[Waiting one day in the library of a nobleman, until it might suit the latter's convenience to see him, Burns caught sight on the bookshelves of a superbly bound Shakspere. On taking down the volume (evidently long unread) he found it mil dewed and worm-eaten; whereupon he solaced himself by pencilling the subjoined upon the fly 'T was four long days and rights to shav-leaf, the words being found there long afterwards, ing-night; His uncombed grizzly locks wild-staring, thatched A head for thought profound and clear unmatched; Yet though his caustic wit was biting, rude, His heart was warm, benevolent, and good. duly authenticated by the Poet's autograph.] THROUGH and through the inspired leaves, Ye maggots, make your windings; But, oh! respect his lordship's taste, And spare his golden bindings. ON VIEWING STIRLING PALACE. [During his northern tour, in 1787, when his name had just sprung into celebrity, Burns treated himself to the unaccustomed luxury of a THE REPLY TO A REPROOF. [A reverend Mr. Hamilton, of Gladsmuir, having produced some miserable doggerel in condemnation of the Stirling Inscription, the Poet thus scornfully retaliated.] diamond, directly after which he paid a flying LIKE Esop's lion, Burns says, sore I visit to Stirling Castle. Upon returning to his inn at the foot of the Castle Hill, while toying with his newly purchased jewel as a child might with its new plaything, the Poet, influenced by the Jacobite proclivities which had been revived and intensified by a sight of the haunts he had so very recently been traversing, there and then scratched upon a window pane the following wicked impromptu on the reigning dynasty.] HERE Stuarts once in glory reigned, Who know them best, despise them most. feel All others' scorn-but damn that ass's heel! ON MISS BURNS. [Margaret Burns, "Mademoiselle, my poor namesake," as the Poet called her, when writing to his friend Peter Hill, on the 2nd of February, 1790, was unhappily for her only too well known about that time at Edinburgh. Two years after the date just mentioned she died of consumption at Roslin.] CEASE, ye prudes, your envious railing, THE REPROOF. [Remonstrated with upon the indecorum of the foregoing verses, Burns defended himself by insisting that they were true. And upon this remark being pronounced at once no better than an aggravation of his original offence, he delivered himself upon the instant of the following.] RASH mortal, and slanderous Poet! thy name EXTEMPORE IN THE COURT OF SESSION. [During his first visit to Edinburgh, in 1787, Burns, loitering one day into the Parliament Shall no longer appear in the records of House to take a glance at what was going on, Fame; thus hit off to a T the two leading barristers of Dost not know, that old Mansfield, who that time, Mr. Ilay Campbell and Sir Harry writes like the Bible, Says, The more 't is a truth, sir, the more 't is a libel? Erskine.] THE LORD ADVOCATE. HE clenched his pamphlets in his fist, He quoted and he hinted, Till in a declamation mist His argument he tint it; Who has not sixpence but in her posses- Heardst thou that groan?-proceed no sion; Who must to her his dear friend's secret 'T was laurelled Martial roaring "Mur tell; Who dreads a curtain lecture worse than hell! Were such the wife 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 per verse further ther!" EPITAPH ON THE POET ROBERT FERGUSSON. BORN, SEPTEMBER 5TH, 1751-DIED, OCTOBER 16TH, 1774. [Over the grave of the poet Fergusson, in the churchyard of the Canongate, Burns, at a cost to himself of £5 18s., had a tombstone erected, upon which the following lines were inscribed.] No sculptured marble here, nor pompous lay, "No storied urn nor animated bust ;" This simple stone directs pale Scotia's way To pour her sorrows o'er her Poet's dust. A GRACE BEFORE DINNER. [Mr. Ruskin, in his "Fors Clavigera," has recalled to mind an antique Grace, which may [Alexander Smith's edition of Burns, pub-vie in quaintness with the delicate suavity of the lished in 1868 by Macmillan, gave for the first subjoined, namely: time, in addition to the foregoing, two other quatrains from a manuscript in Burns's handwriting, which the Poet had given to his friend Mrs. Dunlop. These additional verses are subjoined.] She mourns, sweet tuneful youth, thy hapless fate, Tho' all the powers of song thy fancy fired, Yet Luxury and Wealth lay by in state, And thankless starved what they so much admired. This humble tribute with a tear now gives A brother Bard-he can no more bestow : But dear to fame thy song immortal lives, A nobler monument than Art can show. What God gives and what we take O THOU, who kindly dost provide And, if it please Thee, Heavenly Guide, Amen. ON A SCHOOLMASTER. [This was a commendatory clap on the shoulder of the Dominie of Cleish Parish, in Fifeshire, as staggering of its kind, one may feel certain, as was John Browdie's congratulatory greeting to Mr. Squeers, in regard to which the latter said in acknowledgment, "Thankee. Don't do it again. You mean it kindly, I know, but it hurts rather."] HERE lie Willie Michie's banes; O Satan! when ye tak' him, Gi'e him the schoolin' o' your weans, For clever de'ils he 'll mak' 'em! ON WALTER [It is impossible not to shrink from the suggestion which has been thrown out, in the Kilmarnock Edition of 1876, that these terrible lines had reference to the Poet's quondam friend, Walter Riddel. The appalling thought here conveyed has been expressed also in a couplet by Lord Byron, where, in his ghastly domestic sketch beginning "Born in a garret, in a kitchen bred,” he exclaims: Down, down to hell, as thou rott'st away, SIC a reptile was Wat, Sic a miscreant slave, That the very worms damned him, When laid in his grave. "In his flesh there's a famine," A starved reptile cries; "An' his heart is rank poison," Another replies. THE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT. [This was uttered extempore with some emphasis by Burns in answer to a scoffing remark made in his hearing against the Covenanters.] ON CAPTAIN FRANCIS GROSE. THE Solemn League and Covenant ON THE KIRK OF LAMINGTON. of the Poet's companion, who was at once thus [The following was published first of all, in 1839, in Lockhart's Life of Burns. The epigram is said to have been whispered behind the back of his hand one day by the Poet to Robert Ainslie, while the rest of the congregation were scattering-the two friends having an hour or so previously strolled together, upon that drenching, miserable afternoon, into the church of Lamington in Clydesdale.] As cauld a wind as ever blew, answered.] 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. |