Elegy on Mr. William Cruikshank, A.M.

First printed in Hogg and Motherwell, 1834.

Now honest William’s gaen to Heaven, gone

        I wat na gin’t can mend him: don’t know if it

The fauts he had in Latin lay, faults

        For nane in English kend them. — none, knew

William Cruikshank died in early 1795. Burns met him through either Robert Ainslie (both came from Duns) or William Nicol. Cruikshank was a colleague of Nicol at the Edinburgh High School where both men taught classics. Burns wrote The Rosebud for Cruikshank’s daughter.