For nane can touch the fiddle-string
Sae weel as Patie Birnie.
He cheers the sage, the sour, the sad,
Maks youngsters a rin louping mad,
Heads grow giddy, hearts grow glad,
Enchanted wi' Pate Birnie.

The witching tones o' Patie's therm,
Mak farmer chiels forget their farm,
Sailors forget the howling storm,
When dancing to Pate Birnie.
Pate maks the fool forget his freaks,
Maks baxter bodies burn their bakes,
And gowkies gie their hame the glaiks,
And follow Patie Birnie.

When Patie taks his strolling rounds,
To feasts or fairs in ither towns,
Wark bodies fling their trantlooms doun,
To hear the famous Birnie.
The crabbit carles forget to snarl,
The canker'd cuiffs forget to quarrel,
And gilphies forget the stock and horle,
And dance to Patie Birnie.

[27] Pate Birnie was a celebrated fiddler or violinist who resided in
Kinghorn, Fifeshire.

[28] An old designation for the city of Edinburgh, often used by the
Scottish poets.

WILLIAM PARK.

William Park was not born in lawful wedlock. His grandfather, Andrew
Park, occupied for many years the farm of Efgill, in the parish of
Westerkirk, and county of Dumfries. He had two sons, William and James,
who were both men of superior intelligence, and both of them writers of
verses. William, the poet's father, having for a brief period served as
a midshipman, emigrated to the island of Grenada, where he first acted
as the overseer of an estate, but was afterwards appointed to a
situation in the Customs at St George's, and became the proprietor and
editor of a newspaper, called the _St George's Chronicle_. In the year
1795, he was slain when bravely heading an encounter with a body of
French insurgents. His son, the subject of this memoir, was born at
Crooks, in the parish of Westerkirk, on the 22d of February 1788, and
was brought up under the care of his grandfather. He received an
ordinary training at the parochial school; and when his grandfather
relinquished his farm to a higher bidder, he was necessitated to seek
employment as a cow-herd. In 1805, he proceeded as a farm-servant to the
farm of Cassock, in the parish of Eskdalemuir. In 1809, he entered the
service of the Rev. Dr Brown,[29] minister of Eskdalemuir, and
continued to occupy the position of _minister's man_ till the death of
that clergyman, many years afterwards.

From his early years, Park