Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 9.djvu/183

Rh to be noticed also, that one of Mayne's poems on Halloween appears to have suggested to Burns both the subject and style of the happiest production of the national muse of Scotland.

So early as 1777, John Mayne's chief poem, entitled the "Siller Gun," was published. The history of this poem is curious, as indicative of a mind that steadfastly adhered to a single idea until it had completely matured it, and that would not rest satisfied with an inferior amount of excellence. At first the "Siller Gun" consisted of not more than twelve stanzas, which were printed at Dumfries on a single quarto page. Soon afterwards it was reprinted in the same town, extended into two cantos. It became so popular that other editions fol- lowed, in the course of which it swelled into three cantos; afterwards it extended to four, in an edition printed in 1808; and when the last version, with the author's improvements and final corrections, appeared in 1836, the same year in which he died, the poem, that originally consisted of only a dozen stanzas, had expanded and grown into five goodly cantos. It should be mentioned, also, that this unwonted process of amplification had by no means impaired either the strength or the excellence of the original material ; on the contrary, every successive edition was an improvement upon its predecessor, until the last was also the best.

This poem, at present too little known compared with its remarkable merit, is founded upon an ancient custom in Dumfries, called "Shooting for the Siller Gun." This practice, strangely enough, was instituted by James VI., who, of all sovereigns, was the one most averse to every kind of lethal weapon, and has continued till modern times, while the events of such a weaponshaw, were generally well adapted for the purposes of a comic poet. Mr. Mayne selected that trial which was held in 1777; and in his subsequent editions he took the opportunity of introducing many of the public characters of his native Dumfries, who were wont to figure at these annual competitions. The preparations for the festival are thus humorously described:—

The shooting, as he describes it, was by no means the most efficient kind of practice for the contingency of a French invasion: