ON BEING APPOINTED TO THE EXCISE. [Upon receiving the first news of his nomination as an exciseman, Burns is reported to have expressed himself upon the instant to the bystanders in the words of this epigram. The fulfilment of his long cherished wish came to him at the beginning of 1789. Writing to his friend Moore, on the 4th of January, he said: "I have an excise officer's commission," adding soon afterwards, "If I were sanguine, I might hope that some of my great patrons might procure me a Treasury warrant for supervisor, surveyor-general, &c. Writing a month later from Ellisland, on the 3rd of February, he acknowledges "there is a certain stigma affixed to the character of an excise officer, but "-as he adds at once, and, it must be allowed, with sufficient reason "I do not pretend to borrow honour from my profession; and, though my salary will be comparatively small, it will be luxury to anything that the first twenty-five years of my life taught me to expect."] SEARCHING auld wives' barrels, Och, hon! the day! That clarty barm should stain my laurels ; But what 'll ye say?— These movin' things ca'd wives and weans Wad move the very hearts o' stanes ! ON MRS. KEMBLE. [The following was jotted down by Burns in a TO MR. SYME, WITH THE PRESENT OF A DOZEN OF PORTER. The [John Syme was Distributor of Stamps in Dumfries. His country house, called Ryedale, was situated in the suburbs, upon the Galloway bank of the Nith-his offices being on the ground floor of the same house in the Vennel in which the Poet and his family resided. Poet-exciseman and his friend the Stamp Distributor became, towards the close of the former's life, very intimate. In despatching a dozen of porter from the Jerusalem Tavern at Dumfries to his boon companion, Burns sent with it the following epigram.] O, HAD the malt thy strength of mind, TO MR. SYME, ON REFUSING TO DINE WITH HIM, AFTER HAVING BEEN PROMISED THE FIRST OF COMPANY AND THE FIRST OF COOKERY. [This was written on the 17th of December, 1795, when the mortal illness to which the Poet eventually succumbed was already heavily upon him.] or not, box at the Dumfries Theatre, on Tuesday night, No more of your guests, be they titled the 21st of October, 1794, upon his witnessing Mrs. Stephen Kemble's first appearance as Yarico in George Colman the Younger's then popular three-act opera of "Inkle and Yarico."] KEMBLE, thou cur'st my unbelief The rock with tears had flowed. And cook'ry the first in the nation; Who is proof to thy personal converse and wit, Is proof to all other temptation. HERE lies a mock Marquis, whose titles were shammed : [Having been called upon for a song at the anniversary dinner, given by the Dumfries Volunteers, in honour of Admiral Lord Rodney's victory over the Comte de Grasse, on the 12th of April, 1782, Burns, instead of singing, recited If ever he rise, it will be to be damned. the following impromptu.] INSTEAD of a song, boys, I'll give you a toast Here's the memory of those on the twelfth that we lost! [Gabriel Richardson was the father of the eminent naturalist and arctic traveller, Sir John Richardson, who died in 1865. Burns inscribed, What are they, pray, but spiritual Ex- with his diamond, the following epigrammatic cisemen ? tribute to his host, the brewer, upon a crystal drinking cup, which he handed back to its owner, thus enhanced in value, and certainly in interest.] HERE brewer Gabriel's fire 's extinct, And empty all his barrels ; He's blest-if, as he brewed, he drink- [The subjoined conveys Burns's reading of the INVITATION TO A Horatian axiom, "Carpe diem quam minime credu a postero. For nearly half a dozen years The GENTLEMAN ING AT TARBOLTON. MEDICAL -from 1790 until the time when he took to his To ATTEND A MASONIC ANNIVERSARY MEETdeath-bed-the "Globe Tavern " at Dumfries was the Poet's favourite scene of carousal. landlady was a Mrs. Hyslop, and it was upon her parlour window that, in one of his merry moods, Burns with his diamond scrawled the following quatrain.] [The following was written to the Poet s brother mason, Mr. Mackenzie, the surgeon of Mauchline, during the June of 1786, as a reminder of the approach of St. John's Day, when it was the wont of the St. James's Lodge to THE greybeard, old Wisdom, may boast assemble at their customary place of rendezvous, of his treasures,— Give me with gay Folly to live; I grant him calm-blooded, time-settled pleasures, But Folly has raptures to give. a little back apartment in a small tavern kept by FRIDAY first 's the day appointed, [During the same memorable excursion through Galloway, in which Burns was inspired to the composition of his immortal Bruce at Bannockburn, he produced, simply because he was challenged to produce it, this exquisitely ingenious little trifle. Staying three days, in the July of 1793, in company with Mr. Syme, his fellow-traveller on the excursion, as a guest in the house of Mr. Gordon, afterwards Viscount Kenmore, the Poet was asked by his hostess to write an epitaph on her favourite lap-dog, as above entitled. Quickly answering the challenge, Burns thus acquitted himself of the obligation.] IN wood and wild, ye warbling throng, Ye jarring, screeching things around, Scream your discordant joys; Now half your din of tuneless sound With Echo silent lies. -0 ON THE SAME. 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 AUTHOR 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. |