Death and Doctor Hornbook

DESCRIPTION: "Some books are lies frae end tae end, And some great lies were never penn'd, Ev'n ministers they hae been kenn'd In holy rapture." A satire: The poet meets Death, who reports that he is being shoved aside by the deadly Doctor Hornbook
AUTHOR: Words: Robert Burns
EARLIEST DATE: 1785 (source: Kane-SongsAndSayingsOfAnUlsterChildhood)
KEYWORDS: death Devil humorous clergy | doctor
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Kane-SongsAndSayingsOfAnUlsterChildhood, pp. 114-115, "Some books are lies frae end tae end" (1 text)
ADDITIONAL: James Kinsley, editor, Burns: Complete Poems and Songs (shorter edition, Oxford, 1969) #55, pp. 60-65, "Death and Doctor Hornbook. A True Story" (1 text)
Roud #25527
NOTES [171 words]: According to Maurice Lindsay, The Burns Encyclopedia, 1959, 1970; third edition, revised and enlarged, St. Martin's Press, 1980, p. 377, there was a real "Dr. Hornbook," a certain Dr. John Wilson (died 1839) who was at Glasgow University in 1760 and became a teacher. This was not a good living, so he also sold groceries and a few medicines. As a result, he was accused of neglecting his ordinary duties. By then, though, he had signed a "certificate of character" for Burns in 1784.
Wilson was also secretary of the Tarbolton Masonic Lodge from 1782-1787, and on at least one occasion gave a lecture on medicine. Burns's satire refers to this (while the title "Doctor Hornbook" refers to Wilson's teaching of elementary literacy, since children were often taught from hornbooks -- a piece of paper with little basic information about reading, mounted on wood and covered with a protective layer of horn). Despite Burns's lampoon, Wilson would live for another half a century and more, teaching for most of that time. - RBW
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File: KSUC114C

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