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, 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 That's he, mark weelAnd vow! he has an unco slight O' cauk and keel. 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, Never Eurus' pois'nous breath, Riot on thy virgin leaf! 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; 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, Th' outstretching lake, embosom'd 'mong the hills, The eye with wonder and amazement fills; The hillocks dropt in Nature's careless haste; * Poetic ardours in my bosom swell, As high in air the bursting torrents flow, 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, The hoary cavern, wide-surrounding low'rs. ON THE BIRTH OF A POSTHUMOUS CHILD, BORN IN PECULIAR CIRCUMSTANCES OF SWEET Flow'ret, pledge o' meikle love, November hirples o'er the lea, 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, |