McGonagall has beeu doing well among the Edinburgh volunteers. On Friday evening he was the attraction at a smoking concert in connection with No. 8 (Position) Battery of the 1st Edinburgh City Volunteer Artillery. His pieces were “Tel-el-Kebir,” “Bannockburn,” and “Macbeth,” but his popularity was so great that he had to respond to encores. The Poet, we learn, was dressed in his tartan costume, Highland bonnet with large feather, yellow stockings, and sandals. Here is the report of his reply to the toast, “Very Long Life and Prosperity to Poet McGonagall”:
“He hoped they would be spared for many long years. (Applause.) He wished them every success in life, and hoped they would make rapid progress in the art of war. (Laughter and applause.) If an enemy chanced to come to their shores, he hoped they would make their cannons loudly roar— (loud laughter) — and beat them back to their foreign shore. (Renewed laughter.) He hoped the chairman would be long spared as an ornament to the British army— (laughter) — and each and all of them assembled there that night owing to the treatment he had received. (Laughter.) They had made his heart beat high with delight. (Applause.) He wished them succesa one and all, was the sincere wish of McGonagall. (Loud applause.)”
Dundee Courier, 18th November 1895
