Burns at Ryedale; Death in the Cup, p.96.

[Anecdotes of Burns Contents]

ONE day after dinner at Ryedale, Burns wrote the following lines on a goblet with his diamond. Lyme, whom Burns thus complimented, would seem to have been less affected with the compliment than with defacing his crystal service, for he threw the goblet behind the fire. We are not told what the poet thought; but it is said that Brown, of “Stamp-office Johnny,” snatched the goblet out of the fire uninjured, and kept it as a relique till his death:- 

There’s death in the cup – sae beware! 

Nay, more – there is danger in touching; 

But wha can avoid the fell snare? 

The man and his wine’s sae bewitching!