am, dear Brice, yours, R. B. No. XXV. TO MR JOHN RICHMOND. Old Romb Forest, July 30, 1788. My DKAn Richmond, — My hour is now come — you and I will never meet in Britain more. I have orders, within three weeks at furthest, to repair aboard the Nancy, Captain Smith, from Clyde to Jamaica, and to call at Antigua. This, except to our friend Smith, whom God long preserve, is a secret' about Mauchline. Would you believe it ? Armour has got a warrant to throw me into jail till I find security for an enor- mous sum.* This they keep an entire secret, but I got it by a channel they little dream of; and I am wandering from one friend's house to another, and, like a true son of the gospel, " have no where to lay my head." I know you will pour an execration on her head, but spare the poor, ill-advised girl, for my sake ; though may all the furies that rend the injured, enraged lover's bosom await her mother until her latest hour ! I write in a moment of rage, reflecting on my miserable situation — exiled, abandoned, forlorn. I can write no more — let me hear from you by the return of coach. I will write you ere I go. —I am, dear sir, yours, here and hereafter, R. B. No. XXVL TO MR JOHN KENNEDY. Kilmarnock, Aug, 1786. Mt dExVR Sir, — Your truly facetious epistle of the 3d instant gave me much entertainment. I was sorry I had not the pleasure of seeing you as I passed your way ; but we shall bring up all our lee way on Wednesday, the 16th cur- rent, when I hope to have it in my power to call on you and take a kind, very probably a last, adieu, before I go for Jamaica ; and I expect orders to repair to Greenock every day. I have at last made my public appearance, and am solemnly inaugurated into the nume- rous class. Could I have got a carrier, you should have had a score of vouchers for my authorship ; but now you have them, let them speak for themselves. R. B. [The poet here inserts his "Farewell," which wall be found at p. 44.] No. XXVII. TO MR ROBERT MUIR, KILMARNOCK. MossGiEL, Friday Noon, Sept. 1786. My Friend, my Brother, — Warm recollec- tion of an absent friend presses so hard upon my heart that I send him the prefixed baga- telle, (" The Calf,") pleased with the thought that it will greet the man of my bosom, and be a kind of distant language of friendship. You will have heaixl that poor Armour has repaid me double. A very fine boy and a girl have awakened a thought and feelings that thrill, some with tender pressure and some with foreboding anguish, through my soul. The poem Avas nearly an extemporaneous production, on a wager with Mr Hamilton that I would not produce a poem on the sub- ject in a given time. If you think it worth while, read it to Charles and Mr W. Parker, and if they choose a copy of it, it is at their service, as they are men whoso friendship I shall be proud to * Tlie poet Imd been misinformed. Armour liad no wish to imprison Ijim ; lie only souslit to drive bim from the country. GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. 239 claim both ia this v.oiid and that which is to come. 1 believe all hopes of staying at home will be abortive, but more of this when, in the lat- ter part of next week, you shall be troubled with a visit from, mv dear sir, your most de- voted ' E. B. No. XXVIII. TO MR BURNESS, MONTROSE. MossGiEL, Friday Noon, Sept. 26, 17S6. My deak Sir, — I this moment receive yours — ^receive it with the honest hospitable warmth of a friend's welcome. "Whatever comes from you wakens always up the better blood about my heart, which your kind little recollections of my parental friends carries as far as it will go. Tis there that man is blest ! 'Tis there, my friend, man feels a consciousness of something within him above the trodden clod ! The grateful reverence to the hoary (earthly) author of his being — the burning glow when he clasps the woman of his soul to his bosom — the tender yearnings of heart for the little angels to whom he has given existence — these nature Las poured in milky streams about the human heart; and the man who never rouses them to action, by the inspiring influences of their proper objects, loses by far the most pleasur- able part of his existence. My departure is uncertain, but I do not think it will be till after harvest. I will be on very short allowance of time indeed, if I do not comply with your friendly invitation. When it will be, I don't know, but if I can make my wish good, I will endeavour to drop you a line some time before. My best compliments to Mrs ; I should [be] equally mortified shotild I drop in when she is abroad ; but of that I suppose there is little chance. What I have written Heaven knows ; I have not time to review it : so accept of it in the beaten way of friendship. With the ordinary phrase — perhaps rather more than the ordinary fiincerity— I am, dear sir, ever yours, R. B. No. XXIX. TO DR ARCHIBALD LAWRIE. MossGiEL, Nov. 13, 1786. Dear Sm, — I have, along with this, sent the two volumes of Ossian, with the remain- ing volume of the songs. Ossian I am not in such a hurry about, but I wish the songs, with the volume of the Scotch Poets, re- turned, as soon as they can be conveniently despatched. If they are left at Mr Wilson's the bookseller, Kilmarnock, they v/ill easily reach me. !My most respectable compliments to Mr and Mrs Lawrie, and a poet's warm wishes for their happiness; — to the young ladies, particularly the fair musician, whom I think much better qualified than ever David was, or could be, to charm an evil spirit out of Saul. Indeed, it needs not the feelings of a poet to be interested in one of the sweet- est scenes of domestic peace and kindred love that ever I saw, as I think the peaceful unity of St Margaret's Hill can only be excelled bj the harmonious concoi'dof the Apocalypse. — I am, dear sir, yours sincerely, Robert Burns. No. XXX. TO MISS ALEXANDER. MOSSGIEL, Nov. 18, 1786. Madam, — Poets are such outre beings, so mtich the children of wayward fancy and capricious whim, that I believe the world generally allows them a larger latitude in the laws of propriety than the sober sons of judgment and prudence. I mention this as an apology for the liberties that a name- less stranger has taken with you in the en- closed poem, which he begs leave to present 3'ou with. Whether it has poetical merit any way worthy of the theme, I am not the proper judge; but it is the best my abilities can pro- duce ; and, what to a good heart will, perhaps, be a superior grace, it is as sincere as fervent. The scenery was nearly taken from real life, though I daresay, madam, you do not recol- lect it, as I believe you scarcely noticed the poetic reveur as he wandered by you. I had roved out, as chance directed, in the favourite haunts of my muse, on the banks of the Ayr, to view nature in all the gaiety of the vernal year. The evening sun was flaming over the distant western hills ; not a breath stirred the crimson opening blossom or the verdant spread- ing leaf. It was a golden moment for a poetic heart. I listened to the feathered warblers, pouring their harmony on every hand, with a congenial kindred regard, and frequently turned out of my path, lest I should disturb their little songs, or frighten them to another station. Surely, said 1 to myself, he must be a wretch indeed who, regardless of your harmonious endeavour to please him, can eye your elusive flights to discover your secret recesses, and to rob you of all the property nature gives you — your dearest comforts, your helpless nestlings. Even the hoary hawthorn twig that shot across the way, what heart at such a time but must have been interested in its welfare, and wished it preserved from the rudely-browsing cattle, or the withering eastern blast ? Such was the scene, and such the hour, when in a corner of my prospect I spied one of the fairest pieces of nature's workmanship that ever crowned a poetic landscape or met a poet's eye, those visionary bards excepted who hold converse with aerial beings ! Had Calumny and Vil- lainy taken my walk, they had at that moment sworn eternal peace with such an object. What an hour of inspiration for a poet ! It would have raised plain dull historic prose into metaphor and measure. The enclosed song [" The Bonnie Lass of Ballochmyle"] was the work of my return home ; and perhaps it but poorly answers what might have been expected from such a scene 240 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. — I have the honour to be, madam, your most obedient and very humble servant, E. B. Ifo. XXXI. TO MRS STEWART OF STAIR. Madam, — The hurry of my preparations for going abroad has hindered me from performing my promise so soon as I intended. I have here sent you a parcel of songs, &c., which never made their appearance, except to a friend or two at most. Perhaps some of them may be no great entertainment to you, but of that I am far from being an adequate judge. The song to the tune of '• Ettrick Banks," ['"' The Bonnie Lass of Ballochmyle"] you will easily see the impropriety of exposing much, even in manu- script. I think, myself, it has some merit : both as a tolerable description of one of na- ture's sweetest scenes, a July evening; and one of the finest pieces of nature's workman- ship, the finest indeed we know anything of, an amiable, beautiful young woman ; but I have no common friend to procure me that permission, without which I would not dare to spread the copy. I am quite aware, madam, what task the world would assign me in this letter. The ob- scure bard, when any of the great condescend to take notice of him, should heap the altar with the incense of flattery. Their high an- cestry, their own great and godlike qualities and actions, should be recounted with the most exaggerated description. This, madam, is a task for which I am altogether unfit. Besides a certain disqualifying pride of heart, I know nothing of your connexions in life, and have no access to where your real character is to be found — the company of your compeers; and more, I am afraid that even the most refined adulation is by no means the road to your good opinion. One feature of your character I shall ever with grateful pleasure remember — the recep- tion I got when I had the honour of waiting on you at Stair. I am little acquainted with politeness, but I know a good deal of bene- volence of temper and goodness of hccvrt. Surely did those in exalted stations know how happy they could make some classes of their inferiors by condescension and afiTability, they would never stand so high, measuring out with every look the height of their elevation, but condescend as sweetly as did Mrs Stewart of Stair. R. B. No. XXXII. TO JIR ROBERT MUIR. MossaiEL, Ifov. 18, 1786. My dear Sir, — Enclosed you have "Tara Samson," as I intend to print him. I am thinking for my Edinburgh expedition on Monday or Tuesday, come se'ennight, for pos. I will see you on Tuesday fii-st. — I am ever, your much indebted, R. B. No. XXXIII. IN THE NAME OF THE NINE. Amm. "VVe, Robert Burns, by virtue of a warrant from IS'ature, bearing date January 25, IToO,"^ Poet-Laureate and Bard-in-Chief in and over the districts and countries of Kyle, Cunning- ham, and Carrick, of old extent, to our trusty and well-beloved William Chalmers and John M'Adam, students and practitioners in the ancient and mysterious science of confounding right and wrong. Right Thusty, — Be it known unto you, that whereas in the course of our care and watching over the order and police of all and sundry the manufacturers, retainers, and ven- ders of poesy ; bards, poets, poetasters, rhym- ers, jinglers, songsters, ballad-singers, &;c. &c., male and female, we have discovered a cer- tain nefarious, abominable, and wicked song or ballad, a copy whereof we have here en- closed : Our will therefore is, that ye pitch upon and appoint the most execrable indivi- dual of that execrable species, known by tlio appellation, phrase, and nickname of The Deil's Yell No\vte:+ and after having caused hint to kindle a fire at the Cross of Ayr, ye shall, at noontide of the day, put into the said wretch's merciless hands the said copy of the said nefarious and wicked song, to be con- sumed by fire in presence of all beholders, in abhorrence of, and terrorem to, all such com- positions and composers. And this in nowise leave ye undone, but have it executed in every point as this our mandate bears, before the 24th current, when in person We hope to ap- plaud your faithfulness and zeal. Given at Mauchline, November 20, A.D. 1786. God save the Bard ! No XXXIV. TO DR MACKENZIE,? MAUCHLINE, ENCLOSING HIM VERSES ON DINING WITH LORD DAER. § Wednesday Morning, J^ov. 17S6. Dear Sir, — I never spent an afternoon among great folks with half that pleasure as when, in company with you, I had the honour of paying my devoirs to that plain, honest, worthy man, the professor, [Dugald Stewart.] I would be de- lighted to see him perform acts of kindness and friendship, though I were not the object; he does it with such a grace. I think his charac- ter, divided into ten parts, stands thus — four parts Socrates — four parts Nathanael — and two, parts Shalcespeare's Brutus. * The poet's birthday. t Dr Currie thinks this phrase alludes to old bachelors ; but tlie poet's brother, Gilbert Burns, con- siders it a contemptuous appellation often piven to the ofhcers of the law, and that it is in this sense it is used here. "Holy Willie's Praver" is the poem alluded to. t Dr Mackenzie was one of Burns's early friemls and !Klmircr.'», and the first to introduce lu'm to Dugald Stewart. After pmctisinp for many years as a surgeon in Irvine, ho retired to Edinburgh, and died there in lt!37 at an advanced age. S Seo tlio lines, p. 49. GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE, 241 The accompanying verses were really extem- pore, but a little corrected since. They may entertain you a little with the help of that par- tiality with which you are so good as to favour the performances of, dear su", your very hum- ble servant, 1^- ^' . No. XXXV. TO GAVm HAIIILTOIT, ESQ., MAUCHLINE.* Ebixbobgh, Die 7, 17S9. Honoured Sie, — I have paid every attention to your commands, but can only say what per- haps you will have heard before this reaches you, that ^[uirkirklands were bought by a Mr John Gordon, W.S., hut forwhora I knownot; Mauch- lands, Haugh Milu, &c., by a Mr Frederick Fo- theringham, supposed to be for Ballochmyle Laird, and Adam-hill and Shawood were bought for Oswald's folks. This is so imperfect an ac- count, and will be so late ere it reach you, that were it not to discharge my conscience I would not trouble you with it ; but after all my dili- gence I could make it no sooner nor better. For my own affairs, I am in a fair way of becoming as eminent as Thomas d Kempis or i JohnBunyau; and you may expect henceforth to see my birthday inserted among the won- derful events, in the Poor Robin's and Aber- deen Almanacs, along with the Black Monday, and the Battle of Bothwell Bridge. My Lord Glencairn and the Dean of Faculty, Mr H. Erskine, have taken me under their wing ; and in all probability I shall soon be the tenth worthy, and the eighth wise, man of the world. Through my lord's influence it is inserted in the records of the Caledonian Hunt that they universally, one and all, subscribe for the second edition. My subscription bills come out to-morrow, and you shall have some of them next post. I have met, in Mr Dalrymple of Orangefield, what Solomon emphatically calls " a friend that sticketh closer than a brother." The warmth with which he interests himself in my affairs is of the same enthusiastic kind which you, Mr Aiken, and the few patrons that took notice of my earlier poetic days, showed for the poor unlucky devil of a poet. I always remember Mrs Hamilton and Miss Kennedy in my pootic prayers, but you both in prose and verse. May cauld ne'er catch yon &m< a Tiap, \ Nor huuger but in plenty's lap I Amen ! R. B. * Gavin Hamilton, a fast friend of Bums's, was his landlord in the farm of Moss^iel. Burns was a frequent and welcome guest at his table. Jlr Hamilton had in- curred the censure of the session of the church of which he was a member, on account of alleged noa-atteudance at public worship, Sunday ti-avelling, &c , and it was this which suggested to the poet the writting of that terrible satire, " Holy Willie's Prayer." (Seepage 8.) Burns wrote a dedicatory poem to Gavin Hamilton (see page 42,) which did not appear at the fi-ont of the volume, though included in its pages. t Without sufficient clothing. No. XXXVL TO JOHN BALLANTYNE, ESQ., BANKER, AYR.J EnisBURGn, Dec. 13, 1786. My honoured Frienb, — I would not write you till I could have it in my power to give you some account of myself and my matters, which, by the by, is often no easy task. I arrived here on Tuesday was se'ennight, and have suffered ever since I came to town with a miserable headache and stomach com- plaint, but am now a good deal better. I have found a worthy, warm friend in Mr Dalrymple of Orangefield, who introduced me to Lord Glencairn, a man whose worth and brotherly kindness to me I shall remember when time shall be no more. By his inte- rest it is passed in the Caledonian Hunt, and entered in their books, that they are to take each a copy of the second edition, for which they are to pay one guinea. I have been in- troduced to a good many of the noblesse; but my avowed patrons and patronesses are — the Duchess of Gordon, the Countess of Glencairn, with my Lord, and I^ady Betty, § the Dean of Faculty, Sir John Whitefoord. I have like- wise warm friends among the literati : Profes- sors Stewart, Blair, and Mr Mackenzie — " The Man of Feeling." An unknown hand left ten guineas for the Ayrshire bard with Mr Sibbald, which I got. I since have discovered my generous unknown friend to be Patrick Miller, Esq., brother to the Justice - Clerk ; and drank a glass of claret with him by invitation at his own house yesternight. I am nearly agreed with Creech to print my book, and I suppose I will begin on Monday. I wUl send a subscription bill or two next post, when I intend writing my first kind patron, Mr Aiken. I saw his son to-day, and he is very well. Dugald Stewart and some of my learned friends put me in the periodical paper called the Lounger, \\ a copy of which I here enclose you. I was, su-, when I was first honoured with your notice, too obscure ; now I tremble lest I should be ruined by being dragged too suddenly into the glare of polite and learned observation. I shall certainly, my ever-honoured patron, write you an account of my every step ; and better health and more spirits may enable me to make it something better than this stupid matter-of-fact epistle. — I have the honour to be, good sir, your ever-grateful humble servant, R.B. If any of my friends write me, my direction is, care of Mr Creech, bookseller. X John Ballantyne, a friend and patron of the poet's, to whom he addressed •' The Brigs of Ayr." He was for some time provost of Ayr, and had shown much zeal in the improvement of his native town. g Lady Betty Cunningham, an unmarried sister of the earrs. II The Lounger, by Henry llackenzie, the author of «' The Man of feeling." 24: GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. No. XXXVII. TO MR ROBERT MUIR. Edinburgh, Dec. 20, 1786. My dear Friend, — I have just time for the carrier, to tell you that I received your letter ; of which I shall say no more but what a lass of my acquaintance said of her bastard wean ; she said she " didna ken wha was the father exactly, but she suspected it was some o' thae bonny blackguard smugglers, for it was like them." So I only say your obliging epistle was like you. I enclose you a parcel of subscription bills. Your affair of sixty copies is also like you ; but it would not be like me to comply. Your friend's notion of my life has put a crotchet in my head of sketching it in some future epistle to you. My compliments to Charles and Mr Parker. R. B. No. XXXVIII. TO MR CLEGHORN. "Oh.Trhare did ye get that hauver meal bannock," &c.* Dear Cleghorn, — You will see by the above that I have added a stanza to "Bonnie Dundee." If you think it will do, you may set it agoing "Upon a ten-string'd insti-ument, And on the psaltery." Mr Cleghorn, Farmer. God bless the trade. R. B. No. XXXIX. TO MR WILLIAM CHALMERS, WRITER, AYR.t Edikburgh, Dec. 27, 1786. My dear Friend, — I confess I have sinned the sin for which there is hardly any forgive- ness — ingratitude to friendship — in not writ- ing you sooner ; but of all men living, I had intended to send you an entertaining letter ; and by all the plodding, stupid powers, that in nodding, conceited majesty preside over the dull routine of business — a heavily- solemn oath this ! — I am, and have been, ever since I came to Edinburgh, as unfit to write a letter of humour as to write a com- mentary on the Revelation of St John the Di- vine, who was banished to the Isle of Putmos by the cruel and bloody Domitian, son to Ves- pasian and brother to Titus, both emperors of Rome, and who was himself an emperor, and raised the second or third persecution, I forget which, against the Christians, and after throw- ing the said apostle John, brother to the apostle • See the first version of " Bonnie Dundee," at p. 124. t Mr William Chalmers, a writer in Ayr, an early friend of the poet's. He was in love, and, as lie was not so successful in his suit as he wished to be, he asked Burns to endeavour to pro])itiate the object of his affections by addressing a poem to her. "Willie Chal- mers " (see page 46.) was the result. It is not known whether he succeeded in hU suit. James, commonly called James the Greater, to distinguish him from another James, who was, on some account or other, known by the name of James the Less — after throwing him into a caldron of boiling oil, from which he was miraculously preserved, he banished the poor son of Zebedee to a desert island in the Archipelago, where he was gifted with the second sight, and saw as many wild beasts as I have seen since I came to Edinburgh ; which — a circumstance not very uncommon in story- telling — brings me back to where I set out. To make you some amends for what, before you reach this paragraph, you will have suffered, I enclose you two poems I have carded and spun since I past Glenbuck. One blank in the address to Edinburgh — "Fair B " — is the heavenly Miss Burnet, daughter of Lord Monboddo, at whose house I have had the honour to be more than once. There has not been anything nearly like her in all the combinations of beauty, grace, and goodness the great Creator has formed, since Milton's Eve on the first day of her existence. My direction is — care of Andrew Bruce, merchant. Bridge Street. R. B, No XL. TO GAVIN HAMILTON, ESQ., MAUCHLINE. Edinburgh, January 7, 1787. To tell the truth among friends, I feel a mi- serable blank in my heart from the want of her [alluding to Jean Armour], and I don't think I shall ever meet with so delicious an armful again. She has her faults; but so have you and I ; and so has everybody. Their tricks and craft hae put me daft ; They 've ta'en me in and a' that ; But clear your decks, and here 's the sex, I like the jades for a' that. For a' that, and a' that, And twice as muckle 's a' that. I have met with a very pretty girl, a Lothian farmer's daughter, whom I have almost per- suaded to accompany me to the west country, should I ever return to settle there. — By the by, a Lothian farmer is about the same as an Ayrshire squire of the lower kind, — I had a most delicious ride from Leith to her house yes- ternight, in a hackney coach, with her brother and two sisters, and brother's wife. We had dined all together at a common friend's house in Leith, and drunk, danced, and sang till late enough. The night was dark, the claret had been good, and I thirsty . . . [The remainder is unfortunately wanting.] No. XLL , TO THE EARL OF EGLINTON. Edinburgh, Jan 1787. My Lord, — As I have but slender pretensions to philosophy, I cannot rise to the exalted ideas GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. 243 of a citizen of the world, but have all those na- tional prejudices which I believe glow peculiarly strong in the breast of a Scotchman. There is scarcely anything to which I am so feelingly alive as the honour and welfare of my country; and, as a poet, I have no higher enjoyment than singing her sons and daughters. Fate had cast my station in the veriest shades of life; but never did a heart pant more ardently than mine to be distinguished; though, till very lately, I looked in vain on every side for a ray of light. It is easy then to guess how much I was gratified with the countenance and appro- bation of one of my country's most illustrious sons, when Mr Wauchope called on me yester- day on the part of your lordship. Your munifi- cence, my lord, certainly deserves my very grateful acknowledgments; but your patronage is a bounty peculiarly suited to my feelings. I am not master enough of the etiquette of life to know whether there be not some impropriety in troubling your lordship with my thanks, but my heart whispered me to do it. — From the emotions of my inmost soul I do it. Selfish ingratitude I hope I am incapable of; and mer- cenary servility, I trust, I shall ever have so mvich honest pride as to detest. K. B. No. XLII. TO JOHN BALLANTYNE, ESQ. Edixburgh, Jan, 14, 1787. My honoueed Friend, — It gives me a secret comfort to observe in myself that I am not yet so far gone as WiUie Gaw's Skate, "past redemp- tion ; " * for I have stiU this favourable symp- tom of grace, that when my conscience, as in the case of this letter, tells me I am leaving something undone that I ought to do, it teases me eternally till I do it. I am still " dark as was chaos " in respect to futurity. My generous friend, Mr Patrick Miller, has been talking with me about a lease of some farm or other in an estate called Dalswinton, which he has lately bought near Dumfries. Some life-rented embittering recol- lections whisper me that I will be happier any- where than in my old neighbourhood, but Mr Miller is no judge of land; and though I dare- say he means to favour me, yet he may give me, in his opinion, an advantageous bargain that may ruin me. I am to take a tour by Dumfries as I return, and have promised to meet Mr Miller on his lands some time in May. I went to a mason-lodge yesternight, where the most Worshipful Grandmaster Charteris, and all the Grand Lodge of Scotland, visited. — The meeting was numerous and elegant ; all the different lodges about town were present in all their pomp. The grandmaster, who presided with great solemnity and honour to himself, as a gentleman and mason, among other general toasts, gave " Caledonia, and Caledonia's Bard, Brother Burns," — which rang through the whole assembly with multiplied honours and repeated acclamations. As I had no idea such a thing would happen, I was downright thun- derstruck, and, trembling in every nerve, made the best return in my power. Just as I had finished, some of the grand officers said, so loud that I could hear, with a most comforting ac- cent, " Very well indeed ! " which set me some- thing to rights again. I have to-day corrected my 152d page. My best good wishes to Mr Aiken. — I am ever, dear sir, your much indebted humble servant, E. B. No. XLIII. TO THE SAME. Jan. 17S7. While here I sit, sad and solitary, by the side of a fire in a little country inn, and drying my wet clothes, in pops a poor fellow of a sod- ger, and tells me he is going to Ayr. By Heaven ! say I to myself, with a tide of good spirits which the magic of that sound, auld toun o' Ayr, conjured up, I will send my last song to Mr Ballantyne. Here it is — Ye flowery banks o' bonnie Doon, How can ye bloom sae fair ! How can ye chant, ye little birds, And I sae fa' 0' care ! f /;c. * A proverbial expression denoting utter ruin, which j is still in use. No. XLIV. TO MRS DUNLOP. Edinburgh, Jan. 15, 1787. Madam, — Yours of the 9th current, which I am this moment honoured with, is a deep reproach to me for ungrateful neglect. I will tell you the real truth, for I am miserably awk- ward at a fib — I wished to have written to Dr Moore before I wrote to you ; but though, every day since I received yours of December 30th, the idea, the wish to write to him has constantly pressed on my thoughts, yet I could not for my soul set about it. I know his fame and char- acter, and I am one of "the sons of little men." To write him a mere matter-of-fact affair, like a merchant's order, would be disgracing the little character I have; and to write the author of " The View of Society and Manners " a let- ter of sentiment — I declare every artery runs cold at the thought. I shall try, however, to write to him to-morrow or next day. His kind interposition in my behalf I have already expe- rienced, as a gentleman waited on me the other day, on the part of Lord Eglinton, with ten guineas, by way of subscription for two copies of my next edition. The word you object to in the mention I have made of my glorious countryman and your immdrtal ancestor, is indeed borrowed from Thomson ; but it does not strike me aa an improper epithet. I distrusted my own judgment on your finding fault with it, and t See " The Banks o' Doon," p. 122. 244 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. applied for the opinion of some of the literati here who honour me with their critical stric- tures, and they all allow it to be proper. The song you ask I cannot recollect, and I have not a copy of it. I have not composed anything on the great Wallace, except what you have seen in print; and the enclosed, which J will print in this edition.* You will see I have mentioned some others of the name. When I composed my " Vision " long ago, I had attempted a description of Kyle, of which the additional stanzas are a part, as it origin- ally stood. My heart glows with a wish to be able to do justice to the merits of the "saviour of his country," which sooner or later I shall at least attempt. . You are afraid I shall grow intoxicated with my prosperity as a poat; alas ! madam, I know myself and the world too well. 1 do not mean any airs of affected modesty ; I am willing to believe that my abilities deserve some notice ; but in a most enlightened, informed age and nation, when poetry is and has been the study of men of the first natural genius, aided with all the powers of polite learning, polite books, and polite company — to be dragged forth to the full glare of learned and polite observation, with all my imperfections of awkward rusticity and crude, unpolished ideas on my head — I assure you, madam, I do not dissemble when I tell you I tremble for the consequences. The novelty of a poet in my obscure situation, without any of those advantages which are reckoned necessary for that character, at least at this time of day, has raised a partial tide of public notice which has borne me to a height, where I am absolutely, feelingly certain my abilities are inadequate to support me ; and too surely do I see that time when the same tide will leave me, and recede, perhaps, as far be- low the mark of truth. I do not say this in the ridiculous affectation of self-abasement and modesty. I have studied myself, and know what ground I occupy; and, however a friend or the world may differ from me in that par- ticular, I stand for my own opinion, in silent resolve, with all the tenaciousness of property. I mention this to you once for all to dis- burden my mind, and I do not wish to hear or say more about it. — But, "When proud fortune's ebbing tide recedes,'-' you will bear me witness that, when my bubble of fame was at the highest, I stood unintoxi- cated, with the inebriating cup in my hand, looking forward with rueful resolve to the hastening time when the blow of Calumny should dash it to the ground, with all the eager- ness of vengeful triumph. Your patronising rae and interesting yourself in my fame and character as a poet, I rejoice in ; it exalts me in my own idea : and whether you can or cannot aid me in my subscription is a trifle. Has a paltry subscription-bill any charms for the heart of a bard, compared with the patronage of the descendant of the immor- tal Wallace? B. B. • See "The Vision," p. 20. Xo. XLY. TO DR MOORE, t EDi^fBiTEGH, Jan, 1787, Sir, — Mrs Dunlop has been so kind as to send me extracts of letters she has had from you, where you do the rustic bard the honour of noticing him and his works. Those who have felt the anxieties and solicitudes of authorship can only know what pleasure it gives to be noticed in such a manner by judges of the first character. Your criticisms, sir, I receive . with reverence : only I am sorry they mostly came too late : a peccant passage or two, that I would certainly have altered, were gone to the press. The hope to be admired for ages ia, in by far the greater part of those even who are authors of repute, an unsubstantial dream. For my part, my first ambition was, and still my strongest wish is, to please my compeers, the rustic inmates of the hamlet, while ever-chang- ing language and manners shall allow me to be relished and understood. I am very willing to admit that I have some poetical abilities : and as few, if any, writers, either moral or poetical, are intimately acquainted with the classes of mankind among whom I have chiefly mingled, I may have seen men and manners in a differ- ent phasis from Avhat is common, which may assist originality of thought. Still I know very well the novelty of my character has by far the greatest share in the learned and polite notice I have lately had : and in a language where Pope and Churchill have raised the laugh, and Shenstone and Gray drawn the tear; where Thomson and Beattie have painted the land- scape, and Lyttleton and Collins described the heart ; I am not vain enough to hope for dis- tinguished poetic fame. R. B. f Dr Moore, who thus early discovered the talent of the poet, was a son of the Rev. Cliarles Moore of Stir- ling, and was educated at Glas;;ow for tlie medical profession. In 1747, while only seventeen years of age, he was, through the patronage of the Duke of Argyle, attaclied to the hospitiils connected witli the British army in Flanders. On his return, he settled in Glasgow ; but disliking the drudgery of the profession, he gave up his practice, and accepted the post of medical guar- dian to tl\e young Duke of Hamilton, wliose delicate health rendered the constant attendance of a medical man necessary. On the death of the young Duke, Dr Moore's services were transferred to the brotlier of the deceased, with wliom he spent five years of Conti- nental travel. When tlie Duke liad' attained his majority, Dr Moore settled in London, and aftenvards became well-known as an author. lie wrote "A View of Society and Manners, in France, Switzerland, and Germany," the result of his foreign tmvel ; " Medical Sketches ;" and when he was an old man, a novel entitled, " Zeluco." In 17(»2, when sixty-three years of age, he was in Paris, and witnessed the insuiTection of tlie 10th of August, the dethronement of the king, and much of the liorrors of tiiat year of bloofl, and gave the result of his experience on bis return, in the shape of "A Journal during a Ri'sideijce in France," Ac. He was a man of undoubted ability, and liis works were popular in their day. In a letter to Mrs Dunlop, he liad ex-pressed high admiration of the poetry of Burns, and this letter being shown to the poet, led to a correspondence of a most friendly and confidential nature. lie died in 1802. leaving five sons, one of wliom, General Sir John Wooro, belongs to bistorr. GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. 245 Ko. .VI. TO THE llEV. G. LAWRIE, XEWMILLS, KEAE KILMARNOCK. Edixburgh, Feb. 5, 17S7. Hevebeni) and deab ISir, — When I look at the date of your kind letter, my heart reproaches me severely with ingratitude in neglecting so long to answer it. I will not trouble you with any account by way of apology, of my hurried life and distracted at- tention : do me the justice to believe that my delay by no means proceeded from want of respect. I feel, and ever shall feel, for you the mingled sentiments of esteem for a friend and reverence for a father. I thank you, sir, with all my soul for your friendly hints, though I do not need them so much as my friends are apt to imagine. You are dazzled with newspaper accounts and dis- tant reports; but in reality I have no great temptation to be intoxicated with the cup of prosperity. Novelty may attract the attention of mankind a while ; to it I owe my present tdat; but I see the time not far distant when the popular tide, which has borne me to a height of which I am perhaps unworthy, shall recede with silent celerity, and leave me a barren waste of sand, to descend at my leisure to my former station. I do not say this in the affectation of modesty ; I see the con- sequence is unavoidable, and am prepared for it. I had been at a good deal of pains to form a just, impartial estimate of my intellectual powers before I came here ; I have not added, since I came to Edinburgh, anything to the account ; and I trust I shall take every atom of it back to my shades, the coverts of my tmnoticed, early years. In Dr Blacklock, whom I see very often, I have found what I would have expected in our friend, a clear head and an excellent heart. By far the most agreeable hours I spend in Edinburgh must be placed to the account of Miss Lawrie and her pianoforte. I cannot help repeating to you and Mrs Lawrie a com- pliment that Mr Mackenzie, the celebrated •"'Man of Feeling," paid to Miss Lawrie the other night at the concert. I had come in at the interlude, and sat down by him till I saw Miss Lawrie in a seat not very distant, and went up to pay my respects to her. On my return to Mr Mackenzie, he asked me who die was ; I told him 'twas the daughter of a reverend friend of mine in the west country. He returned there was something very strik- ing, to his idea, in her appearance. On my desiring to know what it was, he was pleased to say, " She has a great deal of the elegance of a well-bred lady about her, with all the sweet simplicity of a country girl." My compliments to all the happy inmates of St Margaret's. R. B. No. XLVn. TO DR MOORE. Edi^-boigh, Feb. 15, 1787. Sib, — Pardon ray seeming neglect in delaying so long to acknowledge the honour you have done me, in your kind notice of me, January 23. Not many months ago I knew no other employ- ment than following the plough, nor could boast anything higher than a distant acquaint- ance with a country clei-gyman. Mere great- ness never embarrasses me ; I have nothing to ask from the great, and I do not fear their judgment : but genius, polished by learning, and at its proper point of elevation in the eye of the world, this of late I frequently meet with, and tremble at its approach. I scorn the affectation of seeming modesty to cover self-conceit. That I have some merit I do not deny ; but I see, with frequent wriuginga of heart, that the novelty of my character, and the honest national prejudice of my country- men, have borne me to a height altogether tm- tenable to my abilities. For the honour Miss AVilliams has done me, please, sir, return her in my name my most grateful thanks. I have more than once thought of paying her in kind, but have hitherto quitted the idea in hopeless despond- ency. I had never before heard of her ; but the other day I got her poems, which for seve- ral reasons, some belonging to the head, and others the offspring of the heart, give me a great deal of pleasure. I have Uttle preten- sions to critic lore ; there are, I think, two characteristic features in her poetry — ^the un- fettered wild flight of native genius, and the querulous, sombre tenderness of " time-settled sorrow." I only know what pleases me, often with- out being able to tell why. R. B. No. XLVIIL TO JOHN BALLANTYNE, ESQ. Edinburgh, Feb. 24, 1787. My honoured Friend, — I will soon be with you now in guid black prent ; — in a week or ten days at furthest. I am obliged, against mj own wish, to print subscribers* names ; so li any of my Ayr friends have subscription bills, they must be sent in to Creech directly. I am getting my phiz done by an eminent engraver, and, if it can be ready in time, I will appear in my book, looking, li:e all other /ooZs, to my title-page. R- B. No. XLIX. TO THE EARL OF GLENCAIRN. Edixbcegh, Feb. 1787. My Lord, — T wanted to pm-chase a profile of your lordship, which I was told was to be got in town ; but I am truly sorry to see that a blundering painter has spoiled a "human face divine." The enclosed stanzas I intended to have written below a picture or profile of your lordship, could I have been so happy as to procure one with anything of a likeness. As I will soon return to my shades, I wanted to have something like a material object for my gratitude ; I wanted to have it in my power to say to a friend. There is my noble patron, my generous benefactor. Allow me. 246 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. my lord, to publish these verses. I conjure your lordship, by the honest throe of gratitude, by the generous wish of benevolence, by all the powers and feelings which compose the magna- nimous mind, do not deny me this petition. I owe much to your lordship ; and, what has not in some other instances always been the case with me, the weight of the obligation is .1 pleasing load. I trust I have a heart as in- dependent as your lordsliip's, than which I can say nothing more ; and I would not be beholden to favours that would crucify my feelings. Your dignified character in life, and manner of supporting that character, are flattering to my pride; and I would be jealous of the purity of my grateful attachment, where I was under the patronage of one of the much favoured sons of fortune. Almost every poet has celebrated his patrons, particularly when they were names dear to fame, and illusti'ious in their country ; allow me then, my lord, if you think the verses have intrinsic merit, to tell the world how much I have the honour to be your lordship's highly- indebted, and ever-grateful humble servant, KB. No. L. TO THE EARL OF BUCHAN". Edisbukgh, Feh. 1787. My Lord, — The honour your lordship has done me, by your notice and advice in yours of the 1st instant, I shall ever gratefully remem- ber : — *' Praise from thy lips 'tis mine with joy to boast, They best can give it who deserve it most." Your lordship touches the darling chord of my heart when you advise me to fire my Muse at'Scottish story and Scottish scenes. I wish for nothing more than to make a leisurely pil- grimage through my native country ; to sit and muse on those once hard-contested fields, where Caledonia, rejoicing, saw her bloody lion borne through iDroken ranks to victory and fame ; and catching tlie inspiration, to pour the death- less names in song. But, my lord, in the midst of these enthusiastic reveries, a long- visaged, dry, moral-looking phantom strides across my imagination, and pronounces these emphatic words : — " I, Wisdom, dwell with Prudence. Friend, I do not come to open the ill-closed wounds of your follies and misfortunes merely to give you pain : I wish through these wounds to imprint a lasting lesson on your heart. I will not mention how many of my salutary advices you have despised : I have given you line upon line and precept upon precept; and while I was chalking out to you the straight way to wealth and character, with audacious effrontery you have zigzagged across the path, contemn- ing me to my face : you know the consequences. It is not yet three months since home was so hot for you that you were on the wing for the western shore of the Atlantic, not to make a fortune, but to hide your misfortune. " Now that your dear-loved Scotia puts it in your power to return to the situation of your forefathers, will you follow these will-o'-wdsp meteors of fancy and whim, till they bring you once more to the brink of ruin ? I grant that the utmost ground you can occupy is but half a step from the veriest poverty ; but still it ia half a step from it. If all that I can urge be inelFectual, let her who seldom calls to you in vain, let the call of pride prevail with you. You know how you feel at the iron gripe of ruthless oppression : you know how you bear the galling sneer of contumelious greatness. I hold you out the conveniences, the comforts of life, independence, and character, on the one hand ; I tender you civility, dependence, and wretchedness, on the other. I will not insult your understanding by bidding you make a choice."* This, my lord, is unanswerable. I must re- turn to my humble station, and woo my rustic Muse in my wonted way at the plough-tail. Still, my lord, while the drops of life warm my heart, gratitude to that dear-loved country in which I boast my birth, and gratitude to those her distinguished sons wdio have honoured me so much with their patronage and appro- bation, shall, while stealing through my hum- ble shades, ever distend my bosom, and at times, as now, draw forth the swelling tear.f R. B. No. LI. TO GAVIN HAMILTON, ESQ. Edikburgh, March 8, 1787. Deae Sir, — Yours came safe, and I am as usual much indebted to your goodness. Poor Captain M[ontgomery] is cast. Yesterday it was tried whether the husband could proceed against the unfortunate lover without first divorcing his wife, and their Gravities on the Bench were unanimously of opinion that Maxwell may prosecute for damages directly, and need not divorce his wife at all if he pleases ; and Maxwell is immediately, before the Lord Ordinary, to prove, what I daresay will not be denied, the Crim. Con. — then their Lordships will modify the damages, which I suppose will be pretty heavy, as their Wisdoms have expressed great abhorrence of my gallant Right Worshipful Brother's conduct. O all ye powers of love unfortunate and friendless woe, pour the balm of sympathising pity on the grief -torn, tender heart of the hap- pless Fair One ! My two songs J on Miss W. Alexander and Miss P. Kennedy were likewise tried yesterday by a jury of literati, and found defamatory libels » Copied from the Bee, vol. ii. p. 319, and com- pared with tlie author's MSS.— Cuurie. t Cunningham says of the Earl of Buchan, "He was one of tlie most economical of patrons ; lest the object of liis kindness might chance to feci too heavily the debt of obligation, lie did not hesitate to allow a painter to present him with a picture, or a poet with a poem. He advised Burns to make a pilgrimage to the scenes of Scotland's battles, in the hope perhaps that An- crum Moor would be immortalised in song, and the name of the 'Commendator of Dryburgh ' included in the strain." X The songs alluded to were " The Bonnie Lass 0' Ballochmyle," and " The Banks o' Bonnie Boon." GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. 247 against the fr.stidious powers of Poesy and Taste ; and the author forbidden to print them under pain of forfeiture of character. I cannot help almost shedding a tear to the memory of two songs that had cost me some pains, and that I valued a good deal, but I must submit. My most respectful compliments to Mrs Hamilton and Miss Kennedy. My poor unfortunate songs come again across my memory. Damn the pedant, frigid soul of Criticism for ever and ever ! — I am €ver, dear sir, your obliged Robert Burns. No. LII. TO MR JAMES CANDLISH.* Edinburgh, March 21, 1787. My ever-dear old Acquaintance, — I was equally surprised and pleased at your letter, though I daresay you will think by my delaying so long to write you that I am so drowned in the intoxication of good fortune as to be indiffer- ent to old, and once dear, connexions. The truth is, I was determined to write a good let- ter, full of argument, amplification, erudition, and, as Bayes says, all that. I thought of it, and thought of it, and, by my soul, I could not ; and, lest you should mistake the ca\ise of my silence, I just sit down to tell you so. Don't give yourself credit, though, that the strength of your logic scares me : the truth is I never mean to meet you on that ground at all. You have shown me one thing which was to be demonstrated : that strong pride of rea- soning, with a little affectation of singularity, may mislead the best of hearts. I likewise, since you and I were first acquainted, in the pride of despising old women's stories, ventured in "the daring path Spinosa trod;" but ex- perience of the weakness, not the strength of human powers, made me glad to grasp at re- vealed religion. I am still, in the apostle Paul's phrase, "the old man with, his deeds," as when we were sporting about the " Lady Thorn." I shall be four weeks here yet at least ; and so I shall expect to hear from you ; welcome sense, welcome nonsense. — I am, with the warmest sincerity, R. B. No. LIII. TO MR WILLIAM DUNBAR.f LAwxjf ARKET, Monday Morning, [March 1787.] Dear Sir, — In justice to Spenser, I must acknowledge that there is scarcely a poet in * Another of the poet's early friends. He maiTieil Miss Smith, one of the six belles of Mauchline ; and a son of theirs is well known to all his counti-ymen as the Rev. Dr Candlish of Free St George's Church, Edinburgh,— probably, since the death of Dr Chalmers, the leading man in the Free Church. t This gentleman was the subject of the poet's song entitled, "Rattling, Roaring Willie." He was a writer to the Signet in Edinburgh. The letter was first pub- lished in Hogg and Motherwell's edition of the poet's works, and was communicated by Mr P. Buchan of Aberdeen. the language could have been a more agreeable present to me ; and in justice to you, allow me to say, sir, that I have not met with a man in Edinburgh to whom I would so willingly have been indebted for the gift. The tattered rhymes I herewith present you, and the hand- some volumes of Spenser for which I am so much indebted to your goodness, may perhaps be not in proportion to one another ; but be that as it may, my gift, though far less valua- ble, is as sincere a mark of esteem as yours. The time is approaching when I shall return to my shades ; and I am afraid my numerous Edinburgh friendships are of so tender a con- struction that they will not bear carriage with me. Yours is one of the few that I could wish of a more robust constitution. It is indeed very probable that when I leave this city, we part never more to meet in this sublunary sphere; but I have a strong fancy that in some future eccentric planet, the comet of happier systems than any with which astronomy is yet acquainted, you and I, among the harum-scarum sons of imagination and whim, with a hearty shake of a hand, a metaphor and a laugh, shall recognise old acquaintance : — Where wit may sparkle all its rays, Uncursed with caution's fears ; That pleasure, basking in the blaze, Rejoice for endless years. I have the honour to be, with the warmest sincerity, dear sir, &c., R. B. ON eergusson's headstone. Edixbitegh, March 1787. My dear Sir, — You may think, and too justly, that I am a selfish, ungrateful fellow, having received so many repeated instances of kindness from you, and yet never putting pen to paper to say thank you ; but if you knew what a devil of a life my conscience has led me on that account, your good heart would think yourself too much avenged. By the by, there is nothing in the whole frame of man which seems to be so unaccountable as that thing called conscience. Had the troublesome yelp- ing cur powers efficient to prevent a mischief, he might be of use ; but at the beginning of the business, his feeble efibrts are to the workings of passion as the infant frosts of an autumnal morning to the unclouded fervour of the rising sun ; and no sooner are the tumul- tuous doings of the wicked deed over, than, amidst the bitter native consequences of folly, in the very vortex of our horrors, up starts conscience, and harrows us with the feelings of the damned. I have enclosed you, by way of expiation, some verse and prose, that, if they merit a place in your truly entertaining miscellany, you are welcome to. The prose extract is literally as Mr Sprott sent it me. The inscription on the stone is as follows : — 2a8 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. "here lies ROBERT FERGUSSON, POET. "Bom, September 5th, 1751 — Died, October Ifith, 1774. "No sculptured marble here, noi' pompous lay, ' No storied urn nor animated bust ;' This simple stoue directs pale Scotia's way To pour her sorrows o'er her poet's dust." On the other side of the stone is as follows : — "By special grant of the managers to Robert Burns, who erected this stone, this burial-place is to remain for ever sacred to the memory of Robert Fergusson." Session-house within the Kirk of Canongate, the twenty-second day of February, one thou- sand seven hundred and eighty-seven years. Sederunt of the Managers of the Kirk and Kirkyard funds of Canougate. Which day, the treasurer to the said funds produced a letter from Mr Robert Burns, of date the 6th current, which was read and ap- pointed to be engrossed in their sederunt book, and of which letter the tenor follows :— " To the Honourable Bailies of Canongate, Edinburgh. — Gentlemen, I am sorry to be told that the remains of Egbert Fergusson, the so justly celebrated poet, a man whose talents for ages to come will do honour to our Caledonian name, lie in your churchyard among the ignoble dead, unnoticed and unknown. " Some memorial to direct the steps of the lovers of Scottish song, when they wish to shed a tear over the 'narrow house' of the bard who is no more, is surely a tribute due to Fergusson's memory : a tribute I wish to have the honour of paying. " I petition you, then, gentlemen, to permit me to lay a simple stone over his revered ashes, to remain an unalienable property to his deathless fame. — I have tho honour to be, gentlemen, your very humble Servant, {sic sub- scribitur,) Robert Burns." Thereafter the said managers, in considera- tion of the laudable and disinterested motion of Mr Burns, and the propriety of his request, did, and hereby do, unanimously grant power and liberty to the said Robert Burns to erect a headstone at the grave of the said Robert Fergusson, and to keep up and preserve the game to his memory in all time coming.* Ex- tracted forth of the recordaof the managers, by "William Sprott, clerk • Mr CcmninghaTn says :— From the sinking of the ground of the neighbouring graves, the headstone placed by Burns over Fergusson was thrown from its balance ; this was observed, soon after the death of the Bard of Ayr, by the Esculapian Club of Edinburgh, who, animated by that pious zeal for departed merit which had before led ttiem to prevent some oUier sepulchral monuments from going to ruin, refixed tlie original stone, and added some iron work, with an additional inscription to the memory of Bums. The poetical part of it is taken, almost verbatim, from the Blegy on Captain Mattliew Henderson :— "Di'anum laude veruvn, Musa vetat mori. Lo ! Oenius, proudly, wliile to Fame she turns, Twines Currie's laui'els with the wreath of Burns." To the Memory of ROBERT BURNS, TUB AYRSHIRE BAED ; WHO WAS BORN AT DOONSinB, On the 25lh of January 1759; AND DIED AT DCMFRIES, On the 22d of July 1796. No. LV. TO MRS DUIs'LOR EDI^-BURG^, March 22, 1787. Madam, — I read your letter with watery eyes. A little, very little- while ago, I had scarce a friend but the stubborn pride of my own bosom ; now I am distinguished, patron " Robert Bums ! the Man, the Brother ! And art thou gone — and gone for ever ! And bast thou cross'd that unknown river, Life's dreai-y bound ! Like thee, where shall we find another. The world around ! " Go to your sculptured tombs, ye great, In a' the tinsel trash o' state ! But by thy honest turf I'll wait. Thou man of worth! And weep the sweetest poet's fate, E'er lived on earth." To have raised one solid monument of masonry to both, working Fergusson's headstone into one side of the structure, and placing the Burns inscription on the other, would perhaps have been more judicious.— See letter to Mr Peter Hill, dated Feb. 5, 1792, relative to this monument. On the subject of Fergusson's headstone we find the following letter in Dr Currie's edition of the poet's works : — March 8, 1787. I AM truly happy to know you have found a friend in ; his patronage of you does him great honour. He is truly a good man ; by far the best I ever knew, or perhaps ever shall know, in this world. But I must not speak all I think of liim, lest I should be thought partial. So you have obtained liberty from the magistrates to erect a stone over Fei-gusson's grave ? I do not doubt it ; such things have been, as Shakespeare says, "in the olden time ; " "The poet's fate is here in emblem shown, He ask'd for bread, and he received a stone." It is, I believe, upon poor Butler's tomb that this i^ written. But how many brothere of Parnassus, as wel^ as poor Butler and poor Fergusson, have asked for bread, and been served with the same sauce ! The magistrates pave you liberty, did they? O generous magisti-ates • , celebrated over the three kingdoms for his public spirit, gives a poor poet liberty to raise a tomb to a poor poet's memory ! most gene- rous ! , once upon a time, gave that same poet the mighty sum of eighteenpence for a copy of his works. But then it must be considered that the poet was at that time absolutely starving, and besought his aid with all the earnestness of hunger. And over and above he received [a , worth at least one-third of the value, in exchange ; but which, I believe, the poet afterwards very ungratefully expunged. Next week 1 hope to have the pleasure of seeing you in Edinburgh ; and, as my stay will be for eight or ten days, I wish you or would take a snug, well-aired bedroom for me, where I may have the pleasure of seeing you over a morning cup of tea. But by all ac- counts it will be a matter of some difficulty to see you at all, unless your company is bespoke a week before- hand. There is a great rumour here concerning your great intimacy with the Duchess of , and other ladles of distinction. I am really told that «'Cai"d3 to invite fly by thousands each night;" and if you had one, I suppose there would also be "bribes to your old secretary." It seems you are re- solved to make hay while the sun shines, and avoid, if possible, the fate of poor Fergusson, .... Quccrenda pecnnia pritnum est, virtus post niimmos, is a good maxim to thrive by : you seemed to despise it while in this part of the country, but probably some philosopher in Edinburgh has taught you better sense. Pray are you yet engraving as well as printing— arc }'ou yet seized "With itch of picture in the front, With bays and wicked rhyme upon't?" But I must give up this trifling, and attend to ma ■ tci« GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. 249 ised, befriended by you. Your friendly ad- vices — I will not give them the cold name of criticisms — I receive with reverence. I have made some small alterations in what I before had printed. I have the advice of some very judicious friends among the literati here, but with them I sometimes find it necessary to claim the privilege of thinking for myself. The noble Earl of Glen cairn, to whom I owe more than to any man, does me the honour of giving me his strictures ; his hints with respect to impropriety or indelicacy I follow implicitly. You kindly interest yourself in my future viev.-s and pi-ospects ; there I can give you no light. It is all "Dark as was Chaos ere the infant sun Wjis rol'i'd together, or had tried his beams Athwart the gloom profound." The appellation of a Scottish bard is by far my highest pride ; to continue to deserve it is my most exalted ambition. Scottish scenes and Scottish story are the themes I could wish to sing. I have no dearer aim than to have it in my power, unplagued with the rou- tine of business, for which Heaven knows I am unfit enough, to make leisurely pilgrimages through Caledonia ; to sit on the fields of her battles ; to wander on the romantic banks of her rivers ; and to muse by the stately towers or venerable ruins, once the honoured abodes of her heroes. But these are all Utopian tiioughts : I have dallied long enough with life ; 'tis time to be in earnest. I have a fond, an aged mother to care for : and some other bosom ties perhaps equally tender. Where the individual only suffers by the consequences of his own thought- lessness, indolence, or folly, he may be ex- cusable ; nay, shining abilities, and some of the nobler virtues, may half sanctify a heed- less character; but where God and nature have intrusted the welfare of others to his care ; where the trust is sacred, and the ties are dear, that man must be far gone in selfish- Bess, or strangely lost to reflection, whom these connexions will not rouse to exertion. I guess that I shall clear between two and three hundred pounds by my authorship ! * with that sum I intend, so far as I may be said to have any intention, to return to my old acquaintance, the plough, and, if I can meet with a lease, by which I can live, to commence farmer. I do not intend to give up poetry; i being bred to labour, secures me independence, and the Muses are my chief, sometimes have been my only, enjoyment. If my practice that more concern myself; so, as the Aberdeen wit says. "■Adieu, dryly; we sal drink fan we meet." " The above extract," says Dr CuiTie, " is from a let- ter of one of the ablest of our poet's correspondents, which contains some interesting anecdotes of Fergus- son. The writer is mistaken in supposing the magistrates of Edinburgh had any share in the transaction respect- ing the monument erected for Fergusson by our J)ard ; this, it is evident, passed between Burns and the Kirk- Session of the Canongate. Neither at Edinburgh, nor anywhere else, do magistrates usually trouble them- selves to inquire how the house of a poor poet is famislied, or how his grave is adorned." See additional letter on this subject, dated Septembei* 1789. * The clear proft realised has been assumed to be seven hundi'ed pounds. second my resolution, I shall have principally at heart the serious business of life ; but while following my plough, or building up my shocks, I shall cast a leisure glance to that dear, that only feature of my character, which gcve me the notice of my country, and the patronage of a vN'allace. Thus, honoured madam, I have given you the bard, his situation, and his views, native as they are in his own btaom. E. B. No. LVI. TO THE SAMK Emnbckgh, April 15, 1787. Madam", — There is an affectation of gratitude which I dislike. The periods of Johnson and the pauses of Sterne may hide a selfish heart. For my part, madam, I trust I have too much pride for servility, and too little prudence for selfishness. I have this moment broken open yoiir letter, but " Rude am I in speech, And therefore little can 1 grace my cause In speaking for myself;" so I shall not trouble you with any fine speeches and hunted figures. I shall just lay my hand on my heart and say, I hope I shall ever have the truest, the warmest sense of your good- ness. I come abroad in print for certain on Wed- nesday. Your orders I shall punctually attend to ; only, by the way, I must tell you that I was paid before for Dr Moore's and Miss Williams's copies, through the medium of Com- missioner Cochrane in this place, but that we can settle when I have the honour of waiting on you. Dr Smith + was ju.st gone to London the morning before I received your letter to him. R. B. No. LVII. TO DR MOORE. J EmxBirEGH, April 23, 1787. I RECEIVED the books, and sent the one you mentioned to Mrs Dunlop. I am ill skilled in ! t Adam Smith, the distinguished author of "The Wealth of Nations," &.c. \ X The answer of Dr Moore was as follows : — Cliffoed Street, May 23, 1787. Dear Sie, — I had the pleasure of your letter by Mr Creech, and soon after he sent me the new edition ot your poems. You seem to think it incumbent on you to send to each subscriber a number of copies propor- tionate to his subscription money; but you may depend upon it, few subscribers expect more "than one copy, whatever they subscribed ; I must inform you, how- ever, that I took twelve copies for those subscribers for whose money you were so accurate as to send me a receipt ; and Lord Eglinton told me he had sent for six copies for himself as he wished to give five of them as presents. Some of the poems you have added in this last edition are very beautiful, particularly the "Winte* Nigbt," the "Address to Edinburgh," "Green Grow the Rashes," and the two songs immediately following, the latter * of wliich is exquisite. By the way, I 250 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. beating the coverts of imagination for meta- pliors of gratitude. I thank you, sir, for the honour you have done me ; and to my latest hour will warmly remember it. To be highly pleased with your book is what I am in com- mon with the world ; but to regai'd these vol- umes as a mark of the author's friendly esteem is a still more supreme gratification. I leave Edinburgh in the course of ten days or a fortnight, and, after a few pilgrimages over some of the classic ground of Caledonia, — Cowden Knowes, Banks of Yarrow, Tweed, &c., — I shall return to my rural shades, in all likeli- hood never more to quit them. I have formed many intimacies and friendships here, but I am afraid they are all of too tender a construction to bear carriage a hundred and fifty miles. To the rich, the great, the fashionable, the polite. imagine you have a peculiar talent for such composi- tions, which you ought to indulge. No kind of poetry demands more delicacy or higher polishing. Horace is more admired on account of his Odes than all his other writings. But nothing now added is equal to your "Vision" and "Cotter's Saturday Night." In these are united fine imagery, natural and pathetic descrip- tion, with sublimity of language and thought. It is evident that you already possess a great variety of ex- pression and command of the English language ; you ought therefore to deal more sparingly for the future in the provincial dialect. Why should you, by using that, limit the number of your admirers to those who under- stand the Scottish, when you can extend it to all per- sons of taste who understand the English language ? In my opinion you should plan some larger work than any you have as yet attempted. I mean, reflect upon some proper subject, and arrange the plan in your mind, without beginning to execute any part of it till you have studied most of the best English poets, and read a little more of history. The Greek and Roman stories you can read in some abridgment, and soon become master of the most brilliant facts, which must highly delight a poetical mind. You should, also, and very soon may, become master of the heathen mythology, to which there are everlasting allusions in all the poets, and which in itself is charmingly fanciful. "What will requh-e to be studied with more attention is modern history — that is, the history of France and Great Britain, from the beginning of Henry the Seventh's reign. I know very well you have a mind capable of attaining knowledge by a shorter process than is commonly used, and I am certain you are capable of making a better use of it, when attained, than is generally done. I beg you will not give yourself the trouble of writing to me when it is inconvenient ; and make no apology when you do write for having postponed it. Be assured of this, however, that I shall always be happy to hear from you. I think my friend Mr told me that you had some poems in manuscript by you, of a satiri- cal and humorous nature, (in which, by the way, I think you very sti-ong,) which your prudent friends prevailed on you to omit, particularly one called •'Somebody's Confession:"* if jj'ou will intrust me with a sight of any of these, I will pawn my word to give no copies, and will be obliged to you for a perusal of them. I understand you intend to take a farm, and make the useful and respectable business of husbandry your chief occupation : this I hope will not prevent your making occasional addresses to the nine ladies who have shown you such favour, one of whom visited you in the "auld clay biggin." Virgil before you proved to the world that there is nothing in the business of husbandry inimical to poetry ; and I sincerely hope that you may afford an example of a good poet being a successful farmer. I fear it will not be in my power to visit Scotland this season; when I do, I'll en- deavour to find you out, for I heartily wish to see and converse with you. If ever your occasions call you to this place, I make no doubt of your paying me a visit, and you may depend on a veiy cordial welcome from this family. — I am, dear sir, your friend and obedient servant, J. MOORK, • •• Holy Wmie'i Prayer" is porhapi the poem aUaded to. I have no equivalent to offer; and I am afraid my meteor appearance will by no means entitle me to a settled correspondence with any of you, who are the permanent lights of genius and literature. My most respectful compliments to Miss Williams. If once this tangent flight of mine were over, and I were returned to my wonted leisurely motion in my old circle, I may prob- ably endeavour to return her poetic compliment in kind. E. B. No. LVIII. TO MRS DUNLOP. Edinburgh, Ai^ril 30, 1787. Your criticisms, madam, I understand very well, and could have wished to have pleased you better. You are right in your guess that I am not very amenable to counsel. Poets, . much my superiors, have so flattered those who possessed the adventitious qualities of wealth and power, that I am determined to flatter no created being, either in prose or verse. I set as little by princes, lords, clergy, critics, &c., as all these respective gentry do by my hardship. I know what I may expect from the world by and by — illiberal abuse, and perhaps contemptuous neglect. I am happy, madam, that some of my own favourite pieces are distinguished by your particular approbation. For my ** Dream," * which has unfortunately incurred your loyal displeasure, I hope in four weeks, or less, to have the honour of appearing at Dunlop in ita defence in person. R. B. No. LIX.t TO JAMES JOHNSON, EDITOR OF THE " SCOTS MUSICAL MUSEUM." Lawkmakket, Friday Noon, May 3, 1787. Dear Sib, — I have sent you a song never before known, for your collection ; the air by Mr Gibbon, but I know not the author of the words, as I got it from Dr Blacklock. Farewell, my dear sir ! I wished to have seen you, but I have been dreadfully throng, as I march to-morrow. Had my acquaintance with you been a little older, I would have asked the favour of your correspondence ; as I have met with few people whose company and conversation gave me so much pleasure, be- cause I have met with few whose sentiments are so congenial to my own. When Dunbar and you meet, tell him that I left Edinburgh with the idea of him hanging somewhere about my heart. Keep the original of this song till we meet again, whenever that may be. R. B. * The well-known poem, beginning, "Guid morning to your Majesty," fsee p. 38.) Mrs Dunlop had prob- ably recommended its being omitted in the second edition, on the score of prudence. — Cunningham. t This letter first appeared in Hogg and Motherwell's edition of the poet's works. GENERAL CORRESPdNDENCE. 2qr No. LX. TO THE REV. DR HUGH BLAIR.* La-wnmarket, Edinburgh, May 3, 1787. Reverend and much-respected Sir, — I leave Edinburgh to-morrow morning, but could not go without troubling you with half a line sincerely to thank you for the kindness, pa- tronage, and friendship you have shown me. I often felt the embarrassment of my singular situation ; drawn forth from the veriest shades of life to the glare of remark ; and honoured by the notice of those illustrious names of my country whose works, while they are applauded to the end of time, will ever instruct and mend the heart. However the meteor-like novelty * Mr Cunningham says the answer of Blair to this letter contains a full refutation of all those who asserted that the poet's life in Edinburgh was wild and irregu- lar:— Argtle Square, Edinburgh, May 4, 1787. Dear Sir, — I was favoured this forenoon w^ith your very obliging letter, together with an impression of your portrait, for which I return you my best thanks. The success you have met with 1 do not think was beyond your merits ; and if I have had any small hand in contributing to it, it gives me great pleasure. I know no way in which literary persons who are advanced in years can do moi'e service to the world than in foi-- warding the efforts of rising genius, or bringing forth unknown merit from obscurity. I was the first person who brought out to the notice of the world the poems of Ossian ; first, by the "Fragments of Ancient Poetry," which I published, and afterwards, by my setting on foot the undertaking for collecting and publishing the works of Ossian ; and I have always considered this as a meritorious action of my life. Your situation, as you say, was indeed very singular ; and in being brought out all at once from the shades of deepest privacy to so great a share of public notice and observation you had to stand a severe trial. I am happy that you have stood it so well ; and, as far as I have known or heard, though in the midst of many tempta- tions, without reproach to your character and behaviour. You are now, I presume, to retire to a more private walk of life ; and I trust will conduct yourself there with industry, prudence, and honour. You have laid the foundation for just public esteem. In the midst of those employments which your situation will render proper, you will not, I hope, neglect to promote that esteem, by cultivating your genius and attending to such productions of it as may raise your character still higher. At the same time be not in too great a haste to come forward. Take time and leisure to improve and mature your talents. For on any second production you give the world your fate as a poet will very much depend. There is no doubt a gloss of novelty which time wears off. As you very properly hint yourself, you are not to be surprised if in your rural retreat you do not find yourself sun-ounded with that glare of notice and applause which here shone upon you. No man can be a good poet without being somewliat of a philosopher. He m.ust lay his account that any one who exposes himself to public observation, will occasionally meet witli the attacks of illiberal censure, which it is always best to overlook and despise. He will be inclined sometimes to court retreat, and to disappear from pub- lic view. He will not affect to shine always, that he may at proper seasons came forth with more advantage and energy. He will not think himself neglected if he be not always praised. I have taken the liberty, you see, of an old man to give advice and make reflections, which your own good sense will I daresay render un- necessaiy. When you return, if you come this way, I will be happy to see you, and to know concerning your future plans of life. You will find me by the 22d of this month not in my house in Argyle Sqiiare, but at a countiy house at Restalrig, about a mile east from Edinburgh, near the Musselburgh road. — Wishing you all success and prosperity, I am, with real regard and esteem dear sir, yours sincerely, Hloh Claib. of my appearance in the world might attract notice, and honour me with the acquaintance of the permanent lights of genius and literature, those who are truly benefactors of the immortal nature of man, I knew very well that my ut- most merit was far unequal to the task of pre- serving that character when once the novelty was over; I have made up my mind that abuse, or almost even neglect, will not surprise me in my quarters. I have sent you a proof impression of Beugo's workf for me, done on Indian paper, as a trifling but sincere testimony with what heart- warm gratitude I am, &c., R. B. No. LXI. TO WILLIAM CREECH, ESQ., EDIN- BURGH. Selkire:, May 13, 1787. My HONOURED Friend, — The enclosed I have- just wrote, nearly extempore, in a solitary inn in Selkirk, after a miserable wet day's riding. I have been over most of East Lothian, Ber- wick, Roxburgh, and Selkirk shires ; and next week I begin a tour through the north of England. Yesterday I dined with Lady Harriet, sister to my noble patron, $ Quem Deiis conservet ! I would write till I would tire you as much with dull prose, as I daresay by this time you are with v/retched verse, but I am jaded to death ; so, with a grateful fare- well, I have the honour to be, good sir, yours sincerely, R. B. Auld chuckle-Reekie's § sair distrest, Down droops her ance weel burnish'd crest, Nae joy her bonnie buskit nest Can yield ava ; Her darling bird that she lo'es best, Willie's awa. |J No. LXIL TO MR PATISON, BOOKSELLER, PAISLEY. Bbrrtwell, near Dunse, May 17, 1787. Dear Sir, — I am sorry I was out of Edin- burgh, making a slight pilgrimage to the classic scenes of this country, when I was favoured with yours of the 11th instant, enclosing an order of the Paisley Banking Company on the Royal Bank, for twenty-two pounds seven shillings sterling, payment in full, after car- riage deducted, for ninety copies of my book I sent you. According to your motions, I see you will have left Scotland before this reaches you, otherwise I would send you " Holy Willie " with all my heart. I was so hurried that I absolutely forgot several things I ought to have minded, among the rest, sending books to Mr Cowan ; but any order of yours will be t The portrait of the poet after Nasmyth. + James, Earl of Glencairn. § Edinburgh. II See the remainder of this piece, and an interesting notice of Bailie Creech, the poet's Edinburgh publisher, at p. 98. 2;2 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. answered at Creech's shop. You will please remember that non-subscribers pay six shil- lings; this is Creech's profit; but those who have subscribed, though their names have been neglected in the printed list, which is very incon-ect, they are supplied at the sub- scription price. I was not at Glasgow, nor do I intend for London; and I think Mrs Fame is very idle to tell so many lies on a poor poet. When you or Mr Cowan write for copies, if you should want any, direct to Mr Hill,* at Mr Creech's shop, and I write to Mr Hill by this post, to answer either of your orders. Hill is Mr Creech's first clerk, and Creech himself is presently in London. I suppose I shall have the pleasure, against your return to Paisley, of assuring you how much I am, dear sir, your obliged humble servant, E. B. No. LXIII. TO MR W. NICOL,+ MASTER OF THE HIGH SCHOOL, EDINBURGH. Carlisle, Jum 1, 17S7. Kind, honest-hearted Willie, — I'm sitten doun here, after seven-and-forty miles' ridin', e'en as forjesketandforniaw'd as a forfochten cock, to gie ye some notion o' my land-lowper- like stravaigin sin the sorrowfu' hour that I sheuk hands and parted wi' Auld Reekie. My auld, ga'd gleyde o' a meere has huch- yall'd up hill and doun brae, in Scotland and England, as teugh and birnie as a vera devil wi' me.J It's true, she's as poor's a sang-maker and as hard's a kirk, and tipper-taipers when she taks the gate, first like a lady's gentlewoman in a minuwae, or a hen on a het girdle ; but she's a yauld, poutherie girran for a' that, and has a stomach like Willie Stalker's meere that wad hae digested tumbler-wheels, for she'll whip me aff her five stimparts o' the best aits at a doun-sittin' and ne'er fash her thumb. When ance her ringbanes and spavies, her crucks and cramps, are fairly soupl'd she beets to, beets to, and aye the hindmost hour the tightest. I could wager her price to a thretty peimies, that for twa or three ooka' ridin' at fifty mile a day, the deil-sticket a five gallopers acqueesh Clyde and Whithorn covild cast saut on her tail. I hae dander 'd owre a' the kintra frae Dam- » Mr Peter Hill, then an assistant to Creech, after- wards a bookseller ou his own account, and with who u the late Arcliibald Constable was an apprentice. Thi; Eoet corresponded regularly with him, and esteemed im highly. t Mr W. Nlcol, was an intimate fi-iend of Burns's and one of tlie masters of tlio High School. He ac- companied him in his tour throuf,'h the Highlands, and proved himself somewhat troublesome as a trnvellin-i; comi«inion, compelling tlie poet again and again to go and come as he listed. He was fond of good company, and good eating and drinking, and died prematui-cly in 1707. X This mare was the poet's favourite Jenny Geddes. "She WHS named by him," says Cromek, "uftei* the old woman who, in her zeal against religious innovation, thruw a stool at the Dean of Edinburgh's head when he attempted, in 1637, to introduce the Scottish Liturgy." bar to Selcraig, and hae forgather'd wi' mony a guid fallow, a:id monie a weelfaur'd hizzie. I met wi' twa dink queynes iu particular, ane o' them a sonsie, fine, fodgel lass, baith braw and bonnie; the tither was a clean-shankit, straught, tight, weel-far'd winch, as blithe's a liutwhite on a flowrie thorn, and as sweet and modest 's a new-blawn plumrose in a hazle shaw. They were baith bred to mainers by the beuk, and onie ane o' them had as muckle smeddum and rumblegumption as the half o' some presbytries that you and I baith ken. They play'd me sic a deevil o' a shavie that I daur say, if my hari- gals were turned out, ye wad see twa nicks i* the heart o' me like the mark o' a kail- whittle in a castock. I was gaun to write you a lang pystle, but, Gude forgie me, I gat mysel sae noutouriously bitchify'd the day, after kail-time, that I can hardly stoiter but and ben. My best respecks to the guidwife and a' our common friens, especiall Mr and Mrs Cruik- shank, and the honest guidman o' Jock's Lodge. I '11 be in Dumfries the morn gif the beast be to the fore, and the branks bide hale. — Gude be wi' you, Willie ! Amen ! R. E.§ No. LXIV. TO MR JAMES SMITH, AT MILLER AND SMITH'S OFFICE, LINLITHGOW. Mauchline, June 11, 1787. My deae Sir, — I date this from Mauchline, where I arrived on Friday eveniug last. I slept at John Dow's, and called for my daughter ; Mr Hamilton and family ; your mother, sister, and brother ; my quondam Eliza, &c., all — all well. If anything had been wanting to dis- gust me completely at Armour's family, their mean servile compliance would have done it. Give me a spirit like my favourite hero, Mil- ton's Satan : — " Hail, horrors ! hail, Infernal world ! and thou, profoundest liell, Receiver thy new possessor ! one who brings A mind not to be clianged by place or time .'" I cannot settle to my mind. Farming — the only thing of which I know anything, and Heaven above knows but little do I under- stand even of that — I cannot, dare not, risk on farms as they are. If I do not fix, I will go for Jamaica. Should I stay in an unsettled state at home, I would only dissipate my little fortune, and ruin what I intend shall compen- sate my little ones for the stigiiia I have brought on their names. I shall write you more at large soon ; as this letter costs you no postiige, if it be worth read- ing you cannot complain of your pennyworth. — I am ever, my dear sir, yours, R. B. § No man had ever more command of the ancient Doric dialect than Burns. He has left a curious testi- mony of his skill in the above letter— an attempt to read a sentence of which would break the teeth of most modern Scotchmen.— Sir Walter Scott. It is written in the west-country dialect, and does not present any difficulty to a native aioTiiEnwBLL. LrltNKRAL CORRESPONDENCE. ^53 Xo. LXV. TO MR ^VILLIAM NICOL. Mauchune, Jum 18, 1787. My dear Friend, — I am now arrived safe in my native country, after a very agreeable jaunt, and have the pleasure to find all my friends well. I breakfasted with your gray-headed, reverend friend, Mr Smith ; and was highly pleased both with the cordial welcome he gave me, and his most excellent appearance and sterling good sense. I have been with Mr Miller at Dalswintou, and am to meet him again in August. From my views of the land, and his reception of my hardship, my hopes in that business are rather mended ; but still they are but slender. I am quite charmed with Dumfries folks — Mr Burnside, the clergyman, in particular, is a man whom I shall ever gratefully remember; and his wife — Gude forgie me ! 1 had almost broke the tenth commandment on her account. Simplicity, elegance, good sense, sweetness of disposition, good humour, kind hospitality, are the constituents of her manner and heart ; in short — but if I say one word more about her, I shall be directly in love with her. I never, my friend, thought mankind veiy capable of anything generous; but the state- liness of the patricians in Edinburgh, and the servility of my plebeian brethren (who perhaps formerly eyed me askance) since I returned home, have nearly put- me out of conceit alto- gether with my species. I have bought a pocket Milton, which I carry perpetually about with me, in order to study the sentiments — the dauntless magnanimity, the intrepid, unyield- ing independence, the desperate daring, and noble defiance of hardship, in that great per- sonage Sata^h'. 'Tis ti'ue, I have just now a little cash; but I am afraid the star that hitherto has shed its malignant, purpose-blast- ing rays full in my zenith ; that noxious planet, so baneful in its influences to the rhyming tribe, I much dread it is not yet beneath my horizon. — Misfortune dodges the path of hu- man life ; the poetic mind finds itself miserably deranged in, and unfit for, the walks of busi- ness; add to all, that thoughtless follies and harebrained whims, like so many ignes fatiii, eternally diverging from the right line of sober discretion, sparkle with step-bewitching blaze in the idly-gazing eyes of the poor heedless bard, till, pop, "he falls like Lucifer, never to hope again." God grant this may be an unreal picture with respect to me ! but should it not, I have very little dependence on mankind. I will close my letter with this tribute my heart bids me pay you- — the many ties of acquaint- ance and friendship which I have, or think I have in life, I have felt along the lines, and, damn them, they are almost all of them of such frail contexture that I am sure they would not stand the breath of the least adverse breeze of fortune; but from you, my ever-dear sir, I look with confidence for the apostolic love that shall wait on me " through good report and bad re- port," — the love which Solomon emphatically Bays " is strong as death " My compliments to ]\rrs Nicol, and all the circle of om- common iiieuc;^. P.S. — I shall be in Edinburgh about the latter end of July. E. B. ^-^o. LXVI. TO MR JAMES CANDLISH.* EDiNBtniGH, 1787. My dear Friend, — If once I were gone from this scene of hurry and dissipation, I promise myself the pleasure of that correspondence being renewed which has been so long broken. At present I have time for nothing. Dissipa- tion and business engross every moment. I am engaged in assisting an honest Scotch en- thusiast,f a friend of mine, who is an engraver, and has taken it into his head to publish a collection of all our songs set to music, of which the words and music are done by Scots- men. This, you will easily guess, is an under- taking exactly to my taste. I have collected, begged, borrowed, and stolen all^the songs I could meet with. " Pompey's Ghost," words and music, I beg from you immediately, to go into * Mr Cunningham quotes Mr Candlish's reply as an evidence erf the taste and talents of the poet's early friend and companion : — "Your kind letter came to hand, and I would have answered it soonei", had 1 not delayed, in expectation I of finding some person who could enable me to comply with your request. Being myself unskilled in music as a science, I made an attempt to get the song you men- tioned, set by some other hand ; but as I could not accomplish this, I must send you the words without the music. Some of Edina's fair nymphs may perhaps be able to do you a piece of service which I would have done with the greatest pleasm-e had it been in my power. It is with the gi-eatest sincei'ity I applaud your attempt to give the world a more correct and more elegant collection of Scottish songs than has hitherto appeared. They have been long and much admired, and yet perhaps no poetical compositions ever met with approbation more disproportioned to their merit. Many, from an affectation perliaps of a more than usual knowledge of ancient literature, extol, with the most extravagant praises, the pastoral productions of the Greek and Roman poets ; and attempt to persuade us tliat in them alone is to be found that natural simplicity, and that tenderness of sentimer.t, which constitute the true excellence of tliat species of writing. For my own part, though I cannot altogether divest myself of partiality to the ancients, whose merit will cease only to be admired with the universjxl wreck of men and letters, yet I am persuaded that in many of the songs of our own nation, there are beauties which it would be vain to look for in the most admired poetical composi- tions of antiquity. They are the offspring of nature ; they are expressed in the language of simplicity ; and the love songs, breathing sentiments that are inspired by the most tender and exquisite feelings, are in unison with tlie human heart. Tliere is no one in whose veins the smallest drop of Scottish blood circulates but must feel the most heartfelt pleasure when he reflects that those songs, which do such honour to both the genius and to the feelings of his countrymen ; which, in sim- plicity of langujxge, and in the sensibility that pervades them, have never been equalled by those of any nation; and which have been so much admired by foreigners, will continue to be sung with delight by both sexes, while Scots men and the Scots language remain. — ^If the collection is to be published by subscription, put down my name for a copy. My time this winter is veiy much employed — no less than ten hours a day. — Ex- pecting to see you soon, I am yours most sincerely, •'James Candlish. t Johnson, the publisher and proprietor of tho Musical Jiuseunu 254 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. his second number — the first is already pub- lished. I shall show you the first number when I see you iu Glasgow, which will be in a fortnight or less. Do be so kind as to send me the song in a day or two : you cannot imagine how much it will oblige me. Direct to me at Mr W. Cruikshank's, St James's Square, New Town, Edinburgh. K. B. No. LXVII. TO WILLIAM NICOL, ESQ. AiTcnTEETYRE,* Monday, June 1787. My dear Sir, — I find myself very comfort- able here, neither oppressed by ceremony nor mortified by neglect. Lady Augusta is a most engaging woman, and very happy in her family, which makes one's out-goings and in-comings very agreeable. I called at Mr Ramsay's of Auchtertyre [Ochtertyre, near Stirling] as I came up the country, and am so delighted with him that I shall certainly accept of his invitation to spend a day or two with him as I return. I leave this place on Wednesday or Thursday. Make my kind compliments to Mr and Mrs Cruikshank, and Mrs Nicol, if she is returned. — I am ever, dear sir, your deeply-indebted, K.B. No. LXVIIL TO WILLIAM CRUIKSHANK, ST JAMES'S SQUARE, EDINBURGH.f AucHTEBTrRE, Monday, June 1787. I HAVE nothing, my dear sir, to write to you, but that I feel myself exceedingly comfortably situated in this good family : just notice enough to make me easy, but not to embarrass me. I was storm-stayed two days at the foot of the Ochil Hills, with Mr Tait of Herveyston and Mr John- ston of Alva, but was so well pleased that I shall certainly spend a day on the banks of the Devon as I return. I leave this place I suppose on Wednesday, and shall devote a day to Mr Ramsay at Auchtertyre, near Stirling : a man to whose worth I cannot do justice. My re- spectful kind compliments to Mrs Cruikshank, and my dear little Jeanie, and, if you see Mr Masterton, please remember me to him. — I am ever, my dear sir, &c., R. B. No. LXIX. TO ROBERT AINSLIE, ESQ. Arbochae, June 28, 1787. My dear Sib, — I write you this on my tour through a country where savage streams * Tlie Beat of Sir William Murray, Bart.— two miles from CrielT. t Hurni resided with Cruikshank in the latter part of 1787, in St James's Square. The "dear little Jeanlo" of the letter was the "Rosebud" of his poem, p. 56. tumble over savage mountains ; thinly over- spread with savage flocks, which starvingly support as savage inhabitants. My last stage was Inverary — to-morrow night's stage Dum- barton. I ought sooner to have answered your kind letter, but you know I am a man of many sins. R. B. No. LXX. TO MR JAMES SMITH, AT MILLER AND SMITH'S OFFICE, LINLITHGOW. J-«?ie30, 1787. My dear Friend, — On our return, at a High- land gentleman's hospitable mansion, we fell in with a merry party, and danced till the ladies left us at three in the morning. Our dancing was none of the French or English insipid formal movements. The ladies sang Scotch songs at intervals like angels ; then we flew at " Bab at the Bowster," " Tullochgorum," " Locherroch Side," X &c., like midges sporting in the mottie sun, or craws prognosticating a storm in a hairst day. When the dear lasses left us, we ranged round the bowl till the good-fellow hour of six ; except a few minutes that we went out to pay our devotions to the glorious lamp of day peering over the towering top of Benlomond. We all kneeled. Our worthy landlord's son held the bowl, each man a full glass in his hand, and I, as priest, repeated some I'hyming nonsense : like Thomas the Rhymer's prophecies, I suppose. After a small refreshment of the gifts of Somnus, we proceeded to spend the day on Lochlomond, and reached Dumbarton in the evening. We dined at another good fellow's house, and consequently pushed the bottle; when we went out to mount our horses, we found ourselves " no very fou, but gayly yet." My two friends and I rode soberly down the loch side, till by came a Highlandman at the gallop on a tolerably good horse, but which had never known the ornaments of iron or leather. We scorned to be out-galloped by a Highlandman, so ofi* we started, whip and spur. My companions, though seemingly gaily mount- ed, fell sadly astern ; but my old mare, Jenny Geddes, one of the Rosinante family, strained past the Highlandman, in spite of all his efforts with the hair halter. Just as I was passing him, Donald wheeled his horse, as if to cross before me to mar my progress, when down came his horse, and threw his rider's breekless bottom into a dipt hedge, and down came Jenny Ged- des over all, and my hardship between her and the Highlandman's horse. Jenny trode over me with such cautious reverence that matters were not so bad as might well have been ex- pected; 80 I came ofl" with a few cuts and bruises, and a thorough resolution to be a pattern of sobriety for the future. As for the rest 'of my acts and my wars, and all my wise sayings, and why my mare was called Jenny Geddes, they shall be recorded, in a few weeks hence at Linlithgow, in the chronicles of your memory. R. B. X Scotch tuues. GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE 255 Xo. LXXI. TO THE SAME. June 1787. I HAVE yet fixed on nothing ^Yitll respect to the serious business of life. I am just as usual — a rhyming, mason-making, raking, aimless, idle fellow. However, I shall somewhere have a farm soon — I was going to say a wife too; but that must never be my blessed lot. I am but a younger son of the house of Parnassus ; and, like other younger sons of great families, I may intrigue, if I choose to rim all risks, but must not marry. I am afraid I have almost ruined one source, the principal one indeed, of my former happi- ness — that eternal propensity I always had to fall in love. My heart no more glows with feverish rapture. I have no paradisiacal evening interviews, stolen from the restless cares and prying inhabitants of this weary world. I have only . This last is one of your distant acquaintances, has a fine figure, elegant manners, and, in the train of some great folks v\hom you know, has seen the politest quarters in Europe. I do like her a deal ; but what piques me is her conduct at the commencement of our acquaintance. I frequently visited her when I was in , and after passing regularly the intermediate degrees between the distant formal bow and the familiar grasp round the waist, I ventured, in my careless way, to talk of friendship in rather ambiguous terms ; and after her return to , I wrote to her in the same style. Miss, construing my words further, I suppose, than even I intended, flew off in a tangent of female dignity and reserve, like a mounting lark in an April morning ; and wrote me an answer which measured me out very completely what an immense way I had to travel before I could reach the climate of her favour. But I am an old hawk at the sport, and wrote her such a cool, deliberate, prudent re- ply, as brought my bird from her aerial tower- ings, pop down at my foot, like Corporal Ti-im's hat. R. B. Xo. LXXIL TO MR J0H:N" RICHMOND. MossGiEL, July 7, 1787. My dear Richmond, — I am all impatience to hear of your' fate since the old confounder of right and wrong has turned you out of place, by his journey to answer his indictment at the bar of the other world. He will find the practice of the court so different from the practice in which he has for so many years been thoroughly hackneyed, that his friends, if he had any connexions truly of that kind, which I rather doubt, may well tremble for liis sake. His chicane, his left-handed wisdom, which stood so firmly by him, to such good purpose, here, like other accomplices in rob- bery and plunder, will, now the piratical busi- Hoss is blown, in all probability turn king's evidences, and then the devil's bagpiper wiD touch him off—" Bundle and go ! " If he has left you any legacy, I beg your pardon for all this ; if not, I know you wiU sv/ear to every word I said about him. I have lately been rambling over by Dum- barton and luverary, and running a drunken race on the side of Loch Lomond with a wild Highlandman ; his horse, which had never known the ornaments of iron or leather, zig- zagged across before my old spavined hunter, whose name is Jenny Geddes, and down came the Highlandman, horse and all, and down came Jenny and my hardship ; so I have got such a skinful of bruises and wounds that I shall be at least four weeks before I venture on my journey to Edinburgh. Not one new thing under the sun has hap- pened in Mauchline since you left it. I hope this will find you as comfortably situated as formerly, or, if Heaven pleases, more so ; but, at all events, I trust you will let me know, of course, how matters stand with you, well or ill. 'Tis but poor consolation to tell the world when matters go wrong ; but you know very well your connexion and mine stands on a different footing. — I am ever, my dear friend, yours, R. B. No. LXXIII. TO ROBERT AINSLIE, ESQ. Mauchlixe, July 1787. My dear Sir, — My life, since I saw j'ou last, has been one continued hurry; that savage hospitality which knocks a man down with strong liquors is the devil. I have a soi-e warfare in this world; the devil, the world, and the flesh are three formidable foes. The first I generally try to fly from ; the second, alas ! generally flies from me ; but the third is my plague, worse than the ten plagues of Egypt. I have been looking over several farms in this country ; one in particular, in Nithsdale, pleased me so well that, if my offer to the proprietor is accepted, I shall commence farmer at Whitsunday. If farming do not appear eligible, I shall have recourse to my other shift ;* but this to a friend. I set out for Edinburgh on Monday morn- ing, how long I stay there is uncertain, but you will know so soon as I can inform you myself. However I determine, poesy must be laid aside for some time ; my mind has been vitiated with idleness, and it wiU take a good deal of effort to habituate it to the routine of business. — I am, my dear sir, yours sincerely, R. B. No. LXXIV. TO DR MOORE. Mauchline, Aug. 2, 1787. Sir, — For some months past I have been rambling over the country, but I am now con- fined with some lingering complaints, originat- ing, as I take it, in the stomach. To divert » TbG Excise. 256 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. my spirits a little in this miserable fog of ennui, I liave taken a whim to give you a history of myself. My name has made some little noise in this country ; you have done me the honour to interest yourself very warmly in my behalf ; and I think a faithful account of what character of a man I am, and how I came by that character, may perhaps amuse you in an idle moment. I will give you an honest narrative, though I know it will be often at my own expense ; for I assure you^ sir, I have, like Solomon, whose character, excepting in the trifling affair of wisdom, I sometimes think I resemble, — I have, I say, like him turned my eyes to behold madness and folly, ind like him, too, frequently shaken hands with their intoxicating friendsiiip. After you have perused these pages, should you think them trifling and impertinent, I only beg leave to tell you that the poor author wrote them under some twitching qualms of conscience, arising from a suspicion that he was doing what he ought not to do ; a predicament he Jaas more than once been in before.* No. LXXV. TO MR ROBERT AIls^SLIE, JUK, BERRYWELL, DUXSE. Edinburgh, Aug. 23, 1787. "As I gied up to Dunse, To warp a pickle yarn, Kobin, silly body, He gat me wi' bairn." Feom henceforth, my dear sir, I am deter- mined to set off with my letters like the pe- riodical writers — viz., prefix a kind of text, quoted from some classic of undoubted autho- rity, such as the author of the immortal piece of which my text is a part. What I have to say on my text is exhausted in chatter I wrote you the other day, before I had the pleasure of re- ceiving yours from Inverleithing ; and sure never was anything more lucky, as I have but the time to write this, that Mr Nicol on the opposite side of the table takes to correct a proof sheet of a thesis. They are gabbling Latin so loud that I cannot hear what my own Boul is saying in my own skull, so must just give you a matter-of-fact sentence or two, and end, if time permit, with a verse de ret generatione. To-morrow I leave Edinburgh in a chaise : Kicol thinks it more comfortable than horse- back, to which I say Amen ; so Jenny Geddes goes home to Ayrshire, to use a phrase of my mother's, " wi' her finger in her mouth." Now for a modest verae of classical autho- rity: — The cats like kitchen, Tlie dogs like hroo, The lasses like the lads wecl, And the auld wives too. onoKDs. And we're a' noddin, Nid nid. noddin, "We're a' noddin fou at e'cn.f ■* The remaining portion or this letter, containing the poet's nutohio;'bckgh, Sunday, Feb. 15, 1788. To-morrow, my dear madam, I leave Edin- burgh. I have altered all my plans of future life. A farm that I could live in I could not find ; and, indeed, after the necessary support my brother and the rest of the family required, I could not venture on farming in that style suitable to my feelings. You will condemn me * The letters to Richard Brown, says Professor Walker, written at a period when the poet was in the full blaze of his reputation, show that he was at no time so dazzled with success as to forget the friends who had anticipated the public by discovering his merit. 26S GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. for the next step I have taken. I have entered into the Excise. I stay in the west about three weeks, and then return to Edinburgh for six weeks' instructions; afterwards, for I get employ instantly, I go oH il plait a Dieu et mon roi. I have chosen this, my dear friend, after mature deliberation. The question is not at what door of fortune's palace we shall enter in, but what doors does she open to us. I was not likely to get anything to do. I wanted un but, which is a dangerous, an un- happy situation. I got this without any hanging on or mortifying solicitation; it is immediate bread, and, though poor in com- parison of the last eighteen months of my existence, 'tis luxury in comparison of all my preceding life : besides, the commissioners are some of them my acquaintances, and all of them my firm friends. K. B. No. CIV. TO THE SAME. [No date.] Now for that wayward, unfortunate thing, myself. I have broke measures with Creech, and last week I wrote him a frosty, keen let- ter. He replied in terms of chastisement, and promised me upon his honour that I should have the account on Monday; but this is Tuesday, and yet I have not heard a word from him. God have mercy on me ! a poor damned, incautious, duped, unfortunate fool ! The sport, the miserable victim of rebellious pride, hypochondriac imagination, agonising sensi- bility, and bedlam passions ! " I wish that I were dead, but I 'm no like to die ! " I had lately "a hairbreadth 'scape i' th' imminent deadly breach" of love too. Thank my stars I got off heart-whole, " waur fleyed than hurt." — Interruption. I have this moment got a hint : I fear I. am something like — undone; but I hope for the best. Come, stubborn pride and unshrinking resolution ; accompany me through this, to me miserable world ! You must not desert me ! Your friendship I think I can count on, though I should date my letters from a marching regiment. Early in life, and all my life, I reckoned on a recruiting drum as my forlorn hope. Seriously, though life at present pre- sents me with but a melancholy path : but — my limb will soon be sound, and I shall strug- gle on. R. B. No. CV. TO MRS ROSE OF KILRAVOCK. JlDINBDEGH, FO). 17, 1788. Madam, — You are much indebted to some indispensable business I have had on my hands, otherwise my gratitude threatened such a re- turn for your obliging favour as would have tired your patience. It but poorly expresses my feelings to say that I am sensible of your kindness : it may be said of hearts such as yours is, and such, I hope, mine is, much more justly than Addison applies it, — " Some souls by instinct to each other turn." There was something in my reception at Kil- ravock so different from the cold, obsequious, dancing-school bow of politeness, that it almost got into my head that friendship had occupied her ground without the intermediate march of acquaintance. I wish I could transcribe, or rather transfuse, into language the glow of my heart when I read your letter. My ready fancy, with colours more mellow than life itself, painted the beautifully- wild scenery of Kilra- vock — the venerable grandeur of the castle — the spreading woods — the winding river, gladly leaving his unsightly, heathy source, and lin- gering with apparent delight as he passes the fairy walk at the bottom of the garden; — your late distressful anxieties — your present enjoyments — your dear little angel, the pride of your hopes ; — my aged friend, venerable in worth and years, whose loyalty and other vir- tues will strongly entitle her to the support of the Almighty Spirit here, and His peculiar favour in a happier state of existence. You cannot imagine, madam, how much such feel- ings delight me ; they are the dearest proofs of my own immortality. Should I never revisit the north, as probably I never will, nor again see your hospitable mansion, were I, some twenty years hence, to see your little fellow's name making a proper figure in a newspaper paragraph, my heart would bound with pleasure. I am assisting a friend in a collection of Scottish songs, set to their proper tunes; every air worth preserving is to be included : among others, I have given " Morag," and some few Highland airs which pleased me most, a dress which will be more generally known, though far, far inferior in real merit. As a small mark of my grateful esteem, I beg j leave to present you with a copy of the work, i as far as it is printed; the Man of Feeling, that first of men, has promised to transmit it by the first opportunity. I beg to be remembered most respectfully to my venerable friend, and to your little High- land chieftain. When you see the " two fair spirits of the hill " at Kildrummie,* tell them I have do^e myself the honour of setting my- self down as one of their admirers for at least twenty years to come, consequently they must look upon me as an acquaintance for the same period ; but, as the apostle Paul says, " this I ask of grace, not of debt." — I have the honour to be, madam, &c., R. B.f ♦ Miss Sophia Brodie of L — , and Miss Bose o. Kih'avock. t The following is Mrs Rose's reply :— KiLRAvocK Castlk, Feb. SO, 1787. Sir,— I hope you will do me the justice to believe that it was no defect in gratitude for your punctual per- formance of your parting promise that has made me so long in acknowledging it, but merely the difficulty I had in getting the Highland songs you wished to have accurately noted ; they are at last enclosed, but how shall I convey along w ith them those graces they ac- quired from the melodious voice of one of tlie fair spirits of the hill of Kildrummie I These I must leave to your imagiUution to supply. It has powers sufficient to I transport you to her side, to recall her accents, and to make them still vibrate in the ears of memory. To her I am indebted for getting the enclosed notes. They are clothed with " thoughts that breathe and words that GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE, 269 ^'0. CVI. TO KICHARD BROWN. MossGiEL, Feb. 24, 1788. My dear Sir, — I cannot get the proper direction for my friend in Jamaica, but the following will do : — To Mr Jo. Hutchinson, at Jo. Brownrigg's, Esq., care of Mr Benjamin Henriquez, merchant. Orange Street, Kingston. I arrived here, at my brother's, only yesterday, after fighting my way through Paisley and Kilmarnock against those old powerful foes of mine, the devil, the world, and the flesh — so terrible in the fields of dissipation. I have met with few incidents in my life which gave me so much pleasure as meeting you in Glas- gow. There is a time of Hfe beyond which we cannot form a tie worthy the name of friend- ship. " youth ! enchanting stage, profusely blest." Life is a fairy scene : almost all that deserves the name of enjoyment or pleasure is only a charming delusion ; and in comes repin- ing age, in all the gravity of hoary wisdom, and wretchedly chases away the bewitching phantom. When I think of life, I resolve to keep a strict look-out in the course of economy, for the sake of worldly convenience and inde- pendence of mind ; to cultivate intimacy with a few of the companions of youth that they may be the friends of age : never to refuse my liquorish humour a handful of the sweetmeats of life, when they come not too dear; and, for futurity — The present moment is our ain. The neist we never saw ! I How like you my philosophy ? Give my best compliments to Mrs B., and believe me to be, my dear sir, yours most truly, R. B. burn." These, however, being in an unknown tonp:ue to you, you must again have recourse to that same fer- tile imagination of yours to interpret them, and suppose a lover's description of the beauties of an adored mis- tress — why did I say unknown ? The language of love is a universal one, that seems to have escaped the confusion of Babel, aud to be understood by all nations. I rejoice to find that you were pleased with so many things, persons, and places in your northern tour, be- cause it leads me to hope you may be induced to revisit them again. Tliat the old castle" of Kilravock and its inhabitants were amongst these adds to my satisfaction. I am even vain enough to admit your very flattering application of the line of Addison ; at anyrate allow me to believe that " friendship will maintain the ground she has occupied in both our hearts." in spite of ab- sence, and that when we do meet it will be as acquaint- ance of a score of years' standing ; and on this footing consider me as interested in the future coui-se of your fame so splendidly commenced. Any communications of the progi-ess of your muse will be received with great gratitude and the fire of your genius will have power to warm even us frozen sisters of the nortli. The firesides of Kilravock and Kildrummie unite in cordial regards to you. When you incline to figure either in your idea, suppose some of us reading your poems, and some of us singing your songs, and my Lttle Hugh looking at your picture, and you'll seldom be wrong. We remember Mr Nicol with as much good- will as we can do anybody who hurried Mr Burns from us.* Farewell, sir; I can only contribute the widow'' s mite to the esteem and admiration excited by your merits and genius, but this I give as she did, with aU my heart — being sincerely yours. El. Eose. * Tlse poet was hnrn'-d away from Kilravock 1>t tlie impetnons temner or his frienil, WiiUam Xiol, who mure than onco Uuricg the joimiey took "uiai from genial company. [The poet was now nearly recovered from the disaster of the '*' maimed limb." He en- dured his confinement with the more patience that it enabled him to carry on his correspondence with Clarinda, and write songs for Johnson's Musical Museum. — Cunningham.] No. CVII. TO .* MossGiEL, Friday Morning. Sir, — The language of refusal is to me the most difficult language on earth, and you are the [only] man of the world, excepting one of R'. Hon ^®. designation, to whom it gives me the greatest pain to hold such language. My brother has already got money, and shall want nothing in my power to enable him to fulfil his engagement with you ; but to be security on so large a scale, even for a brother, is what I dare not do, except I were in such cucum- stances of life as that the worst that might happen could not greatly injure me. I never wrote a letter which gave me so much pain in my life, as I know the unhappy consequences ; I shall incur the displeasure of a gentleman for whom I have the highest respect, and to whom I am deeply obliged. — I am ever, sir, your obliged and very humble servant, Robert Burns. Xo. CVIIL TO MR WILLIAM CRUIKSHANK. Mattchline, March 3, 1788. Mt dear Sib, — Apologies for not writing are frequently like apologies for not singing — the apology better than the song. I have fought my way severely through the savage hospitality of this country to send every guest drunk to bed if they can. I executed your commission in Glasgow, and I hope the cocoa came safe. 'Twas the same price and the very same kind as your former parcel, for the gentleman recollected your buy- ing there perfectly well. I should return my thanks for your hospitality (I leave a blank for the epithet, as I know none can do it justice) to a poor way- faring bard, who was spent and almost over- powered, fighting with prosaic wickedness in high places ; but I am afraid lest you should bum the letter w'henever you come to the pas- sage, so I pass over it in silence. I am just returned from visiting Mr Miller's farm. The friend whom I told you I would take with me was highly pleased with the farm ; and as he is without exception the most intelligent farmer in the country, he has staggered me a good • The above letter was evidently written towards the end of February 1788, and before he had settled with his publisher, Creech. He was not then aware how his affairs would turn out, and therefore acted with pru- dence. It will be seen in his letter to Dr Moore how munificently he acted for the relief of his brother's dis- tresses. 270 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. deal. I have the two plans of life before me ; I shall balance them to the best of my judg- ment, and fix on the most eligible. I have written Mr Miller, and shall wait on him when I come to town, which shall be the beginning or middle of next week ; I would be in sooner, but my unlucky knee is rather worse, and I fear for some time will scarcely stand the fatigue of my excise instructions. I only mention these ideas to you : and indeed, except Mr Ainslie, whom I intend writing to to-morrow, I will not write at all to Edinburgh till I return to it. I would send my compli- ments to Mr Nicol, but he would be hurt if he knew I wTote to anybody and not to him : so I shall only beg my best, kindest, kindest com- pliments to my worthy hostess and the sweet little rosebud. So soon as I am settled in the routine of life, either as an Excise-ofi&cer, or as a farmer, I propose myself great pleasure from a regular correspondence with the only man almost I ever saw who joined the most attentive prudence with the warmest generosity. I am much interested for that best of men, Mr "Wood ; I hope he is in better health and spirits than when I saw him last. — I am ever, my dearest friend, your obliged, humble ser- vant, R. B. No. CIX. TO ROBERT AINSLIE, ESQ. Mauchline, March 3, 1788. My dear Friend,— tI am just returned from Mr Miller's farm. My old friend whom I took with me was highly pleased with the bargain, and advised me to accept of it. He is the most intelligent sensible farmer in the county,* and his advice has staggered me a good deal. I have the two plans before me : I shall endeavour to balance them to the best of my judgment, and fix on the most eligible. On the whole, if I find Mr Miller in the same favourable disposition as when I saw him last, I shall in all probability turn farmer. I have been through sore tribulation, and under much bufifeting of the wicked one since I came to this country. Jean I found banished, forlorn, destitute, and friendless : I have recon- ciled her to her fate, and I have reconciled her to her mother.f I shall be in Edinburgh the middle of next week. My farming ideas I shall keep private till I see. I got a letter from Clarinda yester- day, and she tells me she has got no letter of mine but one. Tell her that I wrote to her from Glasgow, from Kilmarnock, from Mauch- line, and yesterday from Cumnock as I re- turned from Dumfries. Indeed she is the only person in Edinburgh I have written to till • The "sensible" farmer who accompanied Burns to Dalswinton, and influenced him in taking the farm of Ellisland, was Mr Tait of Glenconner, to whom the poet addressed a metrical epistle. (See p. 98.) t On the very day this was written Jenn was delivered of twins— pirls—tlie unfortunate result of their renewed Intimacy. Tlie infants died a few days after their birth. this day. How are your soul and body putting up ? — a little like man and wife, I suppose. R. B. No. ex. TO RICHARD BROWN. Mauchline, March 7, 1788. I HAVE been out of the country, my dear friend, and have not had an opportunity of writing till now, when I am afraid you will be gone out of the country too. I have been looking at farms, and, after all, perhaps I may settle in the character of a farmer. I have got so vicious a bent on idleness, and have ever been so little a man of business, that it will take no ordinary effort to bring my mind pro- perly into the routine : but you will say a " great effort is worthy of you." I say so myself ; and butter up my vanity with all the stimulating compliments I can think of. Men of grave, geometrical minds, the sons of ''which was to be demonstrated," may cry up reason as much as they please ; but I have always found an honest passion, or native instinct, the truest auxiliary in the warfare of this world. Reason almost always comes to me like an un- lucky wife to a poor devil of a husband, just in sufficient time to add her reproaches to his other grievances. I am gratified with your kind inquiries after Jean ; as, after all, 1 may say wdth Othello — "Excellent wretch ! Perdition catch my soul, but I do love thee ! " I go for Edinburgh on Monday, —Yours, R. B. No. CXI. TO MR MUIR, KILMARNOCK. MosSGiEL, March 7, 1788. Dear Sir, — I have partly changed my ideas, my dear friend, since I saw you. I took old Glenconner with me to Mr Miller's farm, and he was so pleased with it that I have written an offer to Mr Miller, which, if he accepts, I shall sit down a plain farmer, the happiest of lives when a man can live by it. In this case I shall not stay in Edinburgh above a week. I set out on Monday, and would have come by Kilmarnock, but there are several small sums owing me for ray first edition about Galston and Newmills, and I shall set off so early as to despatch my business and reach Glasgow by night. When I return, I shall devote a fore- noon or two to make some kind of acknowledg- ment for all the kindness I owe your friendship. Now that I hope to settle with some credit and comfort at home, there was not any friendship or friendly correspondence that promised me more pleasure than yours; I hope I will not be disappointed. I trust the spring will renew your shattered frame, and make your frierids happy. You and I have often agreed that life is no great blessing on the whole. The close of life, indeed, to a reasoning age, is " Dark as was chaos ere the infant sun "Was roU'd together, or had tried his beams Athwart the gloom profound." GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. 2/1 But an honest man has nothing to fear. If we lie down in the grave, the whole man a piece of broken machinery, to moulder with the clods of the valley, be it so ; at least there is an end of pain, cure, woes, and wants : if that part of us called mind does survive the appa- rent destruction of the man — away with old- wife prejudices and tales ! Every age and every nation has had a different set of stories ; and as the many are always weak of consequence, they have often, perhaps always, been deceived : a man conscious of having acted an honest part among his fellow-creatures — even granting that he may have been the sport at times of pas- sions and instincts — he goes to a gi-eat unknown Being, who could have no other end in giving him existence but to make him happy, who gave him those passions and instincts, and well knows their force. These, my worthy friend, are my ideas; and I know they are not far different from yours. It becomes a man of sense to think for himself, particularly in a case where all men are equally interested, and where, indeed, all men are equally in the dark. — Adieu, my dear sir; God send us a cheerful meeting ! R. B. Xo. CXII. TO MRS DUNLOP. MossGiEL, March 17, 1788. Madam, — The last paragraph in yours of the 20th February affected me most, so I shall begin my answer where you ended your letter. That I am often a sinner with any little wit I have, I do confess : but I have taxed my recollection to no purpose to find out when it was employed against you. I hate an un- generous scarcasm a great deal worse than I do the devil ; at least as Milton describes him ; and though I may be rascally enough to be sometimes guilty of it myself, I cannot endure it in others. You, my honoured friend, who cannot appear in any light but you are sure of being respectable, you can afford to pass by an occasion to display your wit, because you may depend for fame on your sense; or, if you choose to be silent, you know you can rely on the gratitude of many, and the esteem of all ; but God help us who are wits or witlings by profession, if we stand not for fame there, we sink unsupported ! I am highly flattered by the news you tell me of Coila. I may say to the fair painter* who does me so much honour, as Dr Beattie says to Ross, the poet of his muse Scota, from which, by the by, I took the idea of Coila ('tis a poem of Beattie's in the Scottish dialect, which perhaps you have never seen) : — " Ye shake your head, but o' my fegs Ye 've set aulcl Scota on her legs ; Lang had she lien wi' beffs and flegs, Bumbazed and dizzie ; Her fiddle wanted strings and pegs, AVae's me, poor hizzie !" KB. No. CXIII. TO MISS CHALMERS. Edisbcrgh, March 14, 1788. I KNOW, my ever-dear friend, that you will be pleased with the news when I tell you I have at last taken a lease of a farm. Yester- night I completed a bargain with Mr Miller of Dalswinton for the farm of EUisland, on the banks of the Nith, between five and six miles above Dumfries. I begin at Whitsun- day to build a house, drive lime, &c. ; and Heaven be my help ! for it will take a strong effort to bring my mind into the routine of business. I have discharged all the army of my former pursuits, fancies, and pleasures ; a motley host ! and have literally and strictly retained only the ideas of a few friends, which I have incorporated into a lifeguard. I trust in Dr Johnson's observation, " Where much is attempted, something is done." Firmness, both in sufferance and exertion, is a character I would wish to be thought to possess : and have always despised the whining yelp of com- plaint, and the cowardly, feeble resolve. Poor Miss K is ailing a good deal this winter, and begged me to remember her to you the first time I wrote to you. Surely wo- man, amiable woman, is often made in vain. Too delicately formed for the rougher pursuits of ambition ; too noble for the dirt of avarice, and even too gentle for the rage of pleasure ; formed indeed for, and highly susceptible of, enjoyment and rapture ; but that enjoyment, alas ! almost wholly at the mercy of the cap- rice, malevolence, stupidity, or wickedness of an animal at all times comparatively unfeeling, and often brutal. - R. B. * One of the daughters of 3Ira Dunlop is here inti- mated. She Tvas painting a eketch from the Coila of **The Visioii." No. CXIV. TO RICHARD BROWN. Glasgow, March 26, 1788. I AM monstrously to blame, my dear sir, in not writing to you, and sending you the Direc- tory. I have been getting my tack extended, as I have taken a farm ; and I have been rack- ing shop accounts with Mr Creech, both of which, together with watching, fatigue, and a load of care almost too heavy for my shoulders, have in some degree actually fevered me. I really forgot the Directory yesterday, which vexed me; but I was convulsed with rage a i great part of the day. I have to thank you for the ingenious, friendly, and elegant epistle j from your friend Mr Crawford, I shall cer- j tainly write to him, but not now. This is ' merely a card to you, as I am posting to Dum- ' friesshire, where many perplexing arrange- ments await me. I am vexed about the Direc- tory ; but, my dear sir, forgive me ; these eight days I have been positively crazed. My com- plements to Mrs B. I shall write to you at Grenada. — I am ever, my dearest friend, yours, R. B. GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE, No. CXV. TO MR ROBERT CLEGHORX/" Mauchline, MarcTi 31, 1788. Testeedat, my dear sir, as I was riding through a track of melancholy, joyless moors, between Galloway and Ayrshire, it being Sun- day, I turned my thoughts to psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs; and your favourite air, " Captain O'Kean," coming at length into my head, I tried these words to it. You will see that the first part of the tune must be re- peated. f I am tolerably pleased with these verses ; but as I have only a sketch of the tune, I leave it with you to try if they suit the mea- sure of the music. I am so harassed with care and anxiety, about this farming project of mine, that my muse has degenerated into the veriest prose - wench that ever picked cinders, or followed a tinker. When I am fairly got into the routine of business, I shall trouble you with a longer epistle ; perhaps with some queries respecting farming : at present, the world sits such a load on my mind that it has effaced almost every trace of the poet in me. My very best compliments and good wishes to Mrs Cleghorn. R. B. Xo. CXVI. TO MR WILLIAM DUITBAR, EDINBURGH.^ Mauchline, April 7, 1788. I HAVE not delayed so long to write to you, my much respected friend, because I thought no farther of my promise. I have long since given up that kind of formal correspondence where one sits down irksomely to write a letter because we think we are in duty bound so to do. * Cleghorn had no little skill in musical composi- tion : he was, besides, something of a farmer, and a pleasant and social man. He sent the following reply to the poet's letter : — Saughton Mills, April 27, 1788. I WAS favoured with your very kind letter of the 31st ult., and consider myself greatly obliged to you for your attention in sending me the song to my favourite air, " Captain O'Kean." The words delight me much — they fit the tune to a hair. I wish you would send me a verse or two more ; and, if you have no objection, I would have it in the Jacobite style. Suppose it should be sung after the fatal field of Culloden, by the unfortu- nate Charles. Tenducci personates the lovely Mary Stuart in the song, "Queen Mary's Lamentation." Why may not I sing in the person of her great-great- great-grandson ? Any skill I have in country business you may truly command. Situation, soil, customs of countries, may vary from each other ; but Farmer Attention is a good fkrmcr in every place. Mrs Cleghorn joins me in best compliments. 1 am, in the most comprehensive sense of the word, your very sincere friend, RoBEnT Cleghorn. The poet complied with his friend's request, and wrote the two remaining stanzas of his beautiful song, ♦'The Chevalier's Lament." t Here the bard gives the Urst two stanzas of •' The CJhevalier's Lament." \ The gentleman to whom the above letter Is ad- dressed was a writer to the signet In Edinburgh. I have been roving over the country, as the farm I have taken is forty miles from this place, hiring servants and preparing matters ; but most of all, I am earnestly busy to bring about a revolution in my own mind. As, till within these eighteen months, I never was the wealthy master of ten guineas, my knowledge of business is to learn ; add to this, my late scenes of idleness and dissipation have ener- vated my mind to an alarming degree. Skill in the sober science of life is my most serious and hourly study. I have dropt all conversa- tion and all reading (prose reading) but what tends in some way or other to my serious aim. Except one worthy young fellow, I have not one single correspondent in Edinburgh. You have indeed kindly made me an offer of that kind. The world of wits and gens comme il faut which I lately left, and with whom I never again will intimately mix — from that port, sir, I expect your Gazette : what les beaux esprits are saying, what they are doing, and what they are singing. Any sober intelli- gence from my sequestered walks of life ; any droll original ; any passing remark, important forsooth, because it is mine ; any little poetic effort, however embryoeth ; these, my dear sir, are all you have to expect from me. When I talk of poetic efforts, I must have it always understood that I appeal from your wit and taste to your friendship and good nature. The first would be my favourite tribunal, where I defied censure ; but the last, where I declined justice. I have scarcely made a single distich since I saw you. When I meet with an old Scots air that has any facetious idea in its name, I have a peculiar pleasure in following out that idea for a verse or two. I trust that this will find you in better health than I did last time I called for you. A few- lines from you, directed to me at Mauchline, were it but to let me know how you are, will set my mind a good deal [at rest.] Now, never shun the idea of writing me because perhaps you may be out of humour or spirits. I oould give you a hundred good consequences attend- ing a duU letter ; one, for example, and the re- maining ninety-nine some other time — it will always serve to keep in countenance, my much- respected sir, your obliged friend and humble servant, R. B. No. CXVII. TO MISS CHALMERS. MAFCnLijfE, April 7, 1788. I AM indebted to you and -Miss Nimmo for letting me know Miss Kennedy. Strange, how apt we are to indulge prejudices in our judgments of one another ! Even I, who pique myself on my skill in marking characters — be- cause I am too proud of my character, as a man to be dazzled in my judgment for glaring wealth, and too proud of my situation as a poor man to be biassed against squalid poverty — I was unacquainted with Miss K.'b very un- common worth. I am going on a good deal progressive in GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. 73 mon grand hut, the sober science of life. I have lately made some sacrifices, for which, were I viva voce with you to paint the situation and recount the circumstances, you would ap- plaud me.* ^' B. No. CXVIII. TO MRS DUNLOP. Mauchlixe, April 28, 1788. Madam, — Your powers of reprehension must be great indeed, as I assure you they made my heart ache with penitential pangs, even though I was really not-guilty. As I commence farmer at Whitsunday, you will easily guess I must be pretty busy ; but that is not all. As I got the ofifer of the Excise business without solicitation, and as it costs me only six months' attendance for instructions, to entitle me to a commission — which commission lies by me, and at any future period, on my simple petition, can be resumed — I thought five-and-thirty pounds a year Avas no bad dernier ressort for a poor poet, if fortune in her jade tricks should kick him down from the little emmence to which she has lately helped him up. For this reason I am at present attending these instructions to have them completed be- fore "Whitsunday. Still, madam, I prepared with the sincerest pleasure to meet you at the Mount, and came to my brother's on Saturday night, to set out on Sunday; but for some nights preceding I had slept in an apartment where the force of the winds and rains was only mitigated by being sifted through numberless apertures in the windows, walls, &c. In con- seqwence I was on Sunday, Monday, and part of Tuesday, unable to stir out of bed, with all the miserable effects of a violent cold. You see, madam, the truth of the French maxim, Le rrai nest pas toujours le vraisemr Uahle. Your last was so full of expostulation, and was something so hke the language of an offended friend, that I began to tremble for a correspondence which I had with grateful pleasure set down as one of the greatest enjoy- ments of my future life. Your books have delighted me. "Virgil, Dryden, and Tasso, were all equally strangers to me ; but of this more at large in my next. KB. Ko. CXIX. TO MR JAMES SMITH, AYOIT PRINT- FIELD, LINLITHGO^Y. Matjchline, April 2S, 1788. Bewabe of your Strasburg, my good sir! Look on this the opening of a correspondence, like the opening of a twenty-four gun battery ! There is no understanding a man properly without knowing aomething of his previous ideas (that is to say, if the man has any ideas ; for I know many who, in the animal muster, pass for men, that are the scanty masters of * The sacrifices alluded to referred to his determina- tion to marry Jean Armour. only one idea on any given subject, and by far the greatest part of your acquaintances and mine can barely boast of ideas, 1 '25 — 1"5 — 1'75 (or some such fractional matter); so to let you a httle into the secrets of my pericranium, there is, you must know, a certain clean-limbed, handsome, bewitching young hussy of your acquaintance, to whom I have lately and privately given a matrimonial title to my corpus. "Bode a robe and wear it, Bode a pock and bear it," says the wise old Scots adage. I bate to presage ill-luck ; and as my girl has been doubly kinder to me than even the best of women usually are to their partners of our sex in similar circum- stances, I reckon on twelve times a brace of childi-en against I celebrate my twelfth wedding day : these twenty-four will give me twenty- four gossipings, twenty-four christenings, (I mean one equal to two,) and I hope, by the bless- ing of the God of my fathers, to make them twenty-four dutiful children to their parents, twenty-four useful members of society, and twenty-four approven servants of their God. "Light's heartsome," quo' the wife when she was steaUng sheep. You see what a lamp I have hung up to lighten your paths, when you are idle enough to explore the combina- tions and relations of my ideas. 'Tis now a» plain as a pikestaff why a twenty-four gun battery was a metaphor I could readily employ. Now for business — I intend to present Mrs Bums with a printed shawl, an article of which I daresay you have a variety; 'tis my first present to her since I have irrevocably called her mine, and I have a kind of whimsical wish to get her the first said present from an old and much-valued friend of hers and mine, a trusty- Trojan, on whose friendship I count myself possessed of as a life-rent lease. Look on this letter as a ''beginning of sorrows ; " I will write you tiU your eyes ache reading nonsense. Mrs Burns ('tis only her private designation) begs her best compliments to you. R. B. No. CXX. TO PROFESSOR DUGALD STEWART.f Mattchubb, May 3, 1788. Sir, — I enclose you one or two more of my bagatelles. If the fervent wishes of honest .gratitude have any influence with that great, unknown Being, who frames the chain of causes and events, prosperity and happiness will attend your visit to the Continent, and return you safe to your native shore. Wherever I am, allow me, sir, to claim it as my privilege to acquaint you with my pro- gi-ess in my trade of rhymes ; as I am sure I could say it with truth, that, next to my Httle t The kindness of heart and amenity of manners of this distinguished philosopher were as conspicuous as his talents. The poet has given an interesting esti- mate of his accomplished friend's character in a letter to Dr ilackenzie, wMcli see at p. 240. 274 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. fame, and the having it in my power to make life more comfortable to those whom nature has made dear to me, I shall ever regard your countenance, your patronage, your friendly good offices, as the most valued consequence of my late success in life. R. B. No. CXXI. TO MRS DUNLOP. Mauchline, May 4, 1788. Madam, — Dryden's Virgil has delighted me. I do not know whether the critics will agree with me, but the Georgics are to me by far the best part of Virgil. It is indeed a species of writing entirely new to me ; and has filled my head with a thousand fancies of emulation : but, alas ! when I read the Georgics, and then survey my own powers, 'tis like the idea of a Shetland pony drawn up by the side of a thoroughbred hunter, to start for the plate. I own I am disappointed in the J^^neid. Fault- less correctness may please, and does highly please, the lettered critic ; but to that awful character I have not the most distant preten- sions. I do not know whether I do not hazai-d my pretensions to be a critic of any kind when I say that I think Virgil, in many instances, a servile copier of Homer, If I had the Odyssey by me, I could parallel many passages where Virgil has evidently copied, but by no means improved. Homer. Nor can I think there is anything of this owing to the translators ; for, from everything I have seen of Dryden, I think him, in genius and fluency of language. Pope's master. I have not perused Tasso enough to form an opinion :. in some future letter, you shall have my ideas of him ; though I am con- scious my criticisms must be very inaccurate and imperfect, as there I have ever felt and lamented my want of learning most. R. B. No. CXXII. TO MR ROBERT AINSLIE. Mauchline, May 26, 1788. Mt dear Friend, — I am two kind letters in your debt, but I have been from home, and horridly busy, buying and preparing for my farming business, over and above the plague of my Excise instructions, which this week will finish. As I flatter my wishes that I foresee many future years' correspondence between us, 'tis foolish to talk of excusing dull epistles ; a dull letter may be a very kind one. — I have the pleasure to tell you that I have been extremely 'fortunate in all my buyings and bargainings hitherto ; Mrs Bums not excepted ; which title I now avow to the world. I am truly pleased with this last affair: it has indeed added to anxieties for futurity, but it has given a sta- bility to my mind and resolutions unknown before ; and the poor girl has the most sacred enthusiasm of attachment to me, and has not a wish but to gratify my every idea of her deportment. I am interrupted. — Farewell! my dear sir. R. B. No. CXXIII. TO MRS DUNLOP. May 27, 178C. Madam, — I have been torturing my philo- sophy to no purpose, to account for that kind partiality of yours which has followed me, in my return to the shade of life, with assiduous benevolence. Often did I regi-et, in the fleet- ing hours of my late will-o'-wisp appearance, that "here I had no continuing city;" and, but for the consolation of a few solid guineas, could almost lament the time that a moment- ary acquaintance with wealth and splendour put me so much out of conceit with the sworn companions of my road through life — insignifi- cance and poverty. There are few circumstances relating to the unequal distribution of the good things of this life that give me more vexation (I mean in what I see around me) than the importance the opulent bestow on their trifling family afiairs, compared with the very same things on the contracted scale of a cottage. Last after- noon I had the honour to spend an hour or two at a good woman's fireside, where the planks that composed the floor were decorated with a splendid carpet, and the gay table sparkled with silver and china. 'Tis now about termday, and there has been a revolution among those creatures, who though in appear- ance partakers, and equally noble partakers, of the same nature with madam, are from time to time — their nerves, their sinews, their health, strength, wisdom, experience, genius, time, nay, a good part of their very thoughts — sold for months and years, not only to the necessities, the conveniences, but the caprices of the im- portant few. We talked of the insignificant creatures; nay, notwithstanding their general stupidity and rascality, did some of the poor devils the honour to commend them. But liglit be the turf upon his breast who taught, "Reverence thyself!" We looked down on the unpolished wretches, their impertinent wives and clouterly brats, as the lordly bull does on the little dirty anthill, whose puny inhabitants he crushes in the carelessness of his ramble, or tosses in the air in the wan- tonness of his pride. R. B. No. CXXIV. TO THE SAME. at MR DUNLOP'S, HADDINGTON. Ellisland, June 13, 1788. "Where'er I roam, whatever realms I see, My heart, untnivell'd, fondly turns to thee ; Still to my friend it turns with ceaseless pain. And drags at each remove a lengthen 'd chain." — Goldsmith. This is the second day, my honoured friend, that I have been on my farm. A solitary in- mate of an old smoky spence ; far from every object I love, or by whom I am beloyed; nor GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. 275 any acquaintance older tlian yesterday, except Jenny Geddes, the old mare I ride on ; while uncouth cares and novel plans hourly insult my awkward ignorance and bashful inexperience. There is a foggy atmosphere native to my soul in the hour of care ; conseqiiently the dreary objects seem larger than the life. Extreme sensibility, irritated and prejudiced on the gloomy side by a series of misfortunes and dis- appointments, at that period of my existence when the soul is laying in her cargo of ideas for the voyage of life, is, I believe, the principal cause of this unhappy frame of mind. "The valiant, in himself, what can he suffer? Or what need he regard his single woes ?" &c. Your surmise, madam, is just; I am indeed a husband. To jealousy or infidelity I am an equal stranger. My preservative from the first is the most thorough consciousness of her sentiments of honour, and her attachment to me : my anti- dote against the last is my long and deep-rooted affection for her. In housewife matters, of aptness to learn and activity to execute, she is eminently mistress : and during my absence in Nithsdale, she is regularly and constantly apprentice to my mother and sisters in their dairy and other rural business. The muses must not be offended when I tell them the concerns of my wife and family will in my mind always take the pas; but I assure them their ladyships will ever come next in place. You are right that a bachelor state would have insured me more friends; but, from a cause you will easily guess, conscious peace in the enjoyment of my own mind, and xmmis- trusting confidence in approaching my God, Avould seldom have been of the number. I found a once much-loved and still much- loved femalO; Hterally and truly cast out to the mercy of the naked elements; but I enabled her to purchase a shelter; — there is no sporting with a fellow-creature's happiness or misery. The most placid good nature and sweetness of disposition; a warm heart, gratefully de- voted with all its powers to love me ; vigorous health and sprightly cheerfulness, set off to the best advantage by a more than commonly hand- some figure ; these, I think, in a woman, may make a good wife, though she should never liave read a page but the Scriptures of the Old and the Xew Testament, nor have danced in a brighter assembly than a penny pay-wedding. E. B. No. CXXV. TO MR ROBERT AINSLIE. Ellisland, June. 14, 1788. This is now the third day, my dearest sir, that I have sojourned in these regions; and during these three days you have occupied more of my thoughts than in three weeks preceding : in Ayrshire I have several variations of friend- ship's compass — here it points invariably to the pole. My farm gives me a good many uncouth cares and anxieties, but I hate the language of complaint. Job, or some one of his friends, says well — "Wliy should a living man com- plain ? " I have lately been much mortified with con- templating an unlucky imperfection in the very framing and construction of my soul ; namely, a blundering inaccuracy of her olfactory organs in hitting the scent of craft or design in my fellow-creatures. I do not mean any compli- ment to my ingenuousness, or to hint that the defect is in consequence of the unsuspicious simplicity of conscious truth and honour : I take it to be, in some way or other, an imper- fection in the mental sight ; or, metaphor apart, some modification of dulness. In two or three small instances lately, I have been most shame- fully out. I have all along hitherto, in the warfare of life, been bred to arms among the light-horse — the picket-guards of fancy ; a kind of hussars and Highlanders of the brain; but I am firmly resolved to sell out of these giddy battalions, who have no ideas of a battle but fighting the foe, or of a siege but storming the town. Cost what it will, I am determined to buy in among the grave squadrons of heavy-armed thought, or the artillery corps of plodding contrivance. What books are you reading, or what is the subject of your thoughts, besides the great studies of your profession? You said some- thing about religion in your last. I don't ex- actly remember what it was, as the letter is in Ayrshire ; but I thought it not only prettily said, but nobly thought. You will make a noble fellow if once you were married. I make no reservation of your being well married : you have so much sense, and knowledge of human nature, that, though you may not realise perhaps the ideas of romance, yet you will never be ill married. Were it not for the terrors of my ticklish situation respecting provision for a family of children, I am decidedly of opinion that the step I have taken is vastly for my happiness. As it is, I look to the Excise scheme as a cer- tainty of maintenance ; a maintenance ! — luxury to what either Mrs Burns or I were born to. — Adieu! R. B. No. CXXVI. TO THE SAME. Mauchline, June 23, 1788. This letter, my dear sir, is only a business scrap. Mr Miers, profile painter in your town, has executed a profile of Dr Blacklock for me : do me the favour to call for it, and sit to him yourseK for me, which put in the same size as the doctor's. The account of both profiles will be fifteen shillings, which I have given to« James Connel, our Mauchline carrier, to pay you when you give him the parcel. You must not, my friend, refuse to sit. The time is short ; when I sat to Mr Miers, I am sure he did not exceed two minutes. I propose hanging Lord Glencaim, the doctor, and you, in trio over my new chimney piece that is to be. — Adieu. R. B. 276 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. No. CXXVII. TO THE SAME. Ellisland, June 30, 1788. My dear Sir, — I just now received your brief epistle ; and, to take vengeance on your laziness, I have, yon see, taken a long sheet of writing-paper, and have begun at the top of the page, intending to scribble on to the very last corner. I am vexed at that affair of the . . . . , but dare not enlarge on the subject until you send me your direction, as I suppose that will be altered on your late master and friend's death.* I am concerned for the old fellow's exit, only as I fear it may be to your disadvantage in any respect, for an old man's dying, except he have been a very benevolent character, or in some particular situation of life that the welfare of the poor or the helpless depended on him, I think it an event of the most trifling moment to the world. Man is naturally a kind, bene- volent animal, but he is dropped into such a needy situation here in this vexatious world, and has such a whoreson, hungry, growling, multiplying pack of necessities, appetites, pas- sions, and desires about him, ready to devour him for want of other food, that in fact he must lay aside his cares for others that he may look properly to himself. You have been im- posed upon in paying Mr Miers for the profile of a Mr H . I did not mention it in my letter to you, nor did I ever give Mr Miers any such order. I have no objection to lose the money, but I will not have any such profile in my possession. I desired the carrier to pay you, but as I mentioned only 15s. to him, I will rather en- close you a guinea note. I have it not, indeed, to spare here, as I am only a sojourner in a strange land in this place ; but in a day or two I return to Mauchline, and there I have the bank-notes through the house like salt permits. There is a great degree of folly in talking unnecessarily of one's private affairs. I have just now been interrupted by one of my new neighbours, who has made himself absolutely contemptible in my eyes by his silly, garrulous pruriency. I know it has been a fault of my own, too ; but from this moment I abjure it as I would the service of heU? Your poets, spend- thrifts, and other fools of that kidney, pretend, forsooth, to crack their jokes on prudence; but 'tis a squalid vagabond glorying in his rags. StiD, imprudence respecting money matters is much more pardonable than imprudence re- specting character. I have no objectiofa to prefer prodigality to avarice, in some few in- stances; but I appeal to your observation, if you have not met, and often met, with the same disingenuousness, the same hollow-hearted insincerity, and disintegritive depravity of prin- ciple, in the hackneyed victims of profusion, as in the unfeeling children of parsimony. I have «very possible reverence for the much-talked-of world beyond the grave, and I wish that which piety believes and virtue deserves may be all • Mr Samud Mitchelson, W.S matter of fact. But in things belonging to and terminating in this present scene of existence, man has serious and interesting business on hand. Whether a man shall shake hands with welcome in the distinguished elevation of re- spect, or shrink from contempt in the abject comer of insignificance ; whether he shall wan- ton under the tropic of plenty, at least enjoy himself in the comfortable latitudes of easy convenience, or starve in the arctic circle of dreary poverty ; whether he shall rise in the manly consciousness of a self-approving mind, or sink beneath a galling load of regret and remorse — these are alternatives of the last mo- ment. You see how I preach. You used occasion- ally to sermonise too ; I wish you would, in charity, favour me with a sheet full in your own way. I admire the close of a letter Lord Bolingbroke wrote to Dean Swift: — "Adieu, dear Swift ! with all thy faults I love thee en- tirely : make an effort to love me with all mine ! " Humble servant, and all that trum- pery, is now such a prostituted business that honest friendship, in her sincere way, must have recourse to the primitive, simple — fare- weU ! E. B. No. CXXVIII. TO MB GEOEGE LOCKHAET, MEE- CHANT, GLASGOW. Mauchlink, July 18, 1788. My dear Sir, — I am just going for Niths- dale, else I would certainly have transcribed some of my rhyming things for you. The Misses Baillie I have seen in Edinburgh. " Fair and lovely are Thy works, Lord God Almighty I Who would not praise Thee for these Thy gifts in Thy goodness to the sons of men !" It needed not your fine taste to admire them. I declare, one day I had the honour of dining at Mr Baillie's, I was almost in the predicament of the children of Israel, when they could not look on Moses's face for the glory that shone in it when he descended from Mount Sinai. I did once write a poetic address from the Falls of Bruar to his Grace of Athole, when I was in the Highlands. When you return to Scotland, let me know, and I will send such of my pieces as please myself best. I return to Mauchline in about ten days. My compliments to Mr Purden. — I am in truth, but at present in haste, yours, E. B. No. CXXIX. TO ME PETEE HILL. My dear Hill, — I shall say nothing to your mad present, you have so long and often been of important service to me; and I suppose you mean to go on conferring obligations until I shall not be able to lift up my face before you. In the meantime, as Sir Eoger de Coverley, because it happened to be a cold day in which lie made his will, ordered his servants great- coats for mourning, so, because I have been GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. 277 this week plagued with au indigestion, I have sent you by the carrier a fine old ewe-milk cheese.* Indigestion is the devil : nay, 'tis the devil and all. It besets a man in every one of his senses. I lose my appetite at the sight of suc- cessful knavery, and sicken to loathing at the noise and nonsense of self-important folly. When the hollow-hearted wretch takes me by the hand, the feeling spoils my dinner; the proud man's wine so ofifends my palate that it chokes me in the gullet; and the 'pulvilised, feathered, pert coxcomb, is so disgustful in my nostril that my stomach turns. If ever you have any of these disagreeable sensations, let me prescribe for you patience and a bit of my cheese. I know that you are no niggard of good things among your friends, and some of them are in much need of a slice. There, in my eyes, is our friend Smellie; a man positively of the first abilities and greatest strength of mind, as well as one of the best hearts and keenest wits that I have ever met with ; when you see him, as, alas ! he too is smarting at the pinch of distressful circum- stances, aggravated by the sneer of contumeli- ous greatness — a bit of my cheese alone will not cure him, but if you add a tankard of brown stout, and superadd a magnum of right Oporto, you will see his sorrows vanish like the morn- ing mist before the summer sim. Candlish, the earliest friend, except my only brother, that I have on earth, and one of the worthiest fellows that ever any man called by the name of friend, — if a luncheon of my cheese VN-ould help to rid him of some of his super- ?.bundant modesty, you would do well to give It him. David,f with his Courant, comes, too, across my recollection, and I beg you will help him largely from the said ewe-milk cheese, to en- able him to digest those bedaubing paragraphs with which he is eternally larding the lean characters of certain great men in a certain great town. I grant you the periods are very '.veil turned; so, a fresh egg is a very good thing, but when thrown at a man in a pillory, it does not at all improve his figure, not to mention the irreparable loss of the egg. j My facetious friend Dimbar I would wish ! also to be a partaker : not to digest his spleen, ' for that he laughs ofi", but to digest his last night's wine at the last field-day of the Croch- allan corps. J Among our common friends I must not for- get one of the dearest of them — Cunningham. The brutality, insolence, and selfishness of a world imworthy of having such a fellow as he is in it, I know, sticks in his stomach, and if you can help him to anything that will make him a little easier on that score, it will be very obliging. As to honest John Somerville, he is such a contented, happy man, that I know not what * Peter Hill, the bookseller, sent the poet a present of some valuable books. Burns returned the compli- ment in his own way by sending the "fine old ewe-milk cheese." t Mr David Bamsay, printer of the Edinburgh Eveit- in(f Courant. t A club of choice spirits. can annoy him, except, perhaps, he may not have got the better of a parcel of modest anec- dotes which a certain poet gave him one night at supper, the last time the said poet was in town. Though I have mentioned so many men of law, I shall have nothing to do with them pro- fessedly — the faculty are beyond my prescrip- tion. As to their clients that is another thing; God knows they have much to digest ! The clergy I pass by ; their profundity of erudition, and their liberality of sentiment ; their total want of pride, and their detestation of hypocrisy, are so proverbially notorious as to place them far, far above either my praise or censure. I was going to mention a man of worth, whom I have the honour to call friend, the Laird of Craigdarrock ; but I have spoken to the landlord of the King's- Arms Inn here, to have at the next county meeting a large ewe- milk cheese on the table, for the benefit of the Dimafriesshire Whigs, to enable them to digest the Duke of Queensberry's late political con- duct. I have just this moment an opportunity of a private hand to Edinburgh, as perhaps you would not digest double postage. K. B. No. CXXX. TO EOBERT GEAHAM, ESQ. OF FIN- TKAY. Sib, — When I had the honour of being in- troduced to you at Athole House, I did not think so soon of asking a favour of you. When Lear, in Shakespeare, asked old Kent, why he wished to be in his service, he answers, " Be- cause you have that in your face which I would fain call master." For some such reason, sir, do I now solicit your patronage. You know, I daresay, of an application I lately made to yom* Board to be admitted an officer of Excise. I have, according to form, been examined by a supervisor, and to-day I give in his certificate, with a request for an order for instructions. In this afiair, if I succeed, I am afraid I shall but too much need a patronising friend. Propriety of conduct as a man, and fidelity and attention as an officer, I dare engage for ; but with any- thing like business, except manual labour, I am totally unacquainted. I had intended to have closed my late ap- pearance on the stage of life, in the character of a country farmer ; but after discharging some filial and fraternal claims, I find I could only fight for existence in that miserable manner which I have lived to see throw a venerable parent into the jaws of a jail ; whence death, the poor man's last, and often best, friend, rescued him. § I know, sir, that to need your goodness is to have a claim on it ; may I, therefore, beg 2 The filial and fraternal claims to which this letter refers were two hundred pounds lent to his brother Gilbert to enable him to fight out the remainder of the leise of Mossgiel — and a considerable sum given to liis mother. 278 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE, your patronage to forward me in this affair, till I be appointed to a division ; where, by the help of rigid economy, I will try to support that independence so dear to my sohI, but which has been too often so distant from my situation, R. B. No. CXXXI. TO WILLIAM CRUIKSHANK. Ellisland, Aug. 1788. I HAVE not room, my dear friend, to answer all the particulars of your last kind letter. I shall be in Edinburgh on some business very soon ; and as I shall be two days, or perhaps three, in town, we shall discuss matters xivd voce. My knee, I believe, will never be en- tirely well; and an unlucky fall this winter has made it still worse. I well remember the circumstance you allvide to, respecting Creech's opinion of Mr Nicol ; but as the first gen- tleman owes me still ai)out fifty pounds, I dare not meddle in the affair. It gave me a very heavy heart to read such accounts of the consequence of your quarrel with that puritanic, rotten-hearted, hell-com- missioned scoundrel, A . If, notwithstand- ing your unprecedented industry in public, and your irreproachable conduct in private life, he still has you so much in his power, what ruin may he not bring on some others I could name? Many and happy returns of seasons to you, with your dearest and worthiest friend, and the lovely little pledge of your happy union. May the great Author of life, and of every enjoyment that can render life delightful, make her that comfortable blessing to you both, which you so ardently wish for, and which, allow me to say, you so well deserve ! Glance over the foregoing verses, and let me have your blots ! * — Adieu. R. B. No. CXXXII. TO MRS DUNLOP. Mauchline, Aug. 2, 1788. Honoured Madam, — Your kind letter wel- comed me, yesternight, to Ayrshire. I am indeed seriously angry with you at the quan- tum of your luckpenny ; but, vexed and hurt as I was, I could not help laughing very heartily at the noble lord's apology for the missed napkin. I would write you from Nithsdale, and give you my direction there, but I have scarce an ! opportunity of calling at a post-office once in a j fortnight. I am six miles from Dumfries, am j scarcely ever in it myself, and as yet have little acquaintance in the neighbourhood. Be- sides, I am now very busy on my farm, build- . ing a dwelling-house ; as at present I am almost ; an evangelical man in Nithsdale, for I have Bcarce " where to lay my head." There are some passages in your last that ♦ The verses enclosed were the lines written in Friars' Oarse Hermitage. brought tears in my eyes. " The heart knoweth its own sorrows, and a stranger in- termeddleth not therewith." The repository of these " sorrows of the heart " is a kind of sanctum sanctorum: and 'tis only a chosen friend, and that, too, at particular, sacred times, who dares enter into them : — " Heaven of tears, the bosom chords That nature finest strung." You win excuse this quotation for the sake of the author. Instead of entering on this sub- ject farther, I shall transcribe you a few lines I wrote in a hermitage belonging to a gentleman in my Nithsdale neighbourhood. They are almost the only favours the Muses have con- ferred on me in that country.f Since I am in the way of transcribing, the following were the production of yesterday as I jogged through the wild hills of New Cum- nock. I intend inserting them, or something like them, in an epistle I am going to write to the gentleman on whose friendship my Excise hopes depend, Mr Graham of Fintraj'-, one of the worthiest and most accomplished gentle- men, not only of this country, but, I will dare to say it, of this age. The following are just the first crude thoughts " unhousel'd, un- anointed, imanneal'd : " — t Here the muse left me. I am astonished at what you tell me of Anthony's writing me. I never received it. Poor fellow ! you vex me much by telling me that he is unfortunate. I shall be in Ayrshire in ten days from this date. I have just room for an old Roman farewell. R. B. No. CXXXIIL TO THE SAME. Mauchline, Aug. 10, 1798. My Mucn-HGNOURED Friend, — Yours of the 24th June is before me. I found it, as well as another valued friend — my wife — waiting to welcome me to Ayrshire : I met both with the sincerest pleasure. When I write you, madam, I do not sit down to answer every paragraph of yours by echoing every sentiment, like the faithful Com- mons of Great Britain in Parliament assembled answering a speech from the best of kings. I express myself in the fulness of my heart, and may, perhaps, be guilty of neglecting some of your kind inquiries ; but not, from your very odd reason, that I do not read your letters. All your epistles for several months have cost me nothing, except a swelling throb of gratitude, or a deep-felt sentiment of veneration. When Mrs Burns, madam, first found her- self "as women wish to be who love their lords," as I loved her nearly to distraction, we took steps for a private marriage. Her parents got the hint; and not only forbade me her company and their house, but, on my rumoured t See Lines written in Friars' Carso Hermitage, p. 58. t See "First Epistle to Robert Graham," p. 97. — " Pity the tuneful muses' hapless strain." GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE, 2/9 West Indian voyage, got a warrant to put me in jail, till I should find security in my about- to-be paternal relation. You know my lucky reverse of fortune. On my eclatant return to Maucbline, I was made very welcome to visit my girl. The usual consequences began to be- tray her ; and, as I was at that time laid up a cripple in Edinburgh, she was turned, literally turned out of doors, and I wrote to a friend to shelter her till my return, when our marriage was declared. Her happiness or misery was in my hands, and who could trifle with such a deposit ? I can easily fancy a more agreeable com- panion for my journey of life; but, upon my honour, I have never seen the individual in- stance. Circumstanced as I am, I could never have got a female partner for life who could have entered into my favourite studies, relished my favourite authoi-s, &c., without probably entailing on me at the same time expensive living, fantastic eapricp, perhaps apish affectation, with all the other blessed boarding-school acquirements, which {pardonnez-moi, madame) are some- times to be found among females of the upper ranks, but almost universally pervade the misses of the would-be gentry. I like your way in your churchyard lucu- brations. Thoughts that are the spontaneous result of accidental situations, either respecting health, place, or company, have often a strength and always an originality that would in vain be looked for in fancied circumstances and studied paragraphs. For me, I have often thought of keeping a letter, in progression by me, to send you when the sheet was written out. Now I talk of sheets, I must tell you, my reason for ^vriting to you on paper of this kind is my pruriency of writing to you at large. A page of post is on such a dis-social, narrow- minded scale, that I cannot abide it; and double letters, at least in my miscellaneous reverie manner, are a monstrous tax in a close corre- spondence. E. B. No. CXXXIV. TO THE SAME. EixiSLAKD, Aug. 16, 1788. I AM in a fine disposition, my honoured friend, to send you an elegiac epistle; and want only genius to make it quite Shen- etonian : — "Why droops my heart with fancied woes forlorn? "Why sinks my soul beneath each wintry sky ?" My increasing cares in this, as yet, strange country — gloomy conjectures in the dark vista of futurity — consciousness of my own inability for the struggle of the world— my broadened mark to misfortune in a wife and children ; — I could indulge these reflections till my humour should ferment into the most acid chagrin that would corrode the very thread of life. To counterwork these baneful feelings, I have sat down to write to you ; as I declare •upon my soul I always find that the most sove- reign balm for my wounded spirit. 1 was yesterday at Mr Miller's to dinner, for the first time. My reception was quite to my mind — ^from the lady of the house quite flattering. She sometimes hits on a couplet or two impromptu. She repeated one or two to the admiration of all present. My suffrage, as a professional man, was expected : I for once went agonising over the belly of my conscience. Pardon me, ye, my adored household gods, in- dependence of spirit, and integrity of soul ! In the course of conversation, Johnson's Musi- cal Museum, a collection of Scottish songs, with the music, was talked of. We got a song on the harpsichord, beginning, "Raving winds around her blowing." * The air was much admired ; the lady of the house asked me whose were the words. " Mine, madam — they are indeed my very best verses ; " she took not the smallest notice of them ! The old Scottish proverb says well, " King's chaff is better than ither folks' corn." I was going to make a New-Testament quotation about " casting pearls," but that would be too viru- lent, for the lady is actually a woman of sense and taste. After all that has been said on the other side of the question, man is by no means a happy creature, I do not speak of the selected faw, favoured by partial Heaven, whose souls are tuned to gladness amid riches and honours, and prudence and wisdom, I speak of the neglected manj, whose nerves, whose sinews, whose days are sold to the minions of fortune. If I thought you had never seen it, I would transcribe for you a stanza of an old Scottish ballad, called, " The Life and Age of Man; " beginning thus : — ["'Twas in the sixteenth hunder year Of God and fifty-three, Prae Christ was born, that bought us dear, As writings testifie." I had an old granduncle with whom my mother lived a while in her girlish years ; the good old man, for such he was, was long blind ere he died, during which time his highest en- joyment was to sit down and cry, while my mother would sing the simple old song of " The Life and Age of Man." It is this way of thinking, it is these melan- choly truths, that make religion so precious to the poor, miserable children of men. If it is a mere phantom, existing only in the heated imagination of enthusiasm, " What truth on earth so precious as the lie !" My idle reasonings sometimes make me a little sceptical, but the necessities of my heart always give the cold philosophisings the lie. Who looks for the heart weaned from earth ; the soul affianced to her God ; the correspond- ence fixed with Heaven; the pious supplica- tion and devout thanksgiving, constant as the vicissitudes of even and mom ; who thinks to meet with these in the court, the palace, in the glare of pubhc Hfe ? No : to find them in their precious importance and divine efficacy, we must search among the obscure recesses of disappointment, affliction, poverty, and dis- tress. See p. 127. s8o GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. I am sure, dear madam, you are now more than pleased with the length of my letters, I return to Ayrshire the middle of next week : and it quickens my pace to think that there will be a letter from you waiting me there. I must be here again very soon for my harvest. B- B. No. CXXXV. TO MR BEUGO, ENGRAVER, EDINBURGH. Ellislakd, Sept. 9, 1788. My deae Sir, — There is not in Edinburgh above the number of the graces whose letters would have given me so much pleasure as yours of the 3d instant, which only reached me yesternight. I am here on my farm, busy with my har- vest ; but for all that most pleasurable part of life called social communication, I am here at the very elbow of existence. The only things that are to be found in this country, in any degree of perfection, are stu- pidity and canting. Prose, they only know in graces, prayers, &c,, and the value of these they estimate as they do their plaiding webs — by the ell ! As for the Muses, they have as much idea of a rhinoceros as of a poet. For my old capricious, but good-natured, of a muse — By banks of Nith I sat and wept When Coila I thought on, In midst thereof I hung my Iiarp The willow-trees upon, I am generally about half my time in Ayrshire with my "darling Jean," and then I, at lucid mtervals, throw my horny fist across my be- eobwebbed lyre, much in the same manner as an old wife throws her hand across the spokes of her spinning-wheel. I will send the "Fortunate Shepherdess," as soon as I return to Ayrshire, for there I keep it with other precious treasure, I shall send it by a careful hand, as I would not for anything it should be mislaid or lost. I do not wish to serve you from any benevolence, or other grave Christian virtue ; 'tis purely a selfish gratification of my own feelings when- ever I think of you. If your better functions would give you leisure to write me, I should be extremely happy ; that is to say, if you neither keep nor look for a regular correspondence. I hate the idea of being obliged to write a letter. I Bometimes write a friend twice a week, at other times once a quarter. I am exceedingly pleased with your fancy in making the aiithor you mention place a map of Iceland instead of his portrait before his works : 'twas a glorious idea. Could you conveniently do me on« thing? — whenever you finish any head I should like to have a proof copy of it. I might tell you a long gtory about your fine genius; but as what everybody knows cannot have escaped you, I shall not say one syllable about it. R.B. No. CXXXVI. TO MISS CHALMERS, EDINBURGH. Ellisland, (near Dumfries,) Bej^t. 16, 1788. Where are you ? and how are you ? and is Lady Mackenzie recovering her health ? for I have had but one solitary letter from you. I will not think you have forgot me, madam; and, for my part, "When thee, Jerusalem, I forget, Skill part from my right haud ! " " My heart is not of that rock, nor my soul careless as that sea. " I do not make my pro- gress among mankind as a bowl does among its fellows — rolling through the crowd without bearing away any mark or impression, except where they hit in hostile collision. I am here driven in with my harvest folks by bad weather; and as you and your sister once did me the honour of interesting your- selves much a Vegard de moi, I sit down to beg the continuation of your goodness, I can truly say that, all the exterior of life apart, I never saw two whose esteem flattered the nobler feelings of my soul — I will not say more, but so much, as Lady Mackenzie and Miss Chalmers. When I think of you— hearts the best, minds the noblest of human kind — unfortunate even in the shades of life — when I think I have met with you, and have lived more of real life with you in eight days than I can do with almost anybody I meet with in eight years — when I think on the improbability of meeting you in this world again — I could sit down and cry like a child ! If ever you honoured me with a place in your esteem, I trust I can now plead more desert. I am secure against that crushing grip of iron poverty, which, alas ! is less or more fatal to the native worth and purity of, I fear, the noblest souls ; and a late important step in my life has kindly taken me out of the way of those ungrateful iniquities, v.'hich, however overlooked in fashionable licence, or varnished in fashionable phrase, are indeed but lighter and deeper shades of villant. Shortly after my last return to Ayrshire, I married " my Jean." This was not in conse- quence of the attachment of romance, perhaps; but I had a long and much loved fellow- crea- ture's happiness or misery in my determina- tion, and I durst not trifle with so important a deposit. Nor have I any cause to repent it. If I have not got polite tattle, modish manners, and fashionable dress, I am not sickened and disgusted with the multiform curse of boarding- school affectation : and I have got the hand- somest figure, the sweetest temper, the sound- est constitution, and the kindest heart in the county. Mrs Burns believes, as firmly as lier creed, that* I am le pins bel esprit, et le plus h(mnite komme in tlie universe ; although she scarcely ever in her life, except the Scrii)fcure8 of the Old and the New Testament, and the Pc*alm8 of David in metre, spent five minutes together on either prose or verse, I must except also from this lost a certain late pul»li- caticn of Scots poems, which she has perused very devoutly; and all. the ballads iu tlio GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. 281 country, as she has (0 the partial lover ! you will cry) the finest '• ■wood- note wild " I ever heard. I am the more particular in this lady's character, as I know she \vi]l henceforth have the honour of a share in your best wishes. She is still at Mauchline, as I am building my house ; for this hovel that I shelter in while occasionally here is pervious to every blast that blows and every shower that falls : and I am only preserved from being chilled to death by being suffocated with smoke. I do not find my farm that pennyworth I was taught to expect, but I believe, in time, it may be a saving bargain. You will be pleased to hear that I have laid aside idle eclat, and bind every day after my reapers. To save me from that horrid situation of at any time going down, in a losing bargain of a farm, to misery, I have taken my excise in- structions, and have my commission in my pocket for any emergency of fortune. If I could set all before your view, whatever dis- respect you, in common with the world, have for this business, I know you would approve of my idea. I will make no apology, dear madam, for this egotistic detail; I know you and your sister will be interested in every circumstance of it. "What signify the silly, idle gewgaws of wealth, or the ideal trumpery of greatness ! "When fellow-partakers of the same nature fear the same God, have the same benevolence of heart, the same nobleness of soul, the same detestation at everything dishonest, and the same scorn at everything unworthy — if they are not in the dependence of absolute beggary, in the name of common sense are they not EQUALS ? And if the bias, the instinctive bias of their souls run the same way, may they not be FRIENDS? "When I may have an opportunity of sending you this. Heaven only knows. Shenstone says, "When one is confined idle within doors by bad weather, the best antidote against ennui is to read the letters of, or write to, one's friends;" in that case then, if the weather continues thus, I may scrawl you half a quire. I very lately — to wit, since harvest began — wrote a poem, not in imitation, but in the manner, of Pope's "Moral Epistles." It is only a short essay, just to try the strength of my muse's pinion in that way. I wiU send you a copy of it, when once I have heard from you. I have likewise been laying the foimdation of some pretty large poetic works : how the I superstructure will come on, I leave to that great maker and marrer of projects — Time. Johnson's collection of Scots songs is going on in the third volume ; and of consequence finds me a consumpt for a great deal of idle metre. One of the most tolerable thingfe I have done in that way is two stanzas I made to an air a musical gentleman of my acquaintance com- posed for the anniversary of his wedding-day, which happens on the 7th of November. Take it as follows : — The day returns — my bosom bums,— The blissful day we twa did meet &c.* * Seep. 129. I shall give over this letter for shame. If I should be seized with a scribbling fit before this goes away, I shall make it another letter; and then you may allow your patience a week's respite between the two. I have not room for more than the old, kind, hearty farewell ! To make some amends mes clilres mesdameSy for dragging you on to this second sheet ; and to relieve a Httle the tiresomeness of my un- studied and uncorrectible prose, I shall tran- scribe you some of my late poetic bagatelles ; though I have these eight or ten months done very little that way. One day, in a hermitage on the banks of Nith, belonging to a gentleman in my neighbourhood, who is so good as give me a key at pleasure, I wrote as follows ; sup- posing myself the sequestered, venerable in- habitant of the lonely mansion : — WNKS ■WRITTEN IN FRIAfiS' CAESE HERMITAGE. Thou whom chance may hither lead, Be thou clad in russet weed, &c. f E. B. No. CXXXVII. TO MR MORRISON, MAUCHLINE.f Ellisland, Sept. 22, 1788. Mt dear Sir, — Necessity obliges me to go into ray new house even before it be plastered. I will inhabit the one end until the other is finished. About three weeks more, I think, will at farthest be my time, beyond which I cannot stay in this present house. If ever you wished to deserve the blessing of him that was ready to perish; if ever you were in a situation that a little kindness would have rescued you from many evils ; if ever you hope to find rest in future states of untried being — get these matters of mine ready. My servant will be out in the beginning of next week for the clock. My compliments to Mrs Morrison. — I am, after all my tribulation, dear sir, yours, R. B. No. CXXXVIII. TO MRS DUNLOP OF DUNLOP. Mauchline, Sept. 27, 1788. I HA"VE received twins, dear madam, more than once ; but scarcely ever with more plea- sure than when I received yours of the 12th instant. To make myself understood ; I had written to Mr Graham, enclosing my poem addressed to him, and the same post which favoured me with yours brought me an answer from him. It was dated the very day he had received mine ; and I am quite at a loss to say whether it was most polite or kind. Your criticisms, my honoured benefactress, ^ are truly the work of a friend. They are not the blasting depredations of a canker-toothed, caterpillar critic ; nor are they the fair state- ment of cold impartiality, balancing with t Sae p. 58. + Mr Morrison was a Mauchline cabinetmakei. He made the famiture req[aired for the new house at Ellis- land. 282 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. unfeeling exactitude the pro and con of an author's merits ; they are the judicious obser- vations of animated fi'iendship, selecting the beauties of the piece. I have just arrived from Is'ithsdale, and will be here a fortnight. I was on horseback this morning by three o'clock ; for between my wife and my farm is just forty-six miles. As I jogged on in the dark, I was taken with a poetic fit, as follows : — MRS FERGUSSOX OF CrvAIGDAREOCH'S LAME2JTATI0N FOR THE DEATH OF HER SOX ; An uncommonly promising youth of eighteen or nineteen years of age. Fate gave the word — the arrow sped, And pierced my darling's heart, &c. * You will not send me your poetic rambles' but, you see, I am no niggard of mine. I am Bure your impromptus give me double pleasure; what falls from your pen can neither be unen- tertaining in itself nor indifferent to me. The one fault you found is just; but I can- not please myself in an emendation. What a life of solicitude is the life of a pa- rent ! You interested me much in your young couple. I would not take my folio paper for this epistle, and now I repent it. I am so jaded with my dirty long journey that I was afraid to drawl into the essence of dulness with any- thing larger than a quarto, and so I must leave out another rhyme of this morning's manufac- ture. I will pay the sapientipotent George, most cheerfully, to hear from you ere I leave Ayr- shire. " R. B. -No. CXXXIX. TO MR PETER HILL. Mattchline, Oct. 1, 1788. I HAVE been here in this country about three days, and all that time my chief reading has been the "Address to Lochlomond" you were so obliging as to send to me,+ Were I empan- nelled one of the author's jury, to determine his criminality respecting the sin of poesy, my verdict should be, " Guilty ! — a poet of nature's making ! " It is an excellent method for im- provement, and what I believe every poet does, to place some favourite classic author in his own walks of study and composition before him as a model. Though your author had not mentioned the name, I could have, at half a glance, guessed his model to be Thomson Will ray brother-poet forgive me if I venture to hint that his imitation of that immortal bard is in two or three places rather more servile than such a genius as his required ? — e.g., " To soothe the madd'ning passions all to peace." —Address. *'To soothe the throbbing passions into peace." —Thomson. I think the " Address " is in simplicity, har- mony, and elegance of versification, fully equal to the " Seasons." Like Thomson, too, he has * Sec p. 59, t A poem written by one of the masters of the Edin- burgh High School. looked into nature for himself : you meet with no copied description. One particular criticism i I made at first reading; in no one instance has i he said too much. He never flags in his pro- i gress, but, like a true poet of nature's making, kindles in his course. His beginning is simple and modest, as if distrustful of the strength of his pinion ; only, I do not altogether like — " Truth, The soul of every song that's nobly great." Fiction is the soul of many a song that is nobly great. Perhaps I am wrong : this may be but a prose criticism. Is not the phrase, in line 7, page 6, " Great lake," too much vul- garized by every-day language for so sublime a poem ? "Great mass of waters, theme for nobler song," is perhaps no emendation. His enumeration of a comparison with other lakes is at once harmonious and poetic. Every reader's ideas must sweep the " Winding margin of a hundred miles." The perspective that follows mountains blue — the imprisoned billows beating in vain — the wooded isles — the digression on the yew-tree — " Benlomond's lofty, cloud-envelop'd head," &c,, are beautiful. A thunder-storm is a sub- ject which has been often tried, yet our poet in his grand picture has interjected a circum- stance, so far as I know, entirely original : — '•The gloom Deep seam'd with frequent streaks of moving fire." In his preface to the storm, " the glens how dark between," is noble Highland landscape ! The " rain ploughing the red mould," too, is beautifully fancied. "Benlomond's lofty, path- less top," is a good expression; and the sur- rounding view from it is truly great : the " silver mist, • Beneath the beaming sun," is well described ; and here he has contrived to enliven his poem with a little of that passion which bids fair, I think, to usurp the modern muses altogether. I know not how far this episode is a beauty upon the whole, but the swain's wish to carry " some faint idea of the vision bright," to entertain her " partial listen- ing ear," is a pretty thought. But in my opi- nion the most beautiful passages in the whole poem are the fowls crowding, in wintry frosts, to Lochlomond's " hospitable flood ; " their wheeling round, their lighting, mixing, diving, &c. ; and the glorious description of the sports- man. This last is equal to anything in the "Seasons." The idea of "the floating tribes distant seen, far glistering to the moon," pro- voking his eye as he is obliged to leave them, is a noble ray of poetic genius. " The howl- ing winds," the "hideous roar" of "the white cascades," are all in the same style. I forget that while I am thus holding forth with the heedless warmth of an enthusiast, I am perhaps tiring you with nonsense. I must, however, mention that the last verse of the six- teenth page is one of the most elegant compli- ments I have ever seen. I must likewise notice that beautiful paragraph beginning " The GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. :83 gleaming lake," &c. I dare not go into the particular beauties of the last two paragraphs, but they are admirably fine, and truly Ossiauic. I must beg your pardon for this lengthened scrawl — I had no idea of it when I began. I should like to know who the author is ; but, -vlioever he be, please present him with my rateful thanks for the entertainment he has atYorded me. A friend of mine desired me to commission for him two books, " Letters on the Religion /Essential to Man," a book you sent me before ; ; nd ''The World Unmasked; or, The Philoso- pher the Greatest Cheat." Send me them by the first opportunity. The Bible you sent me is truly elegant; I only wish it had been in two volumes. B. B. Xo. CXL. TO THE EDITOR OF THE STAR* Nov. 8, 1788. Sm, — Notwithstanding the opprobrious epi- thets with which some of our philosophers and gloomy sectarians have branded our nature — the principle of universal selfishness, the prone- ness to all evil, they have given us — still, the detestation in which inhumanity to the dis- tressed, or insolence to the fallen, are held by all mankind, shows that they are not natives of the human heart. Even the unhappy partner of our kind who is imdone — the bitter conse- quence of his follies or his crimes — who but sympathises with the miseries of this ruined profligate brother? We forget the injuries, iiid feel for the man. I went last AVednesday to my parish church, most cordially to join in grateful acknowledg- ment to the Author op all Good for the consequent blessings of the glorious revolution. To that auspicious event we owe no less than our liberties civil and religious ; to it we are likewise indebted for the present royal family, the ruling features of whose administration have ever been mildness to the subject, and tender- ness of his rights. Bred and educated in revolution principles, the principles of reason and common sense, it could not be any silly political prejudice which made ray heart revolt at the harsh, abusive manner in which the reverend gentlemanf men- tioned the house of Stuart, and which, I am afraid, was too much the language of the day. We may rejoice sufficiently in our deliverance from past evils, without cruelly raking up the ashes of those whose misfortune it was, perhaps, as much as their crime, to be the authors of those evils ; and we may bless God for all His goodness to us as a nation, without at the same time cursing a few ruined, powerless exiles, who only harboured ideas and made attempts * John 3Iayne, a Dumfries man, author of several popular poems— " Lojran Braes," "The Muffled Drum," and two more ambitious efforts, a poem entitled, • Glasgow," and "The Siller Gun." t The preacher was Jlr Kirkpatrick, minister of the parish of Dunscore. He afterwards got a harmonious call to another parish ; and although the stipend was smaller than that of Dunscore, he accepted— a rare instiince of clerical sclf-deniaL that most of us would have done, had we been in their situation. " The bloody and tyrannical house of Stuart," may be said with propriety and justice, when compared with the present royal family, and tho sentiments of our days ; but is there no allow- ance to be made for the manners of the times ? AVere the royal contemporaries of the Stuarts more attentive to their subjects' rights? Might not the epithets of "bloody and tyrannical" be, with at least equal justice, appUed to the house of Tudor, of York, or any other of their predecessors ? The simple state of the case, sir, seems to be this? — at that period the science of govern- ment, the knowledge of the true relation be- tween king and subject, was, like other sciences and other knowledge, just in its infancy, emerg- ing from dark ages of ignorance and barbarity. The Stuarts only contended for prerogatives which they knew their predecessors enjoyed, and which they saw their contemporaries enjoy- ing; but these prerogatives were inimical to the happiness of a nation and the rights of subjects. In this contest between prince and people, the consequence of that light of science which had lately dawned over Europe, the monarch of France, for example, was victorious over the struggling hberties of his people : with us, luckily, the monarch failed, and his unwarrant- able pretensions fell a sacrifice to our rights and happiness. Whether it was owing to the wis- dom of leading individuals, or to the justling, of parties, I cannot pretend to determine ; but likewise, happily for us, the kingly power was shifted into another branch of the family, who, as they owed the throne solely to the call of a free people, could claim nothing inconsistent with the covenanted terms which placed them there. The Stuarts have been condemned and laughed at for the folly and impracticability of their attempts in 1715 and 1745. That they failed, I bless God ; but cannot join in the ridicule against them. Who does not know that the abilities or defects of leaders and commanders are often hidden until put to the touchstone of exigency; and that there is a caprice of fortune, an omnipotence in particular accidents and conjunctures of circumstances, which exalt us as heroes, or brand us as mad- men, just as they are for or against us ? Man, Mr Publisher, is a strange, weak, in- consistent being ; who would believe, sir, that in this our Augustan age of liberality and re- finement, while we seem so justly sensible and jealous of our rights and liberties, and animated with such indignation against the very memory of those who would have subverted them, that a certain people under our national protection should complain, not against our monarch and a few favourite advisers, but against our whole LEGISLATIVE BODY, for similar oppression, and almost in the very same terms, as our fore- fathers did of the house of Stuart ! I will not, I cannot, enter into the merits of the cause ; but I daresay the American Congress, in 1776, will be allowed to be as able and as enlightened as the English Convention was in 1688; and 284 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. that their posterity will celebrate the centenary of their deliverance from us as duly and sin- cerely as we do ours from the oppressive mea- sures of the wrongheaded house of Stuart. To conclude, sir ; let every man who has a tear for the many miseries incident to humanity, feel for a family illustrious as any in Europe, and unfortunate beyond historic precedent ; and let every Briton (and particularly every Scots- man) who ever looked with reverential pity on the dotage of a parent, cast a veil over the fatal mistakes of the kings of his forefathers. E. B. No. CXLI. TO MRS DUNLOP, AT MOREHAM MAINS. Mapchline, Nov. 13, 1788, Madam, — I had the very great pleasure of dining at Dunlop yesterd^iy. Men are said to flatter women because they are weak ; if it is so, poets must be weaker still ; for Misses E— - and K , and Miss G. M'K , with their flattering attentions and artful compli- ments, absolutely turned my head. I own they did not lard me over as many a poet does his patron, but they so intoxicated me with their sly insinuations and delicate inuendos of compliment, that, if it had not been for a lucky recollection how much additional weight and lustre your good opinion and friendship must give me in that circle, I had certainly looked upon myself as a person of no small conse- quence. I dare not say one word how much I was charmed with the major's friendly wel- come, elegant manner, and acute remark, lest I should be thought to balance my orientalisms of applause over against the finest quey (heifer) in Ayrshire, which he made me a present of to help and adorn my farming stock. As it was on hallowday, I am determined annually as that day returns, to decorate her horns with an ode of gratitude to the family of Dunlop. So soon as I know of your arrival at Dunlop, I will take the first convenience to dedicate a day, or perhaps two, to you and friendship, under the guarantee of the major's hospitality. There will soon be threescore and ten miles of permanent distance between us; and now that your friendship and friendly correspondence is entwisted with the heart-strings of my enjoy- ment of life, I must indulge myself in a happy day of "the feast of reason and the flow of soul." E. B. No. CXLII. TO MR JAMES JOHNSON,* ENGRAVER. MACcirLimsi, Nov. 15, 1788. My dear Sir, — I have sent you two more songs. If you have got aiiy tunes, or anything * James Johnson, the |.ubli.s!icr of the M\ivX a small part of the intended whole. I pro- pose it shall be the work of my utmost exer- tions, ripened by years ; of course I do not wish it much known. The fragment begin- ning " A little, upright, pert, tart," &c., I have not shown to man living, till I now send it you. It forms the postulata, the axioms, the definition of a character, which, if it appear at all, shall be placed in a variety of lights. This particular part I send you merely as a sample of my hand at portrait-sketching; but, lest idle conjecture should pretend to point out the original, please to let it be for your single, sole inspection. Need I make any apology for this trouble to a gentleman who has treated me with such marked benevolence and peculiar kindness — who has entered into my interests with so much zeal, and on whose critical decisions I can 80 fully depend ? A poet as I am by trade, these decisions are to me of the last conse- quence. My late transient acquaintance among some of the mere rank and file of greatness, I resign with ease ; but to the distinguished champions of genius and learning I shall be ever ambitious of being known. The native genius and accurate discernment in Mr Stewart's critical strictures ; the justneaa iiron iosiice. for he Las no bowels of com- passion for a poor poetic sinner) of Dr Gre- gory's remarks,'" and the delicacy of Professor Dalziel's taste, I shall ever revere. I shall be in Edinburgh some time next month. — I have the honour to be, sir, your highly-obliged, and very humble servant, R. B. No. CLI. TO BISHOP GEDDES.f Ellisland, Feb. 3, 1789. Venerable Father, — As I am conscious that, wherever I am, you do me the honour to interest yourself in my welfare, it gives me pleasure to inform yon, that I am here at last, stationary in the serious business of life, and have now not only the retired leisure, but the heai'ty inclination, to attend to those great and important questions — AVhat am I? where am I ? and for what am I destined '{ In that first concern, the conduct of the man, there was ever but one side on which I was habitually blamable, and there I have secured myself in the way pointed out by nature and nature's God. I was sensible that, to so help- less a creature as a poor poet, a wife and family were encumbrances, which a species of prudence would bid him shun ; but when the alternative was being at eternal warfare with myself on account of habitual follies, to give them no worse name, which no general example, no licentious wit, no sophistical infidelity, would, to me, ever justify, I must have been a fool to have hesitated, and a madman to have made another choice. Besides, I had in " my Jean " a long and much-loved fellow-creature's hap- piness or misery among my hands — and who could trifle with such a deposit ? In the afi"air of a livelihood, I think myself tolerably secure : I have good hopes of my farm, but should they fail, I have an Excise commission, which, on my simple petition, will, at any time, procure me bread. There is a certain stigma afl&xed to the character of an Excise-ofi&cer, but I do not pretend to borrow honour from my profession ; and though the salary be comparatively small, it is luxury to anything that the first twenty-five years of my life taught me to expect. Thus, with a rational aim and method in life, you may easily guess, my reverend and much- honoured friend, that my characteristical trade is not forgotten. I am, if possible, more than ever an enthusiast to the Muses. I am deter- mined to study man and nature, and in that view incessantly; and to try if the ripening and corrections of years can enable me to pro- duce something worth preserving. You will see in your book, which I beg your •" The poet alludes to the merciless strictures of Dr Gregory on the poem of the " Wounded Hare." t Alexander Geddes,a bishop of the Roman Catholic I'hurch, was a man of undoubted talents, but much too liboral for his Cimrch. He was the author of a clever rustic poem, beginning, I " There was a wee wiflekie, was coming frae the fair," 1 and had translated one of the books of the Iliad. GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. 289 pai-don for detaining so long, that I have been tuning my lyre on the banks of the Niih. Some large poetic plans that are floating in my ima- gination, or partly put in execution, I shall impart to you when I have the pleasure of meeting with you ; which, if you are then in Edinburgh, I shall have about the beginning of March. That acquaintance, worthy sir, with which you were pleased to honour me, you must still allow me to challenge ; for with whatever un- concern I give up my transient connexion with the merely Great, I cannot lose the patronising notice of the learned and good, without the bit- terest regret. R. B. No. CLIL TO MR JAMES BURNESS. Ellislaxd, Feb. 9, 1789. Mt dear Sie, — Why I did not write to you long ago is what even on the rack I could not answer. If you can in your mind form an idea of indolence, dissipation, hurry, cares, change of country, entering on untried scenes of life, all combined, you will save me the trouble of a blushing apology. It could not be want of regard for a man for whom I had a high esteem before I knew him — an esteem which has miich increased since I did know him; and, this caveat entered, I ^ shall plead guilty to any other indictment with wMch you shall please to charge me. After I parted from you, for many months my life was one continued scene of dissipation. Here at last I am become stationary, and have taken a farm and — a wife. The farm is beautifully situated on the Nith, a large river that runs by Dumfries, and falls into the Solway Frith. I have gotten a lease of my farm as long as I please ; but how it may turn out is just a guess, and it is yet to improve and enclose, &c. ; however, I have good hopes of my bargain on the Avhole. My wife is my Jean, with whose story you are partly acquainted. I found I had a much- loved fellow-creature's happiness or miseiy among my hands, and I durst not trifle with so sacred a deposit. Indeed I have not any reason to repent the step I have taken, as I have attached myself to a very good wife, and have shaken myself loose of every bad feeling, I have found my book a very profitable busi- ness, and with the profits of it I have begun life pretty decently. Should fortune not favour me in farming, as I have no great faith in her fickle ladyship, I have provided myself in another resource, which, however some folks may affect to despise it, is still a comfortable shift in the day of misfortune. In the heyday of my fame, a gentleman, whose name at least I daresay you know, as his estate lies some- where near Dundee, Mr Graham of Fintray one of the Commissioners of Excise, offered me the commission of an Excise-officer. I thought it prudent to accept the offer ; and accordingly I took my instructions, and have my commis- sion by me. Whether I may ever do duty, or be a penny the better for it, is what I do not know; but I have the comfortable assurance that, come whatever ill fate will, I can, on my simple petition to the Excise Board, get into employ. We have lost poor Uncle Robert this winter. He has long been very weak, and, with very little alteration on him, he expired on the 3d Jan. His son William has been with me this win- ter, and goes in May to be an apprentice to a mason. His other son, the eldest, John, comes to me I expect in summer. They are both re- markably stout young fellows, and promise to do well. His only daughter, Fanny, has been with me ever since her father's death, and I purpose keeping her in my family till she be quite woman grown, and fit for better service. She is one of the cleverest girls, and has one of the most amiable dispositions, I have ever seen. All friends in this country and Ayrshire are well. Remember me to all friends in the north. My w^ife joins me in compliments to Mrs B. and family. — I am ever, my dear cousin, yours, sincerely, R. B. No. CLIII. TO MRS DUNLOP. Ellislaxd, March 4, 1789. Here am I, my honoured friend, returned safe from the capital. To a man who has a home, however humble or remote — if that home is, like mine, the scene of domestic com- fort — the bustle of Edinburgh will soon be a business of sickening disgust. " Tain pomp and glory of this world, I hate you ! " When I must skulk into a corner, lest the rattling equipage of some gaping blockhead should mangle me in the mire, I am tempted to exclaim — " What merits has he had, or what demerit have I had, in some state of pre-exist- ence, that he is ushered into this state of being with the sceptre of rule, and the key of riches in his puny fist, and I am kicked into the world, the sport of folly, or the victim of pride ? " I have read somewhere of a monarch (in Spain I think it was) who was so out of humour with the Ptolomean system of astro- nomy that he said had he been of the Creator's council, he could have saved Him a gi-eat deal of labour and absurdity. I will not defend this blasphemous speech ; but often, as I have glided with humble stealth through the pomp of Princes Street, it has suggested itself to me, as an improvement on the present human figure, that a man, in proportion to his own conceit of his consequence in the world, could have pushed out the longitude of his common size, as a snail pushes out his horns, or as we draw out a perspective. This trifling alteration, not to mention the prodigious saving it would be in the tear and wear of the neck and limb sinews of many of his majesty's liege subjects, in the way of tossing the head and tiptoe strutting, would evidently turn out a vast ad- vantage, in enabling us at once to adjust the ceremonials in making a bow, or making way 290 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. to a great man, and that too within a second of the precise spherical angle of reverence, or an inch of the particular point of respectful distance, which the important creature itself re- quires ; as a measuring-glance at its towering altitude would determine the afi'air like instinct. You are right, madam, in your idea of poor Mylne's poem, which he has addressed to me. The piece has a good deal of merit, but it has one great fault — it is, by far, too long. Besides, my success has encouraged such a shoal of ill- spawned monsters to crav/l into public notice, under the title of Scottish poets, that the very term Scottish poetry borders on the burlesque. When I write to Mr Carfrae, I shall advise him rather to try one of his deceased friend's English pieces. I am prodigiously hurried with my own matters, else I would have requested a perusal of all Mylne's poetic performances ; and would have offered his friends my assist- ance in either selecting or correcting what would be proper for the press. What it is that occupies me so much, and perhaps a little op- presses my spirits, shall fill up a paragraph in some future letter. In the meantime, allow me to close this epistle with a few lines done by a friend of mine .... I give you them, that, as you have seen the original, you may guess whether one or two alterations I have ventured to make in them be any real im- provement : — " Like the fair plant that from our touch withdraws, Shrink, mildly fearful, even from applause. Be all a mother's fondest hope can dream, And all you are. my charming . . . . , seem. Straight as the foxglove ere her bells disclose, Mild as the maiden-blushing hawthorn blows, Fair as the fairest of each lovely kind, Your form shall be the image of your mind ; Your manners shall so true your soul express That all shall long to know the worth they guess ; Congenial heai'ts shall greet with kindred love, And even sick'ning envy must approve."* B.B. No. CLIV. TO THE REV. P. CARFRAE. March, 1789. Rev. Sir, — I do not recollect that I have ever felt a severer pang of shame than on look- ing at the date of your obliging letter which accompanied Mr Mylne's poem. I I am much to blame : the honour Mr Mylne has done me, greatly enhanced in its value by I the endearing, though melancholy, circumstance ; of its being the last production of his muse, de- ; served a fetter return. j I have, as you hint, thought of sending a I copy of the poem to some periodical publica- tion; but, on second thoughts, I am afraid that, in the present case, it would be an improper step. My success, perhaps as much accidental as merited, has brought an inundation of non- saose under the name of Scottish poetry. Subscription-bills for Scottish poems have so dunned, and daily do dun the public, that the very name is in danger of contempt. For these * These beautiful lines, we have reason to believe, are the production of the lady to whom this letter is addressed. — Cu&bib. reasons, if publishing any of Mr Mylne's poems in a magazine, &c., be at all prudent, in my opinion it certainly should not be a Scottish poem. The profits of the labours of a man of genius are, I hope, as honourable as any profits whatever ; and Mr Mylne's relations are most justly entitled to that honest harvest which fate has denied himself to reap. But let the friends of Mr Mylne's fame (among whom I crave the honour of ranking myself) always keep in eye his respectability as a man and as a poet, and take no measure that, before the world knows anything about him, would risk his name and character being classed with the fools of the times. I have, sir, some experience of publishing ; and the way in which I would proceed with Mr Mylne's poems is this : — I would publish, in two or three English and Scottish public papers, any one of his English poems which should by private judges, be thought the most excellent, and mention it, at the same time, as one of the productions of a Lothian farmer, of respectable character, lately deceased, whose poems his friends had it in idea to publish soon by subscription, for the sake of his numerous family: — not in pity to that family, but in jus- tice to what his friends think the poetic merits of the deceased; and to secure, in the most effectual manner to those tender connexions, whose right it is, the pecuniary reward of those merits.f R. E. t The letter of the Rev. Peter Carfrae to which the poet alludes is as follows :— Jan. 2, 1789. Sib, — If you have lately seen Mrs Dunlop of Dunlop, you have certainly heard of the author of the verses whicli accompany this letter. He was a man highly respectable for every accomplishment and virtue which adorns the character of a man or a Christian. To a great degree of literature, of taste, and poetic genius, were added an invincible modesty of temper, which prevented, in some measure, his figuring in life, and confined the perfect knowledge of his character and talents to the small circle of his chosen friends. He was ultimately taken from us, a few weeks ago, by an inflammatory fever, in the prime of life— beloved by all who enjoyed his acquaintance, and lamented by all who have any regard for virtue or genius. There is a woe pronounced in Scriptui'e against the person whom all men speak well of; if ever that woe fell upon the head of mortal man, it fell upon him. He has left behind him a considerable number of compositions, chiefly poetical ; sufficient, I imagine, to make a large octavo volume. In particular, two complete and regular trage- dies, a farce of three acts, and some smaller poems on different subjects. It falls to my share, who have lived in the most intimate and uninterrupted friendship with , him from my youth upwards, to transmit to you the verses he wrote on the publication of your incomparable poems. It is probable they were his last, as they were found in his scrutoire, folded up in the form of a letter addressed to you, and, I imagine, were only prevented from being sent by himself by that melancholy dispen- sation which we still bemoan. The verses themselves I will not pretend to criticise when writing to a gentle- man whom I consider as entirely qualified to judge of their merit. They are the only verses he seems to have attempted in the Scottish style ; and I hesitate not to say, in general, that they will bring no dishonour on the Scottish muse ;— and allow me to add that, if it is your opinion they are not unworthy of the author, and will ,be no discredit to you, it is the inclination of Mr Mylne's friends tliat they should be immediately pub- lished in some periodical work, to give tlic v/orld a specimen of what may be expected from liis perform- ances in the poetic line, which, perhaps, will be after- wards published for the advantage of his family. GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. 291 No. CLV. TO DR MOORE. Ellisla^d, J/artA 23, 1789. Sir, — The gentleman who will deliver you this is a Mr Nielson, a worthy clergyman in my neighbom-hood, and a very particular ac- quaintance of mine.* As I have troubled him with this packet, I must turn him over to your goodness, to recompense him for it in a way in which he much needs your assistance, and where you can effectually serve him : — Mr Nielson is on his way for France, to wait on his Grace of Queensberry, on some little busi- ness of a good deal of importance to him, and he wishes for your instructions respecting the most ehgible mode of travelling, &c., for him, when he has crossed the Channel. I should not have dared to take this liberty with you, but that I am told, by those who have the honour of your personal acquaintance, that to be a poor honest Scotchman is a letter of recommendation to you, and that to have it in your power to serve such a character gives you much pleasure. The enclosed ode is a compliment to the me- mory of the late Mrs Oswald of Auchencruive. You probably knew her personally, an honour of which I cannot boast; but I spent my early years in her neighbourhood, and among her servants and tenants. I know that she was detested with the most heartfelt cordiality. However, in the particular part of her conduct which roused my poetic wrath, she was much less blamable. In January last, on my road to Ayrshire, I had put up at Bailie "VVigham's, in Sanquhar, the oiily tolerable inn in the place. The frost was keen, and the grim evening and howling wind were ushering in a night of snow and drift. My horse and I were both much fatigued with the labours of the day, and just as my friend the bailie and I were bidding defiance to the storm over a smoking bowl, in wheels the funeral pageantry of the late great Mrs Oswald, and poor I was forced to brave all the horrors of the tempestuous night, and jade my horse, my young favourite horse, whom I had just christened Pegasus, twelve miles far- ther on, through the wildest moors and hills of Ayrshire, to New Cumnock, the next inn. The powers of poesy and prose sink under me, when I would describe what I felt. Suffice it to say that, when a good fire at New Cumnock had so far recovered my frozen sinews, I sat down and wrote the enclosed ode. I was at Edinburgh lately, and settled finally with Mr Creech; and I must own that, at last, he has been amicable and fair with me. R. B.t I must beg the favour of a letter from you, acknow- ledging the receipt of this, and to be allowed to sub- scribe myself, with great regard, sir, your most obedient servant, p. Cabfrae. * He was minister of Kirkbean, on the Solway. \ Dr Moore's reply to this letter was as follows :— Clifford Street, June 10, 1789. Dear Sir. — I thank you for the different communi- cations you have made me, of your occasional produc- tions in manuscript, all of which have merit, and some of them merit of a diff«rent kind from what apnears in No. CLVI. TO MR WILLIAM BURNS. Isle, March. 25, 1789. I HAVE stolen from my corn-sowing this mi- nute to write a line to accompany your shirt and hat, for I can no more. Your sister Nan- nie arrived yesternight, and begs to be remem- bered to you. Write me every opportunity — never mind postage. My head, too, is as addle as an egg this morning with dining abroad yesterday. I received yours by the mason. Forgive me this foolish-looking scrawl of an epistle. — I am ever, my dear William, yours, KB. P.S. — If you are not then gone from Long- town, 1 11 write you a long letter by this day se'ennight. If you should not succeed in your tramps, don't be dejected, nor take any rash, step — return to us in that case, and we will court Fortune's better humour. Remember this, I charge you. J R. B. the poems you have published. You ought carefully to preserve all your occasional productions, to correct and improve them at your leisure ; and when you can select as many of these as will make a volume, publish it either at Edinburgh or London, by subscription ; on such an occasion, it may be in my power, as it is very much In jny inclinations, to be of service to you. If I were to offer an opinion, it would be that in your future productions you should abandon the Scottish stanza and dialect, and adopt the measure and language of modern English poetry. The stanza which you use in imitation of "Christ Kirk on the Green," with the tiresome repetition of "that day," is fatiguing to English ears, and I should think not very agreeable to Scottish. All the fine satire and humour of your " Holy Fair" Is lost on the English ; yet, without more trouble to yourself, you could have conveyed the whole to them. The same is true of some of your other poems. In your "Epistle to James Smith," the stanzas from that begin- ning with this line, " This life, so Jar's I understand, ' to that which ends with " Short while it grieves," are easy, flowing, gaily philosophical, and of Horatian elegance —the language is English, with a feio Scottish words, and some of those so harmonious as to add to the beauty ; for what poet would not prefer gloaming to twilight? I imagine that by carefully keeping, and occasionally polishing and correcting, those verses, which the Muse dictates, you will, within a year or two, have another volume as large as the first, ready for the press ; and this without diverting you from every proper attention to the study and practice of husbandry, in which I un- derstand you are veiy learned, and which I fancy you will choose to adhere to as a wife, while poetry amuses you from time to time as a mistress. The former, like a prudent wife, must not show ill humour, although you retain a sneaking kindness to this agreeable gipsy, and pay her occasional visits, which in no manner alienates your heart from your lawful spouse, but tends, on the contrary, to promote her interest I desired Mr Cadell to write to ilr Creech, to send you a copy of " Zeluco." This performance has had great success here ; but I shall be glad to have your opinion of it, because lvalue your opinion, and because I know you are above saying what you do not think. I beg you will offer my best wishes to my very good friend, Mrs Hamilton, who I understand is your neighbour. If she is as happy as I wish her, she is happy enough. JMake my compliments also to Mrs Burns, and believe me to be with sincere esteem, dear sir, yours, Ac. % The original of the above letter from the poet to his brother William was a few years ago in the posses- sion of a Mr J. Eraser, of the Bed Lion Inn, Shake- speare Square, Edinburgh. This street, like a great man other interesting portions of old Edinburgh, does not now exist, having been cleared away some time ago to form the lite of the present Post-Offic:. Mr 29^ GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. No. CLVII. TO MR HILL. Ellisland, ApriL 2, 1789. I WILL make no excuse, my dear Bibliopolus, (God forgive me for murdering language !) that I have sat down to write you on this vile paper. It is economy, sir; it is that cardinal virtue, prudence; so I beg you will sit down, and either compose or borrow a panegyric. If you are going to borrow, apply to * to compose, or rather to compound, some- thing very clever on my remarkable frugality ; that I write to one of my most esteemed friends on this wretched paper, which was originally intended for the venal fist of some drunken exciseman, to take dirty notes in a miserable vault of an ale-cellar. Frugality ! thou mother of ten thousand blessings — thou cook of fat beef and dainty greens !— thou manufacturer of warm Shetland hose, and comfortable surtouts ! — thou old housewife, darning thy decayed stockings with thy ancient spectacles on thy aged nose ! — lead me, hand me in thy clutching palsied fist, up these heights, and through those thickets, hitherto inaccessible, and impervious to my anxious, weary feet : — not those Parnassian crags, bleak and barren, where the hungry worshippers of fame are, breathless, clamber- ing, hanging between heaven and hell ; but those glittering 0110*8 of Potosi, where the all- sufficient, all-powerful deity, "Wealth, holds his immediate court of joys and pleasures ; where the sunny exposure of plenty, and the hot walls of profusion, produce those blissful fruits of luxury, exotics in this world, and natives of Paradise! — Thou withered sibyl, my sage con- ductress, u?her me into thy refulgent, adored presence ! — The power, splendid and potent as he now is, was once the puling nursling of thy faithful care, and tender arms ! — Call me thy son, thy cousin, thy kinsman, or favourite, and adjure the god, by the scenes of his infant years, no longer to repulse me as a stranger, or an alien, but to favour me with his peculiar countenance and protection ! — He daily bestows his greatest kindness on the undeserving and the worthless — assure him that I bring ample documents of meritorious demerits ! Pledge yourself for me, that, for the glorious cause of Lucre, I wiU do anything, be anything — but the horse-leech of private oppression, or the vulture of public robbery ! But to descend from heroics. Fraser was himself a poet of no mean powers, and author of "Cniigmilhir, " the "Soldiei*'s Dream," and many other pieces. The letter, framed and placed be- tween two plates of glass, used to be suspended in one of the public apartments of tlie '• R"d Lion," and was regarded by many visitors as a relic of no ordinaiy in- terest. It was presented by Mr Kepfr, Kchoolmaster. Ormiston, East Lothian, the poel's nephew, ^son of the Nannie alluded to in the letter,) to Air 8t George, Haddington, and by the latter gentleman to Mr Fraser. — The letter itself is common-place enough, but the *'I'.S." is strongly characteristic of Burns. * Probably the name required to fill up this blank ««8 Creech — Chuubbs. I want a Shakespeare ; I want likewise an English dictionary — Johnson's, I suppose, ii,' the best. In these, and all my prose commissions, the cheapest is always the best for me. There is a small debt of honour that I owe Mr Ro- bert Cleghorn, in Saughton Mills, my worthy friend, and your well-wisher. Please give him, and urge him to take it, the first time you see him, ten shillings' worth of anything you have to sell, and place it to my account. • The library scheme that I mentioned to you is already begun, under the direction of Cap- tain Riddel. There is another in emulation of it going on at Closeburn, under the auspices of Mr Mouteith of Closeburn, which will be on a greater scale than ours. Captain Riddel gave his infant society a great many of his old books, else I had written you on that subject ; but one of these days I shall trouble you with a commission for "The Monkland Friendly Society " — a copy of the Spectator, Mirror, and Lounger, " Man of Feeling," " Man of the World," Guthrie's " Geographical Grammar," with some religious pieces, will likely be our first order. When I grow richer, I will write to you on gilt post, to made amends for this sheet. At present, every guinea has a five guinea eiTand with, my dear sir, your faithful, poor, but honest friend, K. B. No. CLVIII. TO MRS DUNLOP. Ellisland, April 4, 1789. I NO sooner hit on any poetic plan of fancy but I wish to send it to you : and if knowing and reading these give half the pleasure to you that communicating them to you gives to me, I am satisfied. I have a poetic whim in my head, which I at present dedicate, or rather inscribe, to the Right Hon. Charles James Fox; but how long the fancy may hold, I cannot say. A few of the fii'st lines I have just rough-sketched as follows, t On the 20th current I hope to have the honour of assxuring you in person how sin- cerely I am K. B. • No. CLIX. TO MRS M'MURDO, DRUMLANRIG. Ellisland, May 2, 1789. Madam", — I have finished the piece which had the happy fortune to be honoui-ed with your approbation ; and never did little Miss with more sparkling pleasure show her ap- plauded sampler to partial mamma than I no\v send my poem + to you and Mr M'Murdo, if he is returned to Drumlanrig. You cannot easily imagine what thin-skinned animals — ^\ hat sensitive plants poor poets are. How do t See the entire sketch at p. 60. : The poem alluded to is the song entitled, « Thero was a lass and .-ho was fair," p. 159. The heroine was the eldest daughter of Mrs M'Murdo, and sister tc PhiiliB. GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. 293 we shrink into the embittered corner of self- abasement when neglected or condemned by those to whom we look up ! and how do we, in erect importance, add another cubit to our stature, on being noticed and applauded by those whom we honour and respect ! My late visit to Drumlanrig has, I can tell you, ma- dam, given me a balloon waft up Parnassus, where on my fancied elevation I regard my poetic sel Avith no small degree of complacency. Surely, with all their sins, the rhyming tribe are not ungrateful creatures. — I recollect your goodness to your humble guest. I see Mr M'Murdo adding to the politeness of the gentle- man the kindness of a friend, and my heart swells, as it would burst with warm emotions and ardent wishes ! It may be it is not grati- tude — it may be a mixed sensation. That strange, shifting, doubling animal man is so generally at best but a negative, often a worthless, creature, that we cannot see real goodness and native worth without feeling the bosom glow with sympathetic approbation. — With every sentiment of grateful respect, I have the honour to be, madam, your obliged and grateful humble servant, R. B . Fo. CLX. TO MR CTJNJrmGHAM. Ellisland, May 4, 17S9. My DEATi SiE, — ^Tour duty-free favour of the 26th April I received two days ago ; I will not say I perused it with pleasure ; that is the cold compliment of ceremony; I perused it, sir, with delicious satisfaction ; — in short, it is such a letter as not you, nor your friend, but the Legislature, by express proviso in their postage laws, should frank. A letter informed with the soul of friendship is such an honour to hviman nature, that they should order it free ingress and egress to and from their bags and mails, as an encouragement and mark of distinction to supereminent virtue. I have just put the last hand to a little poem, which I think will be something to your taste. One morning lately, as I was out pretty early in the fields, sowing some grass seeds, I heard the burst of a shot from a neighbouring planta- tion, and presently a poor little wounded hare came crippling by me. You will guess my indignation at the inhuman fellow who could shoot a hare at this season when all of them have young ones. Indeed there is something in that business of destroying for our sport individuals in the animal creation, that do not injure us materially, which I could never re- concile to my ideas of virtue. Inhuman man ! curse on thy barb'roos art, And blasted be thy murder-aiming eye 1 May never pity soothe thee with a sigh, Nor ever pleasure glad thy cruel heart ! Let me know how you like my poem.* I am ■• Tlie poem on the Wounded Hare. Bums had also sent a copy to Dr Gregoiy for his criticism. The following is a portion of tliat gentleman's reply: — Edisbpkgh, June 2, 1789. Deae Sib,— I take the first leisure hour I could com- mand to thank you for your letter, and the copy of doubtful whether it woidd not be an improve- ment to keep out the last stanza but one alto- gether. Cruikshapk+ is a glorious production of the Author of man. You, he, and the noble Colonel J of the Crochallan Fencibles are to me "Dear as the ruddy drops which warm my heart." I have a good mind to make verses on you all, to the tune of " Three good fellows ayont the glen." R, B. No. CLXL TO MR SAMUEL BROWN, § MossGiKL, May 4, 1789. Dear Uncle, — This, I hope, will find you and your conjugal yoke-fellow in your good old way ; I am impatient to know if the Ailsa fowling be commenced for this season yet, as I want three or four stones of feathers, and I hope you will bespeak them for me. It would be a vain attempt for me to enumerate the various transactions I have been engaged in since I saw you last; but this know — I am en- gaged in a sriiu(/f/ling trade, and God knows if ever any poor man experienced better returns, two for one; but as freight and delivery have turned out so dear, I am thinking of taking out a licence and beginning in fair trade. I have taken a farm on the borders of the Nith, and, in imitation of the old Patriarchs, get men- servants and maid-servants, and flocks and herds, and beget sons and daughters. — Your obedient nephew, R. B. No. CLXIL TO RICHARD BROWIS. Mauchlixe, May 21, 1789. My dear Friend, — I was in the coimtry by accident, and hearing of your safe arrival, I verses enclosed in it. As there is real poetic merit, I mean both fancy and tenderness, and some happy ex- pressions in them, I think they well deserve that you should revise them carefully, and polish them to the utmost. This, I am sure, you can do if you please, for you have great command both of expression and of rhymes ; and you may judge from the two last pieces of Mrs Hunter's poetry, that I gave you, how much correctness and high polish enhance the value of such compositions. As you desire it, I shall with great freedom give you my most rigorous criticisms on your verses. I wish you would give me another edition of them, much amended, and I will send it to Mrs Hun- ter, who I am sure will have much pleasure in reading it. Pray give me likewise for myself, and her too, a copy (as much amended as you please) of the "Water Fowl on Loch Turit." f Mr Cruikshank of the High School. We know a gentleman in mature life, who lived as boarder and pupil with Cruikshank, and to whom the character of the man, in consequence of the severity of his discip- line, appeared in a very different light from what it did in the eyes of his boon -companion — Burns. — Chambers. % Mr William Dunbar, W.S. § Samuel Brown was brother to the poet's mother, and seems to have been a joyous and tolerant sort 01 person. Ue appears also to have been somewhat igno- 294 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. could not resist the temptation of wishing you joy on your return — wishing you would write to me before you sail again — wishing you would always set me down as your bosom friend — wishing you long life and prosperity, and that every good thing may attend you — wishing Mrs'Bi'own and your little ones as free of the evils of this world as is consistent with huma- nity — wishing you and she were to make two at the ensuing lying-in, with which Mrs B. threatens very soon to favour me — wishing I had longer time to write to you at present; and, finally, wishing that, if there is to be another state of existence, Mr B., Mrs B., our little ones, and both families, and you and I, in some snug retreat, may make a jovial party to all eternity ! My direction is at Ellisland, near Dumfries. —Yours, R. B. No. CLXIII. TO MR JAMES HAMILTON.* Ellislaxd, May 26, 1789. Dear Sir, — I send you by John Glover, carrier, the above account for Mr Turnbull, as I suppose you know his address. I would fain ofifer, my dear sir, a word of sympathy with your misfortunes; but it is a tender string, and I know not how to touch it. It is easy to flourish a set of high-flown senti- ments on the subjects that would give great satisfaction to — a breast quite at ease ; but as ONE observes who was very seldom mistaken in the theory of life, " The heart knoweth its own soiTOws, and a stranger intermeddleth not therewith." Among some distressful emergencies that I have experienced in life, I ever laid this down as my foundation of comfort — That lie iclio has lived the life of an honest man has by no means lived in vain ! With every wish for your welfare and future success, I am^ my dear sir, sincerly yours, B. B. No. CLXIV. TO WILLIAM CREECH, ESQ. Ellisland, May 30, 1789. Sir,— I Lad intended to have troubled you with a long letter, but at present the delightful sensations of an omnipotent toothache so en- gross all my inner man as to put it out of my power even to write nonsense. However, as in duty bound, I approach my bookseller with an offering in my hand — a few poetic clinches and a song. To expect any other kind of offering from the rhyming tribe would be to know them much less than you do. I do not pretend that there is much merit in these mor^.eaux, but I have two reasons for sending them — Prima, they are mostly ill-natured, so are in imison with my present feelings, while fifty rant of the poet's motions, for the licence to which he iiUmles was taken out nearly a twelvemonth before this letter was written. * One of the poet's early friends, whose misfortunes called forth this letter of condolence from Burns. troops of infernal spirits are driving post from ear to ear along my jaw bones ; and secondly, they ai-e so short, that you cannot leave off in the middle, and so hurt my pride in the idea that you found any work of mine too heavy to get through. I have a request to beg of you, and I not only beg of you, but conjure you, by all your wishes and by all your hopes that the muse will spare the satiric wink in the moment of your foibles ; that she will warble the song of rapture round your hymeneal couch ; and that she will shed on your turf the honest tear of elegiac gratitude : grant my request as speedily as possible — send me by the very first fly or coach for this place three copies of the last edition of my poems, which place to my account. Now may the good things of prose, and the good things of verse, come among thy hands, until they be filled with the good things of this life, prayeth R. B. No. CLXV. TO MR MACAULAY, OF DUMBARTON. Ellisland, June 4, 1789. Dear Sir, — Though I am not without my fears respecting ray fate at that grand, univer- sal inquest of right and wrong, commonly called the Last Day, yet I trust there is one sin, which that arch-vagabond, Satan, who I understand is to be king's evidence, cannot throw in my teeth — I mean ingratitude. There is a certain pretty large quantum of kindness for which I remain, and, from inability, I fear must still remain, your debtor; but, though unable to repay the debt, I assure you, sir, I shall ever warmly remember the obligation. It gives me the sincerest pleasure to hear by my old acquaintance, Mr Kennedy, that you are, in immortal Allan's language, "Hale, and weel, and living;" and that your charming family are well, and promising to be an amiable and respectable addition to the company of per- formers, whom the great manager of the drama of man is bringing into action for the succeed- ing age. With respect to my welfare, a subject in which you once warmly and effectively in- terested yourself, I am here in my old way, holding my plough, marking the growth of my corn, or the health of my dairy ; and at times sauntering by the delightful windings of the Nith, on the margin of which I have built my humble domicile, praying for seasonable weather, or holding an intrigue with the Muses; the only gypsies with whom I have now any intercourse. As I am entered into the holy state of matrimony, I trust my face is turned completely Zion-ward ; and as it is a rule with all honest fellows to repeat no grievances, I hope that the little poetic licences of former days will of course fall under the oblivious in- fluence of some good-natured statute of celestial prescription. In my family devotion, which, like a good Presbyterian, I occasionally give to my household folks, I am extremely fond of the psalm, " Let not the errors of my youth," &c.; GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. ^95 and that other ; ''Lo! children are God's he- ritage," &c. ; in which last Mrs Burns, who by the by has a glorious "wood-note wild" at either old song or psalmody, joins me with the pathos of Handel's " Messiah." E. B. Xo. CLXVI. TO MR ROBERT ATXSLIE. Ellislaxd, June 8, 1789. My dear Friend, — I am perfectly ashamed of myself when I look at the date of your last. It is not that I forget the friend of my heart and the companion of my peregrinations ; but I have been condemned to drudgery beyond sufferance, though not, thank God, beyond redemption. I have had a collection of poems by a lady put into my hands to prepare for the press, whicli horrid task, with sowing corn with my own hand, a parcel of masons, Wrights, plasterers, &c., to attend to, roaming on busi- ness through Ayrshire — all this was against me, and the very first dreadful article was of itself too much for me. \Zih. — I have not had a moment to spare from incessant toil since the 8th. Life, my dear sir, is a serious matter. You know, by experience, that a man's individual self is a good deal, but believe me, a wife and family of children, whenever you have the honour to be a husband and a father, will show you that your present and most anxious hours of solitude are spent on trifles. The welfare of those who are very dear to us, whose only support, hope, and stay we are — this to a generous mind is another sort of more important object of care than any concerns whatever which centre merely in the individual. On the other hand, let no young, unmarried, rake-helly dog among you make a song of his pretended liberty, and freedom from care. If the relations we stand in to king, country, kindred, and friends, be anything but the visionary fancies of dreaming j metaphysicians ; if religion, virtue, magnani- j mity, generosity, humanity, and justice, be ! aught but empty sounds ; then the man who j may be said to live only for others, for the beloved, honourable female, whose tender faith- ful embrace endeai's life, and for the helpless little innocents who are to be the men and women, the worshippers of his God, the sub- jects of his king, and the support, nay the very vital existence of his country, in the ensuing ; j ; — compare such a man with any fellow i.atever, who, whether he bustle and push in .uainess, among labourers, clerks, statesmen; or whether he roar and rant, and drink and sing in taverns — a fellow over whose grave no one will breathe a single " Heigh-ho ! " except from the cob-web tie of what is called good fellowship — who has no view nor aim but what terminates in himself — if there be any grovel- ling earth-bom wretch of our species, a rene- gade to common sense, who w^ould fain believe that the noble creature man is no better than a sort of fungus, generated out of nothing, nobody knows how, and soon dissipating in nothing, nobody knows where ; such a stupid beast, such a crawling reptile, might balance the foregoing unexaggerated comparison, but no one else would have the patience. Forgive me, my dear sir, for this long sil- ence. To make you. amends, I shall send you soon, and more encouraging still, without any postage, one or two rhymes of my later manu- facture. R. B. No. CLXVII. TO MR M'MURDO * Ellisland, June 19, 1789. Sir, — A poet and a beggar are in so many points of view alike, that one might take them for the same individual character under differ- ent designations ; w^ere it not that, though with a trifling poetic licence, most poets may be styled beggars ; yet the converse of the pro- position does not hold — that every beggar is a poet. In one particular, however, they re- markably agree ; if you help either the one or the other to a mug of ale, or the picking of a bone, they will very willingly repay you with a song. This occurs to me at present, as I have just despatched a well-lined rib of John Kirkpatrick's Highlander : a bargain for which I am indebted to you, in the style of our ballad printers, '' Five excellent new songs." The enclosed is nearly my newest song, and one that has cost me some pains, though that is but an equivocal mark of its ex- cellence. Two or three others, which I have by me, shall do themselves the honour to wait on your after leisure : petitioners for admittance into favour must not harras the condescension of their benefactor. You see, sir, what it is to patronise a poet. 'Tis like being a magistrate in a petty borough ; you do them the favour to preside in their council for one year, and your name bears the prefatory stigma of bailie for life. "With, not the compliments, but the best wishes, the sincerest prayers of the season for you, that you may see many and happy years with Mrs M'Murdo and your family; two blessings by the by to which your rank does not by any means entitle you — a loving wife and fine family being almost the only good things of this life to which the farm-house and cottage have an exclusive right, — I have the honour to be, sir, your much -indebted and very humble servant, R. B. No. CLXVIII. TO MRS DUNLOP. Ellislaxd, June 21, 1789. Dear Madam, — Will you take the effusions, the miserable effusions of low spirits, just as they flow from their bitter spring ? I know * John ]M*Murdo of Drumlanrig was one of Burni's firmest Nithsdale friends, and was united witli others, at the poet's death, in the management of his affairs, which prospered so well that two huadred pounds per annum became the widow's portion for many years before she was laid in the graTC. _ _ ~~Yb 296 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. not of any particular cause for this worst of all my foes besetting me ; but for some time my soul has been beclouded with a thickening atmosphere of evil imaginations and gloomy presages. Monday Evening. — I have just heard Mr Kirkpatrick preach a sermon. He is a man famous for his benevolence, and I revere him, but from such ideas of my Creator, good Lord, deliver me ! Religion, my honoured friend, is surely a simple business, as it equally concerns the ignorant and the learned, the poor and the rich. That there is an incomprehensible great Being, to whom I owe my existence, and that He must be intimately acquainted with the operations and progress of the internal ma- chinery, and consequent outward deportment of this creature which He has made — these are, I think, self-evident propositions. That / there is a real and eternal distinction between virtue and vice, and consequently, that I am : an accountable creature ; that, from the seera- / ing nature of the human mind, as well as from j the evident imperfection, nay, positive injustice, j in the administration of affairs, both in the natural and moral worlds, there must be a retributive scene of existence beyond the grave, must, I think, be allowed by every one who will give himself a moment's reflection. I will go farther, and affirm that, from the sublimity, excellence, and purity of His doctrine and pre- cepts, unparalleled by all the aggregated wis- dom and learning of many preceding ages, though, to appearance, He himself was the obscurest and most ilhterate of our species — therefore Jesus Christ was from God. Whatever mitigates the woes or increases the happiness of others, this is my criterion of goodness; and whatever injures society at large or any individual in it, this is my measure of iniquity. What think you, madam, of my creed ? I trust that I have said nothing that will lessen me in the eye of one whose good opinion I value almost next to the approbation of my own mind. E. B. No. CLXIX. TO MISS WILLIAMS. Ellisland, Aug. 1789. Madam, — Of the many problems in the nature of that wonderful creature, man, this is one of the most extraordinary, that he shall go on from day to day, from week to week, from month to month, or perhaps from year to year, suffering a hundred times more in an hour from the impotent consciousness of neglecting what he ought to do than the very doing of it would cost him. I am deeply indebted to you, first for a most elegant poetic compliment; then, for a polite, obliging letter ; and, lastly, for your excellent poem on the slave trade ; and yet, wretch that I am ! though the debts were debts of honour, and the creditor a lady, I have put off and put off even the very acknow- ledgment of the obligation, until you must indeed be the very angel I take you for if you can forgive me. Your poem I have read with the highest pleasure. I have a way whenever I read a book — I mean a book in our own trade, madam, a poetic one — and when it is my own property, that I take a pencil and mark at the ends of verses, or note on margins and odd papers, little criticisms of approbation or dis- approbation as I peruse along, I will make no apology for presenting you with a few uncon- nected thoughts that occurred to me in my repeated perusals of your poem. I want to show you that I have honesty enough to tell you what I take to be truths, even Avhen they are not quite on the side of approbation ; and I do it in the firm faith that you have equal greatness of mind to hear them with pleasure. I had lately the honour of a letter from Dr Moore, where he tells me that he has sent me some laooks : they are not yet come to hand, but I hear they are on the way. Wishing you all success in your progress in the path of fame ; and that you may equally escape the danger of stumbling through in- cautious speed, or losing ground through loiter- ing neglect, I am, &c., R. B* No. CLXX. TO MR JOHN LOGAN.t Ellisland, neae Dumfries, Aug. 7, 1789. Dear Sir, — I intended to have written you long ere now, and as I told you I had gotten three stanzas and a half on my way in a poetic epistle to you ; but that old enemy of all [jood tvorhsj the devil, threw me into a prosaic mire, and for the soul of me I cannot get out of it. I dare not write you a long letter, as I am going to intrude on your time with a long ballad. I have, as you will shortly see, finished "The Kirk's Alarm;" but now that is done, and that I have laughed once or twice at the conceits in some of the stanzas, I am deter- mined not to let it get into the public; so I send you this copy, the first that I have sent to Ayrshire, except some few of the stanzas, which I wrote off in embryo for Gavin Hamil- ton, imder the express provision and request * Miss Williams replied to the above letter as fol- lows :— Aug. 7, 1789. Dear Sir, — I do not lose a moment in returning you my sincere acknowledgments for your letter, and j'our criticism on my poem, which is a very flattering proof that you have read it with attention. " I thinli your ob- jections are pei'fectly just, except in one instance. You have indeed been very profuse of panegyric on my little performance. A much less portion of applause from you would have been gratifying to me ; since I think its value depends entirely upon the source whence 1 it proceeds — the incense of }iraise, like other incense, is more grateful from the quality, than the quantity, of the odour. ' I hope you still cultivate the pleasures of poetry, ! which are precious, even independent of the rewards of fame. Perhaps the most valuable property of poetry is its ])ower of disengaging the mind from worldly cares, and leading the imagination to the richest springs of intellectual enjoyment; since, however frequently life may be chequered with gloomy scenes, those who truly love the Muse can always find one little path adorned \ with flowers and cheered by sunsliine. j t Of Knockshinnock, in Glen Alton, Ayrshire. | GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. 297 tliat you will only read it to a few of us, and do not on any account give, or permit to be taken, any copy of the ballad. If I could be of any service to Dr M'Gill, I would do it, though it should be at much greater expense than irritating a few bigoted priests; but I am afraid serving him in his present embarras is a task too hard for me. I have enemies enow, God knows, though I do not wantonly add to the number. Still, as I think there is some merit in two or three of the thoiights, I send it to you as a small but sincere testimony how much, and with what respectful esteem, I am, dear sir, your obliged humble servant, K.B. No. CLXXr. TO MR Ellislanb, Sept. 1789. My dear Sir, — The hurry of a farmer in this particular season, and the indolence of a poet at all times and seasons, will, I bope, plead my excuse for neglecting so long to answer your obliging letter of the 6th of August. That you have done well in quitting your laborious concern in , I do not doubt; the weighty reasons you mention were, I hope, very, and deservedly indeed, weighty ones, and your health is a matter of the last import- ance ; but whether the remaining proprietors of the paper have also done well is what I much doubt. The , so far as I was a reader, exhibited such a brilliancy of point, such an elegance of paragraph, and such a variety of intelligence, that I can hardly con- ceive it possible to continue a daily paper in tbe same degree of excellence : but if there was a man who had abilities equal to the task, that man's assistance the proprietors have lost. * The name of the gentleman to whom this letter is addressed was unfortunately suppressed by Dr Currie. His reply is as follows : — LosDON, Aug. 5, 1789. My dear Sir, — ^Excuse me when I 3ay that the un- common abilities which you possess must render your correspondence very acceptable to any one. I can assure you I am jiarticularly proud of yoiir partiality, and shall endeavour, by every method in my power, to merit a continuance of your politeness. "When you can spare a few moments, I should be proud of a letter from you, dii'ected lor me, Gerrard Street, Soho. I cannot express my happiness suflBciently at the instance of your attachment to my late inestimable friend. Bob Ferjrusson, [in the erection of a monument to him.] who was piu-ticulavly intimate with myself and relations. While I recollect with pleasure his extra- ordinary talents, and many amiable cjualities, it affords me the greatest consolation that I am honoured with the correspondence of his successor in national simpli- city and genius. That Mr Burns has refined in the art of poetry must readily be admitted ; but, notwith- standing many favoni-able" representations, I am yet to learn that he inherits his convivial powei*s. There was such a richness of conversation, such a plenitude of fancy and atti-action in him, that when I call the happy period of our intercourse to my memory, I feel myself in a state of delirium. I was then younger than him by eight or ten years ; but his manner was bo felicitous that he enraptured eveiy person around him, and infused into the hearts of yoang and old the spii-it which operated on his own mind. When I received your letter I was tran- scribing for my letter to the magistrates of the Canongate, Edinburgh, begging theh' permission to place a tombstone over poor Fergusson, and their edict in consequence of my petition, but now I shall send them to . Poor Fergusson ! If there be a life beyond the grave, which I trust there is ; and if there be a good God presiding over all nature, which I am sure there is; thou art now enjoying existence in a glorious world, where worth of the heart alone is distinction in the man ; where riches, deprived of all their pleasure -purchasing powers, return to their native sordid matter; where titles and honours are the disregarded reveries of an idle dream : and where that heavy virtue, which is the negative consequence of steady dulness, and those thoughtless, though often destructive, follies, which are the unavoidable aberrations of frail human nature, will be thrown into equal oblivion as if they had never been ! Adieu, my dear sir ! So soon as your pre- sent views and schemes are concentrated in an aim, I shall be glad to hear from you ; as your welfare and happiness is by no means a sub- ject indiflferent to yours, R. B. No. CLXXIL TO MRS DUNLOP. Ellislajtd, Sept 6, 1789. Dear Madam, — I have mentioned in my last my appointment to the Excise, and the birth of little Frank ; who, by the by, I trust will be no discredit to the honourable name of Wallace,t as he has a fine manly countenance, and a figure that might do credit to a little fellow two months older ; and likewise an ex- cellent good temper, though when he pleases he has a pipe only not quite so loud as the horn that his immortal namesake blew as a signal to take out the pin of Stirling bridge. I had some time ago an epistle, part poetic, and part prosaic, from your poetess, Mrs J. Little, a very ingenious, but modest composi- tion. J I should have written her as she re- t This child, named Francis Wallace, after Mra Dunlop, died at the early age of fourteen. J The following letter accompanied Miss Janet Little's poetical epistle : — LoiTDOS House, July 12, 1789. Sib, — Though 1 have not the happiness of being per- sonally acquainted with you, yet amonsrst the number of those who have read and admired your publications, may I be pei'mitted to trouble you with this? Yovi must know, sir, I am somewhat in love with the Muses, though I cannot boast of any favours they have deigned to confer upon me as yet; my situation in life has been veiy much against me as to that. I have spent some years in and about Ecclefechan, (where my parents resided.) in the station of a servant, and am now come to Loudon House, at present possessed by Mrs ; she is daughter to Mrs Dunlop of Dunlop, whom I understand you are particularly acquainted with. As I had the pleasure of perusing your poems, I felt a partiality for the author, which I should not have ex- perienced had you been in a more dignified station. I wrote a few verses of address to you, which I did not then think of ever presenting; but as fortune seems to have favoured me in this, by bi'iuging me into a family by whom you are -vrell known, and much 298 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. quested, but for the hurry of this new business. I have heard of her and her compositions in this country; and I am happy to add, always to the honour of her character. The fact is, I know not well how to write to her : I should sit down to a sheet of paper that I knew not how to stain. I am no daub at fine-drawn letter-writing ; and, except when prompted by friendship or gratitude, or, which happens ex- tremely rarely, inspired by the Muse (I know not her name) that presides over epistolary writing, I sit down, when necessitated to write, as I would sit down to beat hemp. esteemed, and where, perhaps, I may have an oppor- tunity of seeing you, I shall, in hopes of your future friendship, take the liberty to transcribe them : — Fair fa' the honest rustic swain. The pride o' a' our Scottish plain ; Thou gies us joy to hear thy strain, And notes sae sweet ; Old Ramsay's shade revived again, In thee we greet. Loved Thalia, that delightfu' muse, Seem'd lang shut up as a recluse ; To all she did her aid refuse, Since Allan's day ; Till Burns arose, then did she choose To grace his lay. To hear thy sang all ranks desire, Sae weel you strike the dormant lyre, Apollo with poetic fire Thy breast doth warm, And critics silently admire Thy art to charm. Caesar and Luath weel can speak, 'Tis pity e'er their gabs should steek. But into human nature keek, And knots unravel ; To hear their lectui*es once a week, Nine miles I'd travel. Thy dedication to G. H., An unco bonnie hame-spun speech, Wi' winsome glee the heart can teach A better lesson. Than servile bards, who fawn and fleech, Like beggar's messon. When slighted love becomes your theme, And woman's faithless vows you blame. With so much pathos you exclaim, In your Lament ; But, glanced by the most frigid dame, She would relent. Tlie daisy, too, ye sing wi' skill, And weel ye praise the whisky pill ; In vain I blunt my feckless quill, Your fame to raise ; While echo sounds frae ilka hill, To Burns's praise. Did Addison or Pope but hear, Or Sam, that critic most severe, A ploughboy sing wi' throat sae clear, They, in a rage, Their works would a' in pieces tear, And curse your page. Sure Milton's eloquence were faint, The beauties of your verse to paint : My rude unpollsh'd strokes but taint, Their brilliancy : The attempt would doubtless vex a saint, And weel riiay thee. The task I'll drop, wi' heart sincere, To Heaven present my humble prayer, That all the blessinps mortals share, May be by turns Dispensed by an indulgent care To ROBRRT BHKNS I Some parts of your letter of the 20th August struck me with the most melancholy concern for the state of your mind at present. Would I could write you a letter of comfort; I would sit down to it with as much pleasure as I would to write an epic poem of my own composition that should equal the IHad. Re- ligion, my dear friend, is the true comfort ! A strong persuasion in a future state of existence; a preposition so obviously probable that, set- ting revelation aside, every nation and people, so far as investigation has reached, for at least near four thousand years, have in some mode or other firmly believed it. In vain would we reason and pretend to doubt. I have myself done so to a very daring pitch; but when I reflected that I was opposing the most ardent wishes and the most darling hopes of good men, and flying in the face of all human belief in all ages, I was shocked at my own conduct. I know not whether I have ever sent you the following lines, or if you have ever seen them ; but it is one of my favourite quotations, which I keep constantly by me in my progress through life^ in the language of the book of Job, "Against the day of battle and of war" — spoken of religion : — '"Tis fhis, my friend, that streaks our morning bright, 'Tls tMs that gilds the horror of our night. When wealth forsakes us, and when friends are few, When friends are faithless, or when foes pursue ; 'Tis this that wards the blow, or stills the smart, Disarms affliction, or repels his dart ; Within the breast bids purest raptures rise, Bids smiling conscience spread her cloudless skies." I have been busy with "Zeluco." The Doctor is so obliging as to request my opinion of it ; and I have been revolving in my mind some kind of criticisms on novel-writing, but it is a depth beyond my research. I shall, however, digest my thoughts on the subject as well as I can. "Zeluco " is a most sterling performance. Farewell! A Dleu, le Ion Dieu, je vous commendef E. B. Ko. CLXXIII. TO CAPTAIN RIDDEL, CARSE. Ellisland, Oct. 16, 1789. Sm, — Big with the idea of this important day at Friar's Carse, I have watched the ele- ments and skies, in the full persuasion that they would announce it to the astonished world by some phenomena of terrific portent. Yes- ternight until a very late hour did I wait with anxious horror for the appearance of some comet firing half the sky ; or aerial armies of sanguinary Scandinavians, darting athwart the startled heavens, rapid as the ragged lightning, and horrid as those convulsions of nature that bury nations. The elements, however, seem to take tho matter very quietly : they did not even usher in this morning with triple suns and a shower of blood, symbolical of the three potent heroes, and the mighty claret-shed of the day.— For me, as Thomson in his "Winter" says of the storm, I shall "Hear astonished, and aston- ished «ing " GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. 299 The whistle and the man ; I sing The man that won the whistle, &c. Here are we met, three merry boys, Three meriy boys I trow are we ; And mony a night we 've merry been. And mony mae we hope to be. Wha first shall rise to gang awa, A cuckold coward loon is he ; Wha last beside his chair shall fa', He is the king amang us three.* To lecave the heights of Parnassus and come to the humble vale of prose — I have some mis- givings that I take too much upon me, when I request you to get your guest. Sir Robert Lawrie, to frank the two enclosed covers for me, the one of them to Sir William Cunning- ham, of Robertland, Bart., at Kilmarnock, — the other to Mr Allan Masterton, writing-mas- ter, Edinburgh. The first has a kindred claim on Sir Robert, as being a brother Baronet, and likewise a keen Foxite ; the other is one of the worthiest men in the world, and a man of real genius ; so, allow me to say he has a fraternal claim on you. I want them franked for to- morrow, as I cannot get them to the post to- night. — I shall send a servant again for them in the evening. Wishing that your head may be crowned with laurels to-night, and free from aches to-morrow, I have the honour to be, sir, your deeply-indebted humble servant, R. B. K-o. CLXXIV. TO THE S.AJIE. Ellislaxd, 1789. Sir, — I wish from my inmost soul it were in my power to give you a more substantial gratification and return for all the goodness to the poet, than transcribing a few of his idle rhymes. However, " an old song," though to a proverb an instance of insignificance, is gene- rally the only coin a poet has to pay with. If my poems which I have transcribed, and mean still to transcribe, into your book, were equal to the grateful respect and high esteem I bear for the gentleman to whom I present them, they would be the finest poems in the language; as they are, they will at least be a testimony with what sincerity I have the honour to be, sir, your devoted humble servant, R. B. No. CLXXV. TO MR ROBERT AINSLIE. Ellislaxd, Nov. 1, 1789. My dear Friend, — I had written you long ere now, could I have guessed where to find you, for I am sure you have more good sense than to waste the precious days of vacation time in the dirt of business and Edinburgh. AMierever you are, God bless you, and lead you not into temptation, but deliver you from evil ! I do not know if I have informed you that I am now appointed to an Excise division, in the • See the poem of "The Whistle," p. 63. middle of which my house and farm lie. In this I was extremely lucky. Without ever having been an expectant, as they call their journeymen excisemen, I was directly planted down to all intents and purposes an officer of Excise ; there to flourish and bring forth fruits worthy of repentance. I know not how the word exciseman, or still more opprobrious ganger, will sound in your ears. I too have seen the day when my auditory nerves wovild have felt very delicately on this subject; but a wife and children are things which have a wonderful power in blunt- ing these kind of sensations. Fifty pounds a year for hfe, and a provision for widows and orphans, you will allow is no bad settlement for a 'poet. For the ignominy of the profession, I have the encouragement which I once heard a recruiting-sergeant give to a numerous, if not to a respectable, audience, in the streets of Kilmarnock : *' Gentlemen, for your further and better encouragement, I can assure you that our regiment is the most blackguard corps under the Crown, and consequently with us an honest fellow has the surest chance of prefer- ment." You need not doubt that I find several very unpleasant and disagreeable circumstances in my business; but I am tired with and disgusted at the language of complaint against the evils of life. Human existence in the most favour- able situations does not abound with pleasures, and has its inconveniences and ills ; capricious foolish man mistakes these inconveniences and ills as if they were the peculiar property of his particular situation; and hence that eternal fickleness, that love of change, which has ruined, and daily does ruin many a fine fellow, as well as many a blockhead, and is almost without exception a constant source of dis- appointment and misery. I long to hear from you how you go on — not so much in business as in life. Ai-e you pretty well satisfied with your own exertions, and tolerably at ease in your internal reflections ? 'Tis much to be a great character as a lawyer, but beyond comparison more to be a great character as a man. That you may be both the one and the other is the earnest wish, and that you vAll be both is the firm persuasion, of, my dear sir, &c., K. B. No. CLXXVI. TO MR RICHARD BROWN". Ellislaxd, Nov. 4, 1789. I HAVE been so hurried, my ever-dear friend, that though I got both your letters, I have not been able to command an hour to answer them as I wished ; and even now you are to look on this as merely confessing debt, and craving days. Few things could have given me so much plea- sure as the news that you were once more safe and sound on terra firma, and happy in that place where happiness is alone to be found, in the fireside circle. May the benevolent Direc- tor of all things peculiarly bless you in all those endearing connexions consequent on the tender and venerable names of husband and father ! 300 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. I have indeed been extremely lucky in getting an additional income of £50 a year, while at the same time, the appointment will not cost me above £10 or £12 per annum of expenses more than I must have inevitably incurred. The worst circumstance is that the Excise division which I have got is so extensive — no less than ten parishes to ride over — and it abounds besides with so much business, that I can scarcely steal a spare moment. However, labour endears rest, and both together are ab- solutely necessary for the proper enjoyment of human existence, I cannot meet you any- where. No less than an order from the Board of Excise at Edinburgh is necessary before I can have so much time as to meet you in Ayr- shire. But do you come and see me. We must have a social day, and perhaps lengthen it out with half the night, before you go again to sea. You are the earliest friend I now have on eai'th, my brothers excepted : and is not that an en- dearing circumstance ? When you and I fii-st met, we were at the green period of human life. The twig would easily take a bend, but would as easily return to its former state. You and I not only took a mutual bent, but, by the melancholy, though strong influence of being both of the family of the unfortunate, we were entwined with one another in our gi'owth to- wards advanced age ; and blasted be-the sacri- legious hand that shall attempt to undo the union ! You and I must have one bumper to my favourite toast, " May the companions of our youth be the friends of our old age ! " Come and see me one year; I shall see you at Port- Glasgow the next, and if Ave can contrive to have a gossiping between our two bed-fellows, it will be so much additional pleasure. Mrs Burns joins me in kind compliments to you and Mrs Brown. Adieu ! — I am ever, my clear sir, yours, E. B. No. CLXXVIL TO R GKAHAM, ESQ. OF FINTRAY. JDec. 9, 1789. Sir, — I have a good while had a wish to trouble you with a. letter, and had certainly done it long ere now, but for a humiliating something that throws cold water on the reso- lution ; as if one should say, "You have found Mr Graham a very powerful and kind friend indeed, and that interest he is so kindly taking in your concerns you ought, by everything in your power, tj keep alive and cherish." Now, though since God has thought proper to make one powerful and another helpless, the con- nexion of obliger and obliged is all fair : and though my being under your patronage is to me highly honourable; yet, sir, allow me to flatter myself that, as a poet and an honest man, you first interested yourself in my wel- fare, and pi incipally as such still you permit me to approach you. I have found the Excise business go on a great deal snioother with me than I expected ; owing a good deal to the generous friendship of Mr Mitch-ill, my collector, and the kind assist- ance of Mr Findlater, my supervisor. I dare to be honest, and I fear no labour. Nor do I find my hurried life greatly inimical to my correspondence with the Muses. Their visits to me, indeed, and I believe to most of their acquaintance, like the visits of good angels, are short and far between : but I meet them now and then, as I jog through the hills of Niths- dale, just as I used to do on the banks of the Ayr. I take the liberty to enclose you a few bagatelles, all of them the productions of my leisure thoughts in my Excise rides. If you know, or have ever seen, Captain Grose, the antiquary, you will enter into any humour that is in the verses on him. Perhaps you have seen them before, as I sent them to a London newspaper. Though I daresay you have none of the solemn-league-and-covenant fire, which shone so conspicuous in Lord George Gordon and the Kilmarnock weavers, yet I think you must have heard of T - M'Gill, one of the clergymen of Ayr, and his iieretical book. God help him, poor man ! Though he is one of the worthiest, as well as one of the ablest, of the whole priesthood of the Kirk of Scotland, in every sense of that ambiguous term, yet the poor Doctor and his numerous family ai*e in imminent danger of being thrown out to the mercy of the winter-winds. The en- closed ballad on that business is, I confess, too local, but I laughed myself at some conceits in it, though I am convinced in my conscience that there are a good many heavy stanzas in it too. The election ballad, as you will see, alludes to the present canvass in our string of boroughs. I do not believe there will be such a hard-run match in the whole general election. I am too little a man to have any political attachments; I am deeply indebted to, and have the warmest veneration for, individuals of both parties ; but a man who has it in his power to be the father of a country, and who . . . . , is a character that one cannot speak of with patience. * Sir J. J. does '•' what man can do/' but yet I doubt his fate.f No. CLXXVTDL TO MRS DUNLOP. Ellisland, Btc. 13, 1789. Many thanks, dear madam, for your sheet- f ul of rhymes. Though at present I am below the veriest prose, yet from you everything pleases. I am groaning under the miseries of a diseased nervous system ; a system, the state of which is most conducive to our happiness — or the most productive of our misery. For now near three weeks I have been so ill with a ner- vous headache that I have been obliged for a time to give up my Excise books, being scarce able to lift my head, much less to ride once, a week over ten muir parishes. What ia man % * Dr Carrie has Iiere obviously suppressed a bitter allusion to the Duke of QueonsbeiTy. t The enclosures in tliis letter were "The Kirk'g Alarm," the verses on Grose, and the first ballad on Cuptam Mlllei''s election. GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. 301 To-day, in the luxuriance of health, exulting in the" enjoyment of existence ; in a few days, perhaps in a few hours, loaded with conscious painful being, counting the tardy pace of the lingering moments by the repercussions of an- guish, and refusing or denied a comforter. Day follows night, and night comes after day, only to curse him with life which gives him no pleasure ; and yet the awful, dark termination of that life is something at which he recoils. " Tell us, ye dead ; will none of you in pity Disclose the serret What 'tis you are, and we must shortly he * "lis no matter, A little time will make us learn'd as you are." Can it be possible that when I resign this frail, feverish being, I shall still find myself in coascious existence ? When the last gasp of agony has announced that I am no more to those that knew me, and the few who loved me ; when the cold, stiffened, unconscious, ghastly corse is resigned into the earth, to be the prey of unsightly reptiles, and to become in time a trodden clod, shall I be yet warm in life, seeing and seen, enjoying and enjoj^ed? Ye venerable sages, and holy flam ens, is there probability in your conjectures, truth in your stories, of another world beyond death ; or are they all alike, baseless visions, and fabricated fables ? If there is another life, it must be only for the just, the benevolent, the amiable, and the humane ; what a flattering idea, then, is a world to come ! Would to God I as firmly believed it as I ardently wish it ! There I should meet an aged parent, now at rest from the many bufietings of an evil world, against which he so long and so bravely struggled. There should I meet the friend, the disin- terested friend of my early life : the man who rejoiced to see me, because he loved me and could serve me. — Muir,* thy weaknesses were the aberrations of human nature, but thy heart glowed with everything generous, manly, and noble ; and if ever emanation from the all-good Being animated a human form, it was thine ! — There should I, with speechless agony of rapture, again recognise my lost, my ever- dear Mary ! whose bosom was fraught with truth, honour, constancy, and love. "My Maiy, dear departed shade ! Where is thy place of heavenly rest? Seest thou thy lover lowly laid ? Hear"st thou the groans that rend his breast!" Jesus Christ, thou amiablest of characters ! 1 trust Thou art no impostor, and that Thy revelation of blissful scenes of existence be- yond death and the grave is not one of the many impositions which time after time have been palmed on credulous mankind. I trust that in Thee "shall all the families of the earth be blessed," by being yet connected to- gether in a better world, where every tie that bound heart to heart, in this state of existence, shall be, far beyond our present conceptions, more endearing. I am a good deal inclined to think with those •who maintain that what are called nervous affections are in fact diseases of the mind. I cannot reason, I cannot think; and but to you I would not venture to write anything above an order to a cobbler. You have felt too much of the ills of life not to sympathise with a dis- eased wretch, who has impaired more than half of any faculties he possessed. Your goodness will excuse this distracted scrawl, which the writer dare scarcely read, and which he would throw into the fire, were he able to write any- thing better, or indeed anything at all. Rumour told me something of a son of yours who was returned from the East or West In- dies. If you have gotten news from James or Anthony, it was cruel in you not to let me know ; as I promise you, on the sincerity of a man, who is weary of one world, and anxious about another, that scarce anything could give rae so much pleasure as to hear of any good thing befalling my honoured friend. If you have a minute's leisure, take up your pen in pity to le pauvre miserable, R. B. « Muir -as ens of the poet's earliest friends. Ko. CLXXIX. TO LADY W[INIFRED] M[AXWELL} CONSTABLE. Ellislasd, Dec 16, 1789. My Lady, — In vain have I from day to day expected to hear from Mrs Young, as she pro- mised me at Dalswinton that she would do me the honour to introduce me at Tinwald ; and it was impossible, not fi-om your ladyship's accessibility, but from my own feelings, that I could go alone. Lately, indeed, Mr Maxwell of Carruchen, in his usual goodness, offered to accompany me, when an unlucky indisposition on my part hindered my embracing the oppor- tunity. To court the notice or the tables of the great, except where I sometimes have had a little matter to ask of them, or more often the pleasanter task of witnessing my gratitude to them, is what I never have done, and I trust never shall do. But with your lady- ship I have the honour to be connected by one of the strongest and most endearing ties in the whole moral world. Common sufferers in a cause where even to be unfortunate is glori- ous, the cause of heroic loyalty ! Though my fathers had not illustrious honours and vast properties to hazard in the contest, though they left their humble cottages only to add so many units more to the unnoted crowd that fol- lowed their leaders, yet what they could they did, and what they had they lost : with un- shaken firmness and unconcealed political attachments, they shook hands with ruin for what they esteemed the cause of their king and their country. This language and the enclosed verses are for + your ladyship's eye alone. Poets are not very famous for their prudence : but as I can do nothing for a cause which is now nearly no more, I do not wish to hurt myself. I have the honour to be, my lady, your ladyship's obliged and obedient humble servant, R. B. t Those addressed to Mr Williani Tytler. p. 56. 3o: GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. No. CLXXX. TO PROVOST MAXWELL, OF LOCHMABEiS'. Ellisland, Bee. 20, 1789. Dear Provost, — As my friend Mr Graham goes for your good town to-morrow, I cannot resist the temptation to send you a few lines, and as I have nothing to say, I have chosen this sheet of foolscap, and begun as you see at the top of the first page, because I have ever observed that when once people have fairly set out they know not where to stop. Now that my first sentence is concluded, I have nothing to do but to pray Heaven to help me on to another. Shall I write you on politics or religion, two master-subjects for your say- ers of nothing? Of the first I daresay by this time you are nearly surfeited; and for the last, whenever they may talk of it who make it a kind of company concern, I never could endure it beyond a soliloquy. I might write you on farming, on building, on marketing, but my poor distracted mind is so torn, so jaded, so racked, and bedeviled with the task •of the superlatively damned to make one guinea do the business of three, that I detest, abhor, and swoon at the very word business, though no less than four letters of my very short surname are in it. Well, to make the matter short, I shall be- take myself to a subject ever fruitful of themes; a subject the turtle feast of the sons of Satan, and the delicious secret sugar plum of the babes of grace — a subject sparkling with all the jewels that wit can find in the mines of genius; and pregnant with all the stores of learning from Moses and Confucius to Franklin and Priestley — in short, may it please your lord- ship, I intend to write .... [Here the poet inserted a song which can only he. sung at times xohen the punch howl has done its duty, and wild wit is set free.] If at any time you expect a field-day* in your town, a day when dukes, earls, and knights pay their court to weavers, tailors, and cobblers, I should like to know of it two or three days befor.ehand. It is not that I care three skips of a cur dog for the politics, but I should like to see such an exhibition of human nature. If you meet with that worthy old veteran in religion and good fellowship, Mr JeJBfrey, X or any of his amiable family, I beg you will give them my best compliments. R. B. No. CLXXXL TO SIR JOHN SINCLAIR. 1790. Sir, — The following circumstance has, I be- lieve, been omitted in the statistical account • The poet alludes to the Miller and Johnstone con- test. t The Rev. Andrew Jeffrey, minister of Lochmaben, and father of tlio heroine of that exquisite song, "The Blue-Eyed Lasa," ("I gaed a waefu' gate yestreen.") transmitted to you of the parish of Dunscore in Nithsdale. I beg leave to send it to you, because it is new and may be useful. How far it is deserving of a place in your patriotic publication you nre the best judge. To store the minds of the lower classes with useful knowledge is certainly of very great importance, both to them as individuals, and to society at large. Giving them a turn for read- ing and reflection is giving them a source of innocent and laudable amusement ; and be- sides, raises them to a more dignified degree in the scale of rationality. Impressed with this idea, a gentleman in this parish, Robert Rid- del, Esq. of Glenriddel, set on foot a species of circulating library, on a plan so simple as to be practicable in any corner of the country ; and so useful as to deserve the notice of every country gentleman who thinks the improve- ment of that part of his own species, whom chance has thrown into the humble walks of the peasant and the artisan, a matter worthy of his attention. Mr Riddel got a number c?i? his own tenants and farming neighbours to form themselves into a society for the purpose of having a library among themselves. They entered into a legal engagement to abide by it for three years ; with a saving clause or two, in case of a removal to a distance, or death. Each mem- ber, at his entry, paid five shillings ; and at each of their meetings, which were held every fourth Saturday, sixpence more. With their entry-money, and the credit which they took on the faith of their future funds, they laid in a tolerable stock of books at the commence- ment. What authors they were to purchase was always decided by the majority. At every meeting, all the books, under certain fines and foi-feitures, by way of penalty were to be pro- duced ; and the members had their choice of the volumes in rotation. He whose name stood for that night first on the list had his choice of what volume he pleased in the whole collection ; the second had his choice after the first ; the third after the second, and so on to tlie last. At next meeting, he who had been first on the list at the preceding meeting was last at this ; he who had been second was first; and so on through the whole three years. At the expiration of the engagement, the books were sold by auction, but only among the members themselves ; each man had his share of the common stock, in money or in books, as he chose to be a purchaser or not. At the breaking up of this little society, which was formed under Mr Riddel's patron- age, what with benefactions of books fi-om him, and what with their own purchases, they had collected together upwards of one hundj-ed and fifty volumes. It will easily be guessed that a good deal of trash would be bought. Among the books, however, of this little library, were Blair's Seiinons, Robertson's History of Scot- land, Hume's History of the Stuarts, the Spec- tator, Idler, Adventurer, Mirror, Lounger, Observer, " Man of Feeling," " Man of the World," ''Chrysal'' ''Don Quixote," "Joseph Andrews,'^ d:c. A peasant who can read and enjoy such books is certainly a much superio" being to his neiglabour, who perhaps stalks beside his team, very little removed, except iu shape, from the brutes he drives.^ Wishing your patriotic exertions their so- much-merited success, I am, sir, your humble Bervaut, A Peasajtt.* GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. 303 No. CLXXXII. TO CHARLES SHARPE, ESQ., OF HODDAM. (under a fictitious signature, enclosing a ballad. 1790 or 1791.) It is true, sir, you are a gentleman of rank and fortune, and I am a poor devil : you are a feather in the cap of society, and I am a very hobnail in his shoes ; yet I have the honour to belong to the same family with you, and on that score I now address you. You will per- haps suspect that I am going to claim aflB.nity w^ith the ancient and honourable house of Kirkpatrick. No, no, sir : I cannot indeed be properly said to belong to any house, or even any province or kingdom ; as my mother, who for many years was spouse to a marching regi- ! ment gave me into this bad world aboard the packet boat, somewhere between Donaghadee and Portpatrick. By our common family, I mean, sii*, the family of the Muses. I am a fiddler and a poet; and you, I am told, play an exquisite violin, and have a standard taste in the belles lettres. The other day, a brother catgut gave me a charming Scots air of j^our composition. If I was pleased with the tune, I was iu raptures with the title you have given it ; and, taking up the idea, I have spun it into the three stanzas enclosed. Will you allow me, sir, to present you them, as the dearest offspring that a misbegotten son of poverty and rhyme has to give ? I have a longing to take you by the hand and vmburthen my heart by saying, " Sir, I honour you as a man who supports the dignity of human nature, amid an age when frivolity and avarice have, between them, de- based us below the brutes that perish ! " But, alas, sir, to me you are unapproachable. It is true, the Muses baptized me in Castalian streams, but the thoughtless gipsies forgot to give me a name. As the sex have served many a good fellow, the Nine have given me a great deal of pleasure, but, bewitching jades ! they * The above letter is inserted in the tliird volume of Sir John Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland, p. 598. It was enclosed to Sir John by Mr Riddel himself in the following letter : — Sir John. —I enclose you a letter, written by Mr Burns, as an addition to the account of Dunscore parish. It contains an account of a small library which he was so cood (at my desire) as to set on foot, in the barony of "Monkland, or Friai-'s Carse, in this parish. As its utility has been felt, particularly among the younger class of people, I think that if a similar plan were es- tablished in the different parishes of Scotland, it would tend greatly to the speedy improvement of the ten- antry, tradespeople, and workpeople. Mr Burns was so good as to take the whole charge of this small con- cern. He was treasurer, librarian, and censor, to our little society, who will long have a grateful sense of his public spirit and exertions for their improvement and information.— I have the honour to be, Sir John, yours most sine-rely, Robert Riddel. have beggared me. Would they but spare me a little of their cast linen ! Were it only in my power to say that I have a shirt on my back ! But the idle wenches, like Solomon's lilies, "they toil not, neither do they spin;" so I must e'en continue to tie my remnant of a cravat, like the hangman's rope, round my naked throat, and coax my galligaskins to keep together their many-coloured fragments. As to the affair of shoes, I have given that up. My pilgi'images in my ballad trade, from town to town, and on your stony-hearted turnpikes, too, are what not even the hide of Job's behe- moth could bear. The coat on my back is no more : I shall not speak evil of the dead. It would be equally unhandsome and ungrateful to find fault with my old surtout, which so kindly supplies and conceals the want of that coat. My hat indeed is a great favourite ; and though I got it literally for an old song, I would not exchange it for the best beaver in Britain. I was, during several years, a kind of factotum servant to a country clergyman, where I pickt up a good many scraps of learning, particularly ill some branches of the mathematics. AVhen- ever I feel inclined to rest myself on my way, I take my seat under a hedge, laying my poetic wallet on the one side, and my fiddle-case on the other, and, placing my hat between my legs, I can by means of its brim, or rather brims, go through the whole doctrine of the conic sections. However, sir, don't let me mislead you, as if I would interest your pity. Fortune has so much forsaken me that she has taught me to live without her ; and, amid all my rags and poverty, I am as independent, and much more happy than a monarch of the world. Accord- ing to the hackneyed metaphor, I value the several actors in the great drama of life simply as they act their parts. I can look on a worth- less fellow of a duke with unquaUfied contempt, and can regard an honest scavenger with sincere respect. As you, sir, go through your r^U with such distinguished merit, permit me to make one in the chorus of universal applause, and assure you that with the highest respect, I have the honour to be, &c. No. CLXXXfll. TO MR GILBERT BURNS. Ellisla>t), Jan. 11, 1790. Dear Brother, — I mean to take advantage j of the frank, though I have not in my present frame of mind much appetite for exertion in writing. My nerves are in a cursed state. I feel that horrid hypochondria pervading every 1 atom of both body and soul. Thi.s farm has | undone my enjoyment of myself. It is a ruin- | ous affair on all hands. But let it go to hell ! I '11 fight it out and be off with it. We have gotten a set of very decent players j here just now. I have seen them an evening | or two. David Campbell, in Ayr, wrote to me by the manager of the company, a Mr Suther- land, who is a man of apparent worth. On Nevv-year-day evening I gave him the following 304 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. prologue,* which he spouted to his audience with applause, I cau no more. If once I was clear of this cursed farm, I should i-espire more at ease, K. B. N"o. CLXXXIV. TO WILLIAM DUNBAR, W.S. ELLiSLiND, Jan. 14, 1790. SiisrcE we are here creatures of a day, since "a few summer days, and a few winter nights, and the life of man is at an end," why, my dear, much-esteemed sir, should you and I let negligent indolence, for I know it is nothing worse, step in between us and bar the enjoy- ment of a mutual correspondence? We are not shapen out of the common, heavy, metho- dical clod, the elemental stuff of the plodding selfish race, the sons of arithmetic and pru- dence; our feelings and hearts are not be- numbed and poisoned by the cursed influence of riches, which, whatever blessing they may be in other respects, are no friends to the nobler qualities of the heart : in the name of random sensibility, then, let never the moon change on our silence any more. I have had a tract of bad health most part of this winter, else you had heard from me long ere now. Thank Heaven, I am now got so much better as to be able to partake a little in the enjoyments of life. Our friend, Cunningham, will perhaps have told you of my going into the Excise. The truth is, I found it a very convenient business to have £50 per annum, nor have I yet felt any of these mdrtifying circumstances in it that I was led to fear. Feb. 2. — I have not, for sheer hurry of busi- ness, been able to spare five minutes to finish my letter. Besides my farm business, I ride on my Excise matters at least 200 miles every week. I have not by any means given up the Muses. You will see in the 3d volume of Johnson's Scots songs that I have contributed my mite there. But, my dear sir, little ones that look up to you for paternal protection are an important charge. I have already two fine healthy stout little fellows, and 1 wish to throw some light upon them. I have a thousand reveries and schemes about them, and their future destiny. Not that I am a Utopian projector in these things. I am resolved never to breed up a son of mine to any of the learned professions. I know the value of independence ; and since I cannot give my sons an independent fortune, I shall give them an independent line of life. What a chaos of hurry, chance, and changes is this world, when one sits soberly down to re- flect on it ! To a father, who himself knows the world, the thought that he shall have sons to usher into it must fill hini with dread ; but if he have daughters, the prospect in a thought- ful moment is apt to shock him. I hope Mrs Fordyce and the two young ladies are well. Do let me forget that they are nieces of yours, and let me say that I never saw a ♦ Sec prologue, p. W. moi-e interesting, sweeter pair of sisters in my life. I am the fool of my feelings and attach- ments. I often take up a volume of my Spen- sert to realise you to my imagination, and think over the scx?ial scenes we have had to- gether, God grant that there may be another world more congenial to honest fellows beyond this. A world where these rubs and plagues of absence, distance, misfortunes, ill health, &c,, shall no more damp hilarity and divide friend- ship. This I know is your throng season, but half a page will much oblige, my dear sir, yours sincerely, R. B. No. CLXXXV. TO MRS DUNLOP. Ellisland, Jan. 25, 1790. It has been owing to unremitting hurry of i business that I have not written to you, madam, ' long ere now. My health is greatly better, and I now begin once more to share in satisfaction and enjoyment with the rest of my fellow- creatures. Many thanks, my much-esteemed friend, for j your kind letters ; but why will you make me ' run the risk of being contemptible and merce- nary in my own eyes ? When I pique myself on my independent spirit, I hope it is neither poetic licence, nor poetic rant; and I am so flattered with the honour you have done me, in making me your compeer in friendship and friendly correspondence, that I cannot, without pain and a degree of mortification, be reminded of the real inequality between our situations. Most sincerely do I rejoice with you, dear madam, in the good news of Anthony. Not only your anxiety about his fate, but my own esteem for such a noble, warm-hearted, manly young fellow, in the little I had of his ac- quaintance, has interested me deeply in his fortunes. Falconer, the unfortunate author of the '' Shipwreck," which you so much admire, is no more. After witnessing the dreadful catas- trophe he so feelingly describes in his poem, and after weathering many hard gales of fortune, he went to the bottom with the Aurora frigate ! I foi-get what part of Scotland had the honour of giving him birth; but he was the son of obscurity and misfortune. He was one of those daring adventurous spirits, which Scotland, beyond any other country, is re- markable for producing J Little does the fond mother think, as she hangs delighted over the sweet little leech at her bosom, where the poor fellow may hereafter wander, and t Mr Dunbar had presented him with the copy of Spenser alluded to. X "Fiilconer," says Currie, "was in early life a sailor-boy, on board a man-of-war, in which capacity lie attracted the notice of Campbell, the author of th« satire on Dr Johnson, entitled ' Lcxiplumes,' then purser of the ship. Campbell took him as a servant, and delighted in givinpr him instruction ; and when Falcon eraften\nirds acijuired celebrity boasted of him as a scholar. The editor had this information from a surj,'eon of a man-of-war, in 1777, who knew both Camp- bell and Falconei*, ami who liiroHelf perished soon after by shiowreck, on the coast of America." GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. 305 what may be his fate. I remember a stanza in an old'Scottish ballad, which, notwithstand- ing it3 rude simplicitj, speaks feelingly to the heart — "Little did my mother thinlr, That day she cradled me. What land I was to travel in, Or whiit death I should die !"* Old Scottish songs are, you know, a favoitrite \ study and pursuit of mine, and now I am on that subject, allow me to give you two stanzas of another old simple ballad, which I am sure •will please you. The catastrophe of the piece is a poor ruined female, lamenting her fate. She concludes with this pathetic wish : — "Oh that my fatlier had ne'er on me smiled ; Oh that my mother had ne'er to me sun? ! Oh that my cradle had never been rock'd ! But that I had died wnen I was young ! Oh that the gitive it were my bed ; My blankets were my windinjj-sheet ; The clocks and the woi-ms my bedfellows a' f And, oh, sae sound as I should sleep 1" I do not remember, in all my reading, to have met with anything more truly the lan- guage of misery than the exclamation in the last line. Misery is like love ; to speak its language truly, the author must have felt it. I am every day expecting the doctor to give your little godson f the small-pox. They are rife in the country, and I tremble for his fate. By the way, I cannot help congratulating you on his looks and spirit. Every person who sees him acknowledges him to be the finest, hand- somest child he has ever seen. I am myself delighted with the manly swell of his little chest, and a certain miniature dignity in the carriage of his head, and the glance of his fine black eye, which promise the undaunted gal- lantry of an independent mind. I thought to have sent you some rhymes, but time forbids. I promise you poetry until you are tired of it, next time I have the honour of assuring you how truly I am, &c. K. B. No. CLXXXVT. TO MR PETER HILL, BOOKSELLER, EDINBURGH. Ellislaitd, Fd). 2, 1790. No ! I win not say one word about apologies or excuses for not writing — I am a poor, ras- cally gauger, condemned to gallop at least 200 miles every week to inspect dirty ponds and yeasty barrels, and where can I find time to write to, or importance to interest anybody ? The upbi'aidings of my conscience, nay, the upbraid ings of my wife, have persecuted me on your account these two or three months past. I wish to God I was a great man, that my correspondence might throw light upon you, to let the world see what you really are ; aud then I would make your fortune, without putting my hand in my pocket for you, which, like all other great men, I suppose I would ♦ This touching sentiment occurs in the Ballad of the -Queen's Marie," or, as some sets have it, "Mary Hamilton." t The bard's second sob, francis. avoid as much as possible. What are you doing, and how are you doing? Have you lately seen any of my few friends? What has become of the borough reform, or how is the fate of my poor namesake Mademoiselle Burns decided ? man ! but for thee and thy selfish appetites, and dishonest artifices, that beauteous form, and that once innocent and still ingenuous mind, might have shone conspicuous and lovely in the faithful wife, and the afi'ectionate mother ; and shall the unfortunate sacrifice to thy pleasures have no claim on thy humanity ! J I saw lately in a review some extracts from a new poem, called the '^Village Curate;" send it me. I want likewise a cheap copy of "The World." Mr Armstrong, the young poet, who does me the honour to mention me so kindly in his works, please give him my best thanks for the copy of his book — I shall write him my first leisure hour. I like his poetry much, but I think his style in prose quite astonishing. Your book came safe, and I am going to trouble you with further commissions. I call it troubling you — because I want only books ; the cheapest way, the best ; so you may have to hunt for them in the evening auctions. I want Smollett's Works, for the sake of his incomparable humour. I have already " Roder- ick Random," and " Humphrey Clinker." " Peregrine Pickle," " Launcelot Greaves," and " Ferdinand, Count Fathom," I still want; but as I said, the veriest ordinary copies will serve me. I am nice only in the appearance of my poets. I forget the price of Cowper's Poems, but, I believe, I must have them. I saw the other day proposals for a publication, entitled, " Banks's New and Com- plete Christian's Family Bible," printed for C. Cooke, Paternoster Row, London. He promises, at least, to give in the work, I think it is three hundred aud odd engravings, to which he has put the names of the first artists in London. You will know the character of the performance, as some numbers of it are published ; and, if it is really what it pretends to be, set me down as a subscriber, and send me the published numbers.§ I The frail female here alluded to had been the sub- ject of some rather oppressive magisterial proceedings, which took their character from Creech, and roused some public feeling in her behalf. § Perhaps no set of men more effectually avail them- selves of the easy credulity of the public than a certain description of Paternoster Row booksellere. Three hundred and odd engravings I— and by the first artists in London, too ! — no wonder that Burns was dazzled by the splendour of the promise. It is no unusual thing for this class of impostors to illustrate the Holy Scriptures by plates originally engraved for the History of England, and I have actually seen subjects designed by our celebrated artist Sto'thard. from " Clari>sa Harlowe " and the Nordisfs Magazine, converted, with incredible dexterity, by these bookselling-Bres- laws, into scriptural embellishments ! One of these vendors of "Family Bibles" lately called on me to consult me professionally about a folio engraving he brought with him. It represented M. Button, seated, contemplating various groups of animals that sur rounded him : he merely wished, he said, to be in formed whether by unclothing the naturalist, aud giving him a i-ather more resolute look, the plate could not, at a trifling expense, be made to pass for "Daniel in the Lion's Den 1"— Gsosiek. 306 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE, Let me hear from you, your first leisure minute, and trust me you shall in future have no reason to complain of my silence. The dazzling perplexity of novelty will dissipate, and leave me to pursue my course in the quiet path of methodical routine. li. B. No. CLXXXVII. TO MR W. NICOL. Ellisland, Feb. 9, 1790. Mt dear Sir, — That damned mare of yours is dead. I would freely have given her price to have saved her ; she has vexed me beyond description. Indebted as I was to your good- ness beyond what I can ever repay, I eagerly grasped at your offer to have the mare with me. That I might at least show my readiness in wishing to be grateful, I took every care of her in- my power. She was never crossed for riding above half a score of times by me, or in my keeping. I drew her in the plough, one of three, for one poor week. I refused fifty-five shillings for her, which was the high- est bode I could squeeze for her. I fed her up and had her in fine order for Dumfries fair ; when, four or five days, before the fair, she was seized with an unaccountable disorder in the sinews, or somewhere in the bones of the neck, with a weakness or total want of power in her fillets, and in short the whole vertebrae of her spine seemed to be diseased and unhinged, and in eight-and-forty hours, in spite of the two best farriers in the country, she died, and be damned to her ! The fai-riers said that she had been quite strained in the fillets beyond cure before you had bought her ; and that the poor devil, though she might keep a little flesh, had been jaded and quite worn out with fatigue and oppression. While she was with me, she was under my own eye, and I assure you, my much- valued friend, every- thing was done for her that could be done; and the accident has vexed me to the heart. In fact I could not pluck xip spirits to write to you, on account of the unfortunate business. There is little new in this country. Our theatrical company, of which you must have heard, leave us this week. Their merit and character are indeed very great, both on the stage and in private life ; not a worthless creature among them ; and their encouragement has been accordingly. Their usual run is from eighteen to twenty -five pounds a night : seldom less than the one, and the house will hold no more than the other. There have been re- peated instances of sending away six, and eight, and ten pounds a night for want of room. A new theatre is to be built by sub- scription ; the first stone is to be laid on Fri- day first to come. Three hundred guineas have been raised by thirty subscribers, and thirty more might have been got if wanted. The manager, Mr Sutherland, was introduced to me by a friend from Ayr ; and a worthier or cleverer fellow I have rarely met with. Some of our clergy have slipt in by stealth now and then j but they have got up a farce of their own. You must have heard how the Eev. Mr Lawson, of Kirkmahoe, seconded by the Eev. Mr Kirkpatrick, of Dunscore, and the rest of that faction, have accused, in formal process, the unfortunate and Eev. Mr Heron, of Kirkgunzeon, that, in ordaining Mr Nielson to the cure of souls in Kirkbean, he, the said Heron, feloniously and treasonably bound the said Nielsen to the confession of faith, so far as it was agreeable to reason and the word of God! Mrs B. begs to be remembered most grate- fully to you. Little Bobby and Frank are charmingly well and healthy. I am jaded to death with fatigue. For these two or three months, on an average, I have not ridden less than two hundred miles per week. I have done little in the poetic way. I have given ]Mr Sutherland two Prologues ; one of which was delivered last week. I have likewise strung four or five barbarous stanzas, to the tune of " Chevy Chase," by Avay of Elegy on your poor unfortunate mare, beginning (the name she got here was Peg Nicholson) " Peg Nicholson \7as a good bay mare, As ever trode on aim ; But now she's floating down the Nith, And past the mouth o' Cairn. " (See p. 68.) My best compliments to Mrs Nicol, and little Neddy, and all the family ; I hope Ned is a good scholar, and will come out to gather nuts and apples with me next harvest. R. B. No. CLXXXVIII. TO MR CUNNINGHAM. Ellisland, Feb. 13, 1790. I BEG your pardon, my dear and much- valued friend, for writing to you on this very unfashionable, unsightly sheet — " My poverty, but not my will, consents." But to make amends, since of modish post I have none, except one poor widowed half-sheet of gilt, which lies in my drawer among my plebeian foolscap pages, like the widow of a man of fashion, whom that unpolite scoundrel. Necessity, has driven from Burgundy and pineapple, to a dish of Bohea, with the scandal-bearing helpmate of a village priest; or a glass of whisky-toddy, with a ruby-nosed yoke-fellow of a foot-padding exciseman — 1 make a vow to enclose this sheetful of episto- lary fragments in that my only scrap of gilt paper. I am indeed your unworthy debtor for three friendly letters. I ought to have written to you long ere now, but it is a literal fact I have scarcely a spare moment. It is not that I tvill not write to you ; Miss Burnet is not more dear to her guardian angel, nor his grace the Duke of Queensberry to the powers of darkness, than my friend Cunningham to me. It is not that I cannot write to you ; should you doubt it, take the following fragment, which was intended for you some time ago, and be convinced that I can antithcsize sen- timent, and circumvolute periods, as well as GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. 30; any coiner of phrase in the regions of philo- logy :— December, 1789. My dear Cunningham, — Where are you? And what are you doing ? Can you be that son of levity, who takes up a friendship as he takes up a fashion; or are you, like some other of the worthiest fellows in the world, the victim of indolence, laden with fetters of ever-increasing weight ? "What strange beings we are ! Since we have a portion of conscious existence, equally capable of enjoying pleasure, happiness, and rapture, or of suffering pain, wretchedness, and misery, it is surely worthy of an inquiry, whether there be not such a thing as a science of life ; whether method, economy, and fer- tility of expedients, be not applicable to enjoy- ment ; and whether there be not a want of dexterity in pleasure, which renders our little scanthng of happiness still less; and a pro- fuseness, an intoxication iu bliss, which leads to satiety, disgust, and self-abhorrence. There is not a doubt but that health, talents, charac- ter, decent competency, respectable friends, are real substantial blessings ; and yet do we not daily see those who enjoy many or all of these good things contrive notwithstanding to be as unhappy as others to whose lot few of them have fallen ? I believe one great source of this mistake or misconduct is owing to a certain stimulus, with us called ambition, which goads us up the hill of life, not as we ascend other eminences, for the laudable cu- riosity of viewing an extended landscape, but rather for the dishonest pride of looking down on others of our fellow-creatures, seemingly diminutive in humbler stations, &c. Sunday, Fd>. 14, 1790. God help me ! I am now obliged to join " Night to day, and Sunday to the week." If there be any truth in the orthodox faith of these churches, I am damned past redemp- tion, and what is worse, damned to all eter- nity. I am deeply read in Boston's Fourfold State, Marshall on Sanctificatiou, Guthrie's Trial of a Saving Interest, &c. ; but " there is no balm in Gilead, there is no physician there," for me ; so I shall e'en turn Arminian, and trust to '•' sincere though imperfect obedi- ence." TtJESDAT, 16th. Luckily for me, I was prevented from the discussion of the knotty point at which I had just made a full stop. AU my fears and cares are of this world : if there is another, an honest man has nothing to fear from it. I hate a man that wishes to be a Deist ; but I fear every fair unprejudiced inquirer must in some de- gree be a sceptic. It is not that there are any very staggering arguments against the immor- tahty of man ; but, like electricity, phlogiston, &c., the subject is so involved in darkness that we want data to go upon. One thing frightens me much; that we are to live for ever, seems too good neics to he true. That we are to enter into a new scene of existence, where, exempt from want and pain, we shall enjoy ourselves and our friends without sa- tiety or separation — how much should I be in- debted to any one who could fully assure me that this was certain ! My time is once more expired. I will write to Mr Cleghorn soon. God bless him and all his concerns ! And may all the powers that preside over conviviality and friendship be present with all their kindest influence, when the bearer of this, Mr Syme, and you meet ! I wish I could also make one. Finally, brethren, farewell ! Whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are gentle, whatsoever things are charitable, whatsoever things are kind, think on these things, and think on 11. B. No. CLXXXIX. TO MR HILL. Ellisland, March 2, 17C0. At a late meeting of the Monklaud Friendly Society, it was resolved to augment their lib- rary by the following books, which you are to send us as soon as possible : — The Mirror, the Lounger, "Man of Feeling," *'Man of the World," (these, for my own sake, I wish to have by the first carrier,) Knox's History of the Reformation ; Rae's History of the Rebel- lion in 1715; any good History of the Rebel- lion in 1745 ; A Display of the Secession Act and Testimony, by Mr Gibb ; Hervey's Medi- tions; Beveridge's Thoughts; and another copy of Watson's Body of Divinity. | I wrote to Mr A. Masterton three or four months ago, to pay some money he owed me into your hands, and lately I wrote to you ta the same purpose, but I have heard from nei- ther one nor other of you. In addition to the books I commissioned in my last, I want very much an Index to the Excise Laws, or an Abridgment of all the Statutes now in force, relative to the Excise, by Jellinger Symons ; I want three copies of this book : if it is now to be had, cheap or dear, get it for me. An honest country neigh- bour of mine wants, too, a Family Bible, the larger the better, but second-handed, for he does not choose to give above ten shillings for the book. I want likewise for myself, as you can pick them up, second-handed or cheap, copies of Otway's Dramatic Works, Ben Jonson's, Dryden's, Congreve's, Wycherley's, Vanbrugh's, Gibber's, or any Dramatic Works of the more modem Macklin, Gan-ick, Foote, Colman, or Sheridan. A good copy, too, of Moliere, in French, I much want. Any other good dramatic authors in that language I want also ; but comic authors chiefly, though I should wish to have Racine, Corneille, and Voltaire too. I am in no hurry for all, or any of these, but if you accidentally meet with, them very cheap, get them for me. And now, to quit the dry walk of business, how do you do, my dear friend ? and how is Mrs Hill? I trust, if now and then not so elegantly handsome, at least as amiable, and sings as divinely as ever. My good wife, too, has a charming " wood-note wild;" now could we four 3o8 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. I am oat of all patience with this vile world, for one thing. Mankind are by nature bene- volent creatures, except in a few scoundrelly instances. I do not think that avarice of the good things we chance to have is born with us ; but we are placed here amidst so much nakedness, and hunger, and poverty, and want, that we are under a cursed necessity of study- ing selfishness, in order that we may exist ! Still there are, in every age, a few souls that all the wants and woes of life cannot debase to selfishness, or even to the necessary alloy of caution and prudence. If ever I am in danger of vanity, it is when I contemplate myself on this side of my disposition and character. God knows I am no saint ; I have a whole host of follies and sins to answer for; but if I could, and I believe I do it as far as I can, I would wipe away all tears from all eyes. Adieu ! K. B. 1^0. CXC. TO MRS DUNLOP. Ellisland, AjirU 10, 1790. I HAVE just now, my ever-honoured friend, enjoyed a very high luxury, in reading a paper of the Lounger. You know my national preju- dices. I had often read and admired the Spectator^ Adventurer, Rambler, and World ; but still with a certain regret that they were so thoroughly and entirely English. Alas ! have- 1 often said to myself, what are all the boasted advantages which my country reaps from the union, that can counterbalance the annihilation of her independence, and even her very name ! I often repeat that couplet of my favourite poet, Goldsmith — " States, of native liberty possest, Though veiy poor, may yet be very blest." Nothing can reconcile me to the common terms, " English Ambassador, English Court," &c. And I am out of all patience to see that equivocal character, Hastings, impeached by *' the Commons of England." Tell me, my friend, is this weak prejudice ? I believe in my conscience such ideas as "my country; her independence ; her honour ; the illustrious names that mark the history of my native land;" &c. I believe these, among your men of the world, men who in fact guide for the most part and govern our world, are looked on as so many modifications of wrong-headed- ness. They know the use of bawling out such terms, to rouse or lead the babble ; but for their own private use, with almost all the able statesmen that ever existed, or now exist, when they talk of right and wrong, they only mean proper and improper ; and their measure of conduct is, not what they ought, but what they DARE. For the truth of this I shall not ransack the history of nations, but appeal to one of the ablest judges of men that ever lived — ^the celebrated Earl of Chestei-field. In fact, a man who could thoroughly control his vices whenever they interfered with his inter- ests, and who could completely put on the ap- pearance of every virtue as often as it suited his purposes, is, on the Stanhopian plan, the perfect man ; a man to lead nations. But are great abilities, complete without a flaw, and polished without a blemish, the standard of human excellence ? This is certainly the stanch opinion of men of the world; but I call on honour, virtue, and worth, to give the Stygian doctrine a loud negative ! However, this must be allowed, that, if you abstract from man the idea of an existence beyond the grave, then, the true measure of human con- duct is 2iroper and improper : virtue and vice, as dispositions of the heart, are, in that case, of scarcely the same import and value to the world at large as harmony and discord in the modifications of sound ; and a delicate sense of honour, like a nice ear for music, though it may sometimes give the possessor an ecstasy unknown to the coarser organs of the herd, yet, considering the harsh gratings, and inhar- monic jars, in this ill-tuned state of being, it is odds but the individual would be as happy, and certainly would be as much respected by the true judges of society as it would then stand, without either a good ear, or a good heart. You must know I have just met with the Mirror and Lounr/er for the first time, and I am quite in raptures with them ; I should be glad to have your opinion of some of the papers. The one I have just read. Lounger, No. 61, has cost me more honest tears than anything I have read of a long time.* Mac- kenzie has been called the Addison of the Scots, and, in my opinion, Addison would not be hurt at the comparison. If he has not Ad- dison's exquisite humour, he as certainly out- does him in the tender and the pathetic. His "Man of Feeling" (but I am not counsel learned in the laws of criticism) I estimate as the first performance in its kind I ever saw. From what book, moral or even pious, will the susceptible young mind receive impressions more congenial to humanity and kindness, generosity and benevolence ; in short, more of all that ennobles the soul to herself, or endears her to others— than from the simple affecting tale of poor Harley ? Still, with all my admiration of Mackenzie's writings, I do not know if they are the fittest reading for a young man who is about to set out, as the phrase is, to make his way into life. Do not you think, madam, that among the few favoured of Heaven in the structure of their minds, (for such there certainly are,) there may be a purity, a tenderness, a dignity, and elegance of soul which are of no use, nay, in some degree, absolutely disqualifying for the truly important business of making a man's way into life ? If I am not much mistaken, my gallant young friend, A , f is very much under these disqualifications ; and for the young females of a family I could men- tion, well may they excite parental solicitude, for' I, a common acquaintance, or as my vanity will have it, an humble friend, have often trembled for a turn of mind which may render * This paper relates to attachments between ser- vants and mastei'S, and concludes with the story of Albeit Blane. t Supposed to be Anthony, a son of Mrs Dunlop's. GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. 309 ■lem eminently happy or peculiarly miser- ble. I have been manufacturing some verses l.tely; but as I have got the most hurried season of Excise business over, I hope to have more leisure to transcribe anything that may show how much I have the honour to be, madam, yours, &c., E. B- No. CXCI. TO COLLECTOR MITCHELL. Elusuutd, 1790. Sir, — I shall not fail to wait on Captain Riddel to-night — I wish and pray that the goddess of justice herself would appear to- morrow among our hon. gentlemen, merely to give them a word in their ear that mercy to the thief is injustice to the honest man. For ray part I have galloped over my ten parishes these four days, until this moment that I am just alighted, or rather, that my poor jackass- skeleton of a horse has let me down ; for the misei-able devil has been on his knees half a score of times within the last twenty miles, telling me in his own way, **' Behold, am not I thy faithful jade of a horse, on which thou hast ridden these many years ? " In short, sir, I have broke my horse's wind, and almost broke my own neck, besides some injuries in a part that shall be nameless, owing to a hard-hearted stone for a saddle. I find that every offender has so many great men to espouse his cause that I shall not be surprised ir I am committed to the strong hold of the law to-morrow for insolence to the dear friends of the gentlemen of the country. — I have the honour to be, sir, your obliged and obedient humble, R. B. Na CXCIL TO DR MOORE. ExciSE-Of FiCE, DcjiFEiES, July 14, 1790. Sm, — Coming into town this morning, to attend my duty in this of&ce, it being collec- tion-day, I met with a gentleman who tells me he is on his way to London ; so I take the op- portunity of writing to you, as franking is at present under a temporaiy death. I shall have some snatches of leisure through the day, amid our honid busmess and bustle, and I shall improve them as well as I can ; but let my letter be as stupid as , as miscellaneous as a newspaper, as short as a hungry grace be- fore meat, or as long as a law-paper in the Douglas cause ; as ill spelt as country John's billet-doux, or as unsightly a scrawl as Betty Byre-JMucker's answer to it ; I hope, consider- ing circumstances, you will forgive it ; and as it will put you to no expense of postage, I shall have the less reflection about it. I am sadly ungrateful in not returning you my thanks for your most valuable present, " Zeluco." In fact, you are in some degree blamable for my neglect. You were pleased to express a wish for my opinion of the work, which so flattered me that nothing less would serve my overweening fancy than a foi'mal criticism on the book. In fact, I have gravely planned a comparative view of you. Fielding, Richardson, and Smollett, in your different qualities and merits as novel-writers. This, I own, betrays my ridiculous vanity, and I may probably never bring the business to bear ; but I am fond of the spirit young Elihu shows in the book of Job — " And I said, I will also declare my opinion." I have quite disfigured my copy of the book with my annotations. I never take it up without at the same time taking my pencil, and marking with asterisms, parentheses, &c., wherever I meet with an original thought, a nervous remark on life and manners, a remarkably weU-turned period, or a character sketched with uncommon pre- cision. Though I should hardly think of fairly writing out my " Comparative View," I shall certainly trouble you with my remarks, such as they are. I have just received from my gentleman that horrid summons in the book of Revelation — " That time shall be no more ! " The little collection of sonnets* have some charming poetry in them. If indeed I am in- debted to the fair author for the book, and not, as I rather suspect, to a celebrated author of the other sex, I should certainly have written to the lady, with my grateful acknowledg- ments, and my own ideas of the comparative excellence of her pieces. I would do this last, not from any vanity of thinking that my re- marks could be of much consequence to Mrs Smith, but merely from my own feelings as an author, doing as I would be done by. R. B. No. CXCIII. TO MR MURDOCH, TEACHER OF FREi^CH, LONDON. Ellislaxd, July 16, 1790. My dear Sib, — I received a letter from you a long time ago, but unfortunately as it was in the time of my peregrinations and journeyings through Scotland, I mislaid or lost it, and by consequence your direction along with it. Luckily my good star brought me acquainted with Mr Kennedy, who, I understand, is an acquaintance of yoiurs : and by his means and mediation I hope to replace that link which my unfortunate negligence had so unluckily broken in the chain of our correspondence. I * The sonnets to which Burns alludes were those of Charlotte Smith ; in the volume which belonged to the poet one note aJone intimates that the book passed through his hands ; the fair authoress, in giving the soui-ce of line 14, in the Sih sonnet — "Have power to cure all sadness but despair," quotes Milton — " Vemal delight and joy, able to drive All sadness but despair." To this Bums added with the pen — "He sang sae swe»»t as might dispel A' rage but fell despair." These lines are to be found in one version at least of the fine ballad of Gil Morice.— Cckkisghak. 310 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. ■was tlie more vexed at the vile accident as my brother William, a journeyman saddler, has been for some time in London; and wished above all things for your direction, that he might have paid his respects to his father's friend. His last address he sent me was, "Wm. Burns, at Mr Barber's, saddler, No. 181, Strand." I wrote him by Mr Kennedy, but neglected to ask him for your address ; so, if you find a spare half minute, please let my brother know by a card where and when he will find you, and the poor fellow will joyfully wait on you, as one of the few surviving friends of the man whose name, and Christian name too, he has the honour to bear. The next letter I write you shall be a long one. I have much to tell you of " hairbreadth 'scapes in th' imminent deadly breach," with all the eventful history of a life, the early years of which owed so much to your kind tvitorage ; but this at an hour of leisure. My kindest compliments to Mrs Murdoch and family. — I am ever, my dear sir, your oblifi:ed friend, R. B.* * The reply to this letter was as follows :— Hart Street, Bloomsburt Squaeb, London, Sept. 14, 1790. • Mr DEAR Friend, — Yours of the 16th of July, I re- ceived on the 26th, in the afternoon, per favour of my friend Mr Kennedy, and at the same time was in- formed that your brother was ill. Being engaged in business till late that evening, I set out next morning to see him, and had thought of three or four medical gentlemen of my acquaintance, to one or other of whom I might apply for advice, provided it should be neces- sary. But when I went to Mr Barber's, to my great as- tonishment and heartfelt grief I found that my young friend had, on Saturday, bid an everlasting farewell to all sublunary things. It was about a fortnight before that he had found me out, by Mr Stevenson's acciden- tally calling at my shop to buy something. We had only one interview, and that was highly entertaining to me in several respects. He mentioned some instruc- tion I had given him when very young, to which he said he owed, in a great measure, the philanthropy he possessed. He also took notice of my exhorting you all, when I wrote, about eight years ago, to the man who, of all mankind that I ever knew, stood highest in my esteem, " not to let go your integrity." You may easily conceive that such conversation was both pleas- ing and encouraging to me : I anticipated a deal of ra- tional happiness from future conversations. Vain are our expectations and hopes. They are so almost al- ways — perhaps (nay, certainly,) for our good. Were it not for disappointed hopes, we could hardly spend a thought on another state of existence, or be in any de- gree reconciled to the quitting of this. I know of no one source of consolation to those who have lost young relatives equal to that of their being of a good disposi- tion, and of a promising character. Be assured, my dear friend, that I cordially sympa- thise with you all, and particuUirly with Mrs W. Bur- ness, who is undoubtedly one of the most tender and affectionate mothers that ever lived. Remember me to her in the most friendly manner, when you see her, or write. Please present my best compliments to Mrs R. Burns, and to your brotherand sisters. There is no occasion for me to exhort you to filial duty ; and to use your united endeavours in rendering the evening of life as comfortable as possible to a mother who has de- dicated 80 great a part of it in promoting your temporal and spiritual welfare. Your letter to Dr Moore I delivered at his house, nnd shall most likely know your opinion of "Zeluco," the first time I meet with him. I wish and hope for a long letter. Be particular about your mother's health. I hope she is too much a Christian to be afflicted above measure, or to sorrow as those who liave no hope. Xo. CXCIV. TO MR M'MURDO. Ellisland, Aug. 2, 1790. Sir, — ^Now that you are over with the sirens of Flattery, theharpies of Corruption, and the furies of Ambition, these infernal deities, that on all sides, and in all parties, preside over the villanous business of politics, permit a rustic muse of your acquaintance to do her best to soothe you with a song. You knew Henderson — I have not flattered his memory. — I have the honour to be, sir, your obliged humble servant, R. B.f No. CXCV. TO MRS DUiTLOP. Aug. 8, 1700. Dear Madam, — After a long day's toil, plague, and care, I sit down to write to ycu. Ask me not why I have delayed it so long t It was owing to hurry, indolence, and fifty other things; in short to anything — but for- getfulness of la plus aimable de son sexe. By One of the most pleasing hopes I have is to visit you all ; but I am commonly disappointed in what I most ardently wish for. — I am, dear sir, yours sin- cerely, John Murdoch. This letter was communicated to Cromek by Mr Murdoch, accompanied by the following interesting note : — London, Hart Street, Bloojisburt, Dec. 28, 1807. Dear Sir,— The enclosed letter, which I lately found among my papers, I copy for your perusal, partly be- cause it is Burns's, partly because it makes honourable mention of my rational. Christian friend, his father; and likewise because it is rather flattering to myself. I glory in no one thing so much as an intimacy with good men— the friendship of others reflect no honour, when I recollect the pleasure (and I hope benefit) I re- ceived from the conversation of William Burness, espe- cially when on the Lord's-day we walked together for about two miles to the house of prayer, there publicly to adore and praise the Giver of all good. I entertain an ardent hope that together we shall renew the glori- ous theme in distant worlds, with powers more ade- quate to the mighty subject, the exuberant bknefi- CENCE OF the Great Creator. But to the letter :— I promised myself a deal of happiness in the conver- sation of my dear young friend ; but my promises of this nature generally prove fallacious. Two visits were the utmost that I received. At onje of them, however, he repeated a lesson which I had given him. about twenty years before, when he was a mere child, concerning the pity and tenderness due to animals. To that lesson (which it seems was brought to tb.e level of liis capacity) he declared himself indebted for almost uU the philanthropy he possessed. Let not parents and teachers imagine that it is need- less to talk seriously to children. They are sooner fit to be reasoned with than is generally thought. Strong and indelible impressions are to be made before the mind be agitated and ruflled by the numerous train of distracting cares and unruly passions, wliereby it is frequently rendered almost unsusceptible of the principles and precepts of rational religion and sound morality. But I find myself digressing again. Poor William I then in the bloom and vigour of youtli, caught a putrid fever, and, in a few days, as real cliief mourner, 1 fol- lowed his remains to the land of forgotfulness. John Murdoch. t This brief letter enclosed the poem on the death of Captain Matthew Henderson, whom the poet had fre- quently met while in Edinburgh. GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. 311 the by, you are indebted your best courtesy to me for this last compliment; as I pay it from my sincere conviction of its truth — a quality rather rare in compliments of these gi-inning, bowing, scraping times. "Well, I hope writing to you will ease a little my troubled soul. Sorely has it been bruised to-day ! A ci-devant friend of mine, and an intimate acquaintance of yours, has given my feelings a wound that I perceive will gangrene dangerously ere it cure. He has wounded my pride ! * E. B. No. CXCVI. TO MR CUNNINGHAM. ELLISLAXD,^«i7. 8, 1790. Forgive me, my once dear, and ever dear, friend, my seeming negligence. You cannot sit down and fancy the busy life I lead. I laid down my goose feather to beat my brains for an apt simile, and had some thoughts of a country grannum at a family christening ; a bride on the market-day before her marriage; or a tavern-keeper at an election dinner ; but the resemblance that hits my fancy best is that blackguard miscreant, Saian, who roams about like a roaring lion, seeking, searching whom he may devour. However, tossed about as I am, if I choose (and who would not choose) to bind down with the crampets of attention the brazen foundation of integrity, I may rear up the superstructure of independence, and, from its daring turrets, bid defiance to the storms of fate. And is not this a "consummation de- voutly to be wished ? " ^'Thy spirit, Independence, let me share: Lord of the lion-heart, and eagle-eye ! Thy steps I follow with my bosom bare, Nor heed the storm that howls along the sky ! " Are not these noble verses ? They are the introduction of Smollet's " Ode to Indepen- dence :" if you have not seen the poem, I will send it to you. How wretched is the man that hangs on by the favours of the great ! To shrink from ever^ dignity of man, at the ap- proach of a lordly piece of self-consequence, who amid all his tinsel glitter, and stately hauteur, is but a creature formed as thou art — and perhaps not so well formed as thou art — came into the word a puling infant as thou didst, and must go out of it as all men must, a naked corse. R. B. No. CXCVII. TO DR ANDERSON.t [1790.] Sm, — I am much indebted to my worthy friend Dr Blacklock for introducing me to & • Who this ci-devant friend was, and what was the nature of the quarrel between him and the poet, re- main in obscurity. "The preceding letter to Mrs Dunlop explains the feelings under which this was written. The strain of indignant invective goes on some time longer in the style which our bard was too apt to indulge, and of which the reader has already seen so much."^CcERiE. t Mr Cunningham says :— Dr Robert Anderson, the editor of the Bee, was one of the kindest and most gentleman of Dr Anderson's celebrity; but when you do me the honour to ask my assist- ance in your proposed publication, alas, sir! you might as well think to cheapen a little honesty at the sign of an advocate's wig, or humility under the Geneva band. I am a mis- erable hurried devil, worn to the marrow in the friction of holding the noses of the poor publicans to the grindstone of the Excise ! and like Milton's Satan, for private reasons, am forced "To do what yd, though damn'd, I would abhor," — and except a couplet or two of honest exe- cration, R. B. No. CSCVIII. TO CRAWFORD TAIT, EDINBURGH. ESQ.^ E1J.ISLAND, Oct. 15, 1790. Dear Sm, — Allow me to introduce to your acquaintance the bearer, Mr Wm. Duncan, a friend of mine, whom I have long known and long loved. His father, whose only son he is, has a decent little property in Ayrshire, and has bred the young man to the law, in which department he comes up an adventurer to your good town. I shall give you my friend's cha- racter in two words : as to his head, he has talents enough, and more than enough, for common life ; as to his heart, when nature had kneaded the kindly clay that composes it, she said, " I can no more." You, my good sir, were born under kinder stars; but your fraternal sympathy I well know, can enter into the feelings of the young man, who goes into life with the laudable am- bition to do something, and to be something among his fellow-creatures : but whom the con- sciousness of friendless obscurity presses to the earth, and wounds to the soul ! Even the fairest of his virtues are against him. That independent spirit, and that ingen- uous modesty, qualities inseparable from a noble mind, are, with the million, circumstan- ces not a little disqualifying. What pleasure is in the power of the fortunate and the happy, by their notice and patronage, to brighten the countenance and glad the heart of such de- pressed youth ! I am not so angry with man- kind for their deaf economy of the purse — the goods of this world cannot be divided without being lessened; — but why be a niggard of that which bestows bliss on a fellow-crea- ture, yet takes nothing from our own means of enjoyment? We wrap ourselves up in a cloak of our own better fortune, and turn away our eyes, lest the wants and woes of our brother mortals should disturb the selfish apathy of our Bouls ! benevolent anthors of his time: his door was never shut against the deserving, and he held out his hand to almost all young literary aspirants. lie was one of the first to discover the genius of Campbell, and the poet acknowledged his discernment in a dedication. He has been for gome time numbered with the dead. "■■ ' 2"C 312 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. I am the worst hand in the woiid at asking a favour. That indirect address, that insinu- ating implication, which, without any positive request, plainly expresses your wish, is a talent not to be acquired at a plough-tail. Tell me then, for you can, in what periphrasis of lan- guage, in what circumvolution of phrase, I shall envelop, yet not conceal, this plain story. — " My dear Mr Tait, my friend Mr Duncan, whom I have the pleasure of introducing to you, is a young lad of your own profession, and a gentleman of much modesty, and great worth. Perhaps it may be in your power to assist him in the, to him, important consideration of get- ing a place ; but at all events your notice and acquaintance will be a very great acquisition to him ; and I dare pledge myself that he will never disgrace your favour." You may possibly be surprised, sir, at such a letter from me ; 'tis, I own, in the usual way of calculating these matters, more than our ac- quaintance entitles me to ; but my answer is short: Of all the men at your time of life, whom I knew in Edinburgh, you are the most accessible on the side on which I have assailed you. You are very much altered indeed from what you were when I knew you, if generosity point the path you will not tread, or humanity call to you in vain. As to myself, a being to whose interest I be- lieve you are still a well-wisher, I am here, breathing at all times, thinking sometimes, and rhyming now and then. Every situation has its share of the cares and pains of life, and my situation, I am persuaded, has a full ordinary allowance of its pleasures and enjoyments. My best compliments to your father and Miss Tait. If you have an opportunity, please re- member me in the solemn-league-and-covenant of friendship to Mrs Lewis Hay.* I am a wretch for not writing her ; but I am so hack- neyed with self-accusation in that way that my conscience lies in my bosom with scarce the sensibility of an oyster in its shell. Where is Lady M'Kenzie? wherever she is, God bless her ! I likewise beg leave to trouble you with compliments to Mr Wm. Hamilton; Mrs Hamilton and family; and Mrs Chalmers, when you are in that country. Should you meet with Miss Nimmo, please remember me kindly to her. B. B. No. CXCIX. TO ELLisTJUro, 1790. Dear Sir, — ^Whether, in the way of my trade, I can be of any service to the Eev. Doctor, is, I fear, very doubtful. Ajax's shield consisted, I think, of seven bull hides and a plate of brass, which altogether set Hector's ' utmost force at defiance. Alas ! I am not a Hector, and the worthy Doctor's foes are as securely armed as Ajax was. Ignorance, superstition, bigotry, stupidity, malevolence, self-conceit, envy — all strongly bound in a massy frame of brazen impudence ! Good God, sir I to such a shield, humour is the ♦ Formerly Miss Margaret Chalmers. peck of a sparrow, and satire the pop-gun of a schoolboy. Creation-disgracing scelerats such' as they, God only can mend, and the devil only can punish. In the comprehending way of Caligula, I wish they all had but one neck. I feel impotent as a child to the ardour of my wishes ! Oh for a withering curse to blast the germins of their wicked machinations ! Oh for a poisonous tornado, winged from the torrid zone of Tartarus, to sweep the spreading crop of their villanous contrivances to the lowest hell ! t E. B. No. CC. TO MRS DUNLOR Ellisiaxd, N'ov. 1790. " As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good j news from a far country." | Fate has long owed me a letter of good news ' from you, in return for the many tidings of j sorrow which I have received. In this instance ' I most cordially obey the apostle — "Rejoice j with them that do rejoice" — for me, to sing for I joy, is no new thing; but to preach for joy, as ' I have done in the commencement of this epistle, is a pitch of extravagant rapture to which I never rose before. I read your letter — I literally jumped for joy. How could such a mercurial creature as a poet lumpishly keep his seat, on the receipt of the best news from his best friend ? I seized my gilt-headed wangee rod, an instru- ment indispensably necessary in my left hand, in the moment of inspiration and rapture ; and stride, stride — quick and quicker — out skipt I among the broomy banks of Nith to muse over my joy by retail. To keep within the bounds of prose was impossible. Mrs Little's is a more elegant, but not a more sincere, compliment to the sweet little fellow than I, extempore almost, pom-ed out to him in the following « Sweet flow'ret, pledge o' meikle love, And ward o' mony a prayer, What heart o' stane wad thou na move, Sae helpless, sweet, and fair ! " (Seep.rZ) I am much flattered by your approbation of my ** Tam o' Shanter," which you express in your former letter; though, by the by, you load me in that said letter with accusations heavy and many; to all which I plead, not guilty 1 Your book is, I hear, on the road to reach me. As to printing of poetry, when you prepare it for the press, you have only to spell it right, and place the capital letters properly : as to the punctuation, the printers do that themselves. I have a copy of " Tam o' Shanter" ready to send you by the first opportunity : it is too heavy to send by post. I heard of Mr Corbet % lately. He, in con- sequence of your recommendation, is most + Mr Cunningham surmises that this letter, which contained a copy of "The Kirk's Alarm," was addressed to Gavin Hamilton. X One of the general supervisors of Excise. GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. 313 zealous to serve me. Please favour me soon with an account of your good folks; if Mrs H. is recovering, and the young gentleman doiug weU. R. B. No. CCI. TO LADY W. M. CONSTABLE. Ellisland, Jan. 11, 1791. Mr Lady, — Nothing less than the unlucky accident of having lately broken my right arm ; could have prevented me, the moment I re- j ceived your ladyship's elegant present by Mrs I Miller, from returning you my warmest and most grateful acknowledgments ; I assure your ladyship, I shall set it apart : the symbols of religion shall only be more sacred. In the moment of poetic composition, the box shall \ be my inspiring genius. When I would I breathe the comprehensive wish of benevolence for the happiness of others, I shall recollect your ladyship ; when I would interest my fancy in the clistresses incident to humanity, I shall remember the unfortunate Mary.* R. B. No. CCIL TO WILLIAM DUNBAR, W.S. Ellislaxd, Jan. 17, 1791. I AM not gone to Elysium, most noble colonel,t but am still here in this sublunary v/orld, serving my God by propagating His image, and honoiiring my king by begetting him loyal subjects. Many happy returns of the season await my friend. May the thorns of care never beset his path ! May peace be an inmate to his bosom, and rapture a frequent visitor of his soul ! May the bloodhounds of misfortune sever track his steps, nor the screech-owl of sorrow alarm his dwelling ! May enjoyment tell thy hourS; and pleasure number thy days, thou friend of the bard ! " Blessed be he that bleaseth thee, and cursed be he that curseth thee ! ! ! " As a fm-ther proof that I am still in the land of existence, I send you a poem, the latest I have composed. I have a particular reason for wishing you only to show it to select friends, should you think it worthy a friend's perusal; but if, at your first leisure hour, you will favour me with your opinion of, ' and strictures on, the performance, it will be an additional obligation on, dear sir, your deeply indebted humble servant, R. B, No. CCIIL TO MRS GRAHAM OF FINTRAY. Ellislajjd, Jan. 1791 M^vDAM, — Whether it is that the story of our Mary Queen of Scots has a pecvdiar effect * This letter was written acknowledginp^ the present of a valuable snuff-box, with a fine picture of Mary- Queen of Scots on the lid. This was the gift of Lady Winifred Maxwell Constable, in grateful return for the Poet's "Lament" of that ill-starred Princess. f So styled as President of the Convivial Society, known by the name of Tlie Crochalian i'eaciblea. on the feelings of a poet, or whether I have, in the enclosed ballad, succeeded beyond my usual poetic success, I know not ; but it has pleased me beyond any effort of my muse for a good while past ; on that account I enclose it particularly to you. It is true, the purity of my motives may be suspected. I am already deeply indebted to Mr Graham's goodness ; and what, in the usual ways of men, is of in- finitely greater importance, Mr G. can do me service of the utmost importance in time to come. I was born a poor dog ; and however I may occasionally pick a better bone than I used to do, I know I must live and die poor : but I will indulge the flattering faith that my poetry will considerably outlive my poverty ; and, without any fustian affectation of spirit, I can promise and affirm that it must be no ordinary craving of the latter shall evea' make me do anything injurious to the honest fame of the former. Whatever may be my failings, for failings are a part of human nature, may they ever be those of a generous heart, and an independent mind ! It is no fault of mine that I was bom to dependence; nor is it Mr Graham's chiefest praise that he can command influence ; but it is his merit to bestow, not only with the kindness of a brother, but with the politeness of a gentleman ; and I trust it shall be mine to receive Avith thankfulness, and remember with undiminished gratitude. R. B. No. CCIV. TO MR PETER HILL. Ellisland, Jan. 17, 1791. Take these two guineas, and place them over against that damned account of yours ! which has gagged my mouth these five or six months ! I can as little write good things as apologies to the man I owe money to. Oh, the supreme curse of making three guineas do the business of five ! Not all the labours of Hercules ; not all the Hebrews' three centuries of Egyptian bondage, were such an insuperable business, such an infernal task ! ! Poverty ; thou half-sister of death, thou cousin-german of hell ! where shall I find force of execration equal to the amplitvide of thy demerits ? Op- pressed by thee, the venerable ancient, grown hoary in the practice of every virtue, laden with years and wretchedness, implores a little — little aid to support his existence, from a stony-hearted son of Mammon, whose sun of prosperity never knew a cloud ; and is by him denied and insulted. Oppressed by thee, the man of sentiment, whose heart glows with in- dependence, and melts with sensibility, inly pines under the neglect, or writhes in bittei-- ness of soul under the contumely, of arrogant, unfeeling wealth. Oppressed by thee, the son, of genius, whose ill-starred ambition plants him at the tables of the fashionable and polite, must see, in suffering silence, his remarks ne- glected, ana his person despised, while shallow greatness, in his idiot attempts at wit, shall meet with countena.ice and applause. Nor is it only the family of worth that have reason to complain of thee : the children of folly and 314 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. vice, though in common with thee the offspring of evil, smart equally under thy rod. Owing to thee, the man of unfortunate disposition and neglected education is condemned as a fool for his dissipation, despised and shunned as a needy wretch, when his follies, as usual, bring him to want ; and when his unprincipled ne- cessities drive him to dishonest practices, he is abhorred as a miscreant, and perishes by the justice of his country. But far otherwise is the lot of the man of family and fortune. Hh early follies and extravagance are spirit and fire ; liis consequent wants are the embarrass- ments of an honest fellow ; and when, to re- medy the matter, he has gained a legal com- mission to plunder distant provinces, or mas- sacre peaceful nations, he returns, perhaps, laden with the spoils of rapine and murder ; lives wicked and respected, and dies a scoun- drel and a lord. Nay, worst of all, alas for helpless woman ! the needy prostitute, who has shivei-ed at the corner of the street, wait- ing to earn the wages of casual prostitution, is left neglected and insulted, ridden down by the chariot wheels of the coroneted Kip, hurrying on to the guilty assignation ; she who, without the same necessities to plead, riots nightly in the same guilty trade. Well ! divines may say of it what they please; but execration is to the mind what phlebotomy is to the body : the vital sluices of both are wonderfully relieved by their re- spective evacuations. R. B. No. CCV. TO MR ALEX. CUNNINGHAM.* Ellisland, Jan. 23, 1791. Many happy returns of the season to you, my dear friend ! As many of the good things of this life as are consistent with the usual mixture of good and evil in the cup of Being ! I have just finished a poem ("Tam o' Shan- * The following is an extract of a letter from Mr Alexander Cunningham to the poet, dated Edinburgh, October 14rgu»« turn'd iriiide out, Wi" lie< Kam'd Ike a be^gar'i clout, Ani pr es i heara roiten, black a» muck, Li7 sjuii..(, vUe, in ererj Muk." you my having an idea of composing an elegy on the late Miss Burnet of Monboddo. I had the honour of being pretty well acquainted with her, and have seldom felt so much at the loss of an acquaintance as when I heard that so amiable and accomplished a piece of God's work was no more. I have, as yet, gone no further than the following fragment, of which please let me have your opinion. You know that elegy is a subject so much exhausted that any new idea on the business is not to be ex- pected : 'tis well if we can place an old idea in a new light. How far I have succeeded as to this last, you will judge from what follows : — (See the " Elegy," p. 7i) I have proceeded no further. Your kind letter, with your kind remcrri' hrance of your godson, came safe. This last, madam, is scarcely what my pride can bear. As to the little fellow, he is, partiality apart, the finest boy I have for a long time seen. He is now seventeen months old, has the small-pox and measles over, has cut several teeth, and never had a grain of doctor's drugs in his bowels. I am truly happy to hear that the " little flowret" is blooming so fresh and fair, and that the " mother plant " is rather recovering her drooping head. Soon and well may her " cruel wounds " be healed ! I have written thus far with a good deal of difficulty. When I get a little abler you shall hear further from, madam, yours, E. B. No. CCVIII. TO THE EEV. AECH. ALISOX.* Ellisland, near Dumfries, Feb. 14, 1791. Sm, — You must by this time have set me down as one of the most ungrateful of men. You did me the honour to present me with a book, which does honour to science and the intellectual powers of men, and I have not even so much as acknowledged the receipt of it. The fact is, you yourself are to blame for it. Flattered as I was by your telling me that you wished to have my opinion of the work, the old spiritual enemy of mankind, who knows well that vanity is one of the sins that most easily beset me, put it into my head to ponder over the performance with the look-out of a critic, and to draw up, forsooth, a deep learned digest of strictures on a composition, of which, in fact, until I read the book, I did not even know the first principles. I own, sir, that at first glance, several of your pro- positions startled me as paradoxical. That the martial clangor of a trumpet had something m it vastly more grand, heroic, and sublime, than the twingle twangle of a Jew's-harp ; that the delicate flexure of a rose-twig, when the half- blown flower is heavy with the tears of the dawn, was infinitely more beautiful and ele- gant than the upright stub of a burdock ; and that from something innate and independent of all associations of ideas ;— ^these I had set * The Rev. Archibald Alison, author of "Essays on the Principles of Taste," was the father of the historian of Europe. 3i6 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. down as irrefragable, orthodox truths, until perusing your book shook my faith. In short, sir, except Euclid's Elements of Geometry, which I made a shift to unravel by my father's fireside, in the winter evening of the first season I held the plough, I never read a book which gave me such a quantum of information, and added so much to my stock of ideas, as your " Essays on the Principles of Taste/' One thing, sir, you must forgive my mention- ing as an uncommon merit in the work, I mean the language. To clothe absti-act philosophy in elegance of style sounds something like a contradiction in terms; but you have con- vinced me that they are quite compatible. I enclose you some poetic bagatelles of my late composition. The one in print is ray first essay in the way of telling a tale. — I am, sir, &c.. R. B. No. CCIX. TO THE REV. G. BAIRD.* ELLiSLiNB, Feb. 1791. Reverend Sir, — ^Why did you, my dear sir, write to me in such a hesitating style on the • The poet's reverend correspondent solicited his help in. the contemplated edition of Bruce in these words : — London, Feb. 8, 1791. Sin, — ^I trouble you with this letter to inform you that I am in hopes of being able very soon to bring to the press a new edition (long since talked of) of Michael Bruce's poems. The profits of the edition are to go to his mother — a woman of eighty years of age — poor and helpless. The poems are to be published by subscrip- tion ; and it may be possible, I thinli, to make out a 2s. 6d. or 33. volume, with the assistance of a few hither- to unpublished verses, which I have got from the mother of the poet. But the design I have in view in writing to you is not merely to infoim you of these facts ; it is to solicit the aid of your name and pen in support of the scheme. The reputation of Bruce is already high with every reader of classical taste, and I shall be anxious to guard against tarnishing his cliaracter, by allowing any new poems to appear that may lower it. For this purpose, the MSS. I am in possession of have been submitted to the revision of some whose ci-itical talents I can trust to, and I mean still to submit them to others. May I beg to know, therefore, if you will take the trouble of perusing the MSS.— of giving your opinion, and suggesting what curtailments, alterations, or amendments, occur to you as advisable ? And will you allow us to let it be known that a few lines by you will be added to t 'e volume ? I know the extent of this request. It is bold to make it. But I have this consolation, that, thougii you see it proper to refuse it, you will not blame me for having made it ; you will see my apology in the motive. Zklay I just add, that Micliael Bruce is one in whose comi)any, from his past appearance, you would not, I am convinced, blush to be found, and as t would submit every line of his that should now be published to your own criticisms, you would be assured that nothing derogatoiy either to him or you would be admitted iu that appearance he may make in future. You have already paid an honourable tribute to kin- dred genius, in Fergussou — I fondly hope tliat the mother of Bruce will experience your patronage. I wish to have the sul)scrii)tion papers circulated by the 14th of March, Bruce's birthday ; which I under- stand some friends in Scotland talk this year of observ- ing—at that time it will be resolved, I imagine, to place a pluin, humble stone over his grave. This, at least, I trust you will agree to do— to furnish, in a few couplets, an irucription for it. Ou these points may I solicit an answer as early as possible ; a short delay might disappoint us in procor- business of poor Bruce ? Don't I know, ana have I not felt, the many ills, the peculiar ills, that poetic flesh is heir to ? You shall have your choice of all the unpublished poems I have ; and, had your letter had my direction so as to have reached me sooner, {it only came to my hand this moment,) I should have directly put you out of suspense on the subject. I only ask that some prefatory advertisement in the book, as well as the subscription bills, may bear that the publication is solely for the benefit of Bruce's mother. I would not put it into the power of ignorance to surmise, or malice to insinuate, that I clubbed a share in the work from mercenary motives. Isov need you give me credit for any remarkable gene- rosity in my part of the business. I have such a host of peccadilloes, failings, follies, and backslidings, (anj^body but myself might per- haps give some of them a worse appellation,) that by way of some balance, however trifling, in the account, I am fain to do any good that occurs in my very limited power to a fellow- creature, just for the selfish purpose of clearing a little of the vista of retrospection. r.'b. IS^O. CCS. TO DR MOORE. Ellislaxd, Feb. 28, 1791. I DO not know, sir, whether you are a sub- scriber to Grose's "Antiquities of Scotland." If you are, the enclosed poem will not be alto- gether new to you. Captain Grose did me the favour to send me a dozen copies of the proof sheet of which this is one. Should you have read the piece before, still this Avill answer the principal end I have in view : it will give me another opportunity of thanking you for all your goodness to the rustic bard ; and also of showing you that the abilities you have been pleased to commend and patronise are still employed in the way you wish. The "Elegy on Captain Henderson" is a tribute to the memory of a man I loved much. Poets have in this the same advantage as Roman Catholics; they can be of service to their friends after they have passed that bourn where all other kindness ceases to be of avail. Whether, after all, either the one or the other be of any real service to the dead is, I fear, very problema- tical ; but I am sure they are highly gratifying to the Ifving : and as a very orthodox text, I forget where in Scripture, says, '" whatsoever is not of faith is sin ; " so say I, whatsoever is not detrimental to society, and is of positive enjoyment, is of God, the giver of all good things, and ought to be received and enjoyed by His creatures with thankful delight. As ing that relief to the mother which is the object of th«. whole. You will be pleased to address for me under cover to the Duke of Athole, London. (i. B. P..S'.— Ilave you ever seen an engraving published here some time ago, from one of your poems, "O thou Pale Orb ? " If you liave not, I shall have the pleasure of sending it to you. GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. 317 ■almost all my religious tenets originate from uiv beart, I am wonderfully pleased with the idea that I can still keep up a tender inter- course with the dearly-beloved friend, or still more dearly-beloved mistress, who is gone to the world of spirits. The ballad on Queen Mary was begun while I was busy with Percy's " Reliques of English Poetry." By the way, how much is every hon- est heart, which has a tincture of Caledonian prejudice, obliged to you for your glorious story of Buchanan and Targe ! 'Twas an une- quivocal proof of your loyal gallantry of soul giving Targe the victory. I should have been mortified to the ground if you had not. I have just read over, once more of many times, your " Zeluco." I marked with my pencil, as I went along, every passage that pleased me particularly above the rest; and one or two, I think, which, with humble deference, I am disposed to think unequal to the merits of the book, I have sometimes thought to transcribe these marked passages, or at least so much of them as to pomt where they are, and send them to you. Original strokes that strongly depict the human heart is your and Fielding's province, beyond any other novelist I have ever perused. Eichardson indeed might, perhaps, be excepted; but unhappily, his dramatis personce are beings of another world; and, however they may captivate the inexperienced, romantic fancy of a boy or a girl, they will ever, in proportion as we have made human nature our study, dissatisfy our riper years. As to my private concerns, I am going on, a mighty tax-gatherer before the Lord, and have lately had the interest to get myself ranked on the hst of Excise as a supervisor. I am not yet employed as such, but in a few years I shall fall into the file of supervisorship by seniority. I have had an immense loss in the death of the Earl of Glencairn ; the patron from whom all my fame and fortune took its rise. Independent of my grateful attachment to him, which was indeed so strong that it pervaded my very soul, and was entwined with the thread of my ex- istence ; as soon as the prince's friends had got in, (and every dog you know has his day,) my getting forward in the Excise would have been an easier business than otherwise it will be. Though this was a consummation devoutly to be wished, yet, thank Heaven, I can live and rhyme as I am ! and as to my boys, poor little fellows ! if I cannot place them on as high an elevation in life as I could wish, I shall, if I am favoured so much by the Disposer of events as to see that period, fix them on as broad and independent a basis as possible. Among the many wise adages which have been treasured ■up by our Scottish ancestors, this is one of the best. Better be the head 0' the comrfionalty than the tail 0' the gentry. But I am got on a subject which, however interesting to me, is of no manner of conse- quence to you; so I shall give you a short poem on the other page, and close this with assuring you how sincerely I have the honour to be, yours, &c., R- B. Written on the blank leaf of a book, which I presented to a very young lady, whom I had formerly characterised under the denomination of " The Rosebud."— (5ee Lines to Miss Cruik- shank, p. 5G.) No CCXI. TO MR ALEX. CUIs^NINGHAM. Ellisland, March 12, 1791. If the foregoing piece be worth your stric- tures, let me have them. For my own part, a thing that I have just composed always appears through a double portion of that partial medium in which an author will ever view his own works. I beheve, in general, novelty has something in it that inebriates the fancy, and not unfre- quently dissipates and fumes away like other intoxication, and leaves the poor patient, as usual, with an aching heart. A striking in- stance of this might be adduced, in the revolu- tion of many a hymeneal honeymoon. But lest I sink into stupid prose, and so sacrilegi- ously intrude on the office of my parish priest, I shall fill lip the page in my own way, and give you another song of my late composition, which will appear perhaps in Johnson's work, as well as the former. You must know a beautiful Jacobite air, "There'll never be peace till Jamie comes hame." When political combustion ceases to be the object of princes and patriots, it then, you know, becomes the lawful prey of histo- rians and poets. "By yon castle wa' at the close of the day, I heard a man sing, though his head it was gray, And as he was singing, the tears fast down came— There'll i>ever be peace till Jamie comes hame." * (See p. 142.) If you like the air, and if the stanza hit your fancy, you cannot imagine, my dear friend, how much you would oblige me if, by the charms of your delightful voice, you would give my honest effusion to " the memory of joys that are past," to the few friends whom you indulge in that pleasure. But I have scribbled on till I hear the clock has intimated the near ap- proach of — "Tha* hour 0' night's black arch the key-stane." So good night to you ! Sound be your sleep, and delectable your dreams ! Apropos, how do you like this thought in a ballad I have just now on the tapis ? " I look to the west when I gae to rest, That happy my dreams and my slumbers may be ; Far, far in the west is he 1 lo'e best, The lad that is dear to my babie and me !" Good night, once more, and God bless you 1 XV. B. * This beautiful little Jacobite ditty having appeared in Johnson's Museum with the old soug mark at it, it has been received as an old song all over Scotland. There was an old song, but I do not know where to find it. I remember only two lines : " My heart it is sair, and will soon break in twa ; Por there's few good fellows sin' Jamie 's awa." This last line is the name of the air in the very old collections of Scottish tunes.— Hogq. 3i8 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. No. CCXII. TO MR ALEXANDER DALZEL,* FACTOR, FINDLAYSTON. Ellisland, March. 19, 1791. My dear Sir, — I have taken the liberty to frank this letter to you, as it encloses an idle poem of mine, which I send you; and God knows you may perhaps pay dear enough for it if you read it through. Not that this is my own opinion ; but the author, by the time he has composed and corrected his work, has quite pored away all his powers of critical discrimi- nation. I can easily guess from my own heart what you have felt on a late most melancholy event. God knows what I have suffered, at the loss of my best friend, my first and dearest patron and benefactor; the man to whom I owe all that I am and have ! I am gone into mourning for him, and with more sincerity of grief than I fear some will, who by nature's ties ought to feel on the occasion. I will be exceedingly obliged to you indeed, to let me know the news of the noble family, how the poor mother and the two sisters sup- port their loss. I had a packet of poetic baga- telles ready to send to Lady Betty, when I saw the fatal tidings in the newspaper. I see by the same channel that the honoured remains of my noble patron are designed to be brought to the family burial-place. Dare I trouble you to let me know privately before the day of in- terment that I may cross the country, and steal among the crowd, to pay a tear to the last sight of my ever revered benefactor ? It will oblige me beyond expression. R. B. No. CCXIII. TO . Ellisland, MarcK 1791. Dbab Sir, — I am exceedingly to blame in not writing you long ago ; but the truth is that I am the most indolent of all human beings ; and when I matriculate in the herald's office, I intend that my supporters shall be two sloths, my crest a slowworm, and the motto, **Deil tak the foremost." So much by way of apology for not thanking you sooner for your kind execution of my commission. Ai , * This gentleman, the factor, or steward, of Burns's noble friend, Lord Glencairn, with a view to encourage a second edition of the poems, laid the volume before his lordship, with such an account of the rustic bard's situation and prospects as from his slender acquaint- ance with him he could furnish. The result, as com- municated to Bums by Mr Dalzel, is highly creditable to the character of Lord Olencairn. After reading fho book, his lordship declared that its merits greatly ex- ceeded his expectation, and ho took it with him as a literary curiosity to Edinburgh. He repeated his wisjies to be of service to Burns, and desired Mr Dalzel to inform him that, in patronising the book, ushering it with effect into the world, or treating with the book- feUers, he would most willingly give every aid in his power ; adding his request that Burns would take the earliest opportunity of letting him know in what way or manner he could best further his interests.— Cao- I would have sent you the poem ; but some- how or other it found its way into the public papers, where you must have seen it.f — I am ever, dear sir, yours sincerely, R. B. No. CCXIV. TO MRS DUNLOP. Ellisland, April 11, 1791. I AM once more able, my honoured friend, to return you, with my own hand, thanks for the many instances of your friendship, and particularly for your kind anxietv in this last disaster that my evil genius had" in store for me. However, life is chequered— joy and sorrow— for on Saturday morning last, Mrs Burns made me a present of a fine boy; rather stouter, but not so handsome as your godson was at his time of life. Indeed I look on your little nameeake to be my chef-d'oeuvre in that species of manufacture, as I look on " Tam o' Shanter " to be my standard performance in the poetical line. 'Tis true, both the one and the other discover a spice of roguish waggery that might perhaps be as well spared; but then they also show, in my opinion, a force of genius, and a finishing polish, that I despair of ever excelling. Mrs Burns is getting rtoub again, and laid as lustily about her to-day at breakfast as a reaper from the corn-ridge. That is the peculiar privilege and blessing of our hale, sprightly damsels, that are bred among the hay and heather. We cannot hope for^ that highly-polished mind, that charming delicacy of soul, which is found among the female world in the more elevated stations of life, and which is certainly by far the most be- witching charm in the famous cestus of Venus. It is indeed such an inestimable treasure that, where it can be had in its native heavenly purity, unstained by some one or other of the many shades of affectation, and unalloyed by some one or other of the many species of caprice, I declare to heaven, I should think it cheaply purchased at the expense of every other earthly good ! But as this angelic crea- ture is, I am afraid, extremely rare in any station and rank of life, and totally denied to such a humble one as mine, we meaner mortals must put up with the next rank of female ex- cellence — as fine a figure aryi face we can pro- duce as any rank of life whatever; rustic, native grace ; unaffected modesty, and un- sullied purity; nature's mother-wit, and the rudiments of taste; a simplicity of soul, un- suspicious of, because unacquainted with, the crooked ways of a selfish, interested, disin- genuous world ; and the dearest charm of all the rest, a yielding sweetness of disposition, and a generous warmth of heart, grateful for love on our part, and ardently glowing with a more than equal return ; these, with a healthy frame, a sound, vigorous cojistitution, which your higher ranks can scarcely ever hope to enjoy, are the charms of lovely woman in my humble walk of life. This is the greatest effort my broken arm has yet made. Do let me hear, by the first t The poem to which the poet alludes is the "Lameul- of Mary Queen of Scots." GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. 319 post, how cher petit Monsieur* comes on with the small-pox. May Almighty Goodness pre- serve and restore hi m ! E. B. No. CCXY. TO .AIR ALEX. CUNNINGHAM. Jun* 11, 1791. Let me interest you, my dear Cunningham, in behalf of the gentleman who waits on you with this. He is a Mr Clarke, of Moffat, prin- cipal schoolmaster there, and is at present Buffering severely under the persecution of one or two powerful individuals of his employers. He is accused of harshness to boys that were placed imder his care. God help the teacher, if a man of sensibility and genius, and such is my friend Clarke, when a booby father pre- sents him with his booby son, and insists on lighting up the rays of science in a fellow's head whose skull is impervious and inaccessible by any other way than a positive fracture with a cudgel : a fellow whom in fact it savours of impiety to attempt making a scholar of, as he has been marked a blockhead in the book of fate, at the almighty fiat of his Creator. The patrons of Moffat School are, the minis- ters, magistrates, and Town Council of Edin- biirgh, and as the business comes now before them, let me beg my dearest friend to do everything in his power to serve the interests of a man of genius and worth, and a man whom I particularly respect and esteem. You know some good fellows among the magistracy and council, but particularly you have much to say with a reverend gentleman to whom you have the honour of being very nearly re- lated, and whom this country and age have had the honour to produce. I need not name "the historian of Charles V.f I tell him, through the mediiim of his nephew's influence, that Mr Clarke is a gentleman who will not disgrace even his patronage. I know the merits of the cause thoroughly, and say it, that my friend is falling a sacrifice to preju- diced ignorance. God help the children of dependence ! Hated and persecuted by their enemies, and too oft^n, alas ! almost unexceptionably, re- ceived by their friends with disrespect and re- proach, under the thin disguise of cold civiHty and humiliating advice. Oh to be a sturdy savage, stalking in the pride of his independ- ence, amid the solitary wilda of his deserts, rather than in civilised life, helplessly to tremble for a subsistence, precarious as the caprice of a fellow-creature ! Every man has his virtues, and no man is without his failings ; and curse on that privileged plain-dealing of friendship which, in the hour of my calamity, cannot reach forth the helping hand without at the same time pointing out those failings, and apportioning them their share in procuring my present distress. My friends, for such the * Mrs Henri's child, and the grandchild of Mrs Dun- lop. t Dr Robertson was uncle to Mr Alex. Cunning- ham. world calls ye, and such ye think yourselves to be, pass by my virtues, if you please, but do, also, spare my follies ; the first will witness in my breast for themselves, and the last will give pain enough to the ingenuous mind with- out you. And, since deviating more or less from the paths of propriety and rectitude must be incident to human nature, do thou. Fortune, put it in my power always from my- self and of myself to bear the consequence of those errors ! I do not want to be independ- ent that I may sin, but I want to be independ- ent in my sinning. To return in this rambling letter to the sub- ject I set out with, let me recommend my friend, Mr Clarke, to your acquaintance and good offices ; his worth entitles him to the one, and his gratitude will merit the other, ij: I long much to hear from you. Adieu ! R. B. No. CCXVL TO THE EARL OF BUCHAN. [Ellisland, June 1791. My Lord, — Language sinks under the ardour of my feelings when I would thank your lord- ship for the honour you have done me in in- viting me to make one at the coronation of the bust of Thomson. § In my first enthusiasm in reading the card you did me the honour to write me, I overlooked every obstacle, and de- termined to go ; but I fear it will not be in my power. A week or two's absence, in the very middle of my harvest, is what I much doubt I dare not venture on. I once already made a pilgrimage up the whole course of the Tweed, and fondly would I take the same de- lightful journey down the windings of that delightful stream. Your lordship hints at an ode for the oc- casion : but who would write after Collins 1 I read over his verses to the memory of Thomson, and despaired. I got indeed to the length of three or four stanzas, in the way of address to the shade of the bard, on crowning his bust I shall trouble your lordship with the subjoined copy of them, which, I am afraid, will be but too convincing a proof how unequal I am to t The poet addressed many letters to Mr Clarke. After the death of her husband, Mrs Clarke, taking offence at some freedom of expression in them, com- mitted them to the flames. g In the following terms the noble lord invited the poet to his seat : — DRYBrRGH Abbev, Jioie 17, 1791. Lord Bcchan has the pleasure to invite .Mr Burns to make one at the coronation of the bust of Thomson, on Ednam Hill, on the 22d of September ; for which day perhaps his muse may inspire an ode suited to the occa- sion. Suppose Mr Burns should, leaving the Nith, go across the country, and meet the Tweed at the nearest point from his farm — and, wandering along the pastoral banks of Thomson's pure parent stream, catch inspira- tion on the devious walk, till he finds Lord Buchaa sitting on the ruins of Dryburgh. There the Commen- dator will give him a hearty welcome, and try to light his lamp at the pure flame of native genius, upon the altar of Caledonian virtue. This poetical perambulation of the Tweed is a thought of the late Sir Gilbert Elliot, and of Lord Minto, followed out by his accomplished grandson, the present Sir Gilbert, who having been with Lord Buchan lately, the project was renewed, and will, they hope, be executed in the manner proposed. 320 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. the task. However, it affords me an oppor- tunity of approaching yotir lordship, and de- claring how sincerely and gratefully I have the honour to be, &c., E. B.* [Here follow the verses, for which see p. 74.] No. CCXYII. TO MR THOMAS SLOAK Ellisland, Sept. 1, 1791. Mt dear Sloan, — Suspense is worse than disappointment; for that reason I hurry to tell you that I just now learn that Mr Ballan- tine does not choose to interfere more in the business. I am truly sorry for it, but cannot help it. You blame me for not writing you sooner, but you will please to recollect that you omitted one little necessary piece of information — your address. However, you know equally well my hurried life, indolent temper, and strength of attach- ment. It must be a longer period than the longest life "in the world's hale and unde- generate days," that will make me forget so dear a friend as Mr Sloan. I am prodigal enough at times, but I will not part with such a treasure as that. I can easily enter into the emlarras of your present situation. You know my favourite quotation from Young — " On Reason build Resolve ! That column of true majesty in man." And that other favourite one from Thomson's Alfred— * The public praised the verses, on which the Com- mendator of Dryburgh wrote to the poet as follows : — Sept. 16, 1791. YouB address to the shade of Thomson has been well received by the public ; and though I should disapprove of your allowing Pegasus to ride you off tlie field of your honourable and useful profession, yet I cannot resist an impulse which I feel at this moment to sug- gest to your muse, Harvest Home, as an excellent sub- jeet for her gi-ateful song, in which the peculiar aspects and manners of our country might furnish an excellent portrait and landscape of Scotland, for the employment of happy moments of leisure and recess, from your more important occupations. Your "Halloween," and " Saturday Night," will re- main to distant posterity as interesting pictures of rural innocence and happiness in your native countiy, and were happily written in the dialect of the people ; but Harvest Home being suited to descriptive poetry, except where colloquial, may escape the disguise of a dialect which admits of no elegance or dignity of ex- pression. Without the assistance of any god or god- dess, and without the invocation of any foreign muse, you may convey in epistolary form the description of a scene so gladdening and picturesque, with all the concomitant local position, landscape and costume, contrasting the peace, improvement, and happiness of the Ik»rders, of the once hostile nations of Britain, with their former oppi'ession and misery, and showing, in lively and beautiful colours, the l»eauties and joys of a rural life. And as the unvitiated heiu-t is naturally disposed to ovei-flow with gratitude in the moment of prosperity, such a subji.'ct would furnish you with an amiable opportunity of peipetuating the names of Glencairn, Miller, and your other eminent benefactors ; which, from what I know of your spirit, and have seen of your poems and letters, will not deviate from the diastity of praise, that is so uniformly united tu true " What proves the hero truly great, Is nevei-, never, to despair." Or shall I quote you an author of your ac- quaintance ? " Whether DOIKG, STTFFERTN-G, or FORBEARmG, You may do mii*acles by — perseveeing." I have nothing new to tell you. The few friends we have are going on in the old way. I sold my crop on this day se'ennight, and sold it very well. A guinea an acre, on an average, above value. But such a scene of drunken- ness was hardly ever seen in this country. After the roup was over, about thirty peojjle engaged in a battle, every man for his own hand, and fought it out for three hours. Nor was the scene much better in the house. No fighting, indeed, but folks lying drunk on the floor, and decanting, until both my dogs got so drunk by attending them that they could not stand. You will easily guess how I en- joyed the scene; as I was no further over than you used to see me. Mrs B. and family have been in Ayrshire these many weeks. Farewell! and God bless you, my dear friend! R. B. No. CCXVIII. TO LADY E. CUNNINGHAM.f Ellislanp, Sept. 1791. Mt Lady, — I would, as visual, have availed myself of the privilege your goodness has al- lowed me, of sending you anything I compose in my poetical way ; but as I had resolved so soon as the shock of my irreparable loss would allow me, to pay a tribute to my late benefac- tor, I determined to make that the first piece I should do myself the honour of sending you. Had the wing of my fancy been equal to the ardoiir of my heart, the enclosed had been much more worthy your perusal : as it is, I beg leave to lay it at your ladyship's feet. As all the world knows my obligations to the late Earl of Glencairn, I would wish to show, as openly, that my heart glows, and shall ever glow, with the most grateful sense and remem- brance of his lordship's goodness. The sables I did myself the honour to wear to his lordship's memory were not the "mockery of woe." Nor shall my gratitude perish with me ! If, among my children, I shall have a son that has a heart, he shall hand it down to his child as a family honour, and a family debt, that my dearest existence I owe to the noble house of Glencairn ! I was about to say, my lady, that if you think the poem may venture to see the light, I would, in some way or other, give it to the world .J R. B. t Sister of the Enrl of Glencairn. Her ladyship died unmarried, in August ISOJr. X '-The Lament for James, Earl of Glencairn" Bee p. 73. GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. 321 No. CCXIX. TO COLONEL FULLARTOX, OF FULLARTOX.* ELLisLA?rD, Odt. 3, 179L Sm, — I hare just this minute got the frank, and next minute must send it to post, else I })urposed to have sent you two or three other bagatelles that might have amused a vacant hour, about as well as " Six excellent new Songs/' or the "Aberdeen prognostications for the year to come." I shall probably trouble you soon with another packet, about the gloomy month of November, when the people of England hang and drown themselves— any- thing generally la better than one's own thoughts. Fund as I may be of my own productions, it is not for their sake that I am so anxious to send you them. I am ambitious, covetously ambitious, of being known to a gentleman whom I am proud to call my countryman ; a gentleman who was a foreign ambassador as soon as he was a man ; and a leader of armies as soon as he was a soldier ; and that with an Idat unknown to the usual minions of a court — ^men v/ho, with all the adventitious advan- tages of princely connexions and princely for- tunes, must yet, like the caterpillar, labour a v.-hole lifetime before they reach the wished- for height, there to roost a stupid chrj-salis, r.nd doze out the remaining glimmering exist- ciice of old age. If the gentleman that accompanied you when youiiid me the honour of calling on me is v.'ith you, I beg to be respectfully remem- bered to him. I have the honour to be your highly-obliged and most devoted humble ser- vant, R. B. even has lost its power to please, you will guess something of my hell within, and all around me — I began " Elibanks and ELibraes," but the stanzas fell unenjoyed and unfinished from my listless tongue : at last I luckily thought of reading over an old letter of yours, that lay by me in my bookcase, and I felt j something, for the first time since I opened j my eyes, of pleasurable existence. Well — I begin to breathe a little, since I began to write ' to you. How are you, and what are you ; doing? How goes Law? Apropos, for con- I nexion's sake do not address to me supervisor, for that is an honour I cannot pretend to — ^I am on the list, as we call it, for a supervisor, and will be called out by and by to act as ' one ; but at present, I am a simple ganger, j though t'other day I got an appointment to ! an excise division of £25 per annum better j than the rest. My present income, do^vn [ money, is £70 per annum. I I have one or two good fellows here whom. ■ you would be glad to know. R. B. Xo. CCXXL TO MISS DAVIES.t It is impossible, madam, that the generous warmth and angelic purity of your youthful , . '■ ! t Those who remember the pleasinjj society which, ! in the year 1791, Damlries afforded, cannot have for- } gotten " the charming lovely Da vies " of the lyrics of | Burns. Her maiden name was Deborah, and she was I Xo. ccxx. . TO MR AIXSLIE. Ellislaxd, 1791. My DEAJi AiNSLiE, — Can you minister to a mind diseased ? Can you, amid the horrors of penitence, regret, remorse, headache, nausea, nd all the rest of the damned hounds of hell \;hat beset a poor wretch who has been guilty V i the sin of drunkenness — can you speak peace to a troubled soul ? MuCrahle perdu, that I am, I have tried everything that used to amuse me, but in vain : here must I sit, a monument of the vengeance laid up in store for the wicked, slowly counting every chick of the clock as it slowly, slowly, numbers over these lazy scoundr .Is of hours, who, damn them, are ranked up before me, every one at his neighbour's backside, and every one with a burthen of anguish on his l^ack, to pour on my devoted head — and there 15 none to pity me. My wife scolds me ; my business torments me, and my sins come star- ing me in the face, every one telling a more bitter tale than his fellow, '\^^len I tell you * Colonel EuHarton is honourably mentioned in " The Vision." j the youngest daughter of Dr Davies of Tenby in Pem- j brokesliire ; between her and the Riddels of Friar's Carse there were ties of blood or friendship, and her eldest sister, Harriet, was married to Captain Adam Gordon of the noble family of Kenmure. Her educa- tion was superior to that of most young ladies of her station of life ; she was equally agreeable and witty ; her company was much courted in Nithsdale, and others than Barns respected her talents in poetic com- position. She was then in her twentieth year, and so little and so handsome that some one, who desired to compliment her, welcomed her to the Yale of Nith as one of the Graces in miniature. It was the destiny of Mss Davies to become ac- quainted with Captain Delany, a pleasant and sightly man, who made himself acceptable to her by sympa- thising in her pursuits, and by writing verses to her, calling her his " Stella," — an ominous name, which might have brought the memoiy of Swift's unhappy mistress to her mind. An offer of marriage was made and accepted ; but Delany's circumstances were urged as an obstacle ; delays ensued ; a coldness on the lover's part followed ; liis regiment was called abroad — he went with it ; she heard from him once and no more, and was left to mourn the change of affection — to droop and die. He perished in battle, or by a foreign climate, soon after the death of the young lady of whose love he was unworthy. The following verses on this unfortunate attachment form part df a poem found among her papers at her death ; she takes Delany's portrait from her bosom, presses it to her Ups, and says, "Next to thyself 'tis all on eartb Thy Stella dear doth hold, The gla=s is clouded with my breath. And as my bosom cold : That bosom which so oft has glowed With love and friendship's name, "Where you the seed of love first sowed, That kindled into flame. " Ton there neglected let it bum, It seized Uie vital part, And left my bosom as an um To hold a broken heart ; 322 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. mind can have any idea of that moral disease under which I unhappily must rank as the chief of sinners; I mean a torpitude of the moral powers, that may be called a lethargy of conscience. In vain Remorse rears her horrent crest, and rouses all her snakes : be- neath the deadly-fixed eye and leaden hand of Indolence, their wildest ire is charmed into the torpor of the bat, slumbering out the rigours of winter in the chink of a ruined wall. No- thing less, madam, could have made me so long neglect your obliging commands. Indeed I had one apology — the bagatelle was not worth presenting. Besides, so gtrongly am I interested in Miss Davies's fate and welfare in the serious business of life, amid its chances and changes, that to make her the subject of a silly ballad is downright mockery of these ar- dent feelings ; 'tis like an impertinent jest to a dying friend. Gracious Heaven ! why this disparity be- tween our wishes and our powers ? Why is the most generous wish to make others blest impotent and ineffectual — as the idle breeze that crosses the pathless desert ? In my walks of life I have met with a few people to whom how gladly would I have said — " Go, be happy ! I know that your hearts have been wounded by the scorn of the proud, whom accident has placed above you — or worse still, in whose hands are, perhaps, placed many of the comforts of your life. But there ! ascend that rock. Independence, and look justly down on their littleness of soul. Make the worth- less tremble under your indignation, and the foolish sink before your contempt ; and largely impart that happiness to others which, I am certain, will give yourselves so much pleasure to bestow ? " Why, dear madam, must I wake from this delightful reverie, and find it all a dream ? Why, amid my generous enthusiasm, must I find myself poor and powerless, incapable of wiping one tear from the eye of pity, or of adding one comfort to the friend I love ! Out upon the world ! say I, that its afiairs are ad- ministered so ill ! They talk of reform ; — good Heaven ! what a reform would I make among the sons, and even the daughters, of men ! Down, immediately, should go fools from the high places where misbegotten chance has perked them up, and through life should they skulk, ever haunted by their native insig- nificance; as the body marches accompanied by its shadow. As for a much more formid- able class, the knaves, I am at a loss what to do with them : had I a world, there should not be a knave in it. But the hand that could give I would libe- rally fill : and I would pour delight on the heart that could kindly forgive, and generously love. Still the inequalities of life are, among men, I once had thought I should have been A tender happy wife, And ])ast my future days sereno With thee, my James, through life." The Information contained in this note was obligingly communicated by II. P. Davies, Esii., nephew of the lady.— CusNiKGUAM. comparatively tolerable — but there is a deli- cacy, a tenderness, accompanying every view in which we can place lovely woman, that are grated and shocked at the rude, capricious dis- tinctions of Fortune. Woman is the blood- royal of life : let there be slight degrees of precedency among them — but let them be ALL sacred. — Whether this last sentiment be right or wrong, I am not accountable; it is an original component feature of my mind. R. B. No. CCXXII. TO MRS DUNLOP. Ellisland, Dec. 17, 1791. Many thanks to you, madam, for your good news respecting the little flov/cret and the mo- ther-plant. I hope my poetic prayers have been heard, and will be answered up to the warmest sincerity of their fullest extent ; and then Mrs Henri will find her little darling the representative of his late parent, in every thing but his abridged existence. I have just finished the following song which, to a lady the descendant of Wallace — and many heroes of his truly illustrious line — and herself the mother of several soldier.^, needs neither preface nor apology. " Scene — A field of battle — time of the day, evening ; the ivoundcd and di/lng of the vic- torious army are supposed to join in the jul- lowlng SONG OF DEATH. "Farewell, thou fair day, thou green earth, and ye skies. Now gtiy with the bright sotting sun : Farewell, loves and Iriendships, ye dear, tender ties— Our race of existence is rua ! " (See p. Ii3.) The circumstance that gave rise to the fore- going verses was — looking over with a musical friend M'Donald's collection of Highland airs, I was struck with one, an Isle of Skye tune, entitled " Oran an Aoig, or, the Song of Death," to the measure of which I have adap- ted my stanzas. I have of late composed two or three other little pieces, which, ere yon full-orbed moon, whose broad impudent face now stares at old mother earth all night, shall have shrunk into a modest crescent, just peep- ing forth at dewy dawn, I shall find an hour to transcribe for you. A Dieiije vans commendc. R. B. No. CCXXIII. TO MR WILLIAM SMELLIE, PRINTER.* Dumfries, Jan. 22, 1792. I SIT down, my dear sir, to introduce a young lady to you, and a lady in the first ranks of fashion too. What a task ! to you — * William Smellie was originally bred a printer ; ho Avas an ardent student, and in his spare hours attended pomo of tlie University classes. IIo edited an edition of Torcnco, which gained the prize oflferod by the riiiloso- l>hical Society ; was principal writer in the first e