What verse can sing, what prose narrate,
The butcher deeds of bloody fate

Amid this mighty tulzie !

Grim Horror girn'd-pale Terror roar'd,
As Murther at his thrapple shor'd,

And hell mix'd in the brulzie.

As highland craigs by thunder cleft,
When light'nings fire the stormy lift,

Hurl down with crashing rattle:

As flames among a hundred woods;
As headlong foam a hundred floods,
Such is the rage of battle!

The stubborn Tories dare to die ;
As soon the rooted oaks would fly

Before th' approaching fellers: The Whigs come on like Ocean's roar, When all his wintry billows pour

Against the Buchan Bullers.

Lo, from the shades of Death's deep night, Departed Whigs enjoy the fight,

And think on former daring:

The muffled murtherer * of Charles

The Magna Charta flag unfurls,

All deadly gules it's bearing.

*The executioner of Charles I, was masked.

Nor wanting ghosts of Tory fame,

*

Bold Scrimgeour follows gallant Graham,+ Auld Covenanters shiver.

(Forgive, forgive, much wrong'd Montrose ! Now death and hell engulph thy foes, Thou liv'st on high for ever!)

Still o'er the field the combat burns,
The Tories, Whigs, give way by turns;
But Fate the word has spoken:

For woman's wit and strength o' man,
Alas! can do but what they can!

The Tory ranks are broken.

O that my een were flowing burns,
My voice a lioness that mourns

Her darling cubs' undoing!

That I might greet, that I might cry,
While Tories fall, while Tories fly,

And furious Whigs pursuing!

What Whig but melts for good Sir James? Dear to his country by the names

Friend, patron, benefactor!

Not Pulteney's wealth can Pulteney save!
And Hopeton falls, the generous brave!

And Stewart bold as Hector.

† Graham, Marquis of Montrose.

Scrimgeour, Lord Dundee.

Stewart of Hillside.

Thou, Pitt, shalt rue this overthrow;
And Thurlow growl a curse of woe;

And Melville melt in wailing!

How Fox and Sheridan rejoice!

And Burke shall sing, O Prince, arise,
Thy power is all prevailing!

For your poor friend, the Bard, afar
He only hears and sees the war,

A cool spectator purely:

So, when the storm the forest rends,
The robin in the hedge descends,

And sober chirps securely.

The upshot of the election contest is related in this epistle Miller of Dalswinton triumphed, and Johnston of Westerhall was defeated. I have two copies of the poem before me, both in the Poet's handwriting; one belonging to Mrs. M'Murdo seems the most correct: from the other, the property of Miss Stewart of Afton, some curious and characteristic variations will be given. Burns, in these poems, had a difficult part to play, and he seems to have taken the wisest course-he laughed on both sides, taking part with neither: his friends in Nithsdale were chiefly Whigs, and he looked to the Tories for getting forward in the Excise. "I am too little a man,” he says to Fintray, “to have any political attachments: I am deeply indebted to, and have the warmest veneration for, individuals of both parties; but a man who has it in his power to be the father of a country, and who acts like his Grace of Queensberry, is

a character that one cannot speak of with patience." As M'Murdo was the Duke's friend, the copy belonging to that family is moderate on "the Douglas" in the second verse: not so the Afton copy; the Poet speaks out freely:

"I'll sing the zeal Drumlanrig bears,
Wha left the all-important cares,

Of fiddles, wh-res, and hunters,

And bent on buying borough-towns,

Came shaking hands wi' wabster louns,

And kissing barefit bunters."

Almost all the friends whom the Poet's genius had obtained for him in the two counties are mustered in song; and

"The battle closes thick and bloody."

In the Afton manuscript a verse is added, which some may think necessary, and others superfluous; it is, however, characteristic:

"Now for my friends and brethren's sakes,

And for my dear-lov'd land o'cakes,

I pray with holy fire:

Lord send a rough-shod troop o'hell,
O'er a' wad Scotland buy or sell,

To grind them in the mire."

With this poem closes the first series of the Poet's election ballads; he appears, in an after contest of the same kind, in a rougher mood.

ON

CAPTAIN GROSE'S

PEREGRINATIONS THROUGH SCOTLAND,

COLLECTING

THE ANTIQITIES OF THAT KINGDOM.

HEAR, Land o' Cakes, and brither Scots,
Frae Maidenkirk to Johnny Groat's;
If there's a hole in a' your coats,

I rede you tent it:

A chiel's amang you taking notes,

If in

And, faith, he'll prent it!

your bounds ye chance to light

Upon a fine, fat, fodgel wight,

O' stature short, but genius bright,

That's he, mark weel

And wow! he has an unco slight

O' cauk and keel.