The election had taken a serious turn against Heron, when Burns wrote balląd second: the verses are severe in most instances, and in some parts venomous: worthier men than several of those lampooned were not then alive, but he desired to help his friend and regarded not what weapons he used provided they were sharp. The names of those who figure in the lampoon are before me, but they are sufficiently plain in the song to those who reside in "Green Galloway," and require no farther emblazonment while to the world at large, no explanation could give light to purely provincial things-the interpretation would be as dark as the text. Suffice it to say, that the gentlemen named were the most active canvassers on both sides; praise is lavished on the adherents of Heron; satiric abuse is bestowed on the friends of the Gordon. In another ballad-a sort of parody on "The Life and Age of Man," the Poet turns with fierce indignation on John Bushby of Tinwalddowns: a man of great natural talents, and makes him pour forth his lamentation : "'Twas in the seventeen hundred year O' Christ and ninety-five, That year I was the saddest man, Of any man alive. In March the three and twentieth day, But O, I was a woeful man, Ere toofa' of the night. Yerl Galloway lang did rule the land, Wi' equal right an' fame; And thereto was his kinsman joined, The Murray's noble name. Yerl Galloway lang did rule the land, Made me the judge o' strife; But now Yerl Galloway's sceptre's broke, And eke my hangman's knife." The succeeding verses of the "Lamentation" are too personal for insertion. • THE HERON BALLADS. [BALLAD THIRD.] AN EXCELLENT NEW SONG. Tune.-" Buy broom besoms." WHA will buy my troggin, A' in high repair. Buy braw troggin, Frae the banks o' Dee; Wha wants troggin Let him come to me. There's a noble Earl's Fame and high renown, For an auld sang Its thought the gudes were stown. Buy braw troggin, &c. Here's the worth o' Broughton In a needle's ee; Here's a reputation Tint by Balmaghie. Buy braw troggin, &c. Here's an honest conscience Might a prince adorn ; Frae the downs o' Tinwald So was never worn. Buy braw troggin, &c. Here's its stuff and lining, Cardoness' head; Fine for a sodger A' the wale o' lead. Buy braw troggin, &c. Here's a little wadset Buittles scrap o' truth, Pawn'd in a gin-shop Buy braw troggin, &c. Here's armorial bearings Frae the manse o' Urr; The crest, an auld crab-apple Rotten at the core. Buy braw troggin, &c. Here is Satan's picture, Like a bizzard gled, Pouncing poor Redcastle Sprawlin' as a taed. Buy braw troggin, &c. Here's the worth and wisdom Collieston can boast; By a thievish midge They had been nearly lost. Buy braw troggin, &c, Here is Murray's fragments Gifted by black Jock To get them aff his hands. Saw ye e'er sic troggin? Frae the banks o' Dee; Wha wants troggin Let him come to me. This third and last ballad refers to the contest between Heron and Stewart: the former was successful on the hustings, but was unseated by a Committee of the Commons, and took the disappointment so much to heart, that he died—some say by his own hands-on his way back to Scotland. It was one of the dreams of his day, in which Burns indulged, that, by some miraculous movement, the Tory counsellors of the king would be dismissed, and the Whigs, with the Prince of Wales at their head, rule and reign in their stead. That Heron aided in strengthening this "devout imagination" is certain but then the laird of Kerroughtree was the victim of the delusion himself-the faith for which a man dies he must feel sincerely. All explanation of names is avoided, for the reasons already assigned. The Editor has been bold-he hopes not too bold. To those who urge him—and such have not been wanting—to give Burns as he found him he may make answer in the Poet's own, and hitherto unprinted, words :— Many verses on which an author would by no means rest his reputation in print, may yet amuse an idle moment in manuscript; and many poems, from the locality of the subject, may be unentertaining or unintelligible to those who are strangers to that locality. Most of, if not all, the following poems, are in one or other of these predicaments; and the author begs, into whose hands they may fall, that they will do him the justice not to publish what he himself thought proper to suppress. -R. B." These remarkable words are on the first page of a manuscript collection of the poems which Burns wrote in Ellisland: his meaning must not be interpreted too strictly: "Tam o' Shanter," and the "Inscription on Friar's-Carse Hermitage," are among them. |