Wae worth that brandy, burning trash! An' sends, beside, auld Scotland's cash Ye Scots, wha wish auld Scotland well, Ye chief, to you my tale I tell, Poor plackless devils like mysel, It sets you ill, Wi' bitter, dearthfu' wines to mell, Or foreign gill. May gravels round his blather wrench, Out owre a glass o' whiskey punch O whiskey! soul o' plays an' pranks! When wanting thee, what tuneless cranks ! Are my poor verses -they rattle i' their ranks Thou comes At ither's a-! Thee, Ferintosh! O sadly lost! May kill us a'; For loyal Forbes' charter'd boast, Thae curst horse-leeches o' th' Excise, An' bake them up in brunstane pies For poor d-n'd drinkers. Fortune! if thou'll but gie me still Tak' a' the rest, An' deal't about as thy blind skill Directs thee best. Scotch drink is a favourite topic with the northern poets; three instances may be given of poems in its praise by our old minstrels. The earliest of these is good classical Scotch, and named "Allane-a-Maut." It begins thus: "Quhen he wes zung, and cled in grene, Quhen he grew on zon hillis hie Quhy sowld not Allane honorit be?" The second is in a homelier dialect, and is as well known in the north of England as in the south of Scotland ;it is also called "Allan-o-Maut." "Gude Allan-o-Maut was ance ca'd bear, And dragglet wi' muck and syne wi' rain, The name of the third is "John Barleycorn;" it is in the ballad style, and has, as will be shown, been successfully imitated by Burns. Fergusson, in his "Drink Eclogue," makes brandy and whiskey with little propriety-in an allegorical sense-hold conversation with an Edinburgh hostess : "Twa chappin' bottles panged wi' liquor fu', Brandy the tane, the tither whiskey blue, The Frenchman fizzed and first wad foot the field, While paughty Scotsman scorned to beenge or yield.” Brandy assumes a lordly tone; speaks with scorn of the native cordial, and boasts how he chased hysterics from ladies, and cheered even priests in the closet instead of prayers. Whiskey, calmly and mildly-says he inspired poets with song, and made Allan Ramsay's chaunter "chirm fu' clear, Life to the soul and music to the ear." Brandy appeals to the landlady, who settles the matter at once. The Excise, she observes, has hindered the importation of the right Cogniac, and that the spirit in the bottle, which gives itself such aristocratic airs, is "Whiskey, tinctured with the saffron's dye." "I here enclose you," says Burns, on the 20th of March, 1786, to one of his correspondents, "my Scotch Drink.' I hope, some time before we hear the gowk, to have the pleasure of seeing you at Kilmarnock, when I intend we shall have a gill between us, in a mutchkin stoup." THE AUTHOR'S EARNEST CRY AND PRAYER TO THE SCOTCH REPRESENTATIVES IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. "Dearest of distillation! last and best! How art thou lost! PARODY ON MILTON. YE Irish lords, ye knights an' squires, In parliament, To you a simple Bardie's prayers Are humbly sent. Alas! my roupet Muse is hearse! Your honour's heart wi' grief 'twad pierce, To see her sittin' on her a― Low i' the dust, An' scriechin' out prosaic verse, An' like to brust! Tell them wha hae the chief direction, An' rouse them up to strong conviction, Stand forth, an' tell yon Premier youth, The honest, open, naked truth: Tell him o' mine an' Scotland's drouth, His servants humble: The muckle devil blaw ye south, If ye dissemble! Does ony great man glunch an' gloom? Speak out, an' never fash your thumb! Let posts an' pensions sink or soom Wi' them wha grant 'em : If honestly they canna come, Far better want 'em. In gath'rin votes you were na slack; Now stand as tightly by your tack; Ne'er claw your lug, an' fidge your back, An' hum an' haw; But raise your arm, an' tell your crack Before them a'. |