Here's the font where Douglas Stane and mortar names; 1 A bitter allusion to Mr. Bushby. toad 2 This appears to have been retaliation for an epigram aunched by the Rev. Mr. Muirhead against Burns after the lection of last year. 8 Walter Sloan Lawrie of Redcastle. Lately used at C[aily] Christening Murray's] crimes. Here's the worth and wisdom They had been nearly lost. Here is Murray's fragments To get them aff his hands. Saw ye e'er sic troggin? Frae the banks o' Dee; Wha wants troggin Let him come to me! ▲ Copland, of Collieston. The Devil EPIGRAMS ON MISS LEWARS. 999 Dr. Currie says, “The sense of his poverty, and of the approaching distress of his infant family, pressed heavily on Burns as he lay on the bed of death; yet he alluded to his indigence, at times, with something approaching to his wonted gayety. 'What business,' said he to Dr. Maxwell, who attended him with the utmost zeal, 'has a physician to waste his time on me? I am a poor pigeon not worth plucking. Alas! I have not feathers enough upon me to carry me to my grave.' In even a gayer spirit, he would sometimes scribble verses of compliment to sweet young Jessy Lewars, as she tripped about on her missions of gentle charity from hall to kitchen and from kitchen to hall. His surgeon, Mr. Brown, one day brought in a long sheet, containing the particulars of a menagerie of wild beasts which he had just been visiting. As Mr. Brown was handing the sheet to Miss Lewars, Burns seized it, and wrote upon it a couple of verses with red chalk after which he handed it to Miss Lewars, saying that it was now fit to be presented to a lady. TALK not to me of savages From Afric's burning sun; No savage e'er could rend my heart, But Jessy's lovely hand in mine, Not even to view the heavenly choir On another occasion, while Miss Lewars was waiting upon him in his sick-chamber, he took up a crystal goblet containing wine and water, and after writing upon it the following verses, in the character of a Toast, presented it to her. Give the poet's darling flame, At this time of trouble, on Miss Lewars complaining of indisposition, he said, to provide for the worst, he would write her epitaph. He accordingly inscribed the following on another goblet, saying, “That will be a companion to the Toast." Say, sages, what's the charm on earth Can turn Death's dart aside? It is not purity and worth, Else Jessy had not died. On Miss Lewars recovering a little, the poet said "There is a poetic reason for it," and wrote the fol lowing. But rarely seen since Nature's birth, Yet still one seraph's left on earth, — FAIREST MAID ON DEVON BANKS. At this crisis a sad stroke fell upon Burns in the form of a letter from a Dumfries solicitor, urging payment of an account (now ascertained to have amounted to £7 4s.) due, or overdue, to a draper for his volunteer uniform. It was generally believed of this tradesman by his contemporaries, that he would never have harassed the poor poet for the debt. In Scotland, however, a letter from a writer is generally regarded as a menacing step on the part of a creditor; and so did it appear on the present occasion to Burns, whose mind was too gloomy and excitable to take calm views on any such matter. Under these circumstances, Burns thus wrote to Mr. Thomson: :- 1 The amiable Jessy Lewars, by marriage Mrs. James l'homson, spent the whole of her life in Dumfries, and died here in May, 1855. |