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.

IN consequence of his quarrel with the father of Jean Armour, and the unfortunate condition of his love affairs, the allusion to Jean which appeared in the first edition

"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,

Nane else cam near

it-"

was removed in the next issue of his poems, the name of another charmer being introduced. When the course of his love ran smoother, Jean's name was re-introduced, never more to give way to another.

In a letter to Mrs. Dunlop, in alluding to the fact that one of her daughters was engaged on a picture representing one of the incidents in "The Vision," Burns 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 Scottish dialect, which perhaps you have never seen) :

*

'Ye shake your head, but o' my fegs,

Ye've set auld Scota on her legs;
Lang had she lien wi' buffs and flegs,
Bumbazed and dizzie ;

Her fiddle wanted strings and

pegsWae's me, poor hizzie !'"

DUAN FIRST.+

THE sun had closed the winter day,
The curlers quat their roaring play, ‡

And hunger'd maukin' ta'en her way

To kail-yards green,

While faithless snaws ilk step betray

Whare she has been.

1 Hare.

* Ross, the author of a popular poem in the Scottish dialect, entitled "Helenore; or, The Fortunate Shepherdess."

Duan, a term of Ossian's for the different divisions of a digressive poem. See his "Cathloda," vol. ii. of Macpherson's translation.-B.

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 provided with a large stone of the shape of an oblate 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 much more animated, and keenly enjoyed. It is well characterised by the poet as a roaring play.

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!8
And heaved on high my waukit loof,9
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 10 did draw
And, jee! the door gaed to the wa';

1 The flail.

And by my ingle-lowe I saw,

Now bleezin' bright,

A tight, outlandish hizzie, braw,

Come full in sight.

Ye needna doubt, I held my whisht;
The infant aith, half-form'd, was crusht;
I glower'd as eerie's I'd been dusht11

In some wild glen;

When sweet, like modest Worth, she blusht,

2 The parlour.

3 Fireside.

4 Belching smoke.

And stepped ben.12

Green, slender, leaf-clad holly-boughs
Were twisted gracefu' round her 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 markèd in her face;

A wildly-witty, rustic grace

Shone full upon her;

Her eye e'en turn'd on empty space,

Beam'd keen with honour.

Down flow'd her robe, a tartan sheen,
Till half a leg was scrimply1 seen;
And such a leg! my bonny Jean

Could only peer it;

Sae straught, sae taper, tight, and clean,
Nane else cam near it.

Her mantle large, of greenish hue,

My gazing wonder chiefly drew;

Deep lights and shades, bold-mingling threw
A lustre grand;

And seem'd, to my astonish'd view,

A well-known land.

Here, rivers in the sea were lost;

There, mountains to the skies were tost:
Here, tumbling billows mark'd the coast,
With surging foam;

There, distant shone Art's lofty boast,

The lordly dome.

Here, Doon pour'd down his far-fetch'd floods;
There, well-fed Irwine stately thuds:2
Auld hermit Ayr staw3 through 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 polish'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.

My heart did glowing transport feel,
To see a race 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,+ mark him well!
Bold Richardton's‡ heroic swell;
The chief on Sark § who glorious fell,
In high command;

And he whom ruthless fates expel

His native land.

*The Wallaces -B.

That, to adore.

† Sir William Wallace.-B. Adam Wallace of Richardton, cousin to the immortal preserver of Scottish independence.-B.

§ Wallace Laird of Craigie, who was second in command, under Douglas, Earl of Ormond, at the famous battle on the banks of Sark, fought in 1448. That glorious victory was principally owing to the judicious conduct and intrepid valour of the gallant Laird of Craigie, who died of his wounds after the action.-B.

|| Coilus, king of the Picts, from whom the district of Kyle is said to take its name, lies buried, as tradition says, near the family seat of the Montgomeries of Coilsfield, where his burial-place is still shown.-B.

Barskimming, the seat of the late Lord Justice-Clerk.-B. (Sir Thomas Miller of Glenlee, afterwards President of the Court of Session.)

**The Rev. Dr. Matthew Stewart, the celebrated mathematician, and his son Mr. Dugald Stewart, the elegant expositor of the Scottish school of metaphysics, are here meant, their villa of Catrine being situated on the Ayr.

"Hence Fullarton, the brave and young; Hence Dempster's zeal-inspired tongue;

* Colonel Fullarton.-B.