Lord President Stair; and the lampoon, which is written with much more
malice than art, bears the following motto:

Stair's neck, mind, wife, songs, grandson, and the rest, Are wry, false,
witch, pests, parricide, possessed.

This malignant satirist, who calls up all the misfortunes of the family,
does not forget the fatal bridal of Baldoon. He seems, though his verses
are as obscure as unpoetical, to intimate that the violence done to the
bridegroom was by the intervention of the foul fiend, to whom the young
lady had resigned herself, in case she should break her contract with
her first lover. His hypothesis is inconsistent with the account given
in the note upon Law's Memorials, but easily reconcilable to the family
tradition.

In all Stair's offspring we no difference know,
They do the females as the males bestow;
So he of one of his daughters' marriages gave the ward,
Like a true vassal, to Glenluce's Laird;
He knew what she did to her master plight,
If she her faith to Rutherfurd should slight,
Which, like his own, for greed he broke outright.
Nick did Baldoon's posterior right deride,
And, as first substitute, did seize the bride;
Whate'er he to his mistress did or said,
He threw the bridegroom from the nuptial bed,
Into the chimney did so his rival maul,
His bruised bones ne'er were cured but by the fall.

One of the marginal notes ascribed to William Dunlop applies to the