have often wondered,' he is reported to have said, 'what set Robert Burns upon me, for we were aye on the best of terms.'

1. 171. Some wee short hour ayont the twal'. One, two, or at most three o'clock in the morning. 'Short' refers to the time taken in striking the hour.

Epistle to John Lapraik.

This epistle bears date 1st April, 1785. The occasion that produced it was exactly as stated in the epistle. 'It was at a "rocking" (see Glossary) at our house [Mossgiel],' says Gilbert Burns, 'when we had twelve or fifteen young people with their rocks, that Lapraik's song... was sung, and we were informed who was the author. Upon this Robert wrote his first epistle to Lapraik.' John Lapraik was a small farmer living, when Burns sought his acquaintance, on the farm or croft of Muirsmill, near Muirkirk in Ayrshire,—about fourteen miles due east of Mossgiel. He was then fifty-eight years of age, and had a local reputation for his rhymes. He seems to have been a kindly and very respectable old man. The song which so touched the sympathies of Burns will be found in the collection of his pieces which Lapraik published, on the strength of Burns's recommendation of them, in 1788. Lockhart thought it the best in the collection. It begins :'When I upon thy bosom lean,

And fondly clasp thee a' my ain,

I glory in the sacred ties

That made us ane wha ance were twain.

A mutual flame inspires us baith,

The tender look, the melting kiss,

Even years shall not destroy our love,

But only bring us change o' bliss.'

11. 21, 22. Can this be Pope, or Steele, or Beattie's wark? This is simply a compliment. Burns, though a generous, was no indiscriminating critic. James Beattie (1735-1803), Professor of Moral Philosophy at Aberdeen, wrote The Minstrel, a poem in the Spenserian stanza, and an Essay on the Nature of Truth, by which he was believed to have overthrown the Scepticism of Hume. 1. 28. he had ingine, i. e. he had genius (ingenium).

1. 45. I to the crambo-jingle fell. I took to rhyming. Crambo is a play where one gives a word to which another finds a rhyme.

1. 50. a rhymer like by chance, i. e. happen to be only a kind of mere versifier.

1. 54. I jingle at her. I make rhymes to her.

II. 79, 80. Allan's glee, or Fergusson's. Allan Ramsay (1686-1758) author of a pastoral drama, The Gentle Shepherd, and songs, tales, humorous satires, and epistles in the Scottish language. He was the most popular Scottish poet before Burns. Robert Fergusson (1750-1774), author of humorous poems chiefly descriptive of social life in or near Edinburgh,-such as Leith Races, Hallowfair, The Daft Days, &c. His best pieces are in Scotch. His most ambitious effort is The Farmer's Ingle. Burns greatly admired both, and was indebted to both in several ways. His criticism of their respective styles in these lines is to the point. Scott also touched off the characteristic of the elder bard by dubbing him 'the joyous Ramsay.'

1. 112. catch-the-plack. Money-making.

1. 123. gar me fissle.

Literally, make me rustle. The metaphor is taken from the rustling agitation of a bush in the wind. He means he will be pleasurably excited.

Second Epistle to Lapraik.

Lapraik's answer has not been preserved. This is Burns's reply to it, and is dated April 21st, 1785.

1. 1. new-ca'd kye rowte at the stake. Absurdly translated 'newly driven kine' by most editors. It means 'cows, that have recently calved, low in their stalls.' The upright post to which the cow is fastened in the stall is the stake."

1. 8. Rattlin the corn out-owre the rigs, i. e. sowing broad-cast. 1. 10. Their ten hours' bite. Fodder, a small quantity given about ten o'clock.

1. 13. The tapetless ramfeezl'd hizzie. Cowper, writing in August, 1787, says of Burns: 'His candle is bright but shut up in a dark lantern. I lent him to a very sensible neighbour of mine, but his uncouth dialect spoiled all; and before he had read him through, he was quite ramfeesled.'

6

1. 20. Conscience!' says I, &c. This remonstrance with the Muse reminds one of honest Launcelot's debate with his conscience before he ran away from the Jew's service. See Merchant of Venice. 1. 26. Tho' mankind were a pack o' cartes. The emphasis on

mankind.

1. 32. stumpie. The quill was already worn to the gristle.' 1. 44. Tho' fortune use you hard. The reference may be a general one, but probably points to the loss of his little patrimonial farm which Lapraik sustained by the failure of an Ayr Bank, a few years previously.

Epistle to William Simson.

This epistle bears date, May 1785. Burns was still at Mossgiel. William Simson was the schoolmaster of Ochiltree, a village on the Lugar about eight miles south from Mossgiel. Hearing of Burns, whose reputation was fast spreading from parish to parish of Ayrshire, and being himself a versifier, he sought the acquaintance of the farmer-poet of Mossgiel by means of a letter which has been lost. Simson is believed to have been of superior ability to Sillar and Lapraik.

1. 15. Wi Allan, or wi' Gilbertfiel. Allan Ramsay and Wm. Hamilton of Gilbertfield. See foot-note on page 189.

1. 17. Fergusson, the writer-chiel. Fergusson (see note, Epistle to Lapraik, 1. 80) was educated at St. Andrew's University, but, through domestic poverty, was forced to become a copying-clerk in a law-office in Edinburgh. He became insane, and died miserably in a madhouse in Edinburgh in his 24th year.

1. 31. Auld Coila. Old Kyle, the middle of the three divisions of Ayr, in which Burns was born: 'There was a lad was born in Kyle.' See also The Vision, ll. 109, 110.

1. 58. Whare glorious Wallace. Many of the exploits of Sir William Wallace, the Scottish patriot, are connected with Ayrshire-more particularly with Ayr, Cumnock, Irvine, Turnberry Hold, Leglane Woods, &c. 'In [my] boyish days,' wrote Burns to Mrs. Dunlop, herself a descendant of Wallace, 'I remember, in particular, being struck with that part of Wallace's story where the lines occur

Syne to the Leglen wood, when it was late,

To make a silent and a safe retreat.

I chose a fine summer Sunday . . . and walked half-a-dozen of miles to pay my respects to the Leglen wood... and as I explored every den and dell where I could suppose my heroic countryman to have lodged, I recollect... that my heart glowed with a wish to be able to make a song on him in some measure equal to his

200

EPISTLE TO REV. JOHN M'MATH.

merits.'-Letters (Nov. 1786). For Ayrshire memories of Wallace, see Scott's Tales of a Grandfather, chap. vii; and Blind Harry's Wallace, especially Bk. vii. It was Hamilton of Gilbertfield's spiritless version of the old minstrel's epic with which Burns was acquainted.

'In

1. 65. red-wat-shod. A strong image-shod with blood. this one word,' says Carlyle (Essay on Burns), a full vision of horror and carnage, perhaps too frightfully accurate for Art.' The expression occurs in the old romance of Arthur, published from the MS. of the Marquis of Bath in the Early English Text Society's issue for 1864 :—

'There men were wetschoede

All of brayn and of blode.'

Arthur, 11. 469, 470.

...

11. 91, 92. The warly race may drudge an' drive, &c. 'I forget that I am a poor insignificant devil, unnoticed and unknown, stalking up and down fairs and markets, when I happen to be in them reading a page or two of mankind . . . whilst the men of business jostle me on every side as an idle encumbrance in their way.'-BURNS's Letters (15 Jan. 1783). In the poet's Letters one has often the anticipation, as here, of an image or sentiment which his poetry has made familiar.

1. 108. In Robert Burns. This is the first instance of the poet's use of that form of the family name which he has made famous. Previous to this, and occasionally afterwards till April 14, 1786, he signed Burness '-pronounced with the accent on the first syllable.

Epistle to Rev. John McMath.

McMath was a young clergyman of broad views, at this time— 17th Sept. 1785-assistant to the aged minister of Tarbolton. He subsequently fell into dissipated habits, and died in Mull, one of the Western Islands, in 1825.

1. 8. On gown, an' ban', an' douce black-bonnet, i. e. on the wearers of these-minister and elder.

1. 25. There's Gawn, misca'd, &c. Mr. Gavin Hamilton, residing in Mauchline, was accused by the Kirk session there of absenting himself from divine service, neglecting family-worship, setting out on a journey on a Sunday, and otherwise breaking the

Fourth Commandment. He was cited to answer for his conduct. A member of the session, a hypocritical elder named William Auld, took a prominent part in the accusation, and by so doing drew down upon himself the severest and most daring of all the satires of Burns-Holy Willie's Prayer. A copy of this production, which ran through the district in MS., had been asked from the author himself by Mr. McMath, and the request was the occasion of this epistle.

1. 91. Pardon this freedom,-not of addressing him, but of complimenting him on the liberality of his religious views, his candour, and his winning manners.

Halloween.

held on the

The eve or vigil of All Hallows, or All Saints evening of the 31st October. Among the Scottish peasantry of the Lowlands the festival, in the words of Carlyle, has 'passed and repassed in rude awe and laughter since the era of the Druids.' The superstitious element of awe in its observance even among rustics has now, however, pretty well disappeared. Fun, and the forecasting of fortunes in the field of matrimony, are the principal objects of the ceremonies of the night.

The poem was probably composed either in view of, or shortly after, the Halloween of 1785. It appeared in the Kilmarnock edition with such clear and copious notes by the author that there is scarcely anything to be added to, or subtracted from them. The measure is that of Christ's Kirk on the Green, but the 'rhyme formula' is not quite the same. In Christ's Kirk it is ab ab ab ab c; here it is for the most part ab ab cd cd e.

1. 1. Upon that night when fairies light. Halloween, says Burns, 'is thought to be a night when witches, devils, and other mischiefmaking beings are all abroad on their baneful midnight errands; particularly those aerial beings, the fairies, are said, on that night, to hold a grand anniversary.'

1. 2. Cassilis downans. Certain little, romantic, rocky, green hills in the neighbourhood of the ancient seat of the Earls of Cassilis.'-BURNS. The castle of Cassilis is situated on the lower Doon near the village of Dalrymple. The 'downans' are three or four in number, the highest about 300 feet above the level of the Doon, and rise so abruptly in the midst of a flat country as to require in the peasant mind some fairy marvel or other to account for their origin.