1

A female form, came from, the towers of Stair; Learning and Worth in equal measures trode From simple Catrine, their long-loved abode : 2 Last, white-robed Peace, crowned with a hazel wreath,

To rustic Agriculture did bequeath

The broken iron instruments of death;

At sight of whom our Sprites forgat their kindling wrath.

LINES ON MEETING WITH BASIL, LORD DAER.

Professor Dugald Stewart, the elegant expositor of the Scottish system of metaphysics, resided at this time in a villa at Catrine, on the Ayr, a few miles from the bard's farm. He had been made acquainted with the extraordinary productions of Burns by Mr. Mackenzie, the clever, liberal-minded surgeon of Mauchline. At the request of the professor, Mackenzie came to dinner at Catrine, accompanied by the poet. Burns was sufficiently embarrassed at the idea of meeting in the flesh a distinguished member of the literary circle of Edinburgh; but, to increase the feeling, there chanced also to be present a young scion of nobility-Lord Daer, son of the Earl of Selkirk a positively alarming idea to the rustic

1 A compliment to his early patroness, Mrs. Stewart of Stair. See note to Epistle to Davie, vol. i. p. 63.

2 A compliment to Professor Dugald Stewart.

bard, who had as yet seen nobility no nearer than on the Ayr race-course, or whirling along the road in carriages. Lord Daer, who had been a pupil of Professor Stewart, had called, it appears, by chance. Of the meeting, Burns and Stewart have left their respective records.

THIS wot ye all whom it concerns,
I, Rhymer Robin, alias Burns,
October twenty-third,

A ne'er-to-be-forgotten day,

Sae far I sprachled up the brae,
I dinner'd wi' a Lord.

I've been at drucken writers' feasts,
Nay, been bitch-fou 'mang godly priests,
Wi' reverence be it spoken;

I've even joined the honoured jorum,
When mighty squireships of the quorum
Their hydra drouth did sloken.

But wi' a Lord! - stand out my shin,

A Lord.

a Peeran Earl's son !

Up higher yet my bonnet!

And sic a Lord!-lang Scotch ells twa,
Our Peerage he o'erlooks them a',
As I look o'er my sonnet.

But oh for Hogarth's magic power!

clambered

To shew Sir Bardie's willyart glower, bewildered stare And how he stared and stammer'd,

When goavan,

as if led wi'

moving stupidly

branks,

rude bridle

And stumpin' on his ploughman shanks,
He in the parlour hammer'd.

I sidling sheltered in a nook,
And at his Lordship steal't a look,

Like some portentous omen;
Except good sense and social glee,
And (what surprised me) modesty,
I marked nought uncommon.

I watched the symptoms o' the great,
The gentle pride, the lordly state,
The arrogant assuming;

devil-a-bit

The fient a pride, nae pride had he,
Nor sauce, nor state, that I could see,
Mair than an honest ploughman.

Then from his lordship I shall learn
Henceforth to meet with unconcern

One rank as weel's anither;
Nae honest worthy man need care
To meet with noble youthful Daer,

For he but meets a brother.1

1 Lord Daer was a young nobleman of the greatest promise. He had just returned from France, where he cultivated the society of some of those men who afterwards figured in the Revolution (particularly Condorcet), and had contracted their sentiments. "The foregoing verses were really extempore, but a little corrected since."- B.

EPISTLE TO MAJOR LOGAN.

In the course of his visits to Ayr, Burns had formed an acquaintance with Major William Logan, a retired military officer, noted for his wit, his violin-playing, and his convivial habits, who lived a cheerful bachelorlife with his mother and an unmarried sister. Burns had visited Logan at his villa of Park, near Ayr, had enjoyed his fiddle and his waggery, and run over— so to speak the whole gamut of his congenial heart. He had also been much pleased with the manners of the old lady and her daughter. On the 30th of October, he is found addressing the major in an epistle expressed in merry but careless verse.

HAIL, thairm-inspirin', rattlin' Willie!

Though Fortune's road be rough and hilly

To every fiddling, rhyming billie,

We never heed,

But take it like the unbacked filly,

Proud o' her speed.

cat-gut

fellow

When idly goavan whyles we

walking aimlessly

saunter,

Yirr, fancy barks, awa' we canter

Uphill, down brae, till some mischanter, accident

Some black bog-hole,

Arrests us, then the scaith and banter

We're forced to thole.

damage

bear

Hale be your heart!- hale be your fiddle!
Lang may your elbock jink and diddle,
To cheer you through the weary widdle struggle
O' this wild warl',

Until you on a crummock driddle

A gray-haired carle.

staff-creep

Come wealth, come poortith, late or soon, poverty Heaven send your heart-strings aye in tune, And screw your temper-pins aboon,

A fifth or mair,

The melancholious, lazy croon,

O' cankrie care.

May still your life from day to day
Nae "lente largo" in the play,

But allegretto forte" gay

Harmonious flow,

A sweeping, kindling, bauld Strathspey-
Encore! Bravo!

A blessing on the cheery gang
Wha dearly like a jig or sang,

And never think o' right and wrang
By square and rule,

But as the clegs o' feeling stang,

Are wise or fool.

above

gadflies

My hand-waled curse keep hard in chase chosen The harpy, hoodock, purse-proud race, miserly