For God sake, sirs! then speak her fair,
     An’ straik her cannie wi’ the hair,
     An’ to the muckle house repair,
     Wi’ instant speed,
     An’ strive, wi’ a’ your wit an’ lear,
     To get remead.

     [Footnote 9:  Sir Wm. Augustus Cunningham, Baronet, of Livingstone.]

     [Footnote 10:  Col.  Hugh Montgomery, afterward Earl of Eglinton.]

     Yon ill-tongu’d tinkler, Charlie Fox,
     May taunt you wi’ his jeers and mocks;
     But gie him’t het, my hearty cocks! 
     E’en cowe the cadie! 
     An’ send him to his dicing box
     An’ sportin’ lady.

     Tell you guid bluid o’ auld Boconnock’s, ^11
     I’ll be his debt twa mashlum bonnocks,
     An’ drink his health in auld Nance Tinnock’s ^12
     Nine times a-week,
     If he some scheme, like tea an’ winnocks,
     Was kindly seek.

     Could he some commutation broach,
     I’ll pledge my aith in guid braid Scotch,
     He needna fear their foul reproach
     Nor erudition,
     Yon mixtie-maxtie, queer hotch-potch,
     The Coalition.

     Auld Scotland has a raucle tongue;
     She’s just a devil wi’ a rung;
     An’ if she promise auld or young
     To tak their part,
     Tho’ by the neck she should be strung,
     She’ll no desert.

     And now, ye chosen Five-and-Forty,
     May still you mither’s heart support ye;
     Then, tho’a minister grow dorty,
     An’ kick your place,
     Ye’ll snap your gingers, poor an’ hearty,
     Before his face.

     God bless your Honours, a’ your days,
     Wi’ sowps o’ kail and brats o’ claise,

     [Footnote 11:  Pitt, whose grandfather was of Boconnock in Cornwall.]

     [Footnote 12:  A worthy old hostess of the author’s in Mauchline,
     where he sometimes studies politics over a glass of gude auld
     Scotch Drink.—­R.B.]

     In spite o’ a’ the thievish kaes,
     That haunt St. Jamie’s! 
     Your humble poet sings an’ prays,
     While Rab his name is.

     Postscript

     Let half-starv’d slaves in warmer skies
     See future wines, rich-clust’ring, rise;
     Their lot auld Scotland ne’re envies,
     But, blythe and frisky,
     She eyes her freeborn, martial boys
     Tak aff their whisky.

     What tho’ their Phoebus kinder warms,
     While fragrance blooms and beauty charms,
     When wretches range, in famish’d swarms,
     The scented groves;
     Or, hounded forth, dishonour arms
     In hungry droves!

     Their gun’s a burden on their shouther;
     They downa bide the stink o’ powther;
     Their bauldest thought’s a hank’ring swither
     To stan’ or rin,
     Till skelp—­a shot—­they’re aff, a’throw’ther,
     To save their skin.