made too free with the money of the poor. His end was any thing but godly: he drank more than was proper during one of his visits to Mauchline, and was found dead in a ditch on his way to his own house. It is related, by John Richmond of Mauchline, that when he was a clerk in Gavin Hamilton's office, Burns came in one morning and said, "I have just been making a poem, and if you will write it, John, I'll repeat it." He accordingly, to Richmond's surprise, repeated "Holy Willie's Prayer:" Hamilton came in, read it, and ran laughing with it to Robert Aiken-and the latter was delighted.-A. C.] The Inventory. IN ANSWER TO A MANDATE BY THE SIR, as your mandate did request, Imprimis, then, for carriage cattle, your My lan'-afore's a gude auld has-been, Wheel carriages I ha'e but few, For men, I've three mischievous boys, Run-de'ils for rantin' an' for noise; The foremost-horse on the left-hand in the plough. R. B. †The hindmost-horse on the left-hand in the plough. R. B. Kilmarnock. R. B. § The hindmost horse on the right-hand in the plough. R.B, "What is Effectual Calling?" A leading question in A gaudsman ane, a thrasher t'other. I've nane in female servan' station, And now, remember, Mr. Aiken, This list wi' my ain hand I've wrote it, Mossgiel, February 22, 1786. "The Inventory' was written in answer to a mandate sent by Mr. Aiken of Ayr, the surveyor of the windows, carriages, &c., for the district, to each farmer, ordering him to send a signed list of his horses, servants, wheel-carriages, &c., and to state whether he was a married man or a bachelor, and also the number of his children. The poem is chiefly remarkable for the information it gives concerning the farm, the household, and the habits of Burns. Mossgiel lies about a mile distant from Mauchline; the cultivation has not prevailed against the cold clay-bottom, which, with untimely rains, brought the shorter catechism of the Westminster Assembly of Divines generally used in Scotland. A child born to the Poet by a young woman of the name of Elizabeth Paton, servant to the Poet's mother at Mossgiel. She grew up extremely like her father, and became the wite of Mr. John Bishop, overseer at Polkemmet in Linlithgowshire, and died there, December 8, 1817. ruin to the Poet's labours: it is more suitable for grazing than cropping, and at this period produces excellent cheese. "Mauchline is a parish town of above a thousand inhabitants; in ancient times, it was the seat of a priory belonging to Melrose, but now differs in no respect from a common agricultural village. It is situated upon a slope ascending from the margin of the Ayr, from which it is about two miles distant. One might at first suppose that a rustic population, like that of Mauchline, would form but a poor field for the descriptive and practical genius of Burns. It is wondrous, however, how variously original many of the inhabitants of the most ordinary Scottish villages will contrive to be. In a small town the character of every man is well known; so that every thing he says or does appears to his fellows as characteristic."-CHAMBERS. Adam A――'s Prayer. GUDE pity me, because I'm little, Yet scarce as lang's a guid kail whittle, And now thou kens our wofu' case, For which we daurna show our face Within the clachan. And now we're dern'd in glens and hollows, But Gude preserve us frae the gallows, Auld grim black-bearded Geordie's sel', And if he offers to rebel, Just heave him in. * [" Jurr" is in the west of Scotland a colloquial term for journeyman," and is often applied to designate a servant of either sex. The circumstances here alluded to were as follows:-A certain Mauchline innkeeper, named George, had a female servant whe had been too indulgent to one of her master's male customers. This brought her into such odium in the village that a number of reckless young persons, among whom Adam A-, an ill-made little fellow, was a ringleader, violently 'rade the stang' upon her; that is, placed her astride upon a rantletree, or other wooden pole, and in this woeful plight unfeelingly carried the poor girl through the town, by which means she sustained much personal skaith as well as scorn. The girl's master and mistress highly resented this lawless outrage, and raised an action at law against the principals, which occasioned Adam A-to absconi. While skulking under hiding, Burns met him, and, knowing his situation, said, "Adam, puir fallow, ye wad need somebody to pray for you;" to which Adam rejoined, When death comes in, wi' glimmering blink, Aud fill her up wi' brimstone drink There's Jockie and the hav'rel Jenny, Straught through the lake, As for the Jurr, poor worthless body, But may she wintle in a woodie, The Holy Fair. A robe of seeming truth and trust And secret hung, with poison'd crust, A mask that like the gorget show'd, And for a mantle large and broad, HYPOCRISY A-LA-MODE. I. UPON || a simmer Sunday morn, II. As lightsomely I glow'r'd abroad, "Just do't yoursel', Burns, I know no one so fit." The Geordie's son and daughter. Holy Fair is a common phrase in the west of Scotland for a Sacramental occasion.-R. B. ["These annual celebrations, says Heron, "had much in them of those old popish festivals, in which superstition, traffic, and amusement, used to be strangely intermingled." Encouraged by the roar of applause' which greeted these pieces, thus orally promulgated and recommended, Burns produced in succession various satires wherein the same set of persons were lashed; as The Ordination; The Kirk's Alarm, &c. &c.; and last, and best undoubtedly, The Holy Fair."-LOCKHART.] I. VAR. "Twas on. -MS. The adjoining parish to Mauchline. Now a' the congregation o'er Is silent expectation: She was the daughter of Poosie Nansie,' who figures in # VAR. Wi' mercy-beggin.'-MS. $ VAR Sawnies.-[Moodie was the minister of Riccarton, and one of the heroes of The Twa Herds. He was a neverfailing assistant at the Mauchline sacraments. His personal appearance and style of oratory were exactly such as described by the poet. He dwelt chiefly on the terrors of the law, On one occasion, he told the audience that they would find the text in John viii. 44, but it was so applicable to ther case, that there was no need of his reading it to them. The verse begins, "Ye are of your father the Devil."] ["Originally printed salvation' in the first edition of the author's poems, but altered as above in the second, at In guid time comes an antidote An' meek an' mim has view'd it, the suggestion of Dr. Blair, who expressed a very high opinion of this Poem."] VAR. TO H-Il wi' speed.-MS. VAR. Geordie begins.-MS. Mr. (afterwards Dr) George Smith, minister of Galston-the same whom the poet introduces, in a different feeling, under the appellation of Irvine-side, in The Kirk's Alarm. Burns meant on this occasion to compliment him on his rational mode of preaching, but the reverend divine regarded the stanza as satirical. VAR. It's no nae Gospel truth divine To cant o' sense an' reason. -MS. The Rev. Mr. (afterwards Dr.) William Peebles, minister of Newton-upon-Ayr, and the moving hand in the prosecution of Dr. M'Gill, on which account he is introduced into The Kirk's Alarm. He was in great favour at Ayr among the orthodox party, though much inferior in ability to the heterodox ministers of that ancient burgh. Robert Hamilton, a crack-pated pauper, who lived long in Ayr, and amused every body by his droll sayings, one day thus addressed a citizen, in the hearing of one of these heretical gentlemen: "I dreamt yestreen I was dead, and at the door o' heaven; and whan I knockit at the door, Peter said, 'Wha's there? 'It's ine, Mr. Robert Hamilton.' 'Whare d'ye come frae ?' But now the L-d's ain trumpet touts, 'Frae the toon o' Ayr.' 'Get awa wi' ye! Ye canna get in here. There has nane been admitted frae that toon this twa hunner year.' Whan I gang back, I'll say I'm come frae Prestwick, or the Newton." Meaning, in the latter case, that he would have the benefit of the reputation of Mr. Peebles's ministrations. Dr. Mackenzie, then of Mauchline, afterwards of Irvine, had recently conducted some village controversy under the title of Common Sense. Some local commentators are of opinion that he, and not the personified abstraction, is meant. A street so called which faces the tent in Mauchline.-R. B. The same street in which Jean Armour lived. ** The Rev. Mr. Miller, afterwards minister of Kilmaurs. He was of remarkably low stature, but enormous girth. Burns believed him at the time to lean at heart to the moderate party. This stanza, virtually the most depreciatory in the whole poem, is said to have retarded Miller's advance ment. tt VAR.-The lads an' lasses blythely bent, Sit round the table, weel content, [The Rev. John Russell, at this time minister of the His piercing words, like Highlan' swords, His talk o' Hell, whare devils dwell; XXII. A vast, unbottom'd, boundless pit, An' think they hear it roarin', XXIII. "Twad be owre lang a tale to tell, An' how they crowded to the yill, How drink gaed round, in cogs an' caups,† An' cheese an' bread, frae women's laps, An' dawds that day. XXIV. In comes a gaucie, gash guidwife, Synet draws her kebbuck an' her knife; Till some ane by his bonnet lays, Fu' lang that day. chapel of ease, Kilmarnock, afterwards minister of Stirling -one of the heroes of The Twa Herds. A correspondent says, "He was the most tremendous man I ever saw: Black Hugh Macpherson was a beauty in comparison. His voice was like thunder, and his sentiments were such as must have shocked any class of hearers in the least more refined than those whom he usually addressed."] ["Russel came from Moray; he obtained the school of Cromarty, was no favourite with the scholars, and was one of those who mistake severity for duty. He was a large, robust, dark-complexioned man, imperturbably grave, fierce of temper, and had a stern expression of countenance, It is said that a lady, who had been one of his pupils, actually fainted when she heard him, many years afterwards, speak of transgressions from the pulpit, One of his boys, who usually carried the key of the school in his pocket, happened to lose it one day, and got such a flogging that, when he grew up to be a man, in all cases of mental perturbation and misery, he groped in his pocket, as he did on that fatal morning for the key. He became popular as a preacher; his manner was strong and energetic; the severity of his temper was a sort of genius to him while he described, which he loved to do, the tortures of the wicked in a future state. He printed some of his sermons: they are of a controversial nature, and written in a bold, rough style, and fitter to be listened to than read. He set himself against sabbath-breaking; and used to take his stand at one of the streets leading from the town, and turn transgressors back by the shoulders. "It was not an unwelcome call to some of the citizens, which took Russell from Cromarty to a chapel of ease in Kilmarnock. A native of Cromarty, who happened to be at that time in the west of Scotland, walked to Mauchline, to hear his old schoolmaster preach at the Sacrament: this was / VAR" How yill gaed round in jugs an' caups."-MS. VAR.-"Then Robin Gib, wi' weary jow, |