TO A HAGGIS.1

FAIR fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o' the puddin'-race:
Aboon them a' ye tak your place,

plump

Painch, tripe, or thairm; small guts

Weel are ye wordy of a grace
As lang's my arm.

worthy

The groaning trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill ;

Your pin wad help to mend a mill
In time o' need,

haunches

While through your pores the dews distil
Like amber bead.

His knife see rustic labour dight,

make ready

And cut you up wi' ready slight,
Trenching your gushing entrails bright
Like ony ditch ;

And then, oh what a glorious sight,

Warm-reekin', rich!

1 The haggis is a dish peculiar to Scotland, though supposed to be of French extraction. It is composed of minced offal of mutton, mixed with oatmeal and suet, and boiled in a sheep's stomach. When made in Elspa's way, with a curn o' spice" (see the Gentle Shepherd ), it is an agreeable, albeit a somewhat heavy dish, always providing that no horror be felt at the idea of its preparation.

Then horn for horn they stretch and strive, Deil tak the hindmost, on they drive,

Till a' their weel-swall'd kytes

belyve

Are bent like drums;

swelled stomachs

by and by

Then auld guidman, maist like to rive, burst "Bethankit!" hums.

Is there that owre his French ragout,
Or olio that wad staw a sow,

surfeit

Or fricassee wad mak her spew

Wi' perfect scunner,

Looks down wi' sneering, scornfu' view

On sic a dinner!

Poor devil! see him owre his trash,

As feckless as a withered rash,
His spindle-shank a guid whip-lash,
His nieve a nit;

Through bloody flood or field to dash,
Oh how unfit!

But mark the rustic, haggis-fed,

disgust

feeble

fist-nut

The trembling earth resounds his tread,

Clap in his walie nieve a blade,

He'll mak it whissle;

lusty fist

And legs, and arms, and heads will sned, shear Like taps o' thrissle.

thistle

Ye Powers wha mak mankind your care,

And dish them out their bill o' fare,

thin stuff

splashes in bowls

Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware

That jaups in luggies;

But, if ye wish her gratefu' prayer,
Gie her a Haggis !

EXTEMPORE IN THE COURT OF SESSION.

TUNE-Killiecrankie.

Two well-drawn sketches of the leading barristers of that day—namely, the Dean of Faculty, Harry Erskine, and the Lord Advocate, Mr. Ilay Campbell (subsequently Lord President).

LORD ADVOCATE.

HE clenched his pamphlets in his fist,

He quoted and he hinted,

Till in a declamation-mist,

His argument he tint it:

lost

He gaped for't, he graipèd for't,

groped

He fand it was awa', man;

But what his common-sense came short,

He ekèd out wi' law, man.

MR. ERSKINE.

Collected Harry stood a wee,

Then opened out his arm, man;

His lordship sat wi' ruefu' e'e,

And eyed the gathering storm, man;

waterfall

Like wind-driven hail, it did assail,
Or torrents owre a linn, man;
The Bench sae wise lift up their eyes,
Half-wauken'd wi' the din, man.

PROLOGUE SPOKEN BY MR. WOODS ON HIS BENEFIT-NIGHT,

Monday, 16th April, 1787.

Amongst the men whom Burns had met and liked at the Canongate Kilwinning Lodge, was Joseph Woods, a respectable member of the Edinburgh corps dramatique, and the more likely to be endeared to the Ayrshire poet, that he had been an intimate friend of poor Fergusson.

WHEN by a generous Public's kind acclaim,
That dearest meed is granted - honest Fame ;
When here your favour is the actor's lot,
Nor even the man in private life forgot;
What breast so dead to heavenly Virtue's glow,
But heaves impassioned with the grateful throe?

Poor is the task to please a barbarous throng,

It needs no Siddons' powers in Southern's

song;

But here an ancient nation famed afar,

For genius, learning high, as great in war
Hail, CALEDONIA, name for ever dear!
Before whose sons I'm honoured to appear!
Where every science- every nobler art
That can inform the mind, or mend the heart,
Is known; as grateful nations oft have found
Far as the rude barbarian marks the bound.
Philosophy, no idle pedant dream,

Here holds her search by heaven-taught Reason's beam;

1

Here History paints with elegance and force
The tide of Empire's fluctuating course;
Here Douglas forms wild Shakspeare into plan,
And Harley 1 rouses all the god in man.
When well-formed taste and sparkling wit unite
With manly lore, or female beauty bright
(Beauty, where faultless symmetry and grace,
Can only charm us in the second place)
Witness my heart, how oft with panting fear,
As on this night, I've met these judges here!
But still the hope Experience taught to live,
Equal to judge you're candid to forgive.
No hundred-headed Riot here we meet,
With Decency and Law beneath his feet;
Nor Insolence assumes fair Freedom's name;
Like CALEDONIANS, you applaud or blame.

Oh thou dread Power! whose empire-giving. hand

1 The Man of Feeling, written by Mr. Mackenzie.