"As fast I've sped ower Scotland's faes-" There ceased his brag of war, Sair shamed to mind aught but his dame, And maiden Fairly fair. Black fear he felt, but what to fear He wist not yet with dread; WILLIAM HAMILTON OF GILBERTFIELD. 1670-1751. In a letter to Dr. Moore, Robert Burns once wrote, "The story of Wallace poured a tide of Scottish prejudice into my veins which will boil along there till the floodgates of life shut in eternal rest." The story of Wallace" thus alluded to, was of course Henry the Minstrel's great poem, but the version of that poem to which Burns, in common with most of his contemporaries, owed his acquaintance with the Minstrel, was a paraphrase into modern Scottish by Hamilton of Gilbertfield. This paraphrase has received scant praise at the hands of the critics, and in the matter of literary style it probably does not deserve much. Something, nevertheless, must be acknowledged as owing to the author whose translation made the work of the elder poet-what it otherwise could not have been-a living popular influence in Scotland for something like a century and a half. His paraphrase of the "Wallace" was not, however, Gilbertfield's best work. To Watson's Choice Collection of Comic and Serious Scots Poems, published in 1706, he contributed the set of verses on which his fame as a poet must be held to depend. "The last Dying Words of Bonnie Heck" was classed by Allan Ramsay with Semple's famous " Piper of Kilbarchan ; and Allan Cunningham has recorded his opinion that it is pretty little pathetic piece of poetry as ever was written." Its influence is to be traced, moreover, in at least one of the bestknown compositions of Robert Burns. 66 a William Hamilton-invariably mentioned with his territorial title of " Gilbertfield," to distinguish him from the other William Hamilton of his time, the author of "The Braes of Yarrow-held in his youth a lieutenant's commission in the army, but while still young he gave up his profession, and spent the rest of his days as a country gentleman. From his estate near Cambuslang, in the neighbourhood of Glasgow, he carried on a poetical correspondence with Allan Ramsay, which is generally printed in the works of that poet, and which afforded the model for the subsequent poetic epistles of Burns. Gilbertfield being sold ultimately to the neighbouring laird of Westburn, Hamilton removed to Latrick, the other seat of his family in the same vicinity, and there he died on the 24th of May, 1751. THE LAST DYING WORDS OF BONNIE HECK. A FAMOUS GREYHOUND IN THE SHIRE OF FIFE. "ALAS, alas," quo' bonnie Heck, But now I must hing by the neck "O fy, sirs, for black, burning shame, Because I'm cripple, auld, and lame?" "What great feats I have done mysel' When I was souple, young, and fell1, But fear or dread, John Ness and Paterson can tell, Whose hearts may bleed. I keen. 'They'll witness that I was the vier It must be stretchèd for my hire!" I cunning wise. "How nimbly could I turn the hare, Now what could sery1 Heck do mair? "At the Kings-muir and Kelly-law, Where good stout hares gang fast awa', So cleverly I did it claw, With pith and speed; I bure the bell before them a' 2 hares. 3 hindquarters. "I ran alike on a' kind grounds, Where naething could slay them but guns, "I wily, witty was, and gash', With my auld felny packy pash2; Nae man might ance buy me for cash In some respect; Are they not then confounded rash, I sagacious. 2 cruel, familiar head. "I was a bardy tyke3, and bauld; Though my beard's grey I'm not so auld. What is the feid 4 To stane me ere I be well cauld? A cruel deed! "Now honesty was aye my drift, An innocent and harmless shift, A kail-pot lid gently to lift Or aumrie sneck 5: Shame fa' the chafts dare call that thift!" Quo' bonnie Heck. "So well's I could play hocus-pocus And of the servants mak' Jodocus And this I did in every locus, Through their neglect; And was not this a merry jocus?" Quo' bonnie Heck. D VI 3 forward dog. 4 feud. 5 cupboard latch. 6 cheeks, lips. |