a particular district, were usually well received both in the farmer's
ha', and in the kitchens of the country gentlemen. Martin, author of
the Reliquiae Divi Sancti Andreae, written in 1683, gives the following
account of one class of this order of men in the seventeenth century,
in terms which would induce an antiquary like Mr. Oldbuck to regret its
extinction. He conceives them to be descended from the ancient bards,
and proceeds:--"They are called by others, and by themselves,
Jockies, who go about begging; and use still to recite the Sloggorne
(gathering-words or war-cries) of most of the true ancient surnames
of Scotland, from old experience and observation. Some of them I have
discoursed, and found to have reason and discretion. One of then told
me there were not now above twelve of them in the whole isle; but he
remembered when they abounded, so as at one time he was one of five that
usually met at St. Andrews."

The race of Jockies (of the above description) has, I suppose, been long
extinct in Scotland; but the old remembered beggar, even in my own time,
like the Baccoch, or travelling cripple of Ireland, was expected to
merit his quarters by something beyond an exposition of his distresses.
He was often a talkative, facetious fellow, prompt at repartee, and not
withheld from exercising his powers that way by any respect of persons,
his patched cloak giving him the privilege of the ancient jester. To
be a gude crack, that is, to possess talents for conversation, was
essential to the trade of a "puir body" of the more esteemed class; and
Burns, who delighted in the amusement their discourse afforded, seems to
have looked forward with gloomy firmness to the possibility of himself
becoming one day or other a member of their itinerant society. In his
poetical works, it is alluded to so often, as perhaps to indicate that
he considered the consummation as not utterly impossible. Thus in the
fine dedication of his works to Gavin Hamilton, he says,--

And when I downa yoke a naig,
Then, Lord be thankit, I can beg.

Again, in his Epistle to Davie, a brother Poet, he states, that in their
closing career--

The last o't, the warst o't,
Is only just to beg.

And after having remarked, that

To lie in kilns and barns at e'en,
When banes are crazed and blude is thin,

Is doubtless great distress