Choak’t, suffocat, with excremental stink.”
On Burns’s first visit to Edinburgh he was introduced, among many others, to a Mr. Taylor, then parochial schoolmaster at Currie, and, in his own estimation, a poet of no mean order. The meeting was effected at the house of Mr. Heron, at whose table Burns was a frequent guest. Taylor brought with him his book of manuscript poems, a few of which were read to Burns for his favourable opinion previous to printing. Some of the passages were odd enough, such as this, on the title-page—
“Rin, bookie, rin, round the warld lowp,
Whilst I lie in the yird wi’ a cauld dowp,”
at which Burns laughed heartily. Next morning Mr. Heron meeting Taylor, enquired of him what he thought of the Ayrshire poet.
“Hoot,” quoth the self-admiring pedagogue, “the lad’ll do; considering his want o’ lear, he’s weel eneuch.”
Though not like it, the foregoing recalls a good anecdote of the poet Campbell, which recently appeared in print for the first time, in the columns of the Christian Leader.
The author of “The Pleasures of Hope” being on a visit to Ayrshire, happened to go into a bookseller’s shop in Kilmarnock. The bookseller, as he entered, whispered something over the counter to a portly and comely old lady, who was making a small purchase of sealing-wax and notepaper. “Lord save us,” she replied, in an audible whisper, “ye dinna mean it!”
“It’s true, I tell ye,” said the bookseller, also in a whisper.