""Twas but yestreen, nae farther gaeni,

mawin,

Wi' less, I'm sure, I've hundreds slain; But deil-ma-care,

It just play'd dirl on the bane,

But did nae mair.

"Hornbook was by, wi' ready art, And had sae fortify'd the part,

An epidemical fever was then raging in that country.

†This gentleman, Dr. Hornbook, is professionally, a brother of the Sovereign Order of the Feruia; but, by intuition and inspiration, is at once an Apothecary Surgeon, and Physician.

Buchan's Domestic Medicine.

shrill,

Or deep-ton'd, plovers, gray, wild-whistling o'er the hill;

Shall he, nurst in the peasant's lowly shed,
To hardy Independence bravely bred,
By early Poverty to hardship steel'd,
And train'd to arms in stern Misfortune's field,
Shall he be guilty of their hireling crimes,
The servile mercenary Swiss of rhymes?
Or labour hard the panegyric close,
With all the venal soul of dedicating Prose?
No! though his artless strains he rudely sings,
And throws his hand uncouthly o'er the
strings,

He glows with all the spirit of the Bard,
Fame, honest fame, his great, his dear reward.
Still, if some Patron's gen'rous care he trace,
Skill'd in the secret, to bestow with grace;
When B********* befriends his humble

To witness what I after shall narrate;
Or whether, rapt in meditation high,
He wander'd out he knew not where nor
why :)

The drowsy Dungeon-clock* had number'd two, And Wallace Tower had sworn the fact was true.

The tide-swoln Firth with sullen sounding

roar,

Through the still night dash'd hoarse along the shore :

All else was hush'd as Nature's closed e'e; The silent moon shone high o'er tower and

tree:

The chilly frost, beneath the silver beam, Crept, gently crusting, o'er the glittering

stream.

When, lo! on either hand the hist'ning Bard, The clanging sugh of whistling wings is heard ;

Two dusky forms dart thro' the midnight air, Swift as the Gost drives on the wheeling hare;

Ane on th' Auld Brig his airy shape uprears,
The ither flutters o'er the rising piers:
Our warlock Rhymer instantly descry'd
The Sprites that owre the Brigs of Ayr pre-
side.

(That Bards are second-sighted is nae joke,
And ken the lingo of the spiritual fo'k;
Fays, Spunkies, Kelpies, a', they can explain
them,)

And ev'n the very deils they brawly ken them.)

Auld Brig appear'd of ancient Pictish race,
The vera wrinkles Gothic in his face

He seem'd as he wi' Time had warstl'd lang,
Yet teughly doure, he bade an unco bang.
New Brig was buskit in a braw new coat,
That he, at Lon'on, frae ane Adams, got;
In's hand five taper staves as smooth's a
bead,

Wi' virls and whirlygigums at the head.
The Goth was stalking round with anxious

search,

Spying the time-worn flaws in ev'ry arch;
It chanc'd his new-come neebor took his e'e,
And e'en a vex'd and angry heart had he!
Wi' thieveless sneer to see his modish mien,
He, down the water, gies him this guideen :-

AULD BRIG.

I doubt na, frien', ye'll think ye're nae sheep shank, Ance ye were streekit o'er frae bank to bank, But gin ye be a brig as auld as me, Tho' faith that day, I doubt, ye'll never see

The two steeples. †The gos-hawk, or falcon.