Scotland/Scots > Life of Robert Burns

ROBERT BURNS,
109
CHAPTER V.
“ E<lina ! Scotia’s darling seat!
All bail thy palaces and tow’rs,
Where once beneath a monarch’s feet
Sat legislation’s sovereign powers;
From marking wildly-scatter’d flow’rs,
As on the banks of Ayr 1 stray’d.
And singing, lone, the lingering hours,
I shelter in thy honour’d shade. ”
There is an old Scottish ballad which begins
thus:
“ As I came in by Glenap,
I met an aged woman.
And slie bade me cheer up my heart,
For the best of my days was coming.”
This stanza was one of Burns’s favourite quota¬
tions ; and be told a friend * many years after¬
wards, that he remembered bumming it to himself,
over and over, on his way from Mossgiel to Edin¬
burgh. Perhaps the excellent Blacklock might not
have been particularly flattered with t-be circum¬
stance had it reached bis ears.
Although he repaired to the capital with such
alertness, solely in consequence of Blacklock’s let¬
ter to Laurie, it appears that lie allowed some
weeks to pass ere be presented himself to the Doc¬
tor’s personal notice, f He found several of bis
* David Macculloch, E«q. brother to Ardwell.
f Burns reached Edinburgh before the end of Novem¬
ber ; and yet Dr Laurie’s letter, (General Correspondence,
p. 37), admonishing him to wait on Blacklock, is dated De¬
cember 22.
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