Gies mony a doctor his degrees

For little skaith:

In short, you may be what you please

Wi' gude Braid Claith.

For thof ye had as wise a snout on
As Shakespeare or Sir Isaac Newton,
Your judgment fouk would hae a doubt on,
I'll tack my aith,

Till they cou'd see ye wi' a suit on

O' gude Braith Claith.

Q 2

ELEGY

ON THE DEATH OF SCOTS MUSIC.

Mark it, Cæsario; it is old and plain,

The spinsters and the knitters in the sun,

And the free maids that weave their thread with bones,
Do use to chant it.

SHAKESPEARE'S TWELFTH NIGHT.

ON Scotia's plains, in days of yore,
When lads and lasses tartan wore,
Saft Music rang on ilka shore,

In hamely weid;

But Harmony is now no more,

And Music dead.

Round her the feather'd choir would wing,

Sae bonnily she wont to sing,

And sleely wake the sleeping string,

Their sang to lead,

Sweet as the zephyrs o' the spring;

But now she's dead.

Mourn ilka nymph and ilka swain,
Ilk sunny hill and dowie glen;

Let weeping streams and Naiads drain
Their fountain head;

Let Echo swell the dolefu' strain

Sin' Music's dead.

Whan the saft vernal breezes ca'
The grey-hair'd Winter's fogs awa',
Naebody than is heard to blaw,

Near hill or mead,

On chaunter or on aiten straw,

Sin' music's dead.

Nae lasses now, on simmer days,
Will lilt at bleaching o' their claes ;
Nae herds on Farrow's bonny braes,
Or banks o' Tweed,

Delight to chaunt their hameil lays,
Sin' music's dead.

At glomin now the bagpipe's dumb, Whan weary owsen hameward come; Sae sweetly as it wont to bum,

And Pibrachs skreed;

We never hear its weirlike hum,

For music's dead.

Macgibbon's gane: Ah! waes my heart!
The man in music maist expert,
Wha cou'd sweet melody impart,

And tune the reed,

Wi' sic a slee and pawky art;

But now he's dead.

Ilk carline now may grunt and grane,
Ilk bonny lassie make great mane,
Sin' he's awa, I trow there's nane
Can fill his stead;

The blythest sangster on the plain,
Alack, is dead!

Now foreign sonnets bear the gree,
And crabbit queer variety

O' sounds fresh sprung frae Italy,

A bastard breed!

Unlike that saft-tongu'd melody

Whilk now lies dead.

Cou'd lav'rocks at the dawning day,
Cou'd linties chirming frae the spray,
Or todling burns that smoothly play

O'er gowden bed,

Compare wi' Birks of Indermay?

But now they're dead.

O SCOTLAND! that cou'd yence afford To bang the pith o' Roman sword, Winna your sons, wi' joint accord, To battle speed,

And fight till MUSIC be restor❜d,

Whilk now lies dead,