I bless and praise Thy matchless might, A burning and a shining light What was I, or my generation, Sax thousand years ere my creation, When from my mither's womb I fell, Whare damned devils roar and yell, Yet I am here, a chosen sample, To show Thy grace is great and ample; A guide, a ruler, and example O Lord, Thou kens what zeal I bear, For I am keepit by Thy fear, But yet, O Lord, confess I must, But Thou remembers we are dust, Defiled wi' sin. Frae God's ain Priest the people's hearts He steals awa. And when we chasten'd him therefore, Thou kens how he bred sic a splore, And set the warld in a roar O' laughin at us: Curse Thou his basket and his store, Lord, hear my earnest cry and pray'r Thy strong right hand, Lord, mak it bare Lord, visit them, an' dinna spare, For their misdeeds! O Lord, my God! that glib-tongu'd Aiken, My vera heart and flesh are quakin To think how we stood sweatin, shakin, An' pish'd wi' dread, While he, wi' hingin lip an' snakin, Held up his head. Lord, in Thy day o' vengeance try him! Lord, visit them wha did employ him! And pass not in Thy mercy by them, Nor hear their pray'r, But for Thy people's sake destroy them, An' dinna spare! But, Lord, remember me and mine Wi' mercies temporal and divine, And a' the glory shall be Thine, Amen! Amen! row do not sneering This satire on election and other Calvinistic doctrines was thus annotated by Burns: Holy Willie [William Fisher] was a rather oldish bachelor elder, in the parish of Mauchline, and much and justly famed for that polemical chattering which ends in tippling orthodoxy, and for that spiritualised bawdry which refines to liquorish devotion. In a sessional process with a gentleman of Mauchline-a Mr Gavin Hamilton-Holy Willie and his priest, Father Auld, after full hearing in the presbytery of Ayr, came off but second best; owing partly to the oratorical powers of Mr Robert Aiken, Mr Hamilton's counsel, but chiefly to Mr Hamilton's being one of the most irreproachable and truly respectable characters in the country. On losing his process, the Muse overheard him at his devotions, as follows.' The 'sessional process' occurred in 1785, Hamilton's offence being neglect of ordinances and violation of the Sabbath. Doubtless Burns believed too much evil of Fisher. To a Mouse, on turning her up in her nest with the plough, November 1785. Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie, I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee, I'm truly sorry Man's dominion Which makes thee startle At me, thy poor, earth-born companion sleek hurrying haste loath plough-staff Green grow the rashes, O; The sweetest hours that e'er I spend, There's nought but care on ev'ry han', An' 'twere na for the lasses, O? The war'ly race may riches chase, An' riches still may fly them, O; But gie me a cannie hour at e'en, An' war'ly cares, an' war'ly men, rest build moss sharp rushes If it were not worldly quiet To a Mountain Daisy, on turning one down with To spare thee now is past my pow'r, Alas! it's no thy neebor sweet, Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet! When upward-springing, blythe, to greet Cauld blew the bitter-biting North Upon thy early, humble birth; Scarce rear'd above the parent-earth The flaunting flow'rs our gardens yield, must-dust High shelt'ring woods and wa's maun shield; Adorns the histie stibble-field, Unseen, alane. There, in thy scanty mantle clad, Thou lifts thy unassuming head But now the share uptears thy bed, Such is the fate of artless maid, Sweet flow'ret of the rural shade! By love's simplicity betray'd, And guileless trust, Till she, like thee, all soil'd, is laid Low i' the dust. Such is the fate of simple Bard, On Life's rough ocean luckless starr'd! Unskilful he to note the card Of prudent Lore, Till billows rage, and gales blow hard, And whelm him o'er! wet speckled happy walls -must shelter bare-stubble Such fate to suffering Worth is giv'n, To mis'ry's brink; Till, wrench'd of ev'ry stay but Heav'n, He, ruin'd, sink! Ev'n thou who mourn'st the Daisy's fate, That fate is thine-no distant date; Full on thy bloom, Till crush'd beneath the furrow's weight Shall be thy doom! M'Pherson's Farewell. Chorus-Sae rantingly, sae wantonly, Sae dauntingly gaed he; He play'd a spring, and danc'd it round Farewell, ye dungeons dark and strong, The wretch's destinie! M'Pherson's time will not be long On yonder gallows-tree. O, what is death but parting breath? On many a bloody plain I've dar'd his face, and in this place Untie these bands from off my hands, I've liv'd a life of sturt and strife; I die by treacherie : It burns my heart I must depart, And not avenged be. Now farewell, light, thou sunshine bright, And all beneath the sky! May coward shame disdain his name, The wretch that dares not die ! trouble For a' that, and a' that, His ribband, star, and a' that; The man of independent mind, He looks and laughs at a' that. A prince can mak a belted knight, A marquis, duke, and a' that; But an honest man's aboon his might Guid faith, he mauna fa' that! For a' that, and a' that, Their dignities, and a' that; The pith o' sense and pride o' worth Then let us pray that come it may, above must not-claim As come it will for a' thatThat Sense and Worth, o'er a' the earth, Shall bear the gree, and a' that! For a' that, and a' that, It's comin' yet for a' that, Sent to Thomson in January 1795. have first place corps. lawless; vagrant orgie spare rags Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose, Fu' sweet upon its thorny tree! And my fause luver staw my rose false lover stole Written for the Musical Museum, and published in vol. iv., 1792. It is the best of four sets of verses on the river Doon. Ae night at e'en a merry core O' randie, gangrel bodies Wi' quaffing and laughing First, niest the fire, in auld red rags, And knapsack a' in order; baking-plate next sweetheart whisky leered gives-tipsy another-sounding And show my cuts and scars wherever I come : Lal de daudle, &c. My prenticeship I past where my leader breath'd his last, When the bloody die was cast on the heights of Abram : And I served out my trade when the gallant game was play'd, And the Moro low was laid at the sound of the drum. I lastly was with Curtis among the floating batt❜ries, And now tho' I must beg, with a wooden arm and leg, What tho', with hoary locks, I must stand the winter shocks, With the ready trick and fable Round we wander all the day; We regard not how it goes; Here's to budgets, bags and wallets! One and all, cry out, Amen! 'This puissant and splendid production,' as Matthew Arnold called it, is believed to have been inspired by a visit of the poet to a lodging-house for beggars kept in Mauchline by Poosie Nansie, otherwise Agnes Ronald, wife of George Gibson, previously convicted by the kirk session of resetting stolen goods. It was written during the Mossgiel period, but was not published during Burns's lifetime. The Rigs o' Barley. Chorus-Corn rigs, an' barley rigs, An' corn rigs are bonie : It was upon a Lammas night, The time flew by, wi' tentless heed; The sky was blue, the wind was still, The moon was shining clearly; I set her down, wi' right good will, I ken't her heart was a' my ain; I kiss'd her owre and owre again, I lock'd her in my fond embrace; I hae been blythe wi' comrades dear; I hae been joyfu' gath'rin gear; I hae been happy thinking: But a' the pleasures e'er I saw, Tho' three times doubl'd fairly ridges took my way careless over happy money-making That happy night was worth them a', This song was declared by Burns to have been composed before his twenty-third year. Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee, We had ne'er been broken-hearted. Fare-thee-weel, thou first and fairest ! Sent to Clarinda, 27th December 1791. One pledge Editions, biographies, and estimates of Burns are innumerable. The most notable editions of the poems alone are the Kilmarnock (1786), Edinburgh (1787), London (1787), Edinburgh and London (1793), Centenary Edition by W. E. Henley and T. F. Henderson in 1896. The chief editions with Life and Letters are those of Currie (1800), Allan Cunningham (1834), W. Scott Douglas (1882), and Robert Chambers (1851; revised by present writer in 1896). The best Biography pure and simple is that of Lockhart (1828). The most famous Essays are those of John Wilson (collected works, 1858), Thomas Carlyle (1831), and R. Louis Stevenson (1882). WILLIAM WALLACE. Richard Gall (1776-1801) was born near Dunbar, and whilst employed as a printer in Edinburgh, threw off some Scottish songs that became favourites. A 'Farewell to Ayrshire' and one or two more were printed as by Burns; the best-known, 'My only jo and dearie,' is rather in Tannahill's manner. One verse runs : The birdie sings upon the thorn Nae care to mak it eerie O; Lady Nairne (1766-1845), though she lived to near the middle of the nineteenth century, was born but seven years after Burns, and was writing verses in 1792. Carolina Oliphant, born at the 'auld house' of Gask in Perthshire, was the third daughter of its Jacobite laird. In 1806 she married her second cousin, Major William Murray Nairne (1757-1830), who in 1824, on the restoration of the attainted Scottish peerages, became the sixth Lord Nairne; to him she bore one son, William (1808-37). They settled near Edinburgh, and after her husband's death the Baroness Nairne lived for three years in Ireland, then for nine on the Continent, returning at last to the new house of Gask-the old one had been pulled down in 1801. Her eighty-seven songs appeared first under the pseudonym Mrs Bogan of Bogan' or 'B. B.' in The Scottish Minstrel (1821-24), and posthumously under her own name as Lays from Strathearn. Her songs show, in the poetic-reminiscence stage, the family Jacobitism; but no Jacobite in his own day ever concealed his colours with more jealous care and elaborate pains than all her life long Lady Nairne did her authorship. Not a few of her songs are substantially recastings and adaptations of old popular favourites in the tone of which there was something to disapprove. But some of them-including a few incorporating old fragments are pure inspirations, true and all but perfect lyrics, in poetic worth coming nearest to Burns's best; as many as eight or ten of them live in the hearts of the Scottish people with the airs to which they are wedded the exquisite 'Land o' the Leal' (c. 1798) and 'Caller Herrin',' 'The Laird o' Cockpen,' 'The Auld House,' 'The Rowan Tree,' 'The Hundred Pipers,' 'He's owre the hills that I lo'e weel,' 'Will ye no come back again?' and 'Charlie is my Darling'-a list which indicates the variety of the notes she struck. The last two, though there were older songs with the same title and to the same general purpose, have completely superseded the other versions. 'Farewell, Edinburgh,' is also well known in Scotland; and 'Would you be young again' reveals the characteristic temper of Lady Nairne's later years. Her Jacobitism, like Burns's, Scott's, Hogg's, and that of the writers of almost all the best-known Jacobite songs, was historical, sentimental, poetical, and entirely consistent with the most perfect loyalty to the reigning House; Queen Victoria had no more faithful subject than this beloved and idealised champion of Prince Charlie's claims on romantic affection, who took a lively interest in Christian missions, in church extension, and in all philanthropic schemes. It should be added that in the songs the words often convey quite obviously the thoughts of a lady born, not of colliers or fishwives, and the Scotch is the Scotch of one bred to speak and write English habitually. Angels do not beckon in Scotch; dwell and well rhyme conveniently in 'The Laird o' Cockpen,' but should be dwall and |