I thought me on the ourie cattle, Or silly sheep, wha bide this brattle O' wintry war. Or thro' the drift, deep-lairing, sprattle, Beneath a scaur. Ilk happing bird, wee helpless thing, That in the merry months o' spring, Delighted me to hear thee sing, What comes o' thee? Whare wilt then cow'r thy chittering wing, And close thy e'e? Though for a time, influenced by the advice of critics, Burns had tried to compose some poems according to the approved models of book-English, we find him presently reverting to his own Doric, which he had lately too much abandoned, and writing in good broad Scotch his admirably humorous description of Captain Grose, an Antiquary, whom he had met at Friars Carse:-- Hear, Land o' Cakes, and brither Scots, Frae Maidenkirk to Johnnie Groats-- If there's a hole in a' your coats, I rede you tent it: A chield's amang you, takin' notes, And, faith, he'll prent it. By some auld, houlet-haunted biggin, Or kirk deserted by its riggin, It's ten to ane ye'll find him snug in Some eldritch part, Wi' deils, they say, Lord save's! colleaguin' At some black art. It's tauld he was a sodger bred, (p. 109) And ane wad rather fa'n than fled; But now he's quat the spurtle-blade, And dog-skin wallet, And taen the--Antiquarian trade, I think they call it. He has a fouth o' auld nick-nackets; Rusty airn caps, and jinglin' jackets, Wad haud the Lothians three in tackets, A towmont gude And parritch-pats and auld saut-backets, Before the Flood. * * * * * Forbye, he'll shape you aff fu' gleg The cut of Adam's philibeg; The knife that nicket Abel's craig He'll prove you fully, It was a faulding jocteleg Or lang-kail gullie.