Shou'd a' get leave to waste their powders Wi' creels wanchancy, heap'd wi' bread, As make them blyth to skreen their faces Or gie their loves a wylie wink, That erst might lend their hearts a clink! CAUSEY. Weil crackit friend-It aft hads true, Wi' naething fock make maist ado; I pay the sairest kain mysell; Owr me ilk day big waggons rumble, And coachmen never trow they're sinning, O' Highland chairman's heavy dunt? PLAINSTANES. Had sae, and lat me get a word in, Your back's best fitted for the burden; And I can eithly tell you why, Ye're doughtier by far than I; For whin-stanes, howkit frae the craigs,1 And stroaks frae ladies, tho' they're teazing, I freely maun avow are pleasing. For what use was I made, I wonder, O' burden-bearers heavy shod, 1 Salisbury Crags, part of Arthur's Seat, near Edinburgh, Or, by my troth, the gude auld town shall CAUSEY. I dinna care a single jot, It makes na whan they leave the Guard, 3 1 Where Ramsay had his Shop' in which the first circulating library was established, and from which issued his peerless Pastoral and subsequently Burns's Poems, and many of the most celebrated works of the last century, from the press of Creech. The Luckenbooths consisted of a series of tenements which rose nearly to the height of the adjacent houses, built within a few yards of the church of St. Giles, headed at their western extremity by the Old Tolbooth of Edinburgh.Vide Arnot-Wilson-Chambers. 2 The market-cross had been removed in 1752, as touchingly and with levin-fire lamented by Sir Walter Scott, at whose seat of Abbotsford the ornamental stones of it are still preserved. Dun Edin's Cross, a pillar'd stone, Rose on a turret octagon ; But now is razed that monument, And voice of Scotland's law was sent O! be his tomb as lead to lead, Upon its dull destroyer's head!— A minstrel's malison is said. MARMION, CANTO V. v. 25. 3 "The Guard-house was a long, low, ugly building (removed in 1787-8) which to a fanciful imagination might have suggested the idea of a long black snail crawling up the middle of the High Street, and deforming its beautiful esplanade."-SCOTT:-Heart of Midlothian, c. vi. A portrait of the Guard-house forms one of the curious Collection by Kay, No. CLXX. Edin. 2 vols. 4to. A lumbersome and stinkin bigging, PLAINSTANES. Gin we twa cou'd be as auld-farrant As gar the council gie a warrant, Wha walks not in the proper track, CAUSEY. But first, I think it will be good 3 1 There is an etching of Parliament Square by David Allan which exhibits all this 'gay procession' very graphically. 2 Two places were laid with plainstanes for the convenience of the merchants, who, however, could never be prevailed on to take advantage of them, but held to their old haunt on the 'causey' near the site of the Cross. The statue of Charles II. in Parliament Square is referred to. The Exchange is well known. 3 A new instituted society, held weekly in the Thistle Lodge, where the grand concerns of the nation are debated by a set of juvenile Ciceros. A debating society where Claudero was wont to figure, subsequently called the Pantheon, and in which, it is worth while mentioning, -F. F Whare we shall hae the question stated, Whether the provost and the baillies, PLAINSTANES. Content am I-But east the gate is THE RISING OF THE SESSION. To a' men living be it kend, The Session now is at an end: Writers, your finger-nebbs unbend, Till Time wi' lyart pow shall send Tir'd o' the law, and a' its phrases, The wylie writers, rich as Croesus, Alexander Wilson, author of Watty and Meg' and other poems, and the illustrious ornithologist, delivered his celebrated poem of the 'Laurel Disputed' or the respective Claims of Ramsay and Fergusson, in which as if he had been impressed by the genius loci, for Fergusson was a distinguished member, he assigned the palm to our poet.-See Poems. 1 The Court of Session was opened in the time of Fergusson (1773) for the summer term on the 12th of June, instead of the 12th of May as at present (1850-1). |