with vivid poetical description, is not, perhaps, to be paralleled in the English language. The concluding ditty, chaunted by the ballad-singer at the request of the company, whose mirth and fun have now grown fast and furious,' and set them above all sublunary terrors of jails, and whipping-posts, is certainly far superior to any thing in the Beggar's Opera, where alone we could expect to find its parallel."

"Such a motley group of vagrants as Burns has so happily described,” observes Cromek, “may yet be found in many districts of Scotland. There are houses of rendezvous where the maimed, supplicating soldier-the travelling, ballad-singing fiddler-the sturdy wench, with hands ever ready to steal the pittance which is not bestowed-the rough, black-bearded tinker, with his soldering-irons and pike-staff-and other children of real or pretended misfortune, assemble on a Saturday night to pawn their stolen clothes, dispose of their begged meal, and on their produce to hold merriment and revelry." One of that sturdy class of mendicants, so well painted by both poet and annotator, is still remembered in Nithsdale by the name of Auld Penpont." This provincial worthy was a fellow of infinite drollery and rustic talent: he had a grave speech for the serious-could sing a psalm or pray upon occasion with the devout; but when he met with the young and the thoughtless, he was another man. He told wild stories, chanted wilder songs, and sometimes laid his wallets aside and performed a sort of rustic interlude, called Auld Glenae," with no little spirit and feeling.

66

DEATH AND DR. HORNBOOK.

A TRUE STORY.

SOME books are lies frae end to end,
And some great lies were never penn❜d:
Ev'n ministers, they ha'e been kenn'd,
In holy rapture,

A rousing whid, at times, to vend,

And nail't wi' Scripture.

But this that I am gaun to tell,
Which lately on a night befel,
Is just as true's the Deil's in h-ll

Or Dublin city :

That e'er he nearer comes oursel

'S a muckle pity.

The Clachan yill had made me canty,
I was na fou, but just had plenty ;
I stacher'd whyles, but yet took tent ay
To free the ditches;

An' hillocks, stanes, and bushes, kenn'd ay
Fra ghaists an' witches.

The rising moon began to glow'r
The distant Cumnock hills out-owre:
To count her horns, wi' a' my pow'r,
I set mysel;

But whether she had three or four,
I cou'd na tell.

I was come round about the hill,
And todlin down on Willie's mill,
Setting my staff wi' a' my skill,

To keep me sicker;

Tho' leeward whyles, against my will, I took a bicker.

I there wi' something did forgather,
That put me in an eerie swither;

An awfu' scythe, out-owre ae shouther,

Clear-dangling, hang;

A three-taed leister on the ither

Lay, large an' lang.

Its stature seem'd lang Scotch ells twa,

The queerest shape that e'er I saw,

For fient a wame it had ava;

And then, its shanks,

They were as thin, as sharp an' sma'

As cheeks o' branks.

"Friend! hae ye been mawin,

“ Guid-een,” quo' I;

When ither folk are busy sawin?"

It seem'd to mak a kind o' stan',

But naething spak ;

At length, says I, " Friend, whare ye gaun,
Will ye go back?"

It spak right howe,-" My name is Death,
But be na' fley'd."-Quoth I, “Guid faith,
Ye're may be come to stap my breath;

But tent me billie;

I red ye weel, take care o' skaith,

See, there's a gully!"

66

Guidman," quo' he, " put up your whittle, I'm no design'd to try its mettle;

But if I did, I wad be kittle

To be mislear'd,

I wad na mind it, no, that spittle

Out-owre my beard."

"Weel, weel!" says I," a bargain be't; Come, gies your hand, an' sae we're gree't; We'll ease our shanks an' tak a seat,

Come, gies your news;

This while ye hae been mony a gate,
At mony a house.

"Ay, ay!" quo' he, an' shook his head, "It's e'en a lang, lang time indeed Sin I began to nick the thread,

An' choke the breath:

Folk maun do something for their bread, An' sae maun Death.

"Sax thousand years are near hand fled Sin' I was to the butching bred,

An' mony a scheme in vain's been laid,
To stap or scar me;

Till ane Hornbook's ta'en up the trade,
An' faith, he'll waur me,

"Ye ken Jock Hornbook i' the Clachan, Deil mak his king's-hood in a spleuchan! He's grown sae well acquaint wi' Buchan* An' ither chaps,

The weans haud out their fingers laughin And pouk my hips.

"See, here's a scythe, and there's a dart, They hae pierc'd mony a gallant heart;

But Doctor Hornbook, wi' his art

And cursed skill,

Has made them baith no worth a f―t,

Damn'd haet they'll kill.

Buchan's Domestic Medicine.