NOTES. Page 1. The tale of the "Twa Dogs," Gilbert Burns writes, was composed after the resolution of publishing was nearly taken. Robert had a dog which he called Luath, that was a great favourite. The dog had been killed by the wanton cruelty of some person the night before my father's death. Robert said to me, that he should like to confer such immortality as he could bestow on his old friend Luath, and that he had a great mind to introduce something into the book, under the title of Stanzas to the Memory of a Quadruped Friend; but this plan was given up for the poem as it now stands. Cæsar was merely the creature of the poet's imagination, created for the purpose of holding chat with his favourite Luath. Page 1, l. 26. Luath, Cuchullin's dog in Ossian's Fingal. R. B. Page 2, l. 8. Var. In all editions up to 1794 Till tired at last wi many a farce, They sat them down upon their a-, Page 3, l. 14. Burns alludes to the factor in the autobiographical sketch communicated to Dr. John Moore. My father's generous master died: the farm proved a ruinous bargain: and, to clench the misfortune, we fell into the hands of a factor who sat for the picture I have drawn of one in my tale of the Twa Dogs' . . . my indignation yet boils at the recollection of the scoundrel factor's insolent threatening letters, which used to set us all in tears.' In the first edition the stanza Page 8, 1. 10. closed as follows: Wae worth them for 't! While heal ha gar round to him, wha tight, Gies famous sport. Page 11, l. 20. The Marquis of Graham, eldest son of the Duke of Montrose. Page 11, l. 22. The Right Hon. Henry Dundas, Treasurer of the Navy, and M. P. for the city of Edinburgh, Page 11, 1. 24. Lord Frederick Campbell, second brother of the Duke of Argyle, and Ilay Campbell, Lord Advocate of Scotland. Page 12, l. 13. The Earl of Chatham, Pitt's father, was the second son of Robert Pitt of Boconnock, in the county of Cornwall. Page 12, l. 15. A worthy old hostess of the author's in Mauchline, where he sometimes studies politics over a glass of guid old Scotch drink. R. B. Nanse was surprised at her house and name being thus dragged before the public. She declared that Burns had never taken three half-mutchkins in her house in all his life, Page 13, 1. 37. In edition of 1794 this stanza is altered as follows: "Scotland, my auld respected mither! Freedom and Whiskey gang thegither, This tasteless alteration (which we feel convinced was not made by the poet) was not adopted in any subsequent edition of the Poems. Page 14, . 1. Holy Fair is a common phrase in the west of Scotland for a sacramental occasion. R. B. Page 18, 1. 32. in jugs an' caups. Page 18, . 37. gash guidwife. l'ar. Then comes a gaucie, Page 19. The composition of "Death and Doctor Hornbook" was suggested by the circumstances related in the Preface. It was composed rapidly. Burns met the apothecary at a meeting of the Tarbolton Masonic lodge, and the next afternoon he repeated the entire poem to Gilbert. With reference to its composition, Mr. Allan Cunningham supplies the following tradition, which is nonsense on the face of it. "On his way home"- from the Masonic meeting-"the Poet found a neighbor lying tipsy by the road-side; the idea of Death flashed on his fancy, and seating himself on the parapet of a bridge, he composed the poem, fell asleep, and when awakened by the morning sun, he recollected it all, and wrote it down on reaching Mossgiel." The laughter occasioned by the publication of the satire drove, it is said, John Wilson, schoolmaster and apothecary, out of the county. He ultimately settled in Glasgow, became Session Clerk of the Gorbals, and died in 1839. "Death and Doctor Hornbook" first appeared in the Edinburgh edition of the poems. Page 19, l. 29. In all the editions up to 1794 this line stood: Great lies and nonsense baith to vend. Page 19, 1. 37. Mr. Robert Wright, in his Life of Major-General James Wolfe, states that Hell" was the name given to the arched passage in Dublin which led into the area on the south side of Christ Church, and east of the law courts. A representation of the Devil, carved in oak, stood above the entrance. Page 20, 1. 32. This rencounter happened in seed-time, 1785. R. B. Page 21, 1. 9. An epidemical fever was then raging in that country. R. B. Page 21, 1. 21. This gentleman, Dr. Hornbook, is, professionally, a brother of the Sovereign Order of the Ferula, but by intuition and inspiration is at once an apothecary, surgeon, and physician. R. B. Or haunted Garpal draws its feeble source. The banks of Garpal water is one of the few places in the west of Scotland where those fancyscaring beings known by the name of Ghaists still continue pertinaciously to inhabit. R. B. Page 26, 1. 31. Var. Aroused by blust'ring winds an' spotted thowes. Page 26, 1. 35. "Glenbuck," the source of the river Ayr. R. B. Page 26, 1. 36. "Ratton-Key," a small landing-place above the large key. R. B. Page 28, 1. 3. Var. To liken them to your auld warld bodies. 21, 2 col. Page 30, 1. "New Light" is a cant phrase in the west of Scotland for those religious opinions which Dr. Taylor of Norwich has so strenuously defended. R. B. Page 30, l. 28. With reference to this piece Burns wrote to a correspondent: -"Warm recollection of an absent friend presses so hard upon my heart, that I send him the prefixed bag. atelle, pleased with the thought that it will greet the man of my bosom, and be a kind of distant language of friendship. It was merely an extemporaneous production, on a wager with Mr. Hamilton that I would not produce a poem The Rev. Mr. on the subject in a given time." Steven was afterwards minister of one of the Scotch churches in London-where, in 1790, William Burns, the Poet's brother, heard him preach -and he finally settled at Kilwinning in Ayrshire, where he died in 1824. Page 31. Gilbert Burns says: "It was, I think, in the winter of 1784, as we were going together with carts for coal to the family fire (and I could yet point out the particular spot), that the author first repeated to me the "Address to the Deil." The curious idea of such an address was suggested to him by turning over in his mind the many ludicrous accounts and representations we have from various quarters of this august personage." Page 32, l. 13. This stanza was originally as follows: Lang syne in Eden's happy scene, When strappin' Adam's days were green, My dearest part, A dancin', sweet, young, handsome quean, Page 32, l. 11, 2 col. Vide Milton, Book vi. R. B. Page 32, 1. 29. This was one of Burns' earliest poems, the first indication of that peculiar moral humour of which the "Twa Dogs" is the finest example. It was written before 1784, and Gilbert Burns informed Dr. Currie that "the circumstances of the poor sheep were pretty much as he has described them: he had, partly by way of frolic, bought a ewe and two lambs from a neighbour, and she was tethered in a field adjoining the house at Lochlea. He and I were going out with our teams, and our two younger brothers to drive for us, at mid-day, when Hugh Wilson, a curious-looking, awkward lad, clad in plaiding, came to us with much anxiety in his face, with the information that the ewe had entangled herself in the tether, and was lying in the ditch. Robert was much tickled with Hughoc's appearance and postures on the occasion. Poor Mailie was set to rights, and when we returned from the plough in the evening he repeated to me her 'Death and Dying Words' pretty much in the way they now stand." Page 32, 1. 34. A neibor herd callan. R. B. "In a copy of this poem in the Poet's handwriting, possessed by Miss Grace Aiken, Ayr, a more descriptive note is here given. Hughoc was an odd, glowran, gapin' callan, about threefourths as wise as other folk.'" Chambers. Page 33, l. 26, 2 col. This stanza was originally written: She was nae get o' runted rams, Wi' woo' like goats, and legs like trams; Now Robin, greetin', chows the hams Page 34. Mr. James Smith was, when this epistle was written, a shopkeeper in Mauchline. He afterwards removed to Avon near Linlithgow, where he established a calico-printing manufactory. Being unsuccessful in his speculations, he emigrated to the West Indies, where he died. Page 35, 7. 19, of Dunnichen. 2 col. George Dempster, Esq. Page 36. Certain of Burns' friends - Mrs. Dunlop, and Mrs. Stewart of Stair-con sidered the "Dream" to contain perilous stuff. These ladies, it is said, vainly solicited the Poet to omit it in the second edition of his poems. The "Dream," if not a high, is a very characteristic effort: there never was an easier handgallop of verse. Page 36, l. 14, 2 col. An allusion to the loss of the North American colonies. Page 37, 1. 7. "On the supplies for the Navy being voted, Spring 1786, Captain Macbride counselled some changes in that force, particularly the giving up of sixty-four gun-ships, which occasioned a good deal of discussion." Chambers. Page 37, 1. 35. Charles James Fox. Page 27, 1. 6, 2 col. Frederick, Bishop of Osnaburg, afterwards Duke of York. Page 37, l. 15, 2 col. William, afterwards Duke of Clarence, and King William IV. Page 37, 1. 17, 2 col. Alluding to the newspaper account of a certain royal sailor's amour. R. B. Page 38. Duan, a term of Ossian's for the different divisions of a digressive poem. See his "Cath-Loda," vol. ii. of McPherson's translation. R. B. Page 38, 1. 27, 2 col. This line supplies a curious instance of the fluctuations of Burns' mind and passion. It was originally written as it! stands in the text, but in the bitter feeling induced by the destruction of the marriage lines he had given to Jean Armour he transferred |