If thou art stanch without a stain,

Like the unchanging blue, man, This was a kinsman o' thy ain For Matthew was a true man.

If thou hast wit, and fun, and fire,
And ne'er guid wine did fear, man,
This was thy billie, dam, and sire-
For Matthew was a queer man.

If ony whiggish whingin' sot,

To blame poor Matthew dare, man,

May dool and sorrow be his lot!

For Matthew was a rare man.

fellow

peevish

TAM O' SHANTER.

A TALE.

"Of brownyis and of bogilis full is this buke."
GAWIN DOUGLAS.

According to the recital of Gilbert Burns, Tam o' Shanter originated thus: "When my father feued his little property near Alloway Kirk, the wall of the church-yard had gone to ruin, and cattle had free liberty of pasture in it. My father and two or three neighbours joined in an application to the town-council of Ayr, who were superiors of the adjoining land,

for liberty to rebuild it, and raised by subscription a sum for enclosing this ancient cemetery with a wall: hence he came to consider it as his burial-place, and we learned that reverence for it people generally have for the burial-place of their ancestors. My brother was living in Ellisland, when Captain Grose, on his peregrinations through Scotland, stayed some time at Carse House in the neighbourhood, with Captain Robert Riddel of Glenriddel, a particular friend of my brother's. The antiquary and the poet were ⚫unco pack and thick thegither.' Robert requested of Captain Grose, when he should come to Ayrshire, that he would make a drawing of Alloway Kirk, as it was the burial-place of his father, where he himself had a sort of claim to lay down his bones when they should be no longer serviceable to him; and added, by way of encouragement, that it was the scene of many a good story of witches and apparitions, of which he knew the captain was very fond. The captain agreed to the request, provided the poet would furnish a witch-story, to be printed along with it. Tam o' Shanter was produced on this occasion, and was first published in Grose's Antiquities of Scotland."

"The poem," says Mr. Lockhart, "was the work of one day."

road

WHEN chapman billies leave the street, fellows
And drouthy neibors, neibors meet,
As market-days are wearing late,
And folk begin to tak the gate;
While we sit bousing at the nappy,
And gettin' fou and unco happy,
We think na on the lang Scots miles,

The mosses, waters, slaps,1 and stiles,
That lie between us and our hame,
Where sits our sulky sullen dame,
Gathering her brows like gathering storm,
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.

This truth fand honest Tam o' Shanter,
As he frae Ayr ae night did canter,
(Auld Ayr, wham ne'er a town surpasses
For honest men and bonny lasses.)

O Tam! hadst thou but been sae wise,
As ta'en thy ain wife Kate's advice!
She tauld thee weel thou was a

skellum,

reckless fellow

A blethering, blustering, drunken blellum;
That frae November till October,
Ae market-day thou was na sober;
That ilka melder, wi' the miller,
Thou sat as lang as thou had siller;
That every naig was ca'd a shoe on,
The smith and thee gat roaring fou on;
That at the Lord's house, even on Sunday,
Thou drank wi' Kirkton Jean till Monday.*

1 Break in a wall.

2 An idle-talking fellow.

driven

drunk

8" The quantity of meal ground at the mill at one time." · Dr. Jamieson.

4 In Scotland, the village where a parish-church is situated is usually called the Kirkton. A certain Jean Kennedy, who kept a reputable public-house in the village of Kirkoswald, is here alluded to.

She prophesied that, late or soon,

Thou would be found deep drowned in Doon, Or catched wi' warlocks in the mirk,

By Alloway's auld haunted kirk.

darkness

Ah, gentle dames! it gars me greet, makes-weep
To think how monie counsels sweet,
How monie lengthened sage advices,
The husband frae the wife despises !

But to our tale:- Ae market-night,
Tam had got planted unco right,
Fast by an ingle, bleezing finely,

fireplace

Wi' reaming swats, that drank divinely; foaming ale

And at his elbow, Souter Johnny,

His ancient, trusty, drouthy crony;

Cobbler

Tam lo'ed him like a vera brither
They had been fou for weeks thegither!

The night drave on wi' sangs and clatter,
And aye the ale was growing better;
The landlady and Tam grew gracious,
Wi' favours secret, sweet, and precious;
The Souter tauld his queerest stories,
The landlord's laugh was ready chorus
The storm without might rair and rustle -
Tam didna mind the storm a whistle.

talk

Care, mad to see a man sae happy,
E'en drowned himself amang the nappy
As bees flee hame wi' lades o' treasure,

!

The minutes winged their way wi' pleasure: Kings may be blest, but Tam was glorious, O'er a' the ills o' life victorious.

But pleasures are like poppies spread,-
You seize the flower, its bloom is shed;
Or like the snowfall in the river, -

A moment white then melts for ever;1
Or like the borealis race,

That fit ere you can point their place;
Or like the rainbow's lovely form,
Evanishing amid the storm.

Nae man can tether time or tide;.

The hour approaches Tam maun ride:

That hour, o' night's black arch the keystane,
That dreary hour he mounts his beast in;
And sic a night he taks the road in
As ne'er poor sinner was abroad in.

The wind blew as 'twad blawn its last;
The rattling showers rose on the blast;
The speedy gleams the darkness swallowed;
Loud, deep, and lang the thunder bellowed:
That night, a child might understand,
The Deil had business on his hand.

Weel mounted on his gray mare, Meg,
(A better never lifted leg,)

1 Candidior nivibus, tunc cum cecidere recentes,
In liquidas nondum quas mora vertit aquas.

Ovid, Amor. iii. 5, 11.