Hear how he clears the points o' faith
Wi' rattling an' wi' thumpin!
Now meekly calm, now wild in wrath,
He's stampin an' he's jumpin!
His lengthen'd chin, his turn'd up snout,
His eldritch squeel and gestures,

O how they fire the heart devout,
Like cantharidian plasters,

On sic a day!

But, hark! the tent has chang'd its voice; There's peace an' rest nae langer; For a' the real judges rise,

What signifies his barren shine

Of moral pow'rs and reason?

His English style, an' gestures fine,
Are a' clean out o' season.

Like Socrates or Antonine,

Or some auld pagan Heathen,

The moral man he does define,

But ne'er a word o' faith in

That's right that day.

In guid time comes an antidote

Against sic poison'd nostrum ;

For *** ****, frae the water-fit,

Ascends the holy rostrum :

See, up he's got the word o' God,

An' meek an' mim has view'd it,
While Common Sense has ta'en the road,

An' aff', an' up the Cowgate,

Fast, fast, that day.

The Ordination is another ecclesiastical satire, remarkable for its wit and humour.

The follow

ing verses are pregnant with meaning:

There, try his mettle on the creed,
And bind him down wi' caution,

That stipend is a carnal weed

He taks but for the fashion.

Holy Willie's Prayer, which is excluded from Dr Currie's edition, and the Address to the Unco Guid, or the Rigidly Righteous, are wholesome satires on hypocrisy ; but the former is reprehensible for the extreme indecency which it occasionally exhibits. The Twa Dogs, the Dream, and the Dedication to Gavin Hamilton, Esq. may also be classed among his happier efforts.

The tale entitled Tam o'Shanter displays a rich vein of humorous description, and even high powers of invention. "I have seldom in my life," says Lord Woodhouselee in a letter to Burns, "tasted of higher enjoyment from any work of genius, than I have received from this composition; and I am much mistaken, if this poem alone, had you never written another syl

1

able, would not have been sufficient to have transmitted your name down to posterity with high reputation. In the introductory part where you paint the character of your hero, and exhi-` bit him at the alehouse ingle, with his tippling cronies, you have delineated nature with a humour and naiveté that would do honour to Matthew Prior: but when you describe the unfortunate orgies of the witches' sabbath, and the hellish scenery in which they are exhibited, you display a power of imagination that Shakespeare himself could not have exceeded." One of the most striking passages which the works of Burns contain, is to be found in this production :

The swats sae ream'd in Tammie's noddle,
Fair play, he car'd na deils a boddle;
But Maggie stood right sair astonish'd,
Till, by the heel and hand admonish'd,
She ventur'd forward on the light :
And, vow! Tam saw an unco sight!
Warlocks and witches in a dance;
Nae cotillion brent new frae France,
But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels,
Put life and mettle in their heels.
A winnock-bunker in the east,

There sat auld Nick, in shape o' beast;
A towzie tyke, black, grim, and large,
To gie them music was his charge:
He screw'd the pipes and gart them skirl,
Till roof and rafters a' did dirl.

Coffins stood round, like open presses;
That shaw'd the dead in their last dresses;
And by some devilish cantrip slight,
Each in its cauld hand held a light.

By this heroic Tam was able

To note upon the haly table,

A murderer's banes in gibbet airns;
Twa-span-lang, wee, unchristen'd bairns;
A thief, new-cutted frae a rape;

Wi' his last gasp his gab did

gape;
Five tomahawks, wi' blude red-rusted;
Five scymitars, wi' murder crusted;
A garter which a bab had strangled ;
A knife, a father's throat had mangled,
Whom his ain son o' life bereft ;

The grey hairs yet stack to the heft.

The songs of Burns, which are chiefly of the pastoral and rural kind, are frequently distinguished by strokes of genuine poetry. The versification indeed is not always sufficiently smooth: but the arch simplicity, the delicacy, pathos, and even sublimity, which they so often display, leave the author nearly without a rival in this department of literature. The songs which I shall here select as specimens, are written in the military spirit. The first is entitled Robert Bruce's Address to his Army:

Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled;
Scots wham Bruce has aften led;
Welcome to your gory bed,

Or to glorious victorie.

Now's the day, and now's the hour:
See the front o' battle lour;

See approach proud Edward's power
Edward! chains and slaverie !

Wha' will be a traitor knave ?
Wha can fill a coward's grave?
Wha sae base as be a slave?

Traitor coward! turn and flee!

Wha for Scotland's king and law
Freedom's sword will strongly draw,
Free-man stand, or free-man fa',
Caledonian on wi' me!

By oppression's woes and pains!
By your sons in servile chains!
We will drain our dearest veins,

But they shall be-shall be free!

Lay the proud usurper low!

Tyrants fall in every foe!

Liberty's in every blow!

Forward! let us do, or die!

The following song is supposed to be sung by the wounded and dying of a victorious army. It was composed during the late war with France.