TORY THE or riddle with importunities. Thus Callum Beg, intent on INVEN- constraining Shamus an Snachad, as he expressed himself "targed him tightly” till the finishing of the job.' 43. 'Tho' scarcely langer than my leg,' MS. and Currie. 44. 'Effectual Calling':-The answer to the question, 'What is Effectual Calling?' embodies the essence of Calvinism. 50-1 are not in the Ms. nor Currie. 54. My dear-bought, blinking, smirking Bess,' earlier Stewart; 'blinking smirking,' Ms. :-His daughter Elizabeth, by Elizabeth Paton. (See ante, p. 334, Prefatory Note to The Poet's Welcome). 59. 'An' if ye tax her or her mither,' MS. and Currie. 61. And now, remember, Mr. Aiken,' Ms., Currie, and Later Stewart. 63-4 are not in the Ms. nor Currie. 67-8 in Stewart read thus :— 'My travel a' on foot I'll shank it, 69-72 are not in the MS. nor Currie. 73. 'This list, wi' my A MAUCHLINE WEDDING THIS, one of Burns's best-natured squibs, was enclosed in a letter to Mrs. Dunlop, 21st August 1788, and is here published for the first time (Lochryan MSS.). He explains that a sister of Miller, then a tenant' of his heart, had huffed his 'Bardship in the pride of her new connection.' She was the Miss Betty of The Mauchline Belles (see post, p. 410); and the Eliza of the Song (see Vol. i. p. 183). Burns did not go on to describe the ceremony:-'Against my Muse had come thus far,' he writes, "Miss Bess and I were once more in unison.' For the stave see Vol. i. p. 328, Prefatory Note to The Holy Fair. STANZA II. LINE I. 'Blacksideen':-'A hill' (R. B.). 3. Nell and Bess' :-' Miller's two sisters' (R. B.). Nell was the eldest-the Miss Miller of the Mauchline Belles (see post, P. 410). STANZA IV. LINE 2. 'Its silken pomp displays' :-" The ladies' first silk gown, got for the occasion.' (R. B.). STANZA V. LINE I. 'Then Sandy':-'Driver of the Post- A MAUCHchaise' (R. B.). 5. 'And auld John Trot':-'Miller's father' (R. B.). LINE WEDDING ADAM ARMOUR'S PRAYER PUBLISHED in The Scots Magazine, January 1808. The interlocutor in this intercession was Burns's brotherin-law. At this time he had headed a band of younkers in Mauchline in the work of stanging-which is riding astride an unbarked sapling-a loose woman, one Agnes Wilson, who figures in the Kirk-Session records of March 1786 as 'the occasion of a late disturbance in this place.' The Geordie, whose 'jurr' or maid she was, is described in The Scots Magazine as the village constable; Lut this is clearly a mistake. He was, in fact, one George Gibson, the husband of Poosie Nansie (see ante, p. 308, Note to The Jolly Beggars, Recitativo 1. Line 9). As Gibson resented the outrage on his maid, Armour, dreading the law's reprisals, absconded. According to the person who sent the thing to The Scots Magazine, Armour chose Burns's house as his hiding-place. The person adds that he got the Ms. from Armour himself, who told him that Burns composed it one Sunday evening just before he took the Book,' i.e. the Bible. The Prayer was republished in Hogg and Motherwell (1834), and also in Cunningham (1834), whose explanation of the circumstances in which it was written seems mainly a free rendering of the story in the Magazine. STANZA II. LINE 4. 'Spleuchan':-See Note to Dr. Hornbook, Vol. i. p. 393. STANZA V. LINE 2. Auld drucken Nanse':-See ante, p. 308. Note to The Jolly Beggars, Recitativo 1. Line 9. STANZA VI. LINE I. 'There's Jockie and the haveril Jenny,' Magazine version. They were the son and daughter. Jean or Jenny is the Racer Jess of The Holy Fair (Vol. i. p. 331, Stanza IX. Line 3). NATURE'S LAW WRITTEN Shortly after the event:-'Wish me luck, Dear Richmond. Armour has just brought me a fine boy and girl at one throw. God bless the little dears! "Green grow the Rashes, O, Green grow the Rashes, O, A feather bed is no sae saft As the bosoms o' the lasses O." 'MOSSGIEL, Sunday 3rd September 1786.' The more serious aspect of the situation is touched in a letter of the 8th September to Robert Muir :- You will have heard that poor Armour has repayed my amorous mortgages double. A very fine boy and girl have awakened a thought and feelings that thrill, some with tender pressure and some with foreboding anguish thro' my soul.' The girl (Jean) died 'at fourteen months old' (R. B. in Bible); the boy (Robert) died 14th May 1857. The piece was published in the Aldine Edition of 1839. The stave is a variation on that of Ramsay's Upstairs, Downstairs (see ante, p. 301, Prefatory Note to The Jolly Beggars, Tinker's Song). In the first half the rhyme is external (so to speak); in the second the first and third lines are rhymed from within. STANZA III. LINE 3. Coila's plains' :-Coila, identical with 'Coil' in subsequent Stanzas, is poetic for Kyle, one of the districts of Ayrshire. LINES ON MEETING WITH LORD DAER THE Lord Daer was Basil William Douglas-Hamilton, second son of the fourth Earl of Selkirk. He was born 16th March 1763, and educated at the University of Edinburgh, where he boarded with Professor Dugald Stewart, whose guest he was at Catrine when Burns met him at dinner. A warm admirer of the French Revolution, he went in 1789 to Paris, where he lived in terms of friend- ON DINING ship with some of its chief promoters. On his return he WITH joined the Society of the Friends of the People; became LORD DAER a zealous advocate of Reform; and raised the question of the eligibility of Scots Peers' sons to vote in elections and sit in the Commons (the Court of Session decided against him in 1792). He died of consumption at Ivy Bridge, Devon, 5th November 1794. The common version of the Lines was sent by Professor Stewart to Currie, and printed by him in small type. Stanza v., which he did not print, was omitted, probably at Stewart's request, its place being denoted by asterisks. It was first included in a version in one of the tracts 'printed for and sold by Stewart and Meikle - the tract version being that one sent to Dr. Mackenzie in a letter, dated 25th October, which was also printed in the tract. The piece was not published in Stewart's Poems Ascribed to Robert Burns, 1801; but appears in Stewart's Edition (Glasgow 1802). Editors, after Stewart, copied from Currie, and thus Stanza v. has been ignored until its revival in the present text. Professor Stewart told Currie that the dinner was eaten on 23rd October 1786; that he then first met Burns; and that Dr. Mackenzie was of the party. Burns, in sending the lines to Mackenzie, eulogised the Professor, dividing his character into 'ten parts, thus:-four parts Socrates, four parts Nathaniel, and two parts Shakespeare's Brutus.' Of the verses he wrote that they were really extempore but a little corrected since.' 6 The stave in rime couée used by Burns in the Lines, and in the Election Ballad addressed to Graham of Fintry (p. 183), is one of the oldest in English, and by Chaucer's time had got so vulgarised by the minstrels that he used it in derision in his Rime of Sir Thopas, a caricature of a type of story which the minstrels especially cherished. Suckling's airy and enchanting Ballad of a Wedding, with its many ON DINING derivatives, gave it a new vogue, and it was so steadily used all through the Eighteenth Century (for 'odes' LORD DAER and the like) that Burns may have got it from almost WITH any poet you care to name. It is probable, however, that his model was the Allan Ramsay of a certain Address of Thanks from the Society of Rakes to the Pious Author of an Essay upon Improving and Adding to the Strength of Great Britain and Ireland by Fornication. STANZA I. LINE I. 'I Rhymer Robin, alias Burns,' Currie. 'O' the Quorum' :-Certain Justices, without whom the Court could not sit. STANZA III. LINE 4. 'An' sic a Lord!-lang Scotch ells twa,' Currie; such,' Stewart. A Scots ell is over a yard. 5. Our peerage he o'erlooks them a',' Currie. STANZA IV. LINE 4. 'When goavin as if led wi' branks,' Currie. STANZA V. is omitted in Currie (see ante, Prefatory Note). LINE 2. 'Or Scotia's sacred Demosthénes':-This would seem to show that Dr. Hugh Blair was of the company. STANZA VI. LINES 1-2 in Currie read thus : 'I sidling shelter'd in a nook, An' at his Lordship steal't a look'. ADDRESS TO THE TOOTHACHE PUBLISHED in The Scots Magazine, October 1797. What is practically the same version was included in Currie (1800). A second, which appeared in Brash and Reid's Poetry, Original, etc. (Vol. iv. 1798, of the Collected Series), and was reprinted in Oliver (Edinburgh 1801), and Stewart (Glasgow 1802), has been ignored by later Editors, but in some respects is better than Currie's. As a third-the only copy in Ms. known to exist-was inscribed by Burns in an '86 Edition, now belonging to Lord Blythswood, the verses may have been written between its issue and that of Edition '87. Burns in later letters specially refers to this 'Hell o' |