""Twas but yestreen, nae farther gaen,

I threw a noble throw at ane;

Wi' less, I'm sure, I've hundreds slain;
But-deil-ma-care,

It just play'd dirl on the bane,

But did nae mair.

"Hornbook was by, wi' ready art, And had sae fortified the part, That when I looked to my dart,

It was sae blunt,

Fient haet o't wad hae pierc'd the heart Of a kail-runt.

"I drew my scythe in sic a fury, I nearhand cowpit wi' my hurry, But yet the bauld Apothecary

Withstood the shock;

I might as weel hae tried a quarry
O' hard whin rock.

"Ev'n them he canna get attended, Although their face he ne'er had kend it,

Just

in a kail-blade, and send it,

As soon he smells't,

Baith their disease, and what will mend it,

At once he tells't.

"And then a' doctor's saws and whittles, Of a' dimensions, shapes, an' mettles, A' kinds o' boxes, mugs, an' bottles,

He's sure to hae;

Their Latin names as fast he rattles
As A B C.

"Calces o' fossils, earths, and trees; True sal-marinum o' the seas;

The farina of beans and pease,

He has❜t in plenty;

Aqua-fontis, what you please,

He can content ye.

"Forbye some new, uncommon weapons, Urinus spiritus of capons;

Or mite-horn shavings, filings, scrapings,

Distill'd per se ;

Sal-alkali o' midge-tail clippings,

"Waes me for Johnny Ged's Hole* now," Quo' I, "If that thae news be true! His braw calf-ward whare gowans grew,

Sae white and bonie,

Nae doubt they'll rive it wi' the plew;

They'll ruin Johnie!"

The grave-digger.

The creature grain'd an eldritch laugh,

And says,

"Ye need na yoke the pleugh,

Kirkyards will soon be till'd eneugh,

Tak ye nae fear:

They'll a' be trench'd wi' mony a sheugh
In twa-three year.

"Whare I kill'd ane a fair strae death, By loss o' blood or want of breath, This night I'm free to tak my aith,

That Hornbook's skill

Has clad a score i' their last claith,

By drap an' pill.

"An honest wabster to his trade,

Whase wife's twa nieves were scarce weel bred,

Gat tippence-worth to mend her head,

When it was sair;

The wife slade cannie to her bed,

But ne'er spak mair.

"A countra laird had ta'en the batts,

Or some curmurring in his guts,

His only son for Hornbook sets,

An' pays him well.

The lad, for twa guid gimmer-pets,

Was laird him'sel.

"A bonnie lass, ye kend her name, Some ill-brewn drink had hov'd her wame; She trusts hersel, to hide the shame,

In Hornbook's care;

Horn sent her aff to her lang hame,
To hide it there.

"That's just a swatch o' Hornbook's way; Thus goes he on from day to day,

Thus does he poison, kill, an' slay,

An's weel paid for't;

Yet stops me o' my lawfu' prey,

Wi' his d-mn'd dirt:

"But, hark! I'll tell you of a plot, Though dinna ye be speaking o't; I'll nail the self-conceited sot,

As dead's a herrin':

Niest time we meet, I'll wad a groat,
He gets his fairin'!”

But just as he began to tell,

The auld kirk-hammer strak' the bell

Some wee short hour ayont the twal,

Which rais'd us baith:

I took the way that pleas'd mysel',

And sae did Death.

This poem-a fine mixture of fancy and humour-was thought too personal for the Kilmarnock edition; but when success rendered the poet bolder, he printed it in the subscription volume of 1787, with notes intimating the object of the satire.-"This gentleman, Dr. Hornbook," said Burns, "is professionally a brother of the sovereign order of the ferula, but, by intuition and inspiration, he is at once apothecary, surgeon, and physician." In a note to the copy of his works presented to Dr. Geddes, the Poet says the hero of the poem is "John Wilson, schoolmaster, in Tarbolton." Of the person raised to this painful eminence, Gilbert Burns says, “To eke out the scanty subsistence allowed to his useful class he set up a shop of grocery goods. Having accidentally fallen in with some medical books, and become most hobby-horsically attached to the study of medicine, he had added the sale of a few medicines to his little trade. had got a shop-bill printed, at the bottom of which, overlooking his own incapacity, he had advertised that advice would be given, in common disorders, at the shop gratis. Robert was at a mason-meeting in Tarbolton, when the Dominie made too ostentatious a display of his medical skill. As he parted in the evening from this mixture of pedantry and physic, at the place where he describes his meeting with Death, one of those floating ideas of apparitions mentioned in his letter to Dr. Moore, crossed his mind: this set him to work for the rest of his way home. These circumstances he related when he repeated the verses to me next afternoon, as I was holding the plough, and he was letting the water off the field beside me."

He

The tradition of the neighbourhood supplies a few particulars. On his way home, it is said, the Poet found a neighbour lying tipsy by the road-side: the idea of Death flashed on his fancy, and seating himself on the parapet