Pagina-afbeeldingen
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Shou'd a' get leave to waste their powders
Upon my beaux and ladies shoulders?
My travellers are fley'd to deid

Wi' creels wanchancy, heap'd wi' bread,
Frae whilk hing down uncanny nicksticks,
That aften gie the maidens sic licks,

As make them blyth to skreen their faces
Wi' hats and muckle maun bon-graces
And cheat the lads that fain wad see
The glances o' a pauky eie,

Or gie their loves a wylie wink,

That erst might lend their hearts a clink!
Speak, was I made to dree the ladin
Of Gallic chairman heavy treadin,
Wha in my tender buke bore holes
Wi' waefu' tackets i' the soals
O' broags, whilk on my body tramp,
And wound like death at ilka clamp.

CAUSEY.

Weil crackit friend-It aft hads true,

Wi' naething fock make maist ado;
Weel ken ye, tho' ye doughtna tell,

I

pay the sairest kain mysell;

Owr me ilk day big waggons rumble,
And a' my fabric birze and jumble;
Owr me the muckle horses gallop,
Enough to rug my very saul up;

And coachmen never trow they're sinning,
While down the street their wheels are spinning.
Like thee, do I not bide the brunt

O' Highland chairman's heavy dunt?
Yet I hae never thought o' breathing
Complaint, or making din for naething.

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
May thole the prancing feet of naigs,
Nor ever fear uncanny hotches
Frae clumsy carts or hackney-coaches,
While I, a weak and feckless creature,
Am moulded by a safter nature.
Wi' mason's chissel dighted neat,
To gar me look baith clean and feat,
I scarce can bear a sairer thump
Than comes frae sole of shoe or pump.
I grant, indeed, that, now and than,
Yield to a paten's pith I maun;
But patens, tho' they're aften plenty,
Are ay laid down wi' feet fu tenty,

And stroaks frae ladies, tho' they're teazing,

I freely maun avow are pleasing.

For what use was I made, I wonder,
It was na tamely to chap under
The weight o' ilka codroch chiel,
That does my skin to targits peel;
But gin I guess aright, my trade is
To fend frae skaith the bonny ladies,
To keep the bairnies free frae harms
Whan airing in their nurses' arms,
To be a safe and canny bield
For growing youth or drooping eild.
Take then frae me the heavy load

O' burden-bearers heavy shod,

1 Salisbury Crags, part of Arthur's Seat, near Edinburgh,

Or, by my troth, the gude auld town shall
Hae this affair before their council.

CAUSEY.

I dinna care a single jot,
Tho' summon'd by a shelly-coat,
Sae leally I'll propone defences,
As get ye flung for my expences;
Your libel I'll impugn verbatim,
And hae a magnum damnum datum;
For tho' frae Arthur's-seat I sprang,
And am in constitution strang,
Wad it no fret the hardest stane
Beneath the Luckenbooths to grane?
Tho' magistrates the Cross 2 discard,

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,
Whence royal edict rang,

And voice of Scotland's law was sent
In glorious trumpet clang.

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,
That rides the sairest on my rigging.
Poor me owr meikle do ye blame,
For tradesmen tramping on your wame,
Yet a' your advocates and braw fock 1
Come still to me 'twixt ane and twa clock,
And never yet were kend to range
At Charlie's Statue or Exchange. 2
Then tak your beaux and macaronies
Gie me trades-fock and country Johnies;
The deil's in't gin ye dinna sign
Your sentiments conjunct wi' mine.

PLAINSTANES.

Gin we twa cou'd be as auld-farrant

As gar the council gie a warrant,
Ilk lown rebellious to tak,

Wha walks not in the proper track,
And o' three shilling Scottish suck him,
Or in the water-hole sair douk him;
This might assist the poor's collection,
And gie baith parties satisfaction.

CAUSEY.

But first, I think it will be good
To bring it to the Robinhood,

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,
And keen and crabbitly debated,

Whether the provost and the baillies,
For the town's good whase daily toil is,
Shou'd listen to our joint petitions,
And see obtemper'd the conditions.

PLAINSTANES.

Content am I-But east the gate is
The sun, wha taks his leave of Thetis,
And comes to wauken honest fock,
That gang to wark at sax o'clock;
It sets us to be dumb a while,
And let our words gie place to toil.

THE RISING OF THE SESSION.

To a' men living be it kend,

The Session now is at an end:

Writers, your finger-nebbs unbend,
And quat the pen,

Till Time wi' lyart pow shall send
Blythe June again.1

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).

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