When the Board of Excise informed Burns that his business was to act, and not to think and speak, he read the order to a friend, turned the paper, and wrote what he called "The Creed of Poverty."

XLI.

WRITTEN IN A LADY'S POCKET-BOOK.

GRANT me, indulgent Heav'n, that I may live
To see the miscreants feel the pains they give,
Deal freedom's sacred treasures free as air,
Till slave and despot be but things which were.

That Burns sympathized with the lovers of liberty in the first outburst of the French Revolution, these verses, as well as others, sufficiently testify. That freedom

was darkening down into despotism in France, he lived partly to see; nor was his muse silent in support of order and independence in his native land.

XLII.

THE PARSON'S LOOKS.

THAT there is falsehood in his looks
I must and will deny ;

They say their master is a knave—

And sure they do not lie.

Some one said to Burns that he saw falsehood in a certain Rev. Doctor B.'s very looks: the Poet considered for a moment, and gave his answer in this epigram.

XLIII.

THE TOAD-EATER.

WHAT of earls with whom you

have supt,

And of dukes that you dined with yestreen? Lord! a louse, Sir, is still but a louse, Though it crawl on the curls of a queen.

At the table of Maxwell of Terraughty, when it was the pleasure of one of the guests to talk only of dukes with whom he had drank, and of earls with whom he had dined, Burns silenced him with this epigram.

XLIV.

ON ROBERT RIDDEL.

To Riddel, much-lamented man,

This ivied cot was dear;

Reader, dost value matchless worth?
This ivied cot revere.

The first time that Burns rode up Nithside, after the death of his friend of Friars-Carse, he gave a boy his horse to hold, went into the Hermitage in the wood, threw himself on a seat, and remained for a full half hour. I copied these lines from the window where they were traced by the diamond of Burns.

XLV.

THE TOAST.

INSTEAD of a song, boys, I'll give you a toast— Here's the memory of those on the twelfth that we lost!

That we lost, did I say? nay, by Heav'n, that we

found;

For their fame it shall last while the world goes round.

The next in succession, I'll give you—the King!
Whoe'er would betray him, on high may he swing;
And here's the grand fabric, our free Constitution,
As built on the base of the great Revolution;
And longer with politics not to be cramm'd,
Be Anarchy curs'd, and be Tyranny damn'd ;
And who would to Liberty e'er prove disloyal,
May his son be a hangman, and he his first trial.

Burns was called upon for a song at a dinner of the Dumfries Volunteers, in honour of Rodney's victory of the 12th of April, 1782, he replied to the call by saying "Instead of a song, boys, I'll give you a toast."

XLVI.

ON A PERSON NICKNAMED THE MARQUIS.

HERE lies a mock Marquis whose titles were shamm'd; If ever he rise, it will be to be damn'd.

This personage was landlord of a respectable publichouse in Dumfries, which Burns frequented; in a place where to-names abound, he obtained that of the Marquis; and the little court or alley where his changehouse stood, is still called The Marquis's Close." In a moment when vanity prevailed against prudence, he desired Burns to write his epitaph. He did it at oncelittle to the pleasure of the landlord.

XLVII.

LINES WRITTEN ON A WINDOW.

YE men of wit and wealth, why all this sneering, 'Gainst poor Excise men? give the cause a hearing; What are your landlords' rent-rolls? teazing ledgers: What premiers-what? even monarchs' mighty gaugers:

Nay, what are priests, those seeming godly wise men ?

What are they, pray, but spiritual Excisemen?

The origin of these lines is curious and accidental. One day, while in the King's Arms Tavern, Dumfries, Burns overheard a country gentleman talking wittily rather than wisely concerning excisemen; the Poet went to a window, and on one of the panes wrote the "Rebuke" with his diamond. It was taken in good part, as indeed it could not well be otherwise, and remained long on the window an attraction to travellers.

XLVIII.

LINE'S

WRITTEN ON A WINDOW OF THE GLOBE TAVERN,

DUMFRIES.

THE graybeard, old Wisdom, may boast of his trea

sures,

Give me with gay Folly to live;

I grant him calm blooded, time-settled pleasures, But Folly has raptures to give.

The Poet ever looked widely abroad: he took no narrow-souled views of any thing: he saw that even in the company of Folly a wise man might sit down and be edified. "Out of the nettle Danger he could pluck the flower Safety." There was no hypocrisy or cant in his composition.

XLIX.

THE SELKIRK GRACE.

Some hae meat and canna eat,

And some wad eat that want it.

But we hae meat and we can eat,

And sae the Lord be thanket.

On a visit to St. Mary's Isle, the Earl of Selkirk requested Burns to say grace at dinner. These were the words he uttered-they were applauded then, and have since been known in Galloway by the name of “ The Selkirk Grace."