An' next my auld acquaintance, Nancy, An' her kind stars hae airted till her My kindest, best respects I sen' it, Tell them, frae me, wi' chiels be cautious, An' steer you seven miles south o' hell: Now fare ye weel, an' joy be wi' you, Assist poor Simson a' ye can, Ye'll fin' him just an honest man ; Sae I conclude, and quat my chanter, ROB THE RANTER. Tait, of Glenconner, accompanied Burns to Nithsdale in 1788, and advised him respecting the farm of Ellisland. —“I am just returned," says the Poet to a correspondent, "from Millar's farm. My old friend, whom I took with me, was highly pleased with the bargain, and advised me to accept of it. He is the most intelligent, sensible farmer in the county, and his advice has staggered me a good deal. I have the two plans before me (farming and excise); I shall endeavour to balance them to the best of my judgment, and fix on the most eligible. On the whole, if I find Mr. Millar in the same favourable disposition as when I saw him last, I shall, in all probability, turn farmer." To a correspondent of another complexion and character, Burns wrote, regarding "Old Glenconner," -" I am thinking my farming scheme will yet hold. A worthy, intelligent farmer, my father's friend and my own, has been with me on the spot: he thinks the bargain practicable. I am myself, on a more serious review of the lands, much better pleased with them. I won't trust this to any body in writing but you." The poem is one of those hasty and every-day-businesslike effusions which Burns occasionally penned. Though not at all equal to some of his earlier epistles, yet it is well worth preserving, as a proof of the ease with which he could wind verse round any topic, and conduct the duties and the courtesies of life in song. His account of having grown sae cursed douce," and scorching himself at the fire "Perusing Bunyan, Brown and Boston," is archly introduced. The persons to whom a part of the letter allude, were of Glenconner's household or his neighbours. The “ manly tar" was probably Richard Brown. ON THE BIRTH OF A POSTHUMOUS CHILD. SWEET flow'ret, pledge o' meikle love, What heart o' stane wad thou na move, November hirples o'er the lea, And gane, alas! the shelt'ring tree, May He who gives the rain to pour, May He, the friend of woe and want, But late she flourish'd, rooted fast, Fair on the summer-morn: Now feebly bends she in the blast, Blest be thy bloom, thou lovely gem, And from thee many a parent stem Arise to deck our land! 66 were "These stanzas," says Burns in his memoranda, composed on the birth of a child in peculiar circumstances of family distress." A father was carried to the grave on the day his only daughter was born; a type of what happened at no distant date in the Poet's own household. Not only are the chief circumstances of the case applicable, but the very words which he used in expressing the woe of another, give an image of what was suffered in Burns'-street, in July, 1796. He speaks of the "mother-plant," "But late she flourish'd, rooted fast, Fair on the summer morn ; Now feebly bends she in the blast, The sheltering tree was removed in both cases, and tender flowerets exposed to the storm. I shall never forget the time when Burns's boys appeared in Dumfries streets in mourning for their father's death. All eyes were turned in sympathy on them-their weepers, as the white cambric on their coat-cuffs were called, and their forlorn and wondering looks, live in more memories than mine. TO MISS CRUIKSHANKS, A VERY YOUNG LADY. Written on the blank leaf of a book, presented to her by the Author. BEAUTEOUS rose-bud, young and gay, Blooming in thy early May, Never may'st thou, lovely flow'r, Never Boreas' hoary path, Never Eurus' poisonous breath, Never baleful stellar lights, Never, never reptile thief Riot on thy virgin leaf! Nor even Sol too fiercely view Thy bosom blushing still with dew! May'st thou long, sweet crimson gem, |