My son! my son! may kinder stars And may those pleasures gild thy reign, God keep thee frae thy mother's faes, Or turn their hearts to thee: And where thou meet'st thy mother's friend O! soon, to me, may summer suns And in the narrow house o' death Let winter round me rave; And the next flow'rs that deck the spring THE WHISTLE. ["As the authentic prose history," says Burns, "of the Whistle' is curious, I shal here give it. In the train of Anne of Denmark, when she came to Scotland with ou 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 the 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 Scotch 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 Lawrie, 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's,-On Friday, the 16th of October, 1790, at Friars-Carse, the whistle was once more contended for, as related in the ballad, by the present Sir Robert 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 Fergusson, Esq., of Craigdarroch, likewise descended of the great Sir Robert; which last gentleman carried off the hard-won honours of the field." The jovial contest took place in the dining-room of Friars-Carse, in the presence of the Bard, who drank bottle and bottle about with them, and seemed quite disposed to take up the conqueror when the day dawned.] I SING of a whistle, a whistle of worth, I sing of a whistle, the pride of the North, Was brought to the court of our good Scottish king, And long with this whistle all Scotland shall ring. Old Loda, still rueing the arm of Fingal, The god of the bottle sends down from his hall- Old poets have sung, and old chronicles tell, Till Robert, the Lord of the Cairn and the Scaur, Thus Robert, victorious, the trophy has gain'd; Three joyous good fellows, with hearts clear of flaw; Craigdarroch began, with a tongue smooth as oil, Or else he would muster the heads of the clan, "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," And bumper his horn with him twenty times o'er." Sir Robert, a soldier, no speech would pretend, 1 See Ossian's Carie-thura. 2 See Johnson's Tour to the Hebrides. Said, toss down the whistle, the prize of the field, To the board of Glenriddel our heroes repair, But for wine and for welcome not more known to fame A bard was selected to witness the fray, 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, Gay Pleasure ran riot as bumpers ran o'er; Six bottles a-piece had well wore out the night, Then worthy Glenriddel, so cautious and sage, He left the foul business to folks less divine. The gallant Sir Robert fought hard to the end; Next up rose our bard, like a prophet in drink ;— "Thy line, that have struggled for freedom with Bruce, So thine be the laurel, and mine be the bay; ELEGY ON MISS BURNET, OF MONBODDO. [This beautiful and accomplished lady, the heavenly Burnet, as Burns loyed to call her, was daughter to the odd and the elegant, the clever and the whimsical Lord Monboddo. "In domestic circumstances," says Robert Chambers, "Monboddo was particularly unfor tunate. His wife, a very beautiful woman, died in child-bed. His son, a promising boy, in whose education he took great delight, was likewise snatched from his affections by a premature death; and his second daughter, in personal loveliness one of the first women of the age, was cut off by consumption, when only twenty-five years old." Her name was Elizabeth.] LIFE ne'er exulted in so rich a prize As Burnet, lovely from her native skies; As that which laid th' accomplish'd Burnet low. Thy form and mind, sweet maid, can I forget? In thee, high Heaven above was truest shown, In vain ye flaunt in summer's pride, ye groves; Ye heathy wastes, immix'd with reedy fens; To you I fly, ye with my soul accord. Princes, whose cumb'rous pride was all their worth, We saw thee shine in youth and beauty's pride, And virtue's light, that beams beyond the spheres; But like the sun eclips'd at morning tide, So from it ravish'd, leaves it bleak and bare. LAMENT FOR JAMES, EARL OF GLENCAIRN. [Burns lamented the death of this kind and accomplished nobleman with melancholy sincerity he moreover named one of his sons for him: he went into mourning when he heard of his death, and he sung of his merits in a strain not destined soon to lose the place it has taken among verses which record the names of the noble and the generous. He died January 30, 1791, in the forty-second year of his age. James Cunningham was suc ceeded in his title by his brother, and with him expired, in 1796, the last of a race, whose name is intimately connected with the History of Scotland, from the days of Malcolm Canmore.] THE wind blew hollow frae the hills, By fits the sun's departing beam Look'd on the fading yellow woods That way'd o'er Lugar's winding stream: Beneath a craggy steep, a bard, Laden with years and meikle pain, In loud lament bewail'd his lord, Whom death had all untimely ta'en. He lean'd him to an ancient aik, Whose trunk was mould'ring down with years; His locks were bleached white with time, His hoary cheek was wet wi' tears; "Ye scatter'd birds that faintly sing, |