THE KIRK'S ALARM. A SATIRE. [Composed, or, perhaps, it should rather be said, completed in August, 1789, with particular reference to a case then pending, and which was exciting a good deal of angry controversy. Dr. William M'Gill, one of the Ministers of Ayr, had published an Essay on the Death of Our Lord, which was supposed to be tainted with both Arianism and Socinianism. A clerical neighbour, Dr. William Peebles of Newtonupon-Ayr, in a centenary sermon upon the Revolution, on the 5th of November, 1788, openly denounced the obnoxious essay as heretical. Dr. M'Gill thereupon published a defence, which, in the April of 1789, brought the case before the Presbyterian Court of Ayr, and later on before the Synod of Glasgow. Both the litigation and the controversy were continued fiercely, until the April of 1790, when the case coming again before the Synod, Dr. M'Gill took the wind out of the sails of his opponents, by giving in a document in which he explained away the meaning attached to the paragraphs in his work to which exception had been taken, and made a formal protestation of his orthodoxy. Dr. M'Gill died on the 30th of March, 1807, in his seventy-seventh year, and in the forty-sixth of his ministry.] Tune-" Push about the brisk bowl." ORTHODOX, Orthodox, Wha believe in John Knox, Let me sound an alarm to your con science, There's a heretic blast Has been blawn i' the wast, That what is no sense must be nonsense. Doctor Mac, Doctor Mac, Ye should stretch on a rack, To strike evil-doers wi' terror; To join faith and sense, Upon ony pretence, Is heretic, damnable error. Town of Ayr, town of Ayr, It was mad, I declare, To meddle wi' mischief a-brewing'; D'rymple mild, D'rymple mild, Though your heart's like a child, And your life like the new-driven snaw; Yet that winna save ye, Auld Satan must have ye, For preaching that three 's ane an' twa. Rumble John, Rumble John, Deal brimstone like adle, Simper James, Simper James, That the pack ye'll soon lead, For puppies like you there's but few. Singet Sawney, Singet Sawney, Are ye herding the penny, Unconscious what evil await! Wi' a jump, yell, and howl, For the foul thief is just at your gate. Daddy Auld, Daddy Auld, A tod meikle waur than the clerk; Davie Bluster, Davie Bluster, If for a saunt ye do muster, The corps is no nice of recruits; Yet to worth let's be just, Royal blood ye might boast, If the ass was the king of the brutes. Jamie Goose, Jamie Goose, Ye ha'e made but toom roose, In hunting the wicked lieutenant; But the Doctor's your mark, For the L-d's haly ark; Holy Will, Holy Will, There was wit i' your skull, When ye pilfered the alms o' the poor; The timmer is scant, When ye 're ta'en for a saunt, He has coopered and ca'd a wrang pin Wha should swing in a rape for an hour. [Dr. Thomas Blacklock, the blind poet, who was mainly instrumental in persuading Burns to abandon his intention of quitting Scotland for the West Indies, was born at Annan, on the roth of November, 1721, and died at Edinburgh, on the 7th of July, 1791. The poetical epistle here And your friends they daur grant you nae addressed to him by Burns was dated by the mair. Muirland Jock, Muirland Jock, To crush Common Sense for her sins, To confound the poor Doctor at ance. latter 21st October, 1789, Ellisland.] Wow, but your letter made me vauntie ! The flower-enamoured busy bee The rosy banquet loves to sip; Sweet the streamlet's limpid lapse To the sun-browned Arab's lip. But, Delia, on thy balmy lips Let me, no vagrant insect, rove! Oh, let me steal one liquid kiss! [William, the fourth Duke of Queensberry, dying in 1810, his chief titles devolved upon the Duke of Buccleugh. Dissipated and worthless in his character, he was scorned by most of For, oh! my soul is parched with love. his contemporaries. The indignation he aroused TO JOHN M'MURDO, ESQ. [John M'Murdo, to whom the two following little pieces were addressed, was Chamberlain at Drumlanrig Castle to his Grace the Duke of Queensberry.] O, COULD I give thee India's wealth But golden sands did never grace TO THE SAME. BLEST be M'Murdo to his latest day! No envious cloud o'ercast his evening ray; No wrinkle furrowed by the hand of Nor ever Sorrow add one silver hair! in Burns by causing the beautiful woods on the banks of the Nith, around Drumlanrig Castle, to be levelled by the axe, mostly for the purpose of lavishing the money obtained for the timber upon his putative daughter, led to the production of this scathing satire. Drumlanrig was visited by three poets-by John Gay during the time of Charles, the third or good Duke of Queensberry, by Robert Burns during the time of the fourth or bad Duke, and by Walter Scott during the time of two successive Dukes of Buccleugh and Queensberry.] As on the banks o' wandering Nith Ae smiling summer morn I strayed, And traced its bonnie howes and haughs, Where linties sang and lambkins played, I sat me down upon a craig, And drank my fill o' fancy's dream, When, from the eddying deep below, Uprose the genius of the stream. Dark, like the frowning rock, his brow, And troubled like his wintry wave, And deep, as sughs the boding wind Amang his eaves, the sigh he gave"And came ye here, my son," he cried, "To wander in my birken shade? To muse some favourite Scottish theme, Or sing some favourite Scottish maid? "There was a time, it's no lang syne, Ye might ha'e seen me in my pride, When a' my banks sae bravely saw Their woody pictures in my tide; AN EVENING VIEW OF THE RUINS OF LINCLUDEN ABBEY. [The ruins of Lincluden Abbey were beyond all question a favourite haunt of Burns. There appears to be considerable doubt, however, whether he wrote the lines which follow, but "When glinting through the trees ap- which are published as his in nearly all the peared editions of his works issued from the press during the last half century. There is strong suspicion that they were written not earlier than the year 1813, and that the real author of them was Joseph Walton, a tutor in the family of the Maxwells of Terregles.] [YE holy walls, that, still sublime, "The worm that gnawed my bonnie What are yon forms that meet my sight? trees, That reptile wears a ducal crown!" Slowly they move, while every eye And, hark! what more than mortal sound Of music breathes the pile around? |