The verses I now send you, and which may, perhaps, be worth preserving
in your valuable miscellany, originated thus:--On occasion of a social
meeting at Brownhill inn, in the parish of Closeburn, near Dumfries,
which was, according to Alan Cunningham, "a favourite resting-place of
Burns," the poet, who was one of the party, was not a little delighted
by the unexpected appearance of his friend William Stewart. He seized a
tumbler, and in the fulness of his heart, wrote the following lines on
it with a diamond. The tumbler is carefully preserved, and was shown
some years since by a relative of Mr. Stewart, at his cottage at
Closeburn, to Colonel Fergusson, who transcribed the lines, and gave
them to me with the assurance that they had never been printed.

The first verse is an adaptation of a well known Jacobite lyric.

"You're welcome Willie Stewart!
You're welcome Willie Stewart!
There's no a flower that blooms in May
That's half so welcome as thou art!

Come bumper high, express your joy!
The bowl--ye maun renew it--
The _tappit-hen_--gae fetch her ben,
To welcome Willie Stewart!

May faes be strong--may friends be slack--
May he ilk action rue it--
May woman on him turn her back
Wad wrang thee Willie Stewart!"