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ON THE LATE

CAPT. GROSE'S PEREGRINATIONS

THROUGH SCOTLAND

COLLECTING THE ANTIQUITIES OF THAT

KINGDOM.

HEAR, Land O' Cakes, and brither Scots, Frae Maidenkirk to Johnie Groat's; If there's a hole in a' your coats,

I rede you tent it:

A chield's amang you taking notes,

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Now, by the pow'rs o' verse and prose! And, faith, he'll prent it. Thou art a dainty chield, O Grose !— Whae'er o' thee shall ill suppose,

If in your bounds ye chance to light
Upon a fine, fat, fodgel wight,
O' stature short, but genius bright,

That's he, mark weelAnd vow! he has an unco slight

O' cauk and keel.

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They sair misca' thee;

I'd take the rascal by the nose,

Wad say, Shamefa' thee.

TO MISS CRUIKSHANKS,

A VERY YOUNG LADY.

WRITTEN ON THE BLANK LEAF OF A BOOK, PRESENTED TO HER BY THE AUTHOR.

BEAUTEOUS rose-bud, young and gay,
Blooming on thy early May,
Never may'st thou, lovely flow'r,
Chilly shrink in sleety show'r!
Never Boreas' hoary path,

Never Eurus' pois'nous breath,
Never baleful stellar lights,
Taint thee with untimely blights!
Never, never reptile thief

Riot on thy virgin leaf!
Nor even Sol too fiercely view
Thy bosom, blushing still with dew!

May'st thou long, sweet crimson gem, Richly deck thy native stem; Till some ev'ning, sober, caim, Dropping dews, and breathing balm, While all around the woodland rings, And ev'ry bird thy requiem sings; Thou, amid the dirgeful sound, Shed thy dying honours round, And resign to parent earth

The loveliest form she e'er gave birth

SONG.

ANNA, thy charms my bosom fire, And waste my soul with care;

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Conscious, blushing for our race, Soon, too soon, your fears I trace.

WRITTEN WITH A PENCIL

OVER THE CHIMNEY-PIECE,

IN THE PARLOUR OF THE INN AT KENMORE, TAYMOUTH.

ADMIRING Nature in her wildest grace,
These northern scenes with weary feet I trace;
O'er many a winding dale and painful steep,
Th' abodes of covey'd grouse and timid sheep,
My savage journey, curious, I pursue,
Till fam'd Breadalbane opens to my view.
The meeting cliffs each deep-sunk glen divides,
The woods, wild scatter'd, clothe their ample
sides;

Th' outstretching lake, embosom'd 'mong the

hills,

The eye with wonder and amazement fills;
The Tay meand'ring sweet in infant pride,
The palace rising on his verdant side;
The lawns wood-fring'd in Nature's native
taste;

The hillocks dropt in Nature's careless haste;
The arches striding o'er the new-born stream;
The village, glittering in the moontide bean

*

Poetic ardours in my bosom swell,
Lone wand'ring by the hermit's mossy cell;

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As high in air the bursting torrents flow,
As deep recoiling surges foam below,
Prone down the rock the whitening sheet
scends,

THE WHISTLE,

A BALLAD.

As the authentic prose history of the Whistle is curlous, I shall here give it.-In the train of Anne of Denmark, when she came to Scotland, with our James the gantic stature and great prowess, and a matchless chamSixth, there came over also a Danish gentleman of gipion of Bacchus. He had a little ebony Whistle, which at the commencement of the orgies he laid on the ta

de-ble, and whoever was last able to blow it, every body

And viewless echo's ear, astonish'd, rends,
Dim-seen, through rising mists and ceaseless
show'rs,

The hoary cavern, wide-surrounding low'rs.
Still thro' the gap the struggling river toils,
And still below the horrid caldron boils—

ON THE BIRTH

OF A

POSTHUMOUS CHILD,

BORN IN PECULIAR CIRCUMSTANCES OF
FAMILY DISTRESS.

SWEET Flow'ret, pledge o' meikle love,
And ward o' mony a pray'r,
What heart o' stane wad thou na move,
Sae helpless, sweet, and fair!

November hirples o'er the lea,
Chill, on thy lovely form;
And gane, alas! the shelt'ring tree,
Should shield thee frae the storm.

else being disabled by the potency of the bottle, was to carry off the Whistle as a trophy of victory. The Dane produced credentials of his victories, without a single defeat, at the courts of Copenhagen, Stockholm, Moscow, Warsaw, and several of the petty courts in Germany; and challenged the Scots Bacchanalians to the alternative of trying his prowess, or else of acknowledging their inferiority.-After many overthrows on the part of the Scots, the Dane was encountered by Sir Robert Lawrie of Maxwelton, ancestor of the present worthy baronet of that name; who, after three days' and three nights' hard contest, left the Scandinavian under the table,

And blew on the Whistle his requium skrill.

Sir Walter, son to Sir Robert before mentioned, after wards lost the Whistle to Walter Riddel of Glenriddel, who had married a sister of Sir Walter's.-On Friday the 16th of October, 1790, at Friars-Carse, the Whistle was once more contended for, as related in the ballad, by the present Sir Robert Lawrie of Maxwelton; Robert Riddel, Esq. of Glenriddel, lineal descendant and representative of Walter Riddel, who won the Whistle, and in whose family it had continued; and Alexander Fergusson, Esq. of Craigdarroch, likewise descended of the great Sir Robert; which last gentle man carried off the hard-won honours of the field.

I SING of a Whistle, a Whistle of worth,
I sing of a Whistle, the pride of the North,

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