And steal from me Maria's prying eye. 3 The shrinking bard adown an alley skulks, hulks ; (Though there, his heresies in church and state Might well award him Muir and Palmer's fate :) Still she undaunted reels and rattles on, And dares the public like a noontide sun. 1 The poet here enumerates several of Mrs. Riddel's visiting-friends. "Gillespie" has been noted as the name of the Irish gentleman first alluded to. 2 Colonel M'Dowall, of Logan, noted as the Lothario of his county during many long years. 3 Burns alludes in this poem to a family which in his day occupied a conspicuous place in Dumfriesshire society. Mr. John Bushby had raised himself to wealth and importance, first as a solicitor, and afterwards as a banker. The person referred to in these lines was Mr. Bushby Maitland, son of John Bushby, then a young advocate, and supposed to be by no means the equal of his father in point of intellect. ET. 36.] EPISTLE FROM ESOPUS TO MARIA. 97 (What scandal called Maria's jaunty stagger, The ricket reeling of a crooked swagger? Whose spleen e'en worse than Burns's venom when He dips in gall unmixed his eager pen, And even the abuse of poesy abused? Who called her verse a parish workhouse, made For motley, foundling fancies, stolen or strayed?) A workhouse! ah, that sound awakes my woes, And vermined gipsies littered heretofore! Must earth no rascal save thyself endure? Must thou alone in guilt immortal swell, And make a vast monopoly of hell? Thou know'st the virtues cannot hate thee worse; The vices also, must they club their curse ? Or must no tiny sin to others fall, Because thy guilt's supreme enough for all? In all of thee sure thy Esopus shares. As thou at all mankind the flag unfurls, And thy still matchless tongue that conquers all reply? THE LOVELY LASS OF INVERNESS.1 TUNE- Lass of Inverness. The first half-stanza of this song is from an older composition, which Burns here improved upon. THE lovely lass o' Inverness, Nae joy nor pleasure can she see; 1 The songs wholly, or almost wholly, by Burns, furnished for the fifth volume of Johnson's Museum, now follow, as far as p. 112. 66 99 ET. 36.] A RED, RED ROSE. For e'en and morn she cries, Alas! And aye the saut tear blin's her e'e. Drumossie Moor Drumossie-day A waefu' day it was to me! Their winding-sheet the bluidy clay, For monie a heart thou hast made sair, O MY luve's like a red, red rose, 131605A As fair art thou, my bonny lass, So deep in luve am I; And I will luve thee still, my dear, Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear, While the sands o' life shall run. Though it were ten thousand mile.1 1 This song was written by Burns as an improvement upon a street ditty, which Mr. Peter Buchan says was composed by a Lieutenant Hinches, as a farewell to his sweetheart, when on the eve of parting. Various versions of the original song are given in Hogg and Motherwell's edition of Burns, including one from a stall sheet containing six excellent new songs, which Mr. Motherwell conjectures to have been printed about 1770, and of which his copy bore these words on its title, in a childish scrawl believed to be that of the Ayrshire bard, "Robine Burns aught this buik and no other." A version more elegant than any of these was communicated to me by the late Mr. Robert Hogg in 1823: O fare-thee-well, my own true love, O fare-thee-well a while; But I'll come back and see thee, love, Ten thousand mile is a long, long way, |