* Auchinskieth. † Caprington.-(R. B.) Cunningham of Caprington, Bart. Colonel Fullarton.-(R. B.)

This stanza is partly preserved in the text.

§ Dr. Fullarton.-(R. B.)

¶ Orangefield.-(R. B.) Mr. Dalrymple of Orangefield, near Ayr, was an active patron of Burns.

** The same compliment is paid to James Smith, in the Epistle to JS, page 35,

ADDRESS TO THE UNCO GUID, OR THE

RIGIDLY RIGHTEOUS.

My Son, these maxims make a rule,
And lump them ay thegither;
The Rigid Righteous is a fool,
The Rigid Wise anither:

The cleanest corn that e'er was dight
May hae some pyles o' caff in;
So near a fellow-creature slight
For random fits o' daffin.

SOLOMON.-Eccles. ch. vii. vers. 16.

[It is not easy to determine the precise period when this master-performance was conceived and executed: had it been written before midsummer of 1786, it surely would not have been excluded from his Kilmarnock volume. There is much of stern, humiliating truth in the train of thought pursued in the poem, which was a favourite one with the author: indeed, we find in his early Common-place Book, under date March, 1784, the following passage, which is really the first rough-draught of the poem:-"I have often observed, in the course of my experience of human life, that every man-even the worst-has something good about him; though very often nothing else than a happy temperament of constitution inclining him to this or that virtue. For this reason, no man can say in what degree any other person besides himself can be, with strict justice, called wicked. Let any of the strictest character for regularity of conduct among us, examine impartially how many vices he has never been guilty of, not from any care or vigilance, but for want of opportunity, or some accidental circumstance intervening-how many of the weaknesses of mankind he has escaped, because he was out of the line of such temptation; and, what often, if not always, weighs more than all the rest, how much he is indebted to the world's good opinion, because the world does not know all;-I say, any man who can thus think, will scan the failings-nay, the faults and crimes of mankind around him, with a brother's eye."

The above remarks were penned shortly after his father's death, when the consequences of his own irregularity of conduct were about to bring him under the censure of those who considered it to be their duty

"To mark and tell their neebours' fauts and folly:"

and in July, 1786, when he had again to go through the ordeal of a public rebuke in his parish kirk for some more of his "donsie tricks and black mistakes," it is very probable that he set about weaving the foregoing philosophic musings into his best homespun verse.]

O YE wha are sae guid yoursel,
Sae pious and sae holy,

Ye've nought to do but mark and tell

Your Neebour's fauts and folly!

Whase life is like a weel-gaun mill,

Supply'd wi' store o' water,

The heaped happer'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 glaikit Folly'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' their's compar'd,
And shudder at the niffer,

But cast a moment's fair regard
What maks the mighty 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.

Think, when your castigated pulse
Gies now and then a wallop,
What ragings must his veins convulse,
That still eternal gallop :

Wi' wind and tide fair i̇' your tail,

Right on ye scud your sea-way;

But, in the teeth o' baith to sail,
It maks an unco leeway.

See Social-life and Glee sit down,
All joyous and unthinking,
Till, quite transmugrify'd, they're grown
Debauchery and Drinking:

O would they stay to calculate

Th' eternal consequences;

Or your more dreaded h-ll to state,
D-mnation of expences!

Ye high, exalted, virtuous Dames,
Ty'd up in godly laces,

Before ye gie poor Frailty names,
Suppose a change o' cases;

A dear-lov'd lad, convenience snug,
A treacherous inclination-
But, let me whisper i' your lug,
Ye're aiblins nae temptation.

Then gently scan your brother Man,
Still gentler sister Woman;
Tho' they may gang a kennin wrang,
To step aside is human:

One point must still be greatly dark,
The moving Why they do it;
And just as lamely can ye mark,
How far perhaps they rue it.

Who 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.

TAM SAMSON'S* ELEGY.

An honest man's the noblest work of God.

РОРЕ.

[Burns became acquainted with the hero of this admired production, while superintending the printing of his poems in Kilmarnock during the spring or summer of 1786. The first mention we have of it is in a letter to Robert Muir, dated 18th Nov., 1786:-" Enclosed you have Tam Samson," as I intend to print him. I am thinking for my Edinburgh expedition on Monday or Tuesday come se'ennight, for pos." Thomas Samson, nurseryman, Rosebank, Braehead, Kilmarnock, belonged to a circle of the poet's early patrons in that town: he subscribed and aided in procuring subscriptions for the Ayrshire edition, and his name is on the subscription-list for two copies of the Edinburgh edition. A daughter of Mr. Samson was married to one Sandy Patrick, landlord of "The Bowling-green House," a noted tavern or public-house at the foot of Back Street, famed for its superior drink, especially its home-brewed cap ale, which the old sportsman used to drink with Burns and other cronies after a day's shooting.

Mr. Archibald M'Kay, in his excellent History of Kilmarnock, has, from a sure authority, given the real origin of the present poem. The poet, in company of Charles Samson (the sportsman's nephew) and others, was enjoying a caup of ale one evening in Sandy's house, when Charles remarked that his uncle was out later at the sport than usual, and made reference to the sportsman's wish "to die in the muirs" which the poet has recorded in a foot-note. Burns soon became thoughtful, and thereafter was seen pencilling something down on a piece of paper. By-and-bye Mr. Samson arrived hale and hearty, and in the course of the evening the poet produced and read a few verses of the famous Elegy. All present were surprised and delighted with what they heard; but the sportsman himself, while he felt the force of the bard's compliments and the exquisite truth of his description, could not help remarking, that if the poem were published his friends would never believe that he was still leevin. Burns took the hint, and in a few minutes gratified the company by reading aloud the Per Contra, which set them all in a roar, and put new life and mettle into the good old soul who was the subject of the verses.

The names of two preachers who are contrasted together are introduced in the opening verse-Mackinlay and Robertson, who figure also in The Ordination. Mr. M'Kay, above quoted, points out the curious coincidence that the "weelworn clay" of Tam Samson, which was interred in the Low Church buryingground in December, 1795 (aged 72,) reposes in close proximity to the remains of these two ministers. Robertson died in 1798, and Mackinlay survived till 1841, but they all occupy one spot in the churchyard, as they do one stanza in the poem-the dust of the opposing preachers being separated from that of the sportsman by only a few inches of ground. The words of the Epitaph in the text are inscribed on Mr. Samson's headstone.]

HAS auld Kilmarnock seen the Deil?
Or great M'Kinlay † thrawn his heel?
Or Robinson again grown weel,

To preach an' read?

* When this worthy old Sportsman went out last muir-fowl season, he supposed it was to be, in Ossian's phrase, the last of his fields; and expressed an ardent wish to die and be buried in the muirs. On this hint the Author composed his Elegy and Epitaph.-(R. B. 1787.)

† A certain Preacher, a great favourite with the Million.-(R. B. 1787.) Vide The Ordination, page 152.

Another Preacher, an equal favourite with the Few, who was at that time ailing. (R. B. 1787.) For him see also The Ordination, stanza 9.