Re. meself's post, if what he's blaming is the rationale for the the Jacobite cause rather than the fanaticism of those who continued who hold on to it, then that would surely imply he was anti-Jacobite, whereas I thought (and your second post seems to confirm you agree that) he was actually quite sympathetic to their cause, and was just criticising their fanaticism rather than their rationale?

Regarding it being impossible to pin down what he meant, I'm sure someone who is a Burns fan could make a better fist of working out what he probably had in mind than I did in my guesses, and/or could elaborate on my guesses - and I'm still very puzzled by the phrase "in the state" in the final verse.


Re. Tinker's post, the rebellion was only 11 years before Burns was born, and Jacobites were still plotting a comeback throughout his life. And I linked to the Wikipedia article and mentioned the original pre-Burns lyric in my original post.

Dave