But will ye tell me, Master Cæsar, CESAR. L-, man, were ye but whyles whare I am, A country fellow at the pleugh, Her dizzen's done, she's unco weel: The men cast out in party matches, The Ladies arm-in-arm in clusters, molest Stake on a chance a farmer's stackyard, There's some exception, man and woman; By this, the sun was out o' sight, beetle TO A LOUSE, ON SEEING ONE ON A LADY'S BONNET AT CHURCH.1 Ha! where ye gaun, ye crawlin' ferlie? I canna say but ye strunt rarely Owre gauze and lace; Though faith, I fear ye dine but sparely Ye ugly, creepin', blastit wonner, Gae somewhere else, and seek your dinner Swith, in some beggar's haffet squattle; There ye may creep, and sprawl, and sprattle Wi' ither kindred, jumping cattle, In shoals and nations; Whare horn nor bane ne'er daur unsettle Your thick plantations. Now haud you there, ye 're out o' sight, Below the fatt'rels, snug and tight; Na, faith ye yet! ye'll no be right Till ye've got on it, The very tapmost, towering height wonder strut cheek ribbon-ends The 'lady' here referred to was merely a village belle: her name is mentioned at Mauchline; but the reader will acknowledge that it ought not to be recorded in print. The poem exhibits descriptive power, but most persons would probably have wished it not written, but for the last stanza, which has become proverbial. My sooth! right bauld ye set your nose out, I'd gie you sic a hearty doze o't, I wad na been surprised to spy But Miss's fine Lunardi! fie!1 Oh, Jenny, dinna toss your head, The blastie's makin'! Oh wad some power the giftie gie us What airs in dress and gait wad lea'e us, 2 gooseberry powder breech cap The Twa Herds had brought Burns into the friendship of John Goudie and others of the townsmen of Black John Russell, and he appears, before February 1786, to have paid several visits to Kilmarnock. A local work relates an anecdote which may be generally, though not in every particular, true-that Goudie called one day on Burns at Mossgiel during harvest, and that Burns went out with him, and sitting down behind a stook, read to his visitor several of his poems. Goudie, delighted with what he heard, threw out hints of a desire to get the pocms published, and invited the bard to visit him at Kilmarnock. There, it is said, Burns met at Goudie's table a group of the better class of people living in the town-the town-clerk Paterson, a Dr Hamilton, Major Parker, banker; Dr William Moore; and Mr Robert Muir, merchant. He appeared amongst these respectables in his simple 1 Lunardi made several ascents in his balloon in Scotland in 1785, and gave rise to a kind of bonnet bearing his name. The Contemporaries of Burns. hodden gray, but doubtless astonished them by his wit and his verses. As visitors of Goudie, we cannot doubt that they were most of them partisans of the New Light. What immediately followed from the visit to Goudie we cannot tell: apparently, any wish that may have been formed either by the arch-heretic himself or any of his friends to get the poems published, did not come to any immediate effect. At this time, by the death of a moderate clergyman named Mutrie, there was much excitement in Kilmarnock, it being uncertain whether the patron would appoint a moderate or a high-flier in his place. When it was learned that the appointment had been settled in favour of the Reverend James Mackinlay, a young scion of the zealous party, there was great joy throughout that camp. They remembered how a moderate-or, as Burns called it, a common-sense divinity-had come into their precincts twenty years before, with Mutrie's predecessor, Lindsay, and much they bewailed the effects of so long a predominance of error. But now this place was to be taken by one who might be expected to do much to repair the evil. The moderates were proportionately vexed. To console them as far as possible, Burns composed a poem containing an anticipatory view of the approaching ceremony, by which Mackinlay was to be introduced to his cure.' THE ORDINATION. For sense they little owe to frugal Heaven- Kilmarnock wabsters, fidge and claw, Swith to the Laigh Kirk, ane an a', And there tak up your stations; Then aff to Begbie's in a raw, For joy this day. The actual ordination of Mackinlay did not take place till the 6th April 1786. 2 Kilmarnock was then a town of between three and four thousand inhabitants, most of whom were engaged in the manufacture of carpets, and other coarse woollen goods, or in the preparation of leather. 3 A tavern near the church. Curst Common Sense, that imp o' h—, And he's the boy will blaud her! Mak haste and turn King David owre, And lilt wi' holy clangor; O' double verse come gie us four, And skirl up the Bangor: This day the Kirk kicks up a stoure, Nae mair the knaves shall wrang her, For Heresy is in her power, And gloriously she'll whang her Come, let a proper text be read, 3 How graceless Ham leugh at his dad, Which made Canaan a nigger; slap cleft stick bespatter dust There was a popular notion that Mr Lindsay had been indebted for his presentation from the patron, Lord Glencairn, to his wife, Margaret Lauder, who was believed, but, I am assured, erroneously, to have been his lordship's housekeeper. Mr Lindsay's induction, in 1764, was so much in opposition to the sentiments of the people, that it produced a riot, attended by many outrages. Three young men, who had distinguished themselves by their violence, were whipped through Ayr, and imprisoned a month. These circumstances evoked from a shoemaker, named Hunter, a scoffing ballad, to which Burns alludes in his original note on this passage, and which may be found in the History of Kilmarnock, by Archibald M'Kay: 1848. The violence of the people was so extreme at the attempted induction of Mr Lindsay, as to put an effectual stop to the proceedings of the presbytery. The clergy dispersed in terror. A whimsical anecdote connected with the affair was related by the late William Aiton of Hamilton:-The minister of Fenwick fled in trepidation, and, mounting his horse, proceeded to ride home, with the fearful scene still occupying his excited imagination. It happened that an English commercial traveller was at the same time leaving the town on his way to Glasgow. He asked the road, which was then somewhat difficult to find, and very bad when it was found. ‘Keep after that man for the first four miles, and ye cannot go wrong,' said the people. The minister, finding a horseman following him very hard, thought it was an outraged Calvinist. He clapped the spurs to his beast, and flew faster than before. The Englishman, fearful to lose his way, put his horse to speed too, and then the affair became a John Gilpin scamper, only with two actors instead of one. At last the poor minister turned down a lane to one of his farmers, on whom he called in desperation to bring out his people and save his life. The Englishman, following close up, rode into the farmyard at the same moment, when, instead of a deadly combat on theological grounds, there took place only an explanation. The whole party enjoyed the joke so much, that the farmer insisted on keeping the stranger as his guest for the night, with the minister to help away the toddy. 2 Oliphant and Russell were Kilmarnock ministers of the zealous party. 3 Genesis, ix. 22. VOL. I. |