Then muse-inspirin' aqua-vitæ Shall make us baith sae blythe an' witty, An' be as canty As ye were nine year less than thretty, But stooks are cowpet wi' the blast, An' quat my chanter; Sae I subscribe myself in haste Your's, Rab the Ranter. This third and last epistle of Burns to Lapraik was omitted in the Kilmarnock and Edinburgh editions, and might have been lost had not the Bard of Muirkirk, cheered by the success of his brother of Mossgiel, given his poetic works to the world, and printed the hasty effort of his friend by way of illustration. In looking over the volume of Lapraik, good sense, good feeling, and knowledge of men and manners will be found; but he wants warmth and energy. He sings a cold and lifeless strain, and has a knack of rhyme, and little else. The fame which Burns obtained deluged the lowlands of Scotland with rustic verse; and I have heard men, who had the reputation of good sense, express surprise at their want of success, They did not observe that those homely bards wanted almost all for which Burns was distinguished. The muse with him was all life, bloom, and beauty, and had humour at will, and ready wit, and pathetic sentiment, and was, moreover, a leaper and a dancer. The muse of the competitors resembled a corse rather than a living thing; bloom and beauty had never belonged to her, and if she exhibited any symptoms of animation they were convulsive starts, such as galvanism excites in a dead body." He carries us," says Campbell, speaking of Burns, "into the humble scenes of life: not to make us dole out our tribute of charitable compassion to paupers and cottagers, but to make us feel with them on equal terms: to make us enter into their passions and interests, and share our hearts with them, as with brothers and sisters of the human species." The name of Rab the Ranter at the end of this poem seems adopted from Maggie Lauder: WHILE at the stook the shearers cow'r To shun the bitter blaudin' show'r, Or in gulravage rinnin' scow'r Το pass the time, To you I dedicate the hour In idle rhyme. My musie, tir'd wi' mony a sonnet Lest they should blame her, An' rouse their holy thunder on it And anathem her. I own 'twas rash, an' rather hardy, Wha, if they ken me, Can easy, wi' a single wordie, Lowse h-ll upon me. But I gae mad at their grimaces, Their sighin' cantin' grace-proud faces, Their three-mile prayers, an hauf-mile graces, Whase greed, revenge, an' pride disgraces, There's Gaun,* miska't waur than a beast, Than mony scores as guid's the priest Wha sae abus't him. An' may a bard no crack his jest What way they've use't him. See him, the poor man's friend in need, An' shall his fame an' honor bleed By worthless skellums, An' not a muse erect her head To cowe the blellums? O Pope, had I thy satire's darts Their jugglin' hocus-pocus arts To cheat the crowd. *Gavin Hamilton, Esq. God knows, I'm no the thing I shou'd be, Nor am I even the thing I cou'd be, But twenty times, I rather wou'd be An atheist clean, Than under gospel colours hid be Just for a screen. An honest man may like a glass, He'll still disdain, An' then cry zeal for gospel laws, They take religion in their mouth; On some puir wight, An' hunt him down, o'er right an' ruth, All hail, Religion! maid divine ! Thus daurs to name thee; To stigmatize false friends of thine Can ne'er defame thee. |