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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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And, faith, he'll prent it. Thou art a dainty chield, O Grose!—

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Now, by the pow'rs o' verse and prose! Whae'er o' thee shall ill suppose,

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, calm, Dropping dows, 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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ON SCARING SOME WATER FOWL IN LOCH-TURIT.

A WILD SCENE AMONG THE HILLS OF OUGHTERTYRE.

WHY, ye tenants of the lake, For me your wat'ry haunt forsake? Tell me, fellow-creatures, why At my presence thus you fly? Why disturb your social joys, Parent, filial, kindred ties?Common friend to you and me, Nature's gifts to all are free: l'eaceful keep your dimpling wave, Busy feed, or wanton lave; Or beneath the sheltering rock, Bide the surging billow's shock.

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 beam-

Poetic ardours in my bosom swell,

Lone wand'ring by the hermit's mossy cell;

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THE WHISTLE,

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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 taelse being disabled by the potency of the bottie, was to ble, and whoever was last able to blow it, every body

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 Ro.. bert Lawric of Maxwelton, ancestor of the present wor thy 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 shrill. Sir Walter, son to Sir Robert before mentioned, afterwards 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 continuel; 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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