style="font-size:15px;"> IV. FOR GAVIN HAMILTON
[These lines allude to the persecution which Hamilton endured for presuming to ride on Sunday, and say, “damn it,” in the presence of the minister of Mauchline.]
The poor man weeps—here Gavin sleeps,
Whom canting wretches blam’d:
But with such as he, where’er he be,
May I be sav’d or damn’d!
V. ON WEE JOHNNY. HIC JACET WEE JOHNNY.
[Wee Johnny was John Wilson, printer of the Kilmarnock edition of Burns’s Poems: he doubted the success of the speculation, and the poet punished him in these lines, which he printed unaware of their meaning.]
Whoe’er thou art, O reader, know,
That death has murder’d Johnny!
An’ here his body lies fu’ low—
For saul he ne’er had ony.
VI. ON JOHN DOVE, INNKEEPER, MAUCHLINE.
[John Dove kept the Whitefoord Arms in Mauchline: his religion is made to consist of a comparative appreciation of the liquors he kept.]
Here lies Johnny Pidgeon;
What was his religion?
Wha e’er desires to ken,
To some other warl’
Maun follow the carl,
For here Johnny Pidgeon had nane!
Strong ale was ablution—
Small beer, persecution,
A dram was memento mori;
But a full flowing bowl
Was the saving his soul,
And port was celestial glory.
VII. ON A WAG IN MAUCHLINE
[This laborious and useful wag was the “Dear Smith, thou sleest pawkie thief,” of one of the poet’s finest epistles: he died in the West Indies.]
Lament him, Mauchline husbands a’,
He aften did assist ye;
For had ye staid whole weeks awa,
Your wives they ne’er had missed ye.
Ye Mauchline bairns, as on ye press
To school in bands thegither,
O tread ye lightly on his grass,—
Perhaps he was your father.
VIII. ON A CELEBRATED RULING ELDER
[Souter Hood obtained the distinction of this Epigram by his impertinent inquiries into what he called the moral delinquencies of Burns.]
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