“In her own country each is handsomest.”
Burns, going into church one Sunday and finding it difficult to procure a seat, was kindly invited by a young lady into her pew. The sermon being upon the terrors of the law, and the preacher being particularly severe in his denunciation of sinners, the lady, who was very attentive, became much agitated. Burns, on perceiving it, wrote with his pencil, on a blank leaf of her Bible, the following:—
Fair maid, you need not take the hint,
Nor idle texts pursue:
’Twas only sinners that he meant,
Not angels such as you.
One evening at the King’s Arms, Dumfries, Burns was called from a party of friends to see an impertinent coxcomb in the form of an English commercial traveller, who patronizingly invited the Ayrshire Ploughman to a glass of wine at his table. Entering into conversation with the condescending stranger, Burns soon saw what sort of person he had to deal with. About to leave the room, the poet was urged to give a specimen of his facility in impromptu versifying, when, having asked the name and age of the conceited traveller, he instantly penned and handed him the following stanza,—after which he abruptly departed:—
In seventeen hundred forty-nine,
Satan took stuff to make a swine,
And cuist it in a corner;