EPISTLE TO JOHN GOLDIE

To tell the truth, they seldom fash'd him,
Except the moment that they crush'd him;
For sune as chance or fate had hush'd 'em
Tho' e'er sae short,

Then wi' a rhyme or sang he lash'd 'em,
And thought it sport.

Tho' he was bred to kintra-wark,
And counted was baith wight and stark,b
Yet that was never Robin's mark

To mak a man;

But tell him, he was learn'd and clark,"
Ye roos'dd him then!

Epistle to John Goldie, in Kilmarnock.1

AUTHOR OF THE GOSPEL RECOVERED.-AUGUST 1785.

O GOWDIE, terror o' the whigs,
Dread o' blackcoats and reverend wigs!
Sour Bigotry on his last legs

Girns an' looks back,

Wishing the ten Egyptian plagues
May seize you quick.

Poor gapin, glowrin Superstition!
Wae's me, she's in a sad condition :
Fye: bring Black Jock,2 her state physician,
To see her water:

Alas, there's ground for great suspicion
She'll ne'er get better.

Enthusiasm's past redemption,
Gane in a gallopin consumption:
Not a' her quacks, wi' a' their gumption,*
Can ever mend her;

Her feeble pulse gies strong presumption,
She'll soon surrender.

Auld Orthodoxy lang did grapple,
For every hole to get a stappleb;
But now she fetches at the thrapple,"
An' fights for breath;

Haste, gie her name up in the chapel,1
Near unto death.

It's you an' Taylor2 are the chief
To blame for a' this black mischief;
But, could the L-d's ain folk get leave,
A tooma tar barrel

An' twa red peats wad bring relief,
And end the quarrel.

E'en swinge the dogs, and thresh them sickers!
The mair they squeel aye chap the thicker;
And still 'mang hands a hearty bickeri

O' something stout;

It gars an owthor's pulse beat quicker,
And helps his wit.

THE HOLY FAIR

There's naething like the honest nappy*;
Whare'll ye e'er see men sae happy,
Or women sonsie," saft an' sappy,
"Tween morn and morn,

As them wha like to taste the drappie,
In glass or horn?

I've seen me dazed upon a time,
I scarce could wink or see a styme°;
Just ae half-mutchkind does me prime,-
Ought less is little-

Then back I rattle on the rhyme,
As gleg's a whittle.

1"Holy Fair" is a common phrase in the west of Scotland for a sacramental occasion.-R. B.

Smith, of the "Cauld Harangues" (stanza 14), was an ancestor of Mr Robert Louis Stevenson. As Lockhart justly observes, Burns, in another mood, could have given a solemn picture of a very solemn occasion. These Holy Fairs arose in the Cromwellian occupation of Scotland, among the Protesters or Remonstrants, the extreme Left of the Covenanters. "A mighty multitude of devout men assemble for the wor

the least bit. f fresh.

ship of God, beneath the open heaven, and above the graves of their fathers,' Burns had little or nothing of the old leaven of the Covenant: he descended, intellectually, from the populace whom Knox deprived of their Robin Hood Games and Sunday Golf. Heron, following, perhaps, the Letter of a Blacksmith (1759), detected an element of "old Popish festivals" in the mingled religion and frolic of Holy Fairs. The Kirk had taken the mirth out of Scotland, tamen usque recurret, in the most incongruous of

"

"

The rising sun owre Galston muirs
Wi' glorious light was glintin;
The hares were hirplin down the furrs,
The lav'rocks they were chantin
Fu' sweet that day.

THE HOLY FAIR

Quo' she, an' laughin as she spak,
An' taks me by the han's,

"Ye, for my sake, hae gien the fecka

Of a' the ten comman's

A screed some day."

"My name is Fun-your cronie dear,
The nearest friend ye hae;

An' this is Superstition here,
An' that's Hypocrisy.

I'm gaun to Mauchline 'holy fair,'
To spend an hour in daffin":

Gin ye'll go there, yon runkl'dd pair,
We will get famous laughin

At them this day."

Quoth I, "Wi' a' my heart, I'll do't;
I'll get my Sunday's sark on,
An' meet you on the holy spot;

Faith, we'se hae fine remarkin! "1
Then I gaed hame at crowdie-time,
An' soon I made me ready;

For roads were clad, frae side to side,
Wi' mony a weary body

In droves that day.

Here farmers gash,' in ridin graith,"

Gaed hoddin by their cotters;

There swankies1 young, in braw braid-claith,
Are springing owre the gutters.

The lasses, skelpin' barefit, thrang,

In silks an' scarlets glitter;

Wi' sweet-milk cheese, in mony a whang,
An' farls,' bak'd wi' butter,

Fu' crump that day.