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VERSICLES.

EXCISEMEN UNIVERSAL.

WRITTEN ON A WINDOW.1

Ye men of wit and wealth, why all this sneering
'Gainst poor excisemen? give the cause a hearing.
What are your landlords' rent-rolls? teasing ledgers:
What premiers-what? even monarchs' mighty gaugers:
Nay, what are priests, those seeming godly wise men?
What are they, pray, but spiritual excisemen?

ON A GROTTO IN FRIARS' CARSE GROUNDS.
To Riddel, much-lamented man,
This ivied cot was dear;
Reader, dost value matchless worth?
This ivied cot revere.

ON A NOTED COXCOMB.

Light lay the earth on Billy's breast,
His chicken heart's so tender;

But build a castle on his head,
His skull will prop it under.

ON COMMISSARY GOLDIE'S BRAINS.

Lord, to account who dares thee call,
Or e'er dispute thy pleasure?
Else why within so thick a wall
Enclose so poor a treasure?2

245

EPITAPH ON MR GABRIEL RICHARDSON, BREWER, DUMFRIES.3

Here brewer Gabriel's fire's extinct,

And empty all his barrels ;

He's blest if as he brewed he drink,
In upright honest morals.

1 In the King's Arms Inn, Dumfries, in consequence of overhearing a gentleman speak despitefully of the officers of Excise.

2 From a blank leaf of a copy of Burns's works, in possession of Mrs Lindsay, 48 Albany Street, Edinburgh.

3 Father of Sir John Richardson, the arctic traveller.

ON JOHN BUSHBY, WRITER, DUMFRIES.

Here lies John Bushby, honest man!
Cheat him, devil, if you can.

TO MISS JESSY LEWARS.

WITH A PRESENT OF BOOKS.

Thine be the volumes, Jessy fair,
And with them take the Poet's prayer-
That Fate may in her fairest page,
With every kindliest, best presage
Of future bliss, enrol thy name:
With native worth, and spotless fame,
And wakeful caution still aware
Of ill-but chief, man's felon snare ;
All blameless joys on earth we find,
And all the treasures of the mind-
These be thy guardian and reward;
So prays thy faithful friend, the Bard.

THE EARL OF GALLOWAY.

Burns had an antipathy of old-standing towards the Earl of Galloway. It was against him that he launched invectives when Mr Syme pointed to Garlies House, across the Bay of Wigton, in the course of their excursion in July 1793. There is a string of epigrams which the irascible bard launched at this respectable nobleman, with of course no other effect than to make moderate-minded men lament his own subordination of judgment to spleen.

What dost thou in that mansion fair ?—

Flit, Galloway, and find

Some narrow, dirty, dungeon cave,

The picture of thy mind!

No Stewart art thou, Galloway,
The Stewarts all were brave;
Besides, the Stewarts were but fools,
Not one of them a knave.

VERSICLES.

Bright ran thy line, O Galloway,
Through many a far-famed sire!
So ran the far-famed Roman way,
So ended in a mire.

247

On being informed [misinformed?] that the earl threatened him with his resentment

Spare me thy vengeance, Galloway;

In quiet let me live:

I ask no kindness at thy hand,

For thou hast none to give.

It may be curious to contrast with these ungracious and substantially unjust quatrains, the newspaper character of the earl at his death in 1806. 'His loss will be extensively and deeply felt; his numerous friends and connections profited by his advice and assistance; his active frame and mind he never spared; he did nothing by halves. As a husband and father, he was exemplary; as a friend, indefatigable; he adored the Supreme Being; he loved his king; his affairs prospered. He was admired for his taste in music; and had great skill in agricultural pursuits.' For once, a friendly obituary notice may be accepted in evidence; it was at least nearer the truth than Burns's election lampoons and epigrams.

SONGS OF WHICH THE DATE IS NOT KNOWN.

CALEDONIA.

TUNE-Caledonian Hunt's Delight.

There was once a day-but old Time then was young-
That brave Caledonia, the chief of her line,
From some of your northern deities sprung

(Who knows not that brave Caledonia's divine?) From Tweed to the Orcades was her domain,

To hunt, or to pasture, or do what she would: Her heavenly relations there fixed her reign,

And pledged her their godheads to warrant it good.

A lambkin in peace, but a lion in war,

The pride of her kindred the heroine grew: Her grandsire, old Odin, triumphantly swore,

'Whoe'er shall provoke thee, th' encounter shall rue!' With tillage or pasture at times she would sport, To feed her fair flocks by her green rustling corn;

But chiefly the woods were her fav'rite resort,

Her darling amusement the hounds and the horn.

Long quiet she reigned; till thitherward steers
A flight of bold eagles from Adria's strand:
Repeated, successive, for many long years,

They darkened the air, and they plundered the land;
Their pounces were murder, and terror their cry,
They'd conquered and ruined a world beside;
She took to her hills, and her arrows let fly-
The daring invaders they fled or they died.

The fell harpy-raven took wing from the north,
The scourge of the seas, and the dread of the shore;
The wild Scandinavian boar issued forth

To wanton in carnage, and wallow in gore:
O'er countries and kingdoms their fury prevailed,
No arts could appease them, no arms could repel;
But brave Caledonia in vain they assailed,

As Largs well can witness, and Loncartie tell.

SONGS OF WHICH DATE IS NOT KNOWN.

The Cameleon-savage disturbed her repose,
With tumult, disquiet, rebellion, and strife;
Provoked beyond bearing, at last she arose,

And robbed him at once of his hopes and his life:
The Anglian lion, the terror of France,

Oft prowling, ensanguined the Tweed's silver flood: But, taught by the bright Caledonian lance,

He learned to fear in his own native wood.

Thus bold, independent, unconquered, and free,
Her bright course of glory for ever shall run:
For brave Caledonia immortal must be ;

I'll prove it from Euclid as clear as the sun :
Rectangle-triangle the figure we'll choose,

The upright is Chance, and old Time is the base; But brave Caledonia's the hypothenuse;

Then ergo, she'll match them, and match them always.

O WHA IS SHE THAT LOES ME?

TUNE-Morag.

O wha is she that loes me,
And has my heart a keeping?
O sweet is she that loes me,
As dews o' simmer weeping,
In tears the rose-buds steeping!
O that's the lassie o' my heart,
My lassie ever dearer ;
O that's the queen o' womankind,
And ne'er a ane to peer her.

If thou shalt meet a lassie

In grace and beauty charming,
That e'en thy chosen lassie,

Erewhile thy breast sae warming,
Had ne'er sic powers alarming;
O that's the lassie, &c.

If thou hadst heard her talking,
And thy attentions plighted,

That ilka body talking,
But her by thee is slighted,
And thou art all delighted;

O that's the lassie, &c.

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