had a decided prototype in a poem written many years before, and with which Burns might well be acquainted.

"There lived, more than a century ago, a rhymer named Thomas Whittell, whose chief haunt was at East Shafto, in Northumberland, and who was buried at Hartburn in the same county, 19th April 1736. His poems, as a ballad-book, have been extensively sold among the country people in the district in which he resided, and I have known them these sixty years. In 1815, they were published in a handsome form by Mr William Robson, schoolmaster of Morpeth, and from this copy I send you the following extract:

"Did you not hear of a new-found dance,

That lately was devised on,

And how the Devil was tired out
By dancing with an Exciseman?

He toes, he trips, he skips, he leaps,

As if he would bruise his thighs, man;
Sometimes the Devil made the better dance,
And sometimes the Exciseman.

The music was an enchanted pipe,
With which the piper plies on;
Betwixt them there was many a wipe,
The Devil was in the Exciseman.

For sarabands, antics, minuets, jigs,
Or any dance you could devise on,
Although the Devil did dance them well,
He came not near the Exciseman.

They vaulted, leaped, and capers cut,

As if they would mount the skies, man;

The Devil to all his trumps was put,
To hold stick with the Exciseman.

The devil a dance e'er came from France,
But he had them before his eyes, man;
Had you beheld, I'd have been felled,

If you e'er saw one like the Exciseman.

It put the Devil beside his wits,
Whene'er he saw him rise, man;
There was the Devil upon Two Sticks
Betwixt him and the Exciseman.

They danced so long that from their snout
Sweat drops like dew from the skies, man;
The Devil ne'er had such a dancing-bout,

As this was with the Exciseman.

At last the Devil began to faint,

And saw he would lose the prize, man;
And, like a dull jade that had a taint,

The other had cleared his eyes, man.

He stood like a mot, and could not play toot,
He could neither vault nor rise, man;
But when the Devil was tired out,

He carried away the Exciseman.

He that will take such a revel,

For me shall have the prize, man;
'Tis equal to me, I like to be civil,
Such company I despise, man.
For he that danceth with the Devil,
I count him not a wise man ;
His company is not fit for any,

Except it be an Exciseman."

-Extract-Letter of Mr Edward Riddle, Greenwich, to the Editor, July 1852.

It seems fair to conjecture, that Whittell had written this rough ballad at the time when the Excise was instituted by Sir Robert Walpole, 1733.

END OF VOL. III.

Edinburgh:

Printed by W. and R. Chambers.

LIFE AND WORKS

OF

ROBERT BURNS

Library Edition

THE

LIFE AND WORKS

OF

ROBERT BURNS

EDITED BY ROBERT CHAMBERS

Library Edition

IN FOUR VOLUMES

VOLUME IV

W. & R. CHAMBERS

EDINBURGH AND LONDON

MDCCCLVII