Their tricks and craft have put me daft, But clear your decks, and here's the sex; CHORUS. For a' that, and a' that, And twice as muckle's a' that ; RECITATIVO. So sang the bard-and Nansie's wa's Re-echoed from each mouth : They toomed their pokes, and pawned their duds, They scarcely left to co'er their fuds, To quench their lowin' drouth. Then owre again, the jovial thrang, To loose his pack and wale a sang, He rising, rejoicing, Between his twa Deborahs, Looks round him, and found them flaming select AIR. TUNE-Jolly Mortals, fill your Glasses. See! the smoking bowl before us, CHORUS. A fig for those by law protected! What is title? what is treasure? If we lead a life of pleasure, With the ready trick and fable, Round we wander all the day; Does the train-attended carriage Life is all a variorum, We regard not how it goes; Here's to budgets, bags, and wallets! A fig for those by law protected! Churches built to please the priest.' The poem is understood to have been founded on the poet's observation of an actual scene which one night met his eye, when, in company with his friends John Richmond and James Smith, he dropped accidentally at a late hour into the humble hostelry of Mrs Gibson, more familiarly named Poosie Nansie, already referred to. After witnessing much jollity amongst a company who by day appeared abroad as miserable beggars, the three young men came away, Burns professing to have been greatly amused with the scene, but particularly with the gleesome behaviour of an old maimed soldier. In the course of a few days, he recited a part of the poem to Richmond, who used to say, In one or two passages of the Jolly Beggars, the Muse has slightly trespassed on decorum, where, in the language of Scottish song 'High kilted was she, As she gaed owre the lea.' Something, however, is to be allowed to the nature of the subject, and something to the education of the poet; and if from veneration to the names of Swift and Dryden, we tolerate the grossness of the one and the indelicacy of the other, the respect due to that of Burns may surely claim indulgence for a few light strokes of broad humour.'-SIR WALTER SCOTT. that, to the best of his recollection, it contained, in its original complete form, songs by a sweep and a sailor, which did not afterwards appear.1 The groundwork which we thus find that Burns had for the Jolly Beggars, only proves the extraordinary extent of his creative powers, deepening the regret which all must feel that he never applied himself heartily to fiction, either in poetry or prose. The poem, it may be remarked, was not a favourite with his mother and brother, and it does not appear that the poet ever contemplated giving it to the world. On the contrary, he laid it aside, and in a few years had ceased to remember its existence. On being reminded of it by Mr George Thomson in 1793, he says, in a passage hitherto unedited of the letter dated 13th September of that year: 'I have forgot the cantata you allude to, as I kept no copy, and indeed did not know of its existence; however, I remember that none of the songs pleased myself, except the last, something about "Courts for cowards were erected, Churches built to please the priest." The cantata was first published in a piratical edition of the author's poems by Stewart, Glasgow, 1801. 1 There was, after all, a kind of pattern or model for this singular composition, in a song entitled The Merry Beggars, which appears in The Charmer, 2 vols., 1751:— MERRY BEGGARS. 1st Beggar. I once was a poet at London, I keep my heart still full of glee; There's no man can say that I'm undone, 2d Beg. I once was an attorney-at-law, 3d Beg. Make room for a soldier in buff, 4th Beg. Here comes a courtier polite, sir, 6th Beg. I was a fanatical preacher, I turned up my eyes when I prayed; 1st Beg. Whoe'er would be merry and free, CHORUS OF ALL. Whoe'er would be merry, &c. Some rhyme a neighbour's name to lash; And raise a din; For me, an aim I never fash I rhyme for fun. The star that rules my luckless lot, Has blest me wi' a random shot O' country wit. robbery spell proof twinkles stinted yeasty fermented gossip |