Robert Burns

To Captain Riddel, Glenriddel

Extempore lines on returning a newspaper

YOUR News and Review, Sir, I’ve read through and through, Sir,
  With little admiring or blaming;
The papers are barren of home-news or foreign,
  No murders or rapes worth the naming.

Our friends the Reviewers, those chippers and hewers,
  Are judges of mortar and stone, Sir;
But of meet or unmeet in a fabric complete,
  I’ll boldly pronounce they are none, Sir.

My goose-quill too rude is to tell all your goodness
  Bestow’d on your servant, the Poet;
Would to God I had one like a beam of the sun,
  And then all the world, Sir, should know it!