It appears, that on the final appearance of the case before the presbytery, Mr Hamilton's agent, Mr Robert Aiken, writer in Ayr, exercised the oratorical talents for which he was locally remarkable, in exposing the secret motives of the prosecution, and the conduct of the session, one member of which appears to have been a very wretched creature. Burns had looked on with feelings keenly excited in favour of Gavin, whom he regarded as a noble-hearted man wronged by a set of malicious bigots; and he soon after produced a satire, nominally aimed at the particular elder here alluded to, commonly called Holy Willie, but in reality a burlesque of the extreme doctrinal views of the party to which he belonged: HOLY WILLIE'S PRAYER. Oh Thou, wha in the heavens dost dwell, Sends ane to heaven, and ten to hell, And no for ony guid or ill They've done afore thee! I bless and praise thy matchless might, For gifts and grace, A burnin' and a shinin' light What was I, or my generation, Five thousand years 'fore my creation, When frae my mither's womb I fell, Whare d-d devils roar and yell, Yet I am here a chosen sample; A guide, a buckler, an example, The strength of satire here employed needs no comment. That Burns did not misrepresent the man whom he selected for vengeance is proved by events, for Holy Willie was afterwards found guilty of secreting money from the church-offerings, and he closed his miserable life in a ditch, into which he had fallen in going home from a debauch. The Rev. Hamilton Paul defends the poem as a just exposure of an odious interpretation of Christianity; and Mr Lockhart, commenting on Mr Paul, says: "That performances so blasphemous should have been not only pardoned, but applauded by ministers of religion, is a singular circumstance, which may go far to make the reader comprehend the exaggerated state of party-feeling in Burns's native county at the period when he first appealed to the public ear. Nor is it fair,' he adds, 'to pronounce sentence upon the young and reckless satirist, without taking into consideration the undeniable fact, that in his worst offences of this kind, he was encouraged and abetted by those who, to say nothing more about their professional character and authority, were almost the only persons of liberal education whose society he had any opportunity of approaching at the period in question.'1 1 In connection with these remarks, it may be as well for the reader to be aware, that in writing his poems against the religious party to which he was opposed, Burns set at naught the earnest advices of his mother and brother. He was disposed on most occasions to listen deferentially to these friends of his bosom; but on this point he was obstinate, to their great and lasting regret. The strength of the feeling under which he acted fully appears in the letter to Mr M Math, onward. He went mad at their grimaces,' &c. The harvest of 1785 was beset by wretched weather, and was very late. On Mossgiel the half of the crop was lost, a circumstance seriously affecting the prospects of Burns and his family. In two epistles of this period-one to his brother poet Lapraik, the other to a clerical friend-the bard alludes to the evil season, as well as to the ecclesiastical bickerings then going on: THIRD EPISTLE TO JOHN LAPRAIK.2 Guid speed and furder to you, Johnny, September 13, 1785. Guid health, hale han's, and weather bonny; Now when ye're nickan down fu' canny The staff o' bread, May ye ne'er want a stoup o' bran'y 1 See Appendix, No. 8. 2 First published by Lapraik in a volume of his own poems. cutting |