with critical observations and biographical notices, by Robert Burns

211
" His old friend, however, afterwards made him
ample amends for this rhyming jeu d' esprit. For
after the young man became a clergyman, B.nd grand-
father ^ father , and son, had all officiated at one and
the same diet of worship, at the chapel at Longside,
he presented him with the following beautiful Latin
verses. They are here inserted, not because free
from the licentia poetica, but because, mingled with
the proverbial blindness of a grandfather's partiality,
the poetical license has completely usurped the place
of truthy and given the manner, and not the matter^
SL claim to the notice of the learned reader.
' Sanguinis ejusdem tres implent rostra Joannes,
Est avus, est pater, est earns utrique nepos :
Ingenio primus, sermonis laude secundus
Claret ; in ambobus tertius ille nitet.
Non potuere ultr^ Naturae tendere vires,
Miscet avo patrem, et fingitur inde nepos !'
The " Poetical Pieces" of this excellent old man
(who answered most literally to Goldsmith's descrip-
tion of the Village Preacher) have been lately col-
lected, and published at Edinburgh, prefaced with
some valuable remarks on his life and poetic talent.
To this interesting account, already quoted, the reader
is referred. The Editor would only observe, that
the fine family Picture, so delicately sketched in
p 2