The rest were written apparently in
1788, when the poet sent this song and _Auld Lang Syne_ to Mrs.
Dunlop. It appeared in the _Museum_, 1790.
tassie = _a cup_; _Fr._ 'tasse'
XLV
About 1777-80: printed 1801. 'One of my juvenile works,' says
Burns. 'I do not think it very remarkable, either for its merits
or demerits.' But Hazlitt thought the world of it, and now it
passes for one of Burns's masterpieces.
trysted = _appointed_
stoure = _dust and din_
XLVI
_Museum_, 1796. Attributed, in one shape or another, to a
certain Captain Ogilvie. Sharpe, too, printed a broadside in
which the third stanza (used more than once by Sir Walter)
is found as here. But Scott Douglas (_Burns_, iii. 173) has
'no doubt that this broadside was printed after 1796,' and as
it stands the thing is assuredly the work of Burns. The refrain
and the metrical structure have been used by Scott (_Rokeby_,
IV. 28), Carlyle, Charles Kingsley (_Dolcino to Margaret_),
and Mr. Swinburne (_A Reiver's Neck Verse_) among others.
XLVII-LII
Of the first four numbers, the high-water mark of Wordsworth's
achievement, all four were written in 1802; the second and third
were published in 1803; the first and fourth in 1807. The _Ode to
Duty_ was written in 1805, and published in 1807, to which year
belongs that _Song for the Feast of Brougham Castle_, from which
I have extracted the excellent verses here called _Two Victories_.
Pages:
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