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.*

* Regarding this highly dramatic and picturesque poem, nothing better can be said than what is given by Sir Walter Scott, in an essay on the genius of Burns, from which the following is an extract. "The Jolly Beggars, for humorous description and nice discrimination of character, is inferior to no poem of the same length in the whole range of English poetry. The scene, indeed, is laid in the very lowest department of low life. the actors being a set of strolling vagrants, met to carouse, and barter their rags and plunder for liquor in a hedge ale-house. Yet even in describing the movements of such a group, the native taste of the poet has never suffered his pen to slide into any thing coarse or disgusting. The extravagant glee and outrageous frolic of the beggars are ridiculously contrasted with their maimed limbs, rags, and crutches-the sordid and squalid circumstances of their appearance are judiciously thrown into the shade. Nor is the art of the poet less conspicuous in the individual figures, than in the general mass. The festive vagrants are distinguished from each other by personal appearance and character, as much as any fortuitous assembly in the higher orders of life. The group, it must be observed, is of Scottish character, and doubtless our northern brethren are more familiar with its varieties than we are: yet the distinctions are too well marked to escape even the South'ron. The most prominent persons are a maimed soldier and his female companion, a hackneyed follower of the camp, a stroller, late the consort of a Highland ketteran or sturdy beggar,' but weary fa' the waefu' woodie l'-Being now at liberty, she becomes an object of rivalry between a 'pigmy scraper with his fiddle' and a strolling tinker. The latter, a desperate bandit, like most of his profession, terrifies the musician out of the field, and is preferred by the damsel of course. A wandering ballad-singer, with a brace of doxies, is last introduced upon the stage. Each of these mendicants sings a song in character, and such a collection of humorous lyrics, connected by vivid poetical description, is not, perhaps, to be paralleled in the English language.-As the collection and the poem are very

WILLIE CHALMERS.

Wr' braw new branks in meikle pride,
And eke a braw new brechan,

My Pegasus I'm got astride,

And up Parnassus pechin;

Whiles owre a bush, wi' downward crush,
The doited beastie stammers;
Then up he gets, and off he sets,
For sake o' Willie Chalmers.

I doubtna, lass, that weel kenn'd name,
May cost a pair o' blushes ;

I am nae stranger to your fame,

Nor his warm urged wishes.

Your bonnie face, sae mild and sweet,
His honest heart enamours,
And faith ye'll no be lost a whit,

Though wair'd on Willie Chalmers.

little known in England, we transcribe the concluding ditty, chaunted by the ballad-singer at the request of the company, whose mirth and fun have now grown fast and furious,' and set them above all sublunary terrors of jails, stocks, and whippingposts. It is certainly far superior to any thing in the Beggars' Opera, where alone we could expect to find its parallel.

"We are at a loss to conceive any good reason why Dr Currie did not introduce this singular and humorous cantata into his collection. It is true, that in one or two passages the muse has trespassed slightly upon decorum, where, in the language of Scottish song,

'High kilted was she,
As she gaed o'er the lea.'

Something, however, is to be allowed to the nature of the subject, and something to the education of the poet : and if from veneration to the names of Swift and Dryden, we tolerate the grossness of the one, and the indelicacy of the other, the respect due to that of Burns, may surely claim indulgence for a few light strokes of broad humour.". -M.

Auld Truth hersel' might swear ye're fair,
And Honour safely back her,
And Modesty assume your air,
And ne'er a ane mistak' her:
And sic twa love-inspiring een
Might fire ev'n holy Palmers;
Nae wonder then they've fatal been
To honest Willie Chalmers.

I doubtna fortune may you shore
Some mim-mou'd pouther'd priestie,
Fu' lifted up wi' Hebrew lore,
And band upon his breastie :
But Oh! what signifies to you,
His lexicons and grammars;
The feeling heart's the royal blue,
And that's wi' Willie Chalmers.

Some gapin', glowrin', country laird,
May warsle for your favour;

May claw his lug, and straik his beard,

And host up some palaver.

My bonny maid, before ye

wed

Sic clumsy-witted hammers,

Seek Heaven for help, and barefit skelp

Awa' wi' Willie Chalmers.

Forgive the Bard! my fond regard
For ane that shares my bosom,
Inspires my muse to gie 'm his dues,
For deil a hair I roose him.
May powers aboon unite you soon,
And fructify your amours,—
And every year come in mair dear,

To you and Willie Chalmers.*

*This was written by Burns for a friend of his, a lawyer in Ayr.

EPISTLE TO J. RANKINE.

INCLOSING SOME POEMS.

O ROUGH, rude, ready-witted Rankine,
The wale o' cocks for fun and drinkin!
There's mony godly folks are thinkin,

Your dreams* and tricks

Will send you, Korah-like, a-sinkin,

Straught to auld Nick's.

Ye hae sae monie cracks and cants,
And in your wicked, drucken rants,
Ye mak a devil o' the saunts,

And fill them fou ;

And then their failings, flaws and wants,
Are a' seen thro'.

Hypocrisy, in mercy spare it!

That holy robe, O dinna tear it!

A certain humorous dream of his was then making a noise in the country side; the circumstances were as follows. Rankine's ready wit made him a very welcome guest at the table of a certain great man in the neighbourhood, whose conversation over the bottle was more distinguished for pith than for polish. "Ye damned brute" was an appellation by which he very often designated his boon companions, and which sometimes grated on their feelings, although they well knew that nothing unkind was meant. On one occasion his lordship thinking the conversation was beginning to lag, called out to Rankine, "Hae ye nae queer story to gie us, ye damned brute?" "I hae nae queer story," quoth Rankine, "but I had a queer dream last night; I thought that I was dead, and that for keeping coarse company I was damned, and when I was brought to hell's yett, the devil asked me wha I was, and whare I cam frae? and I told him I was John Rankine o' Adamhill, and ane o' Lord K's damned brutes. What!" quo' Satan, anither o' Lord K- -'s damned brutes! then ye's no be here, for hell's fou o' them already." The table was instantly in a roar, in which his lordship heartily joined; he felt the hit, however, and never again used the discourteous phrase.-M.

Spare't for their sakes wha aften wear it,
The lads in black!

But your curst wit, when it comes near it,
Rives't aff their back.

Think, wicked sinner, wha ye're skaithing
It's just the blue-gown badge and claithing*
O' saunts; tak that, ye lea'e them naething
To ken them by,

Frae ony unregenerate heathen

Like you or I.

I've sent you here some rhyming ware,
A' that I bargain'd for and mair;
Sae when ye hae an hour to spare,
I will expect

Yon sang,† ye'll sen't wi' cannie care,
And no neglect.

Tho' faith, sma' heart hae I to sing!
My muse dow scarcely spread her wing!
I've play'd mysel a bonnie spring,

And danc'd my fill!

6

* The allusion here is to a privileged class of mendicants well known in Scotland by the name of 'Blue Gowns.' If our historical recollections do not deceive us, the order was instituted by James V. of Scotland, the royal Gaberlunzie-Man.' The Brethren of the order assemble at Edinburgh every year, on the King's birth day, when each is presented with a new Blue Gown or Cloak, and a sum equal to a penny for each year of the king's age. To the breast of the gown is attached a round pewter plate, on which is inscribed the name of the wearer, and his warranty to pass unmolested. The insignia of the order is only bestowed on persons of good moral character; and by it they are distinguished from suchRandie gangrel bodies,' as

'In Poosie-Nansie's held the splore
To drink their orra duddies.'

A song he had promised to the author.

M.