CHORUS. For a' that, an' a' that, An' twice as muckle's a' that; I never drank the Muses' stank, But there it streams, and richly reams, For a' that, &c. Great love I bear to a' the fair, Their humble slave, an' a' that; But lordly will, I hold it still A mortal sin to thraw that. For a' that, &c. In raptures sweet, this hour we meet, Let inclination law that. For a' that, &c. Their tricks and craft have put me daft, They've ta'en me in, and a' that; But clear your decks, and here's the sex! I like the jads for a' that. So CHORUS. For a' that, an' a' that, An' twice as muckle's a' that; RECITATIVO. sung the bard-and Nansie's wa's Shook with a thunder of applause, Re-echo'd from each mouth : They toom'd their pocks, an' pawn'd their duds, To quench their lowan drouth. He rising, rejoicing, Between his twa Deborahs, Looks round him, an' found them AIR. Tune-" Jolly Mortals, fill your Glasses." SEE! the smoking bowl before us, Mark our jovial ragged ring! Round and round take up the chorus, CHORUS. A fig for those by law protected! What is title? what is treasure? If we lead a life of pleasure, With the ready trick and fable, Does the train-attended carriage Does the sober bed of marriage Witness brighter scenes of love? Life is all a variorum, A fig, &c. We regard not how it goes; Who have characters to lose. Here's to budgets, bags, and wallets! A fig for those by law protected! This remarkable poem was written in the year 1785. Burns nowhere mentions it, which has induced some one to surmise that it is not his composition; but the authorship is established beyond doubt. The original manuscript was long in the hands of John Richmond of Mauchline, and he remembers taking the song of "Sir Wisdom's a fool when he's fou" with him to Edinburgh in 1786; it was given by the poet himself to Mr. Woodburn, factor to the laird of Craigengillan, and is now in the possession of Thomas Stewart of Greenock. Other evidence, equally decisive, can be afforded. The song of "For a' that and a' that," sung by the bard, is inserted, with some slight modifications in Johnson's Museum for February, 1790, and Burns is named as the author. But the poem speaks for itself. Posie Nansie, in whose house the scene is laid, happened to be the mother of Racer Jess, who figures in the Holy Fair:" her change-house stood in Mauchline, and was the favourite resort of lame sailors, maimed soldiers, wandering tinkers, travelling ballad-singers, and all such loose companions as hang about the skirts of society. Smith, the "slee and pawkie thief” of the Epistle, accom panied Burns into Nansie's howff one night, and saw the scene, which he has rendered immortal. The Jolly Beggars," says Sir Walter Scott, "for humorous description and nice discrimination of character, is inferior to no poem of the same length in the whole range of English poetry. The scene, indeed, is laid in the very lowest department of low life, the actors being a set of strolling vagrants, met to carouse and barter their rags and plunder for liquor in a hedge ale-house. Yet, even in describing the movements of such a group, the native taste of the Poet has never suffered his pen to slide into any thing coarse or disgusting. The extravagant glee and outrageous frolic of the beggars are ridiculously contrasted with their maimed limbs, rags and crutches; the sordid and squalid circumstances of their appearance are judiciously thrown into the shade. "Nor is the art of the Poet less conspicuous in the individual figures than in the general mass. The festive vagrants are distinguished from each other by personal appearance and character, as much as any fortuitous assembly in the higher orders of life. The group, it must be observed, is of Scottish character: yet the distinctions are too well marked to escape even the southron. The most prominent persons are a maimed soldier and his female companion, a hackneyed follower of the camp; a stroller, late the consort of an Highland ketterer or sturdy beggar, but weary fa' the waefu' woodie!' Being now at liberty, she becomes an object of rivalry between a pigmy scraper with his fiddle' and a strolling tinker. The latter, a desperate bandit, like most of his profession, terrifies the musician out of the field, and is preferred by the damsel, of course. A wandering balladsinger, with a brace of doxies, is last introduced upon the stage. Each of these mendicants sing a song in character; and such a collection of humorous lyrics, connected |