burn = _brook_
fiere = _friend_, _companion_
guid-willie = _well-meant_, _full of good-will_
waught = _draught_

XLIV

The first four lines are old. 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_.

LIII-LXII

The first three numbers are from _Marmion_ (1808):
I. Introduction; V. 12; and VI. 18-20, 25-27, and 33-34. The
next is from _The Lady of the Lake_ (1810), I. 1-9: _The Outlaw_
is from _Rokeby_ (1813), III. 16; the _Pibroch_ was published
in 1816; _The Omnipotent_ and _The Red Harlaw_ are from
_The Antiquary_ (1816), and the _Farewell_ from _The Pirate_
(1821). As for _Bonny Dundee_, that incomparable ditty, it was
written as late as 1825. 'The air of Bonny Dundee running in
my head to-day,' he writes under date of 22d December (_Diary_,
1890, i. 61), 'I wrote a few verses to it before dinner, taking
the key-note from the story of Clavers leaving the Scottish
Convention of Estates in 1688-9. _I wonder if they are good._'
See _The Doom of Devorgoil_ (1830), Note A, Act II. sc. 2.

LXIII

This unsurpassed pie