The _Arethusa_, Mr. Hannay tells me, being attached to Keppel's fleet at the mouth of the Channel, was sent to order the _Belle Poule_, which was cruising with some smaller craft in search of Keppel's ships, to come under his stern. The _Belle Poule_ (commanded by M. Chadeau de la Clocheterie) refusing, the _Arethusa_ (Captain Marshall) opened fire. The ships were fairly matched, and in the action which ensued the _Arethusa_ appears to have got the worst of it. In the end, after about an hour's fighting, Keppel's liners came up, and the _Belle Poule_ made off. She was afterwards driven ashore by a superior English force, and it is an odd coincidence that in 1789 the _Arethusa_ ran ashore off Brest during her action (10th March) with _l'Aigrette_. As for the French captain, he lived to command _l'Hercule_, De Grasse's leading ship in the great sea-fight (12th April 1782) with Rodney off Dominica, where he was killed. XLI From the _Songs of Experience_ (1794). XLII _Scots Musical Museum_, 1788. Adapted from, or rather suggested by, the _Farewell_, which Macpherson, a cateran 'of great personal strength and musical accomplishment,' is said to have played and sung at the gallows foot; thereafter breaking his violin across his knee and submitting his neck to the hangman. spring = _a melody in quick time_ sturt = _molestation_ XLIII _Museum_, 1796. Burns told Thomson and Mrs. Dunlop that this noble and most moving song was old; but nobody believed him then, and nobody believes him now. pint-stoup = _pint-mug_ braes = _hill-sides_ gowans = _daisies_ paidl't = _paddled_ 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