The fourth, a Highland Donald hastie,
A d-d red-wud, Kilburnie blastie ;
Foreby a Cowte, o' Cowtes the wale,
As ever ran afore a tail;

If he be spar'd to be a beast,
He'll draw me fifteen pund at least.-
Wheel carriages I ha'e but few,
Three carts, an' twa are feckly new;
Ae auld wheelbarrow, mair for token,
Ae leg an' baith the trams are broken;
I made a poker o' the spindle,
An' my auld mither brunt the trindle.
For men, I've three mischievous boys,
Run-de'ils for rantin' an' for noise;
A gaudsman' ane, a thrasher t'other,
Wee Davoc hauds the nowte in fother.2
I rule them, as I ought, discreetly,
An' aften labour them completely.
An' ay on Sundays duly, nightly,
I on the questions targe them tightly;
Till faith, wee Davoc's turn'd sae gleg,
Tho' scarcely langer than your leg,
He'll screed you aff Effectual Calling,
As fast as ony in the dwalling.-

I've nane in female servan' station,
(Lord keep me ay frae a' temptation!)
I ha'e nae wife; and that my bliss is,
An' ye ha'e laid nae tax on misses;
An' then if kirk folks dinna clutch me,
I ken the devils darena touch me.
Wi' weans I'm mair than weel contented,
Heav'n sent me ane mae than I wanted.
My sonsie, smirking, dear-bought Bess,
She stares the daddy in her face,
Enough of ought ye like but grace.
But her, my bonny sweet wee lady,
I've paid enough for her already,
An' gin ye tax her or her mither,
B' the L-d! ye'se get them a' thegither.
And now, remember, Mr. Aiken,
Nae kind of license out I'm takin';
Frae this time forth, I do declare,
I'se ne'er ride horse nor hizzie mair;
Thro' dirt and dub for life I'll paidle,
Ere I sae dear pay for a saddle;

1 Plough-driver.

2 Black cattle in fodder.

My travel a' on foot I'll shank it,
I've sturdy bearers, Gude be thankit !—
The Kirk an' you may tak' you that,
It puts but little in your pat;1
Sae dinna put me in your buke,
Nor for my ten white shillings luke.
This list wi' my ain han' I wrote it,
Day an' date as under notit :

Then know all ye whom it concerns,
Subscripsi huic,

Mossgiel, February 22nd, 1786.

ROBERT BUrns.

THE WHISTLE.2

A BALLAD.

I SING of a Whistle, a Whistle of worth,
I sing of a Whistle, the pride of the North,

1 Pot.

2 "The highest gentry of the county," writes Mr. J. G. Lockhart, "whenever they had especial merriment in view, called in the wit and eloquence of Burns to enliven their carousals. The famous song of The Whistle of Worth' commemorates a scene of this kind, more picturesque in some of its circumstances than every day occurred, yet strictly in character with the usual tenor of life among this jovial squirearchy. These gentlemen, of ancient descent, had met to determine, by a solemn drinking match, who should possess the Whistle, which a common ancestor of them all had earned ages before in a Bacchanalian contest of the same sort with a noble toper from Denmark; and the poet was summoned to watch over and celebrate the issue of the debate." "The following is Burns' description of the prize and the struggle. He seems, however, to have fallen into some error as to the date:"As the authentic prose history of the Whistle is curious, I shall here give it. In the train of Anne of Denmark, when she came to Scotland with our James the Sixth, there came over also a Danish gentleman of gigantic stature and great prowess, and a matchless champion of Bacchus. He had a little ebony Whistle, which at the commencement of the orgies he laid on the table, and whoever was last able to blow it, everybody else being disabled by the potency of the bottle, was to carry off the Whistle as a trophy of victory. The Dane produced credentials of his victories, without a single defeat, at the courts of Copenhagen, Stockholm, Moscow, Warsaw, and several of the petty courts in Germany; and challenged the Scots Bacchanalians to the alternative of trying his prowess, or else of acknowledging their inferiority. -After many overthrows on the part of the Scots, the Dane was encountered by Sir Robert Lowrie of Maxwelton, ancestor of the present worthy Baronet of that name, who, after three days and three nights' hard contest, left the Scandinavian under the table,

'And blew on the Whistle his requiem shrill.'

"Sir Walter, son to Sir Robert, before mentioned, afterwards lost the Whistle to Walter Riddel of Glenriddel, who had married a sister of Sir Walter. On Friday, the 16th October, 1790, at Friars-Carse, the Whistle was once more contended for, as related in the ballad, by the present Sir Robert Lowrie of Maxwelton; Robert Riddel, Esq., of Glenriddel, lineal descendant and representative of Walter Riddel, who won the Whistle, and in whose family it had continued; and Alexander Ferguson, Esq., of Craigdarroch, likewise descended of the great Sir Robert, which last gentle. man carried off the hard-won honours of the field."

Was brought to the court of our good Scottish king, And long with this Whistle all Scotland shall ring.

Old Loda,1 still rueing the arm of Fingal,

The god of the bottle sends down from his hall—
"This Whistle's your challenge, in Scotland get o'er,
And drink them to hell, Sir, or ne'er see me more!”

Old poets have sung, and old chronicles tell,
What champions ventur'd, what champions fell;
The son of great Loda was conqueror still,
And blew on the Whistle his requiem shrill.

Till Robert, the lord of the Cairn and the Scaur,
Unmatch'd at the bottle, unconquer'd in war,
He drank his poor god-ship as deep as the sea,
No tide of the Baltic e'er drunker than he.

Thus Robert, victorious, the trophy has gain'd,
Which now in his house has for ages remain'd;
Till three noble chieftains, and all of his blood,
The jovial contest again have renew'd.

Three joyous good fellows, with hearts clear of flaw;
Craigdarroch, so famous for wit, worth, and law;
And trusty Glenriddel, so skill'd in old coins;
And gallant Sir Robert, deep-read in old wines.

Craigdarroch began with a tongue smooth as oil,
Desiring Glenriddel to yield up the spoil;

Or else he would muster the heads of the clan,
And once more, in claret, try which was the man.

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"By the gods of the ancients!" Glenriddel replies, "Before I surrender so glorious a prize,

I'll conjure the ghost of the great Rorie More, 2 And bumper his horn with him twenty times o'er."

Sir Robert, a soldier, no speech would pretend,
But he ne'er turn'd his back on his foe-or his friend,
Said, toss down the Whistle, the prize of the field,
And, knee-deep in claret, he'd die ere he'd yield.

To the board of Glenriddel our heroes repair,
So noted for drowning of sorrow and care;
But for wine and for welcome not more known to fame,
Than the sense, wit, and taste of a sweet lovely dame.

1 See Ossian's "Caric-thura."-R. B.

2 See Johnson's "Tour to the Hebrides."-R. B.

A bard was selected to witness the fray,
And tell future ages the feats of the day;
A bard who detested all sadness and spleen,
And wish'd that Parnassus a vineyard had been.

The dinner being over, the claret they ply,
And ev'ry new cork is a new spring of joy,
In the bands of old friendship and kindred so set,
And the bands grew the tighter the more they were
wet.

Gay Pleasure ran riot as bumpers ran o'er;

Bright Phoebus ne'er witness'd so joyous a core,
And vow'd that to leave them he was quite forlorn,
Till Cynthia hinted he'd see them next morn.

Six bottles a-piece had well wore out the night,
When gallant Sir Robert, to finish the fight,
Turn'd o'er in one bumper a bottle of red,
And swore 'twas the way that their ancestors did.

Then worthy Glenriddel, so cautious and sage,
No longer the warfare, ungodly, would wage;
A high-ruling elder to wallow in wine!

He left the foul business to folks less divine.

The gallant Sir Robert fought hard to the end;
But who can with Fate and quart bumpers contend?
Though Fate said, a hero should perish in light;
So uprose bright Phoebus-and down fell the knight.

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--

Next uprose our bard, like a prophet in drink:Craigdarroch, thou'lt soar when creation shall sink! But if thou would flourish immortal in rhyme,

Come-one bottle more-and have at the sublime!

66

'Thy line, that have struggled for Freedom with Bruce, Shall heroes and patriots ever produce:

So thine be the laurel, and mine be the bay ;
The field thou hast won, by yon bright god of day!"

SKETCH.

INSCRIBED TO THE RIGHT HON. C. J. FOX.

How Wisdom and Folly meet, mix, and unite;
How Virtue and Vice blend their black and their white;
How Genius, th' illustrious father of fiction,

Confounds rule and law, reconciles contradiction,

I sing,-If these mortals, the Critics, should bustle,
I care not, not I, let the Critics go whistle!

But now for a Patron, whose name and whose glory
At once may illustrate and honour my story.

Thou, first of our orators, first of our wits,

Yet whose parts and acquirements seem just lucky hits;
With knowledge so vast and with judgment so strong,
No man, with the half of 'em, e'er went far wrong;
With passions so potent, and fancies so bright,
No man with the half of 'em e'er went quite right;
A sorry, poor, misbegot son of the Muses,
For using thy name offers fifty excuses.

Good Lord, what is man! for as simple he looks,
Do but try to develope his hooks and his crooks,
With his depths and his shallows, his good and his evil,
All in all, he's a problem must puzzle the Devil.

On his one ruling Passion Sir Pope hugely labours, That, like th' old Hebrew walking switch, eats up itз neighbours:

Mankind are his show-box-a friend, would you know him?

Pull the string, Ruling Passion the picture will show him.

What pity, in rearing so beauteous a system,

One trifling particular, Truth, should have miss'd him! For, spite of his fine theoretic positions,

Mankind is a science defies definitions.

Some sort all our qualities each to its tribe,
And think Human-nature they truly describe ;

Have you found this, or t'other? there's more in the wind,

As by one drunken fellow his comrades you'll find.
But such is the flaw, or the depth of the plan,
In the make of the wonderful creature called Man,
No two virtues, whatever relation they claim,
Nor even two different shades of the same,
Though like as was ever twin brother to brother,
Possessing the one shall imply you've the other.

But truce with abstraction, and truce with a muse,
Whose rhymes you'll perhaps, Sir, ne'er deign to peruse;
Will leave
you your justings, your jars, and your quar-

rels,

Contending with Billy for proud-nodding laurels ?