III.

To lie in kilns and barns at e'en,
When banes are craz'd, and bluid is thin,
Is, doubtless, great distress!

Yet then content could make us blest;
Ev'n then, sometimes, we'd snatch a taste
Of truest happiness.

The honest heart that's free frae a'
Intended fraud or guile,
However fortune kick the ba',
Has ay some cause to smile:
And mind still, you'll find still,

A comfort this nae sma';
Nae mair then, we'll care then,
Nae farther can we fa'.

IV.

What tho', like commoners of air,
We wander out we know not where,

But either house or hal'?

Yet nature's charms, the hills and woods, The sweeping vales, and foaming floods,

Are free alike to all.

In days when daisies deck the ground,
And blackbirds whistle clear,
With honest joy our hearts will bound
To see the coming year:

On braes when we please, then,
We'll sit and sowth a tune:
Syne rhyme till 't, we'll time till 't,
And sing 't when we hae done.

V.

It's no in titles nor in rank:
It's no in wealth like Lon'on bank,
To purchase peace and rest:
It's no in makin' muckle mair;
It's no in books; it's no in lear;
To make us truly blest;
If happiness hae not her seat
And centre in the breast,
We may be wise, or rich, or great,
But never can be blest:

Nae treasures, nor pleasures,

Could make us happy lang:
The heart ay's the part ay
That makes us right or wrang.

VI.

Think ye, that sic as you and I,

Wha drudge and drive thro' wet an' dry,
Wi' never-ceasing toil;

Think ye, are we less blest than they
Wha scarcely tent us in their way,
As hardly worth their while?

Burns, the author could hardly have erred in giving to Edie Ochiltree something of poetical character and personal dignity, above the more abject of his miserable calling. The class had, in fact, some privileges. A lodging, such as it was, was readily granted to them in some of the out-houses; and the awmous (alms) of a handful of meal (called a gowpen) was scarce denied by the poorest cottager. The mendicant disposed these, according to their different quality, in various bags around his person, and thus carried about with him the principal part of his sustenance, which he literally

Alas! how aft in haughty mood,
God's creatures they oppress!
Or else, neglecting a' that's guid,
They riot in excess!

Baith careless, and fearless
Of either heav'n or hell!
Esteeming and deeming,

It a' an idle tale!

VII.

Then let us cheerfu' acquiesce;
Nor make our scanty pleasures less,
By pining at our state;
And, even should misfortunes come,
I, here wha sit, hae met wi' some,
An's thankfu' for them yet.
They gie the wit of age to youth;
They let us ken oursel';

They make us see the naked truth,
The real guid and ill.

Tho' losses, and crosses,
Be lessons right severe,

There's wit there, ye'll get there,
Ye'll find nae other where.

VIII.

But tent me, Davie, ace o' hearts!
(To say aught less wad wrang the cartes,
And flatt'ry I detest,)

This life has joys for you and I;
And joys that riches ne'er could buy :
And joys the very best.

There's a' the pleasures o' the heart,

The lover an' the frien';

Ye hae your Meg,* your dearest part,
And my darling Jean!

It warms me, it charms me,
To mention but her name:
It heats me, it beets me,

And sets me a' on flame!

received for the asking. At the houses of the gentry his cheer was mended by scraps of broken meat, and perhaps a Scottish twalpenny,' or English penny, which was expended in snuff or whiskey. In fact, these indolent peripatetics suffered much less real hardship and want of food than the poor peasant from whom they received alms."-SIR WALTER SCOTT.]

* Sillar's flame was a lass of the name of Margaret Orr, who had charge of the children of Mrs. Stewart of Stair. It was not the fortune of "Meg" to become Mrs. Sillar.

X.

All hail! ye tender feelings dear!
The smile of love, the friendly tear,
The sympathetic glow!

Long since, this world's thorny ways
Had number'd out my weary days,
Had it not been for you!
Fate still has blest me with a friend,
In every care and ill;

And oft a more endearing band,
A tie more tender still.

It lightens, it brightens

The tenebrific scene,

To meet with, and greet with
My Davie or my Jean!

XI.

O, how that name inspires my style! The words come skelpin, rank and file,

Amaist before I ken!

The ready measure rins as fine
As Phoebus and the famous Nine
Were glowrin owre my pen.
My spaviet Pegasus will limp,
"Till ance he's fairly het;

And then he'll hilch, and stilt, and jimp,
An' rin an unco fit:

But lest then, the beast then,
Should rue this hasty ride,
I'll light now, and dight now
His sweaty, wizen'd hide.

66

["Among the earliest of his poems," says Gilbert Burns, was the Epistle to Davie. Robert often composed without any regular plan. When anything made a strong impression on his mind, so as to rouse it to any poetic exertion, he would give way to the impulse, and embody the thought in rhyme. If he hit on two or three stanzas to please him, he would then think of proper introductory, connecting, and concluding stanzas; hence the middle of a poem was often first produced. It was, I think, in the summer of 1784, when, in the interval of harder labour, Robert and I were weeding in the garden, that he repeated to me the principal part of this Epistle. I believe the first idea of Robert's becoming an author was started on this occasion. I was much pleased with the Epistle, and said to him I was of opinion it would bear being printed, and that it would be well received by people of taste; that I thought it at least equal, if not superior, to many of Allan Ramsay's epistles, and that the merit of these, and much other Scottish poetry, seemed to consist principally in the knack of the expression; but here, there was a strain of interesting sentiment, and the Scotticism of the language scarcely seemed affected, but appeared to be the natural language of the poet: that, besides, there was certainly some novelty in a poet pointing out the consolations that were in store for him when he should go a-begging.-Robert seemed well pleased with my criticism."

Nae thought, nae view, nae scheme o' livin',
Nae cares to gie us joy or grievin';
But just the pouchie put the nieve in,

An' while ought's there,

Then, hiltie, skiltie, we gae scrievin',
An' fash nae mair.

Leeze me on rhyme! its aye a treasure,
My chief, amaist, my only pleasure,
At hame, a-fiel', at wark, or leisure,

The Muse, poor hizzie! Tho' rough an' raploch be her measure, She's seldom lazy.

Haud to the Muse, my dainty Davie :
The warl' may play you mony a shavie;
But for the Muse, she'll never leave ye,
Tho' e'er sae puir,

Na, even though limpin' wi' the spavie
Frae door to door.

"David Sillar was, for some time, the chosen companion of Burns, and seems to have confided much to him in matters of love-making. The bard of Mossgiel accompanied his friend on one of his visits to the family of Mrs. Stewart, of Stair, and, as some of the lassies sung well, he gave them one or two of his songs. Mrs. Stewart, happened, by chance, to see one of these compositions, and was so much struck with its grace and tenderness that she desired to be told when the Author visited Stair again. It was in this way that his acquaintance with that accomplished lady began: and many years afterwards the Poet told Miss Stewart that, when requested to walk into the drawing-room, to be introduced to her mother, he suffered more than he would like to suffer again.-"Indeed," he said, "I endured such palpitation of heart as I never after experienced among

'Lords and ladies of high degree.'"'

As this introduction took place in 1784, Mrs. Stewart must be, hereafter, regarded as one of the first in Ayr-shire, above the Poet's rank in life, who perceived his genius and treated him with respect."-ALLAN CUNNINGHAM.

which were published in Kilmarnock, in the year 1789.

This poem has been ably illustrated by Mr. Thomas Landseer, accompanied with explanatory notes, many of them excellent, and displaying much critical acumen. We subjoin some of these :

STANZAS III. IV.-"This stanza and the following are not the only ones of the poem in which Burns has contrived to blend severe moral truths with glimpses of local scenery, and snatches of careless merriment. May we intreat the Southern reader, who has hitherto been deterred from perusing the poetry of Burns, by his provincialisms, to consider the powerful strain of true poetry which pervades this fourth

stanza?"

STANZA V. "This stanza is picturesque and full of interest. The variety of the detail is in good keeping with that garrulous minuteness which is the universal privilege of grandmothers. Would that all reverend 'grannies were, moreover, as poetical in their relations as this lady. It is at this part of the Address that we begin to recognise the master hand with which Burns has touched the scenery of the Highlands, the moors, the lochs, and mountains. The wild and lonely places, the unearthly noises, the bewildering mists, the yet more deceptive 'wild fires dancing o'er the heath; all of these are etchings, light, indeed, but touched with the fidelity of a keen and minute observer of nature." STANZAS VI. VII. VIII." In these stanzas, he has touched, with a nice and accurate pencil, one of those foibles common to our moral nature, which require the most delicate handling. He intimates, with mingled archness and simplicity, that the good old woman never suspected that the noises which she heard MIGHT be that hum of insects which she thought it so much resembled, above the waters of the loch, -or the motion of a frightened bird whirring through the elder bushes. This propensity to attribute natural effects to supernatural causes is one of the best known and least intelligible phænomena of the human mind. We are always rejecting the evidence of our senses, to tamper with the imaginary evidence supplied by analogous reasoning upon mere abstract principles. The good wife never dreamed of referring her alarms to the natural objects around her. A humming drone, at twilight, by the waters, a rustling in the leaves of the trees about her cottage-if these did not bespeak the presence of the Devil, what the d-1 else could they indicate?

"Thus our poet proceeds to tell us that, beyond the same loch, he himself had a visible encounter with something, LIKE, indeed, to a bush of rushes, waving and shaking in the wind; and, after an admirable description of the emotions of fear by which he was oppressed, he incidentally mentions that the Great Unknown did, certainly, with an abrupt and hasty flight take away like a drake; but even the appropriate note of the fluttering fowl never once awakened his suspicion that it might be a fowl proper, and not the foul fiend!"

STANZA XII.-"The disruption occasioned by a thaw, and the noise of the fragments of ice sliding over one another, are happily described here. No opportunity seems more fitting for the intervention of the mischievous Kelpies, whom our northern superstitions imagine to be delighted with the last agonies of drowning men and despairing mariners, than the uproar of waters and icy masses, the tides, and the winds,

E'en to a deil,

To skelp an' scaud poor dogs like me, An' hear us squeel !

III.

Great is thy power, an' great thy fame;
Far kenn'd and noted is thy name:
An' tho' yon lowin heugh's thy hame,
Thou travels far:

An', faith! thou's neither lag nor lame,
Nor blate nor scaur.

IV.

Whyles, ranging like a roaring lion,
For prey, a' holes an' corners tryin ;'
Whyles on the strong-wing'd tempest flyin'
Tirlin the kirks;

Whyles, in the human bosom pryin',

Unseen thou lurks.

all in angry collision, and the raging of the elements outroaring the delirious cries of human terror. It is not twenty years since the piercing shrieks and supplications for help, of a passage boat's company, which had been landed on a sandbank, at low water, in the Solway Firth, instead of on the Cumberland coast, and who found, as the moon rose and the haze dispersed, that they were in mid-channel, with a strong tide setting fast in upon them, were mistaken by the people, both on the Scotch and English shores, for the wailings of Kelpies! The consequence was that the unhappy people (whose boat had drifted from them before their fatal error was discovered) were all drowned; though nothing had been easier, but for the rooted superstition of their neighbours ashore, than to have effectually succoured them."

STANZAS XV. XVI.-"In these stanzas, the transition is so startling, and yet so beautiful, that we are reminded of those early Italian poets who delighted themselves and their readers by abrupt and striking alternations from the burlesque to the pathetic; from the heroic to the humorous; and the Ayr-shire bard has the decided advantage of accomplishing the same end with less apparent effort and premeditation than his gifted predecessors. Is it possible to condense within the compass of four or five lines a more charming sketch of an infant world, a newly created race of beings, a state of existence serene, blissful, and contented; a condition of society unalloyed by vice or misery, want or pain? And with how much effect does the delicious repose of this picture prepare us for the fatal reverse which follows, by the introduction of the fell destroyer who, maist ruin'd a'.'-Where the subject is felt so deeply, it is almost difficult to deprecate the tone, somewhat too light, in which the poet has chosen to

treat it."

STANZA XIX. "If the Catalogue of all the devil's doings could have been continued with equal fidelity and spirit, we might have regretted that this Address was not prolonged. But Burns formed a just estimate of the length and difficulty of such an undertaking. The reader ought to turn optimist, and acknowledge that all is for the best.""

STANZA XXI.-"There is about this parting admonition a touch of human pity, which was evidently the spontaneous ebullition, perhaps the unconscious one, of a kind and sympathising nature; for precisely such a nature was Burns's. The exhortation to amendment, the suggestion of a happier fate as the result of that amendment, and the commiseration expressed for the arch-enemy of man, present, in this stanza, a moral lesson which would not have disgraced a graver preacher, a holier theme, or a more solemn occasion."`

+ Spairges is the best Scots word in its place I ever met with. An Englishman can have no idea of the ludicrous image it conveys. The deil is not standing flinging the liquid brimstone on his friends with a ladle, but we see him standing at a large boiling vat, with something like a golfbat, striking the liquid this way and that way aslant, with all his might, making it fly through the whole apartment, while the inmates are winking and holding up their arms to defend their faces. This is precisely the idea conveyed by spairg. ing; flinging it in any other way would be laving or splashing.-THE ETTRICK SHEPHERD.

* [The mind of the Poet was stored with the superstitions contained in the ancient songs and traditions in Scotland. The way in which witch-knots operated on the fair sex is thus described in the ballad of "Willie's ladye" in the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border:

"Syne Willy's loosed the nine witch knots
That were amang that ladye's locks;

And Willy's ta'en out the kaims o' care

That were into that ladye's hair;

And he's ta'en down the bush o' woodbine

Hung atween her lover and the witch carline.

And he has kill'd the master kid

That ran beneath that ladye's bed;

When the best wark-lume i' the house,
By cantrip wit,

Is instant made no worth a louse,
Just at the bit.

XII.

When thowes dissolve the snawy hoord,
An' float the jinglin icy-boord,
Then water-kelpies haunt the foord,
By your direction;

An 'nighted trav❜llers are allur'd

To their destruction.

XIII.

An' aft your moss-traversing spunkies Decoy the wight that late an' drunk is: The bleezin, curst, mischievous monkeys Delude his eyes,

Till in some miry slough he sunk is, Ne'er mair to rise..

XIV.

When masons' mystic word an' grip
In storms an' tempests raise you up,
Some cock or cat your rage maun stop,
Or, strange to tell!
The youngest brother ye wad whip
Aff straught to hell!

XV.

Lang syne, in Eden's bonnie yard,
When youthfu' lovers first were pair'd,
An' all the soul of love they shar'd,
The raptur'd hour,
Sweet on the fragrant, flow'ry sward,
In shady bow'r:†

XVI.

Then you, ye auld, snec-drawing dog! Ye came to Paradise incog.,

An' play'd on man a cursed brogue,

(Black be your fa'!)

An' gied the infant warld a shog,

Maist ruin'd a'.

XVII.

D'ye mind that day, when in a bizz, Wi' reekit duds, an' reestit gizz,

And he has loosed her left foot shee (shoe),
And latten that ladye lighter be;
And now he has gotten a bonny son,
And meikle grace be him upon."]

†This verse ran originally thus :

Lang syne in Eden's happy scene,
When strappin' Adam's days were green,
And Eve was like my bonnie Jean,
My dearest part,
A dancin', sweet, young, handsome quean,
Wi' guileless heart.