That Catharine you, her only child, were led,
To share like her a peasant's cares and bed;
I thought it therefore best that you should still
Keep in that station you were us❜d to fill,
But make you easy in it; there might harm
Arise from raising you above a farm:
Each in that state to which he's us'd is best,
And by great changes man is seldom blest :
This could not right have been had I reveal'd
The secret to you-hence I still conceal'd:
Frae all I hid it but my dearest wife,

And hence her kindness to you during life.
But I design'd to breed wi' utmost care
Your son, if he prov'd worthy, as my heir:
He far surpass'd each hope, yet I did hide
The secret still: not through a foolish pride;
But that, dependant, he might use each art,
Still to improve, and every power exert.
My joy is full! To me are children given,
Such as fond parents scarce dare hope from heaven.
Adam. We'd better tak' the book, for what to day
Has happen'd-Katrine, do not say me nay!
I'm certain that Sir John has nae objection;
Your corrupt nature, Kate's a sad reflection!
Were you converted, naething mair I'd crave,
Of warldly bliss, upo' this side the grave.

Catharine. I'm sae o'ercome wi' joy, that ilka day, As lang's ye like, I'll henceforth wi' you pray.

Exeunt omnes.

END OF THE PASTORAL.

NOTES

TO THE

FOREGOING PASTORAL.

ACT I.

SCENE I.-Cut fport the prayer gudeman. The fublime of this exercise

of piety has been given by BURNS in his Cottar's Saturday Night. That interesting picture, we are told, was drawn from his father and family, of which it is faid to be an exact copy. The author of this scene, which was written when he was a boy of fixteen, has also, painted from the life. He has defcribed what he was often accustomed to fee, in fome country families which he vifited; where the fame ridi culous tone of familiarity was used in the service of the Deity as was ufual with our old covenanting clergy.

2. Then o' a great big weaver he will tell.-The staff of Goliah's spear being compared to a weaver's beam, Catharine, who had not given herself much trouble to examine and analyse the paffage, fuppofed the giant was a weaver, and fought with his beam. It is probable, that the history of the Philistine giants, as much as the classic `tales of

Polyphemus and the Cyclops, gave rise to the antipathy of the knighterrants to giants, fo as to kill thefe poor gentlemen wherever they met them.

It is a heavy cafe no doubt,

A man should have his brains beat out,

Because he's tall, and has large bones.

3. Ann! rax yon row'n bufs to me.-A fprig of rowan or mountain ash is, as I have frequently experienced in my youth, an excellent defenee from fairies, warlocks, and witches.

4. It's a great fifb that liveth in the fea-Adam had probably heard that the Pope lived in the See of Rome, and thence concluded that he was a fish; which he would be led to suppose alfo from his being told that he was the beast mentioned in the book of Revelations ; a thing believed alfo by Sir Ifaac Newton.

5. SCENE II. See the filver moon on bigb.-I know not well the tunes te thefe fongs, which, being fung by Fairies, may be called Virelays, a word in frequent ufe in Spenfer, Chaucer, and the old English poets. G. Gascoigne, in his Defence of Rhyme, gives the following sensible and fatisfactory account of Virelays : "There is an old kinde of rhyme called Verlayes, derived, as I have redde, of the worde verde, which betokenethe greene, and laye, which betokeneth a song, as if you would fay greene fonges."

6. And trip it nimbly in a ring.---The fairies were fuppofed to dance in a circle, which fometimes appeared of a deeper green, fometimes of a withered yellow, and within which it was dangerous to fleep or stay after funfet, as it expofed the perfon to elfin power. See a story on this fubject, faid to be common in Selkirkshire, in the Minstrelsy of the Scotif Border, vol. ii. p. 226.

This opinion of fairy circles was common not only in Scotland, but in England, and all the northern countries of Europe. In the MidJummer Night's Dream, act ii. fc. 1. Puck fays,

And I ferve the fairy queen,

To dew ber orbs upon the green.

"The orbs here mentioned (fays S. Johnson) are the circles fuppofed to be made by the fairies on the ground, whofe verdure proceeds from the fairies care to water them. Thus Drayton :

They in their courfes make that round,
In meadows and in marshes found,
Of them fo call'd the fairy ground.

Stevens brings the following remark from Olaus Magnus, De gentibus Septentrionalibus" Similes illis spectris, quae in multis locis, praefertim nocturno tempore, fuum faltatorium orbem cum omnium mufarum concentu verfare folent." It appears from Olaus, that these dancers always parched the grafs, and therefore it was made the office of Puck to refresh it.

7. SCENE III.—And to the greenwood awkward limps the hare. For this idea I have been indebted to Thomson."

J

8. But caft frae Tintock cloth'd ri' light.Tintock is a mountain in Clydesdale, a few miles from the Falls. ·· It is of a circular form; is about 2400 feet above the level of the fea, and commands a fine profpect. On its top is a huge heap of stones, to which, we are told," every person who afcends the mountain fhould carry up one. This, it is faid, ferved in old times as a beacon, which was visible from fixteen counties.

9. Wi' thee in woods where near a fiepThis fong is formed upon the following lines of Tibullus: