THE KIRK'S ALARM.

A SATIRE.

[Composed, or, perhaps, it should rather be said, completed in August, 1789, with particular reference to a case then pending, and which was exciting a good deal of angry controversy. Dr. William M'Gill, one of the Ministers of Ayr, had published an Essay on the Death of Our Lord, which was supposed to be tainted with both Arianism and Socinianism. A clerical neighbour, Dr. William Peebles of Newtonupon-Ayr, in a centenary sermon upon the Revolution, on the 5th of November, 1788, openly denounced the obnoxious essay as heretical. Dr. M'Gill thereupon published a defence, which, in the April of 1789, brought the case before the Presbyterian Court of Ayr, and later on before the Synod of Glasgow. Both the litigation and the controversy were continued fiercely, until the April of 1790, when the case coming again before the Synod, Dr. M'Gill took the wind out of the sails of his opponents, by giving in a document in which he explained away the meaning attached to the paragraphs in his work to which exception had been taken, and made a formal protestation of his orthodoxy. Dr. M'Gill died on the 30th of March, 1807, in his seventy-seventh year, and in the forty-sixth of his ministry.]

Tune-" Push about the brisk bowl."

ORTHODOX, Orthodox,

Wha believe in John Knox,

Let me sound an alarm to your con

science,

There's a heretic blast

Has been blawn i' the wast,

That what is no sense must be nonsense.

Doctor Mac, Doctor Mac, Ye 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,

To meddle wi' mischief a-brewing';
Provost John is still deaf
To the church's relief,
And orator Bob is its ruin.

D'rymple mild, 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 an' twa.

Rumble John, Rumble John,
Mount the steps wi ́ a groan,
Cry the book is wi' heresy crammed;
Then lug out your ladle,

Deal brimstone like adle,
And roar every note of the damned.

Simper James, Simper James,
Leave the fair Killie dames,
There's a holier chase in your view;
I'll lay on your head,

That the pack ye'll 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;
Though ye can do little skaith,
Ye'll be in at the death,
And if ye canna bite, ye can bark.

Davie Bluster, Davie Bluster, If for a saunt ye do muster, The corps is no nice of recruits; Yet to worth let's be just,

Royal blood ye might boast, If the ass was the king of the brutes.

Jamie Goose, Jamie Goose,

Ye ha'e made but toom roose, In hunting the wicked lieutenant;

But the Doctor's your mark,

For the L-d's haly ark;

Holy Will, Holy Will,

There was wit i' your skull,

When ye pilfered the alms o' the poor;

The timmer is scant,

When ye 're ta'en for a saunt,

[Dr. Thomas Blacklock, the blind poet, who was mainly instrumental in persuading Burns to abandon his intention of quitting Scotland for the West Indies, was born at Annan, on the roth of November, 1721, and died at Edinburgh, on the 7th of July, 1791. The poetical epistle here

mair.

Muirland Jock, Muirland Jock,
When the L-d 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.

latter 21st October, 1789, Ellisland.]

Wow, but your letter made me vauntie !
And are ye hale, and weel, and cantie?
I kenned it still your wee bit jauntie
Wad bring ye to:
Lord send you aye as weel's I want ye,
And then ye'll do.

The flower-enamoured busy bee

The rosy banquet loves to sip; Sweet the streamlet's limpid lapse To the sun-browned Arab's lip.

But, Delia, on thy balmy lips

Let me, no vagrant insect, rove! Oh, let me steal one liquid kiss!

TO JOHN M'MURDO, ESQ.

[John M'Murdo, to whom the two following little pieces were addressed, was Chamberlain at Drumlanrig Castle to his Grace the Duke of Queensberry.]

O, 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 can never buy-
An honest Bard's esteem.

TO THE SAME.

BLEST be M'Murdo to his latest day! No envious cloud o'ercast his evening ray;

No wrinkle furrowed by the hand of
Care,

Nor ever Sorrow add one silver hair!
O, may no son the father's honour stain,
Nor ever daughter give the mother pain!

in Burns by causing the beautiful woods on the banks of the Nith, around Drumlanrig Castle, to be levelled by the axe, mostly for the purpose of lavishing the money obtained for the timber upon his putative daughter, led to the production of this scathing satire. Drumlanrig was visited by three poets-by John Gay during the time of Charles, the third or good Duke of Queensberry, by Robert Burns during the time of the fourth or bad Duke, and by Walter Scott during the time of two successive Dukes of Buccleugh and Queensberry.]

As on the banks o' wandering Nith

Ae smiling summer morn I strayed, And traced its bonnie howes and haughs, Where linties sang and lambkins played,

I sat me down upon a craig,

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 favourite Scottish maid?

"There was a time, it's no lang syne, Ye might ha'e seen me in my pride, When a' my banks sae bravely saw

Their woody pictures in my tide;

AN EVENING VIEW OF THE RUINS OF LINCLUDEN ABBEY.

[The ruins of Lincluden Abbey were beyond all question a favourite haunt of Burns. There appears to be considerable doubt, however, whether he wrote the lines which follow, but

peared

editions of his works issued from the press during the last half century. There is strong suspicion that they were written not earlier than the year 1813, and that the real author of them was Joseph Walton, a tutor in the family of the Maxwells of Terregles.]

[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 grey-
Ruins yet beauteous in decay-
The silvery moonbeams trembling fly:
Crowd thick on Fancy's wondering eye,
The forms of ages long gone by
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 pride,
Lifts high its roof and arches wide,
That, knit with curious tracery,
Each Gothic ornament display.
The high-arched windows, painted 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,

trees,

That reptile wears a ducal crown!"

Slowly they move, while every eye
Is heavenward 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?