_From the New Edition of "The Antiquary."_
Of the "blue gowns," or king's bedesmen, from whom the character of Edie
Ochiltree was drawn, after giving an account from Martin's "Reliquiae
Divi Sancti Andrae," of an order of beggars in Scotland, supposed to
have descended from the ancient bards, and existing in Scotland in the
seventeenth century, but now extinct, Sir Walter Scott says:--
"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."