M/!iff(~ fawnJ- fi)e^ £S Of ROBERT BURKS, ! Q) M P L g r E IN Q) N £ ■ .. i u ,-■; g , IHltb life bg : ' : Ll|; I 1.1 0)M &§ T BG.C, CM EA P§ I BE ■- ; ■ I >■ . I!- . |;|,; u i, m .v ,SO|-.\|; k . L@ 4© „ A, 49 f< /r?< t © THE WORKS OF ROBERT BURNS 7 WITH LIFE BY ALLAN CUNNINGHAM, GILBERT BURNS, LORD BYRON, THOMAS CAMPBELL, THOMAS CARLISLE, ROBERT CHAMBERS, COW PER, &c. AND NOTES BY CROMEK, ALLAN CUNNINGHAM, DR. CURRIE, HAZLITT, JAMES HOGG, LORD JEFFREY, T. LANDSEER, LOCK HART, MOTHERWELL, SIR WALTER SCOTT, PROFESSOR WILSON, WORDSWORTH, &c. Farewell, High Chief of Scottish song ! That couldst alternately impart Wisdom and rapture in thy page, And brand each vice with satire strong ; Whose lines are mottoes of the heart, Whose truths electrify the sage : — Farewell! and ne'er may envy dare To wring one baleful poison-drop From the crush'd laurels of thy bust; But while the lark sings sweet in air, Still may the grateful pilgrim stop To bless the spot that holds thy dust ! Campbell. LONDON: T. TEGG, CHEAPSIDE; C.DALY, RED LION SQUARE. MDCCCXL. © ■© , STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY „ B. BENSLEY, WOKING. O'F JLElliT, THIS OCDUE EDHI07 OT THE II TE A^D WOIIS lOMIT E II H ^ 3 IS, I V Z TJf P^MMJS SI OW a MO S T 7? WW 4fc PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION THE LIFE OF BURNS. With something of hope and fear, I offer this work to my country. I have en- deavoured to relate the chequered fortunes, delineate the character, and trace the works of the Illustrious Peasant with candour and accuracy : his farming specu- lations — excise schemes — political feelings and poetic musings — are discussed with a fulness not common to biography : and his sharp lampoons and personal sallies are alluded to with all possible tenderness to the living, and respect for the dead. In writing the Poet's life I have availed myself of his unpublished journals — pri- vate letters, manuscript verses, and of well-authenticated anecdotes and traits of character supplied by his friends ; and I have arranged his works as much as might be in the order of their composition, and illustrated them with such notes, critical, historical and biographical, as seemed necessary. Of verse, one hundred and odd pieces will be found in this edition, which are not in Currie's octavos. The number of letters, too, is materially increased — but nothing is admitted which bears not the true Burns' stamp. Belgeave-Place, January 1, 1834. A. C. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. When this Memoir and chronological Edition of the works of Burns were first announced, a friend observed that the learned part of the world, he was afraid, might think they had enough of the Peasant Poet already, and look coldly on any attempt to associate him in beauty of embellishment and elegance of exterior with bards " Far seen in Greek, deep men of letters." " My chief dread is," I replied, "that my labours in the cause of the Poet may not be acceptable : I have no fear for Burns — he will take care of himself." It has not happened otherwise with the Poet than I anticipated : nor have my own exertions been, it appears, unwelcome : six thousand copies of the Life have been disposed of, and a new edition is called for: I now give it to the world, with some of the errors in the first edition corrected, and all such new intelligence added as seemed useful and characteristic. A. C. Belgrave -Place, September, 1835. -© CONTENTS. THE PASSAGES OF THE LIFE WITHIN BRACKETS ARE INCORPORATED FOR FIRST TIME IN THIS EDITION. HE Etfc of 33 urn*. PART I.— AYR-SHIRE. His parentage 1 Picture of his early days, by himself . . 3 His secret school of study .... 4 His first love ... . . . 5 [Narrative of his residence at Kirkoswald in 1777] 6 His melancholy — Letter to his father . . 10 Mrs. Stewart of Afton, his first patroness . 13 Bachelors' Club, Tarbolton . . .17 Old and New Light Factions . . .19 Person and manners of the young Poet- Sketches by Henry M c Kenzie — David Sillar, and Professor Walker ... 22 The maidens of Kyle . . . .30 [His attachment to Jean Armour] . . 31 First appearance of his Poems . . .35 His friendship for Mrs. Dunlop . . .37 Adventure at Ballochmyle — Miss Alexander 38 Dr. Blacklock — his encouraging letter . 39 PART II.— EDINBURGH. Burns's first appearance there . . .40 [Description of his manners and conduct, by Dugald Stewart] . . . . . .41 Testimony of Professor Walker . . .43 [Recollections of the Poet by John Richmond 44 by Sir Walter Scott] 45 Kindness of Henry M c Keuzie . . .46 The beautiful Duchess of Gordon . . 47 Anecdotes of the Poet, in Edinburgh . . 49 L Lockhart's description of Burns among the Literati and Lawyers] . . . .51 [Burns's Border Tour, in company with Robert Ainslie] 53 A love adventure . . . .54 A jaunt to England 57 His return to Mossgiel in 1787 . . .58 His first Highland Tour . . . .59 An adventure 60 Return to Mauchline .... ib. Renews his intercourse with Miss Armour . ib. His second Highland excursion with Dr. Adair 6) LIFE OF BURNS. His residence at Harvieston Visit to a descendant of Robert Bruce The fairest Maid of Devon Banks— Chi lotte Hamilton .... Burns's third Highland Tour, in company with Nicol ..... His visit to Bannockburn . to the Duke of Athole, at Blair to Mrs. Rose, at Kilravock . to the Duke and Duchess of Gor don [H.is return to Edinburgh] . Dangerous accident . . His friendship with Ciarinda He contributes to Johnson's Musical Mu seum Jacobitism of Burns — His Ode to Prince Charles ...... Burns erects a monument to Fergusson His connexion with Creech His appointment to the Excise . His Common - place Book — Sketches of Character ..... His return to Mauchline, and Marriage PART III.— ELLISLAND. His appearance as a farmer in Nithsdale, in 1788 PAGE 62 ib. 63 64 ib. 65 67 68 69 ib. 70 71 73 ib. 74 75 76 78 [State of his mind, described by himself His increasing cares .... [Domestic Sketch of the Poet, by Sir Eger ton Brydges] 84 Friars-Carse Hermitage . . . .85 Picture of his mind and feelings, by himself 87 [His favourite walk on the banks of the Nith] 88 He establishes a Subscription Library . . 89 Anecdotes while in the Excise . . .90 His Highland Mary 92 [His perambulations over the moors of Dum- fries-shire] 93 The story of the Whistle . . . .96 His adventure with Ramsay of Ochtertyre . ib. The Earl of Buchan's invitation to Burns to visit Dryburgh 99 [His final visit to Edinburgh-;- Anecdotes] . 100 He relinquishes his farm . . . .101 11 CONTENTS. LIFE OF BURNS. PART IV.— DUMFRIES. PAGE His residence at the Bank-Vennel . .102 His engagement with George Thomson . 103 Conduct of the Board of Excise towards Burns 104 His Nithside beauties . . . .107 [His excursion with Syme of Galloway] . 108 His dislike of epauletted puppies . .115 Story of the sword-cane . . . .116 The beautiful Maria Woodleigh . .117 His removal to Mill-hole-Brae, in 1794 .118 Death of Glendinning . . . .119 Testimonials of Gray and Findlater re- specting the Poet 120 Visit of Professor Walker . . . .121 Illness of the Poet . . , . . ib. His residence at Brow .... 122 Aifecting Interview with Mrs. Riddel . 123 His letter to Erskine of Mar . . .125 His return from Brow in a dying state . ib. Melancholy spectacle of his household . ib. Death of Burns — his Funeral . . . 126 [His personal character, by a Lady] . . 127 His personal strength and conversation . 130 Anecdotes of Burns 132 His character as a Poet . . . .135 [The excellence of Burns, by Thos. Carlyle] 138 [ The widow, children, and brother of the Poet] 142 Bale of his household effects (note) . .143 APPENDIX. Rules and Regulations of the Bachelors' Club 145 [Letter of Gilbert Burns on Education] . 146 [The last three years of the Poet's life, by Mr. Gray] 149 [Phrenological developement of Burns] . 151 [Poem addressed to Burns, by Mr. Telford] 154 Poem on the Death of Burns, by William Roscoe 156 Ode to his Memory, by Campbell . .157 Address to the Sons of Burns, by Words- worth ....... 158 Lines to a Friend, by Coleridge . . . ib. [On Burns's Anniversary, by James Mont- gomery] ...... ib. [Robin's Awa ! by the Ettrick Shepherd] . 159 On his Anniversary, by Hugh Ainslie . . ib. Verses to his Memory by Halleck . .160 by Andrew Mercer . .161 On his Anniversary, by Mrs. Richardson . ib. To the Memory of Burns, by Edward Rushton 162 Sonnet to the Shade of Burns, by Charlotte Smith 163 Verses to his Memory, by T. H., Dunfermline ib Stanzas for the Anniversary of Burns, by David Vedder 163 POEMS OF BURNS. *** The Poems marked thus * are not included in the Eight-volume Edition. PAGE Preface to the First, or Kilmarnock, Edition 164 Dedication to the Second, or Edinburgh, Edition 165 Winter, a Dirge . . . . .166 Death, and dying words, of Poor Mailie . ib. Poor Mailie's Elegy 167 First Epistle to Davie, a brother poet . 168 [Davie's reply] 170 Second Epistle to Davie . . . .171 Address to the De'il 172 [Explanatory notes by Thomas Landseer] ib. [The De'il's answer, by Lapraik] . . 174 The Auld Farmer's salutation to his auld mare, Maggie 175 Address to a Haggis 176 A Winter Night 177 The Jolly Beggars 179 Tune : Soldier's joy .... 180 Soldier laddie . . . .181 Auld Sir Simon .... ib. O an ye were dead, guidman . ib. Whistle o'er the lave o't . .182 Clout the cau'dron . . . ib. For a' that, an' a' that . . .183 Jolly mortals, fill your glasses . ib. Death and Dr. Hornbook . . . . 1 85 The Kirk's Alarm. A satire . . .187 The Twa Herds, or the Holy Tulzie . .190 Holy Willie's Prayer . . . .192 Epitaph on Holy Willie . . . .193 The Inventory. In answer to a mandate by the surveyor of taxes . . . .194 Adam A 's prayer . . . .195 The Holy Fair ib. [Letter from a blacksmith to the ministers and elders of the church of Scotland] . 199 The Ordination 200 The Calf. To the Rev. James Steven . 202 [Reply to Burns's Calf, by an Unco Calf] . ib. Epistle to James Smith .... 203 The Vision. Duan first .... 205 The Vision. Duan second . . . 206 Hallowe'en 208 Man was made to mourn. A Dirge . .213 [The Life and Age of Man] . . .214 Epistle to John Goudie, Kilmarnock . .215 Epistle to John Lapraik, an old Scottish bard ib. * There's naething like the honest nappy .216 [Lapraik's reply to Burns's Epistle] . .217 Second Epistle of Burns to Lapraik . .218 -o) CONTENTS. POEMS OF BURNS. PAGIi Epistle to William Simpson, Ochiltree . 219 Postscript 220 Third Epistle to John Lapraik . . .221 Epistle to the Rev. John M'Math . . 222 Verses to a Mouse, on turning her up in her nest with the plough .... 223 Scotch Drink 224 The Author's earnest Cry and Prayer to the Scotch representatives in the House of Commons , 226 Postscript 228 Address to the Unco Guid, or the Rigidly Righteous ib. Tam Samson's Elegy 230 Epitaph. — Per Contra .... ib. The Lament, occasioned by the unfortunate issue of a friend's amour . . . .231 Despondency. An Ode . - . .232 The Cotter's Saturday Night . . . 233 [Lines by Mrs. Hemans] .... 234 The First Psalm 236 [The ancient version] .... ib. The first six verses of the Ninetieth Psalm . 237 [The ancient version] .... ib. Ode to Ruin ib. A Prayer under the pressure of violent anguish 238 A Prayer in the prospect of death . . ib. Stanzas on the same occasion . . . ib. Stanzas to a Mountain Daisy on turning one down with the plough . . . . 239 Epistle to a young friend [Andrew Aiken] 240 Verses to a Louse, On seeing one on a lady's bonnet at church ..... 241 Epistle to John Rankine .... 242 * Verses to the same, on his writing to the Poet, that a girl in that part of the coun- try was with child by him . . .243 *The Poet's welcome to his illegitimate child ib. Verses on a Scotch Bard, gone to the West Indies 244 * Verses written under violent grief . . 245 The Farewell ib. A Dedication to Gavin Hamilton, Esq. . 246 Elegy on the Death of Robert Ruisseaux . 247 Epistle to James Tait, of Glenconner. . 248 Stanzas on the birth of a Posthumous Child 249 Lines to Miss Cruikshanks, a very young lady, written on the blank leaf of a book ib. Verses to Willie Chalmers . . . .250 A Prayer, left at a Reverend Friend's house 251 Epistle to Gavin Hamilton, Esq., recom- mending a boy ib. Epistle to Mr. M'Adam, of Craigengillan . 252 * Nature's Law, a Poem, humbly inscribed to Gavin Hamilton, Esq. . . . ib. Answer to a Poetical Epistle, sent to the Author by a Tailor .... 253 POEMS OF BURNS. PAGE [Epistle from a Tailor (Thomas Walker, Ochiltree) to Robert Burns] . . .253 Lines written on a Bank note . . . 254 A Dream ib. A Bard's Epitaph * Remorse, a Fragment . . . . The Twa Dogs, a Tale .... * Address to the Owl Address to Edinburgh .... Lines on meeting with Lord Daer Epistle to Major Logan .... The Brigs of Ayr, a Dialogue . Verses to an old Sweetheart after her mar- riage Elegy on the Death of Robert Dundas, of Arniston, Esq., late Lord President of the Court of Session Verses on the Death of John M'Leod, Esq. Verses to Miss Logan, with Beattie's Poems The American War, a Fragment The Dean of Faculty, a new Ballad . * Additional Stanza . Verses to Clarinda with a present of a pair of drinking glasses ..... Verses to the same, on the Poet's leaving Edinburgh * to the same (I burn, I burn, &c.) . to the same (Before I saw Clarinda's 256 ib. 257 260 261 262 263 264 267 ib. ib. 268 ib. 269 ib. 270 ib. 271 face) ib. ib. Verses written under the Portrait of Fergus- son, the Poet ..... Prologue spoken by Mr. Woods on his Be- nefit night Epistle to the Guidwife of Wauchope House . 272 [The Guidwife of Wauchope House to Ro- bert Burns] 273 Epistle to William Creech, written at Sel- kirk ib. 'The Hermit, written on a marble Sideboard in the Hermitage belonging to the Duke of Athole, in the Wood of Aberfeldy . 275 The Humble Petition of Bruar Water to the Noble Duke of Athole . . . ib. Lines on scaring some Water-fowl in Loch- Turit, a wild scene among the Hills of Ochtertyre 276 Lines written in the Parlour of the Inn at Kenmore, Taymouth . . . .277 Lines written while standing by the Fall of Fyers, near Loch-Ness . . . . ib. Poetical Address to Mr. William Tytler, with the Bard's Picture . . . .278 Lines written in Friars'-Carse Hermitage, on the Banks of Nith. First Version . ib. Second Version 279 Extempore Lines to Captain Riddel, of Glenriddel, on returning a Newspaper . 280 =© CONTENTS. POEMS OF BURNS. PAGE A Mother's Lament for the Death of her Son 280 First Epistle to Robert Graham, of Fintray ib. Verses on the Death of Sir James Hunter Blair 281 Epistle to Hugh Parker .... 282 Elegy on the year 1 788. A sketch . . ib. Address to the Tooth-ache, written when the author was grievously tormented by that disorder 283 Ode, sacred to the memory of Mrs. Oswald . ib. Sketch inscribed to the Right Hon. Charles James Fox ib. * Additional lines 284 Verses on seeing a wounded hare limp by me, which a fellow had just shot . . ib. * Dr. Gregory's criticism on ditto . . 285 Epistle to Dr. Blacklock, in answer to a letter ib. [Dr. Blacklock's verses] .... 286 Delia. An Ode 287 Verses to John M'Murdo, Esq. . . ib. To the same ...... ib. Prologue spoken at the Theatre, Dumfries, on New-year's day evening . . . ib. Scots prologue for Mr. Sutherland's benefit- night, Dumfries ..... 288 [Letter to Mr. Sutherland] . . . ib. [Scene from Grahame's drama of Queen Mary] . . . . ' . . .289 New Year's Day, a sketch of the fire-side of Mrs. Dunlop . . ... . ib. Lines to a Gentleman who had sent the Poet a newspaper, and offered to continue it free of expense 290 *The Ruined Maid's Lament . . . ib. * Verses on the destruction of the woods near Drumlanrig ib. * Stanzas on the Duke of Queensberry . .291 * On an evening view of the ruins of Linclu- den Abbey ib. *The Discreet Hint 292 *The Tree of Liberty ib. * Verses to my Bed 293 Elegy on Peg Nicholson . . . . ib. Elegy on Capt. Matthew Henderson, a gen- tleman who held the patent of his honours immediately from Almighty God . . 293 The Epitaph 294 The Five Carlins. A Scottish ballad . . 295 * The Laddies by the banks o' Nith. An elec- tion ballad 297 Second Epistle to Robert Graham, of Fintray, Esq., at the close of the disputed election for the Dumfries boroughs . . . ib. Verses on Captain Grose's perigrinations through Scotland, collecting the antiqui- ties of that kingdom .... 299 Lines written in a wrapper, enclosing a letter to Captain Grose ..... 300 POEMS OF BURNS. PAGK Sir John Malcolm (an old Song). . . ib. Tam o' Shanter. A tale . . . ib. [A poetical petition of the auld Brig of Doon, by the Rev. Hamilton Paul] . 304 [Criticisms on Tam o' Shanter, by Sir Walter Scott, Lord Byron, Campbell, and Words- worth] ib. Address of Beelzebub to the President of the Highland Society 305 Verses to John Taylor respecting ' frosting ' the shoes of the poet's mare . . 306 Lament of Mary, Queen of Scots, on the approach of Spring ib. The Whistle * 307 Elegy on Miss Burnet, of Monboddo . . 308 Lament for James, Earl of Glencairn . . 309 Lines to Sir John Whitefoord, Bart. . .310 Address to the shade of Thomson, on crown- ing his bust, at Ednam, with bays . . ib. [Interesting variations from the Poet's MS.] 311 Third Epistle to Robert Graham, of Fintray, Esq ib. Sketch of a character. (' A little, upright, pert, tart, tripping wight.') . . . 312 Fourth Epistle to Robert Graham, of Fintray ib. A vision of Liberty, evoked among the ruins of Old Lincluden 313 Verses to John Maxwell, of Terraughty, on his birth-day ib. The Rights of Woman, an Occasional Ad- dress spoken by Miss FonteneUe on her benefit night 314 [The Poet's Letter to Miss FonteneUe] . ib. Monody on a Lady famed for her caprice. (Mrs. Riddel of Woodlee Park) . . ib. The Epitaph 315 Epistle from iEsopus to Maria. (William- son the actor and Mrs. Riddel) . . ib. [Inscription for a Hermitage, by Mrs. Rid- del] ib. [Verses to the Grave of Burns, by the same] ib. Poem on Pastoral Poetry . . . .316 * Verses on the illness of a favourite child . ib. Sonnet on hearing a Thrush in a morning walk ib. Sonnet on the death of Robert Riddel, of Glenriddel, Esq 317 Impromptu on Mrs. Riddel's birth-day . ib. Liberty, a Fragment, on American Inde- pendence ...... ib. * Tragic Fragment, an Exclamation from a great character 318 Verses to Miss Graham, of Fintray, with a present of Songs ib. * Fickle Fortune— A Fragment . . . ib. The Vowels — A Tale. (Literary Scoldings and Hints sent to a Critic who had taken the Author to task for obscure language, &c.) ib. CONTENTS POEMS OF BURNS. PAGE Verses to John Rankine, of Adamhill, sug- gested by his odd sarcastic dream of being refused admission to the Infernal Regions 319 Verses on Sensibility, addressed to Mrs. Dunlop ....... ib. * Verses on the Death of a Favourite Child . 3-0 Lines sent to a Gentleman whom the Poet had offended ib. Address spoken by Miss Fontenelle on her Benefit Night ib. Lines on seeing Miss Fontenelle in a Favou- rite Character 321 Verses to Chloris. (Miss Jean Lorimer, of Craigieburn-wood) . . . . . ib. Poetical Inscription for an Altar to Inde- pendence THE HERON BALLADS. N° 1. Here's Heron yet for a' that 2. The Election .... " Fy, let us a' to Kirkcudbright 3. An excellent new Song " Buy braw Troggin." 4. John Busby's Lamentation Poem addressed to Mr. Mitchell, Collector of Excise, Dumfries Postscript Poetical Invitation to John Kennedy Lines to Mrs. C * * *, on receiving a work of Hannah More Lines to Miss Jessy Lewars, Dumfries, with a present of books Poem on Life, addressed to Colonel De Peyster, Dumfries, 1796, during the last illness of the Bard . * Verses to a Kiss EPIGRAMS, EPITAPHS, &c. 1. ib. ib. 322 323 324 ib. ib. 325 ib. ib. ib. 326 6. On the Author's Father . . ib. On Tarn the Chapman . . . 327 On Robert Aiken, Esq. . . . ib. A Farewell. (To John Kennedy) . ib. On a Friend ib. On Gavin Hamilton . . . . ib. *7. On the Poet's horse being impounded . ib. 8. On Wee Johnny ib. *9. On Bacon (the landlord at Brownhill) . 328 10. On John Dove, Innkeeper, Mauchline . ib. 11. On a Wag in Mauchline . . . ib. 12. On a celebrated Ruling Elder . . ib. 13. On a Noisy Polemic . . . . ib. * 14. On a noted Coxcomb .... 329 15. On Miss Jean Scott, of Ecclefechan . ib. 16. On a Hen-peck'd Country Squire (Campbell of Netherplace) . . 329 17. On the same ib. 18. On the same . . . . . ib. 19. The Highland Welcome . . . ib. 20. Extempore on William Smellie,F.R.S.E. ib. EPIGRAMS, EPITAPHS, &c. l 21. Lines written on the Window of the Inn at Carron 22. On Viewing Stirling Palace 23. The Reproof .... 24. Lines written under the Portrait of the celebrated Miss Burns *25. Johnny Peep .... 26. The Henpeck'd Husband 27. On Incivility shewn to the Bard at In verary ..... 28. On Elphinstone's Translations of Mar tial's Epigrams 29. On a Schoolmaster 30. On Andrew Turner 31. A Grace before Dinner 32. On Mr. William Cruikshanks 33. On Wat 34. On Captain Francis Grose . 35. On the Kirk of Lamington, in Clydes- dale ..... 36. Lines written on a Pane of Glass in the Inn at Moffat .... 37. Lines spoken extempore on being ap pointed to the Excise 38. Verses addressed to the Landlady of the Inn at Roslin *39. On Grizzel Grim *40. Epitaph on W * * * . •41. On Mr. Burton . . . . 42. On Mrs. Kemble 43. Extempore to Mr. Syme, on refusing to dine with him 44. Lines to Mr. Syme, with a present of Porter 45. Inscription on a Goblet (belonging to Syme of Ryedale) . Poetical Reply to an Invitation . Another ..... A Mother's Address to her Infant The Creed of Poverty Lines written in a Lady's Pocket-book The Parson's Looks 46. 47. = 48. 49. 50. 51. *52. Extempore Lines pinned to a Lady Coach 53. Epitaph on Robert Riddel . 54. The Toast (in reply to a call for Song) 55. On a Person nick- named the Marquis 56. On Excisemen, written on a Window in Dumfries .... *57. Lines on occasion of a National Thanksgiving for a Naval Victory 58. Lines written on a Window of the Globe Tavern, Dumfries *59. Invitation to a Medical Gentleman to attend a Masonic Anniversary *60. Lines on War .... *61. On Drinking .... 62. The Selkirk Grace 329 330 ib. 331 ib. ib. ib. ib. ib. ib. 332 ib. ib. ib. ib. ib. ib. ib. 333 ib. ib. ib. ib. ib. ib. 334 ib. ib. ib. ib. ib. ib. ib. ib. 335 ib. ib. ib. ib. 336 CONTENTS EPITAPHS, EPIGRAMS, &c. (Continued) SONGS AND BALLADS. PAGE PAGE 63. Lines on Innocence 336 *21. When I think on the happy days 348 64. On the Poet's Daughter ib. 22. Bonny Peggy Alison 349 65. On Gabriel Richardson, Brewer, Dum- 23. Green grow the Rashes, O ! . ib. fries ib. [Ancient Version] .... ib. 66. On the Death of a Lap-Dog, namec 1 24. My Jean (Though cruel fate should Echo ib. bid us part) 350 67. On seeing the beautiful Seat of Lore i [The Northern Lass] (Ancient version) ib. Galloway .... ib. 25. Rantin' Rovin' Robin (There was a 68. On the same .... ib. lad was born in Kyle) ib. 69. On the same .... ib. 26. Her flowing locks, the raven's wing ib. 70. To the same on the Author being threat 27. Mauchline Belles (O leave novels, &c.) 351 ened with his resentment ib. 28. The Belles of Mauchline (In Mauch 71. On a Country Laird ib. line there dwells, &c.) 72. On John Bushby *. 337 *29. A hunting song (I rede you beware at 73. The True Loyal Natives ib. the hunting, young men) ib. 74. On a Suicide .... ib. 30. Young Peggy blooms our bonniest lass 352 75. Lines to John Rankine ib. 31. The cure for all care. With a Stanza 76. 77. 78. To Miss Jessy Lewars The Toast (Lovely Jessy) . On the sickness of Miss Jessy Lewars ib. ib. ib. 32. 33. added in a Mason Lodge . Eliza (From thee, Eliza, I must go) . The Sons of old Killie ib. 353 ib. 79. On her recovery .... 338 34. Menie (Again rejoicing Nature sees) . 354 *80. *81. The Black-headed Eagle, a Fragment A Bottle and an Honest Friend . ib. ib. *35. 36. Katharine Jaffray (There liv'd a lass in yonder dale) The Farewell to the Brethren of Saint ib. *82. Grace after Dinner ib. James's Lodge, Tarbolton (Adieu ! *83. Another ..... ib. a heart- warm fond adieu ! ) ib. *84. Lines to the Editor of the Star . ib. 37. On Cessnock Banks there lives a Lass . 355 *38. Improved version .... 356 SONGS 39. A Prayer for Mary (Powers celes- tial ! whose protection) ib. * # * The Songs marked * are either now published 1 first time, or were not included in the former Editi or the on. 40. The Lass o' Ballochmyle 357 41. The Bonnie Banks of Ayr (The I. My handsome Nell . 339 gloomy night is gath'ring fast) . 358 The Poet's own criticism on the song 340 42. Bonnie Dundee 359 2. Lucklese Fortune . ib. [Another Version. Note] . ib. 3. I dream'd I lay where Flowers wen 43. The Joyful Widower .... ib. springing .... ib. *44. There was a wife wonn'd in Cockpen, 4. Tibbie, I hae seen the day . 341 Scroggam ib. 5. My Father was a Farmer . ib. 45. O whistle, and I'll come to you, my 6. John Barleycorn, a Ballad . . 342 lad 360 [Additional Stanzas. Note] . 343 *46. There's news, lasses, news . ib. 7. The Rigs o' Barley . ib. 47. I'm owre young to marry yet ib. 8. Montgomery's Peggy . . ib. *48. Damon and Sylvia .... 361 [M'Millan's Peggy] . . 344 49. The Birks of Aberfeldy ib. 9. The Mauchline Lady . . ib. [Ancient Version] .... ib. 10. The Highland Lassie . . ib. 50. Macpherson's Farewell ib. 11. Peggy (Now westlan' winds, &c.) . 345 [Macpherson's Lament] . 362 •12. that I had ne'er been married . . ib. [Notice of Macpherson] . 363 13. The Ranting Dog the Daddie o't . ib. 51 Braw Lads of Galla Water 364 14. My heart was aince as blithe and free . 346 52. Stay, my Charmer, can you leave me ? ib. *15. Guid e'en to you Kimmer . ib. 53. Strathallan's Lament (Thickest night, (We're a' noddin) o'erhang my dwelling!) . ib. 16. My Nannie, ... . 347 54. My Hoggie (What will I do gin my [Version of the old lyric. Note] . ib. Hoggie die ?) . 365 17. One night as I did wander (a Fragment ) 348 55. Jumping John. (Her daddie forbad, &c.) ib. *18 why the deuce should I repine . ib. 56. Up in the morning early ib. *19 Robin sure in hairst . ib. [Additional Stanzas] 366 *20 Sweetest May, let love inspire thee . ib. [Ancient Version] .... ib. CONTENTS. SONGS AND BALLADS. PAGE Ancient Version of Up in the morning early ...... 366 57. The Young Highland Rover. (Loud blaw the frosty breezes) . . . ib. 58. Hey, the Dusty Miller . . .367 *59. Bonnie Peg. (As I came in by our gate end) . . . . . ib. 60. Duncan Davison. (There was a lass, they ca'd her Meg) .... ib. *61. Shelah O'Neil. (When first I began for to sigh and to woo her) . . ib. 62. Theniel Menzie's bonny Mary. (In coming by the brig O'Dye) . . 368 Ancient Version . . . . ib. 63. The Banks of the Devon . . . ib. 64. Duncan Gray 369 The original Version . . . ib. 65. The Ploughman he's a bonnie lad . ib. Ancient Version . . . .370 66. Landlady, Count the lawin. (Hey,Tutti, Taiti) ib. Ancient Version . . . . ib. 67. Ye hae lien a'wrang, Lassie . .371 68. Raving winds around her blowing. (Macgregor of Ruara's Lament — Translation) . . . . . ib. *69. For a' that, and a' that. (Though women's minds like winter winds) . . . ib. 70. How lang and dreary is the night ! . ib. 71. Musing on the Roaring Ocean . . 372 72. Blithe, blithe, and merry was she . ib. 73. To Daunton me, and me so young . 373 Ancient Version . . . . ib. 74'. O' the water to Charlie . . . ib. 75. A rosebud by my early walk . . ib. 76. Rattlin' Roarin' Willie . . .374 Ancient Version . . . . ib. 77. Where braving angry winter's storms . ib. 78. Sweet Tibbie Dunbar. (O wilt thou go with me, &c.) . . . . . 375 Additional Verses . . . . ib. 79. Streams that glide in Orient Plains. (Bonny Castle Gordon) , . . ib. 80. My Harry was a gallant gay. (Highland Harry) ib. Ancient Version . . . . ib. 81. The Tailor fell thro' the bed, thimbles an' a' 376 Ancient Version . . . . . ib. 82. Simmer'sapleasantTime. (Aye waukin o') • .377 83. Beware o' Bonnie Ann. (Ye gallants bright, &c.) ib. 84. When rosy May comes in wi' flowers. (The gardener with his paidle) . . ib. 85. Blooming Nelly. (On a bank of flowers) 378 Ancient Version . . . . ib. 86. The day returns, my bosom burns. . ib. SONGS AND BALLADS. ] 87. My love she's but a lassie yet Variations to Do . 88. Jamie, come try me .... Variations to Do .... 89. My bonnie Mary. (Go fetch to me a pint o' wine) Version of the old song . 90. The lazy mist hangs from the brow of the hill 91. The Captain's Lady. (O mount and go) * Wee Willie Gray .... *92. O guid ale comes .... 93. Of a' the airts the wind can blaw 94. Whistle owre the lave o't . *95. O can ye labour lea, young man . * 96. To thee, Lov'd Nith . First Version ..... 97. O were I on Parnassus' Hill ! 98. O were my love yon lilac fair 99. There's a youth in this city 100. My heart's in the Highlands Ancient Version .... 101. John Anderson, my Jo, John. Additional Stanzas .... Ancient Version .... 102. Our thrissles flourish'd fresh and fair. (Awa, whigs, awa.) .... 103. Ca' the ewes to the knowes. (As I gaed down the water side) . . *104. O gie my love, brose, brose 105. O merry hae I been teething a heckle . 106. The braes of Ballochmyle . *107. Lament for Mary. (O'er the mist- shrouded cliffs, &c.) . 108. Mary in Heaven. (Thou lingering star, with less'ning ray) . *109. Evan Banks. (Slow spreads the gloom my soul desires) 110. Eppie Adair. (An' O ! my Eppie, my Jewel, my Eppie !) . 111. The battle of Sheriff-Muir. (O cam ye here the fight to shun) Ancient Version 112. Young Jockey was the blithest lad 113. O' Willie brew'd a Peck of Maut Sequel to Do .... *114. Happy Friendship. (Here around the ingle bleezing) . 115. The battle of Killiecrankie . 116. The blue-eyed lass. (I gaed a waefu' gate yestreen) 117. The banks of Nith . 118. Tarn Glen. (My heart is a breaking dearTittie!) . 119. Frae the friends and land I love . 120. Sweet closes the evening on Craigie-burn wood .... *121. Come rede me, dame . 379 ib. ib. ib. ib. 380 ib. 381 ib. ib. ib. 382 ib. 383 ib. ib. ib. 384 ib. ib. 385 ib. ib. 386 ib. 387 ib. ib. . 388 ib. ib. 389 390 ib. 391 ib. ib. 392 393 ib. ib. 394 ib. 395 ib. CONTENTS. SONGS AND BALLADS. 122. Cock up your beaver . 123. My tocher's the jewel .... 124. Guidwife count the lawin . 125. There'll never be peace tillJamie comes hame 126. O'er the hills and far awa 1 . 127. I do confess thou art sae fair Old Version 128. Yon wild mossy mountains 129. It is na, Jean, thy bonny face '130. O saw ye my dearie, my Eppie M'Nab. 131. Wha is that at my bower door? . 132. What can a young lassie do ? Old Version ..... 133. Bonnie wee thing . 134. The tither morn when I forlorn . 135. Ae fond kiss, and then we sever 136. Lovely Davies .... 137. The weary pund o' tow 138. I hae a Wife o' my ain 139. O for an e- and- twenty, Tam 140. O, Kenmure's on and awa, Willie ! HI. My Collier Laddie . The original version 142. Nithsdale's welcome hame 143. The merry Ploughman 144. As I was a wand'ring ae Midsummer e'ening 145. Bess and her spinning wheel 146. O luve will venture in. (The Posie) . Another version 147. Country Lassie. (In simmer, when the hay was mawn) 148. Fair Eliza 1 49. Ye Jacobites by name 150. The Banks of Doon . 151. Second version. (Ye banks and braes o* bonny Doon) 152. Sic a wife as Willie had. (Willie Wastle dwalt on Tweed) 153. Lady Mary Ann The ancient ballad 154. Fareweel to a' our Scottish fame. (Such a parcel of rogues in a Nation) 155. The Carle of Kelly burn braes . Additional Verses .... 156. Jockey's ta'en the parting kiss . *157. Coming o'er the braes o' Cupar . 158. Lady Onlie, honest Lucky Additional verses .... 159. The Chevalier's Lament. (The small birds rejoice) ..... 160. The Song of Death,— a War Song. (Farewell, thou fair day) . 161. Afton Water. (Flow gently, sweet Afton!) 162. Smiling Spring comes in rejoicing PAGE , 396 ib. ib. 397 ib. 398 ib. ib. 399 ib. ib. 400 ib. ib. 401 ib. 402 ib. 403 ib. ib. 404 ib. 405 ib. ib. 406 ib. 407 ib. 408 ib. 409 ib. 410 ib. 411 ib. 412 413 ib. ib. ib. 414 ib. 415 ib. SONGS AND BALLADS. 163. 164. 165. 166. 167. 168. 169. 170. 171. 172. 173. 174. 175. 176. 177. 478. 179. 180. 181. 182. 183. 184. 185. 186. 187. 188. 189. 190. 191. 192. 193. 194. 195. 196. 197. 198. 199. '200 '201. '202. F 203. 204. The Carles of Dysart. (Hey, ca' thro', ca' thro') ..... The gallant Weaver. (Where Cart rins rowin' to the Sea) The Deuk's dang o'er my Daddie, O She's fair and fause The Deil's awa' wi' the Exciseman The lovely lass of Inverness O, my luve's like a red, red rose . The ancient version .... Jeannie's bosom. (Louis, what reck I by thee) Had I the wyte she bade me Coming through the rye The winter it is past Young Jamie, pride of a' the plain Out over the Forth .... The Lass of Ecclefechan . The Cooper o' Cuddie Ah, Chloris ! since it may na be For the sake o' Somebody The cardin' o't. (I coft a stane o' has- lock woo') ..... The lass that made the bed to me. (When Januar' wind was blawing cauld) ...... Sae far awa. (O sad and heavy should I part) I'll aye ca' in by yon town . O wat ye wha's in yon town The mirk night of December. (O May, thy morn was ne'er sae sweet) , O lovely Polly Stewart ! The Highland Laddie. (The bonniest lad that e'er I saw) .... Anna, thy charms my bosom fire . Cassillis' Banks. (Now bank and brae are claith'd in green) To thee, lov'd Nith. Second Version . Bannocks o' Barley .... Ancient Version .... Hee Balou ! my sweet wee Donald Wae is my heart .... Here's his health in water. (Altho' my back be at the wa') .... My Peggy's face, my Peggy's form Gloomy December .... My lady's gown, there's gairs upon't . Amang the trees where humming bees. The gowden locks of Anna. (Yestreen I had a pint o' wine) Postscript O wat ye what my Minnie did . There came a Piper out o' Fife (a frag- ment) ...... Jenny M'Craw (a fragment) The last braw bridal (a fragment) Here's to thy health, my bonnie lass . 416 ib. ib. 417 ib. ib. 418 ib. ib. 419 ib. ib. 420 ib. 421 ib. 422 ib. ib. ib. 423 424 ib. ib. 425 426 ib. ib. 427 ib. ib. ib. 428 ib. ib. ib. 429 ib. 430 ib. ib. 431 ib. ib. ib. b CONTENTS. SONGS AND BALLADS. 205. The Farewell (It was a' for our rightful King) Ancient Version .... O steer her up and haud her gaun aye my wife she dang me Ancient Version .... 0, wert thou in the cauld blast . O, wha is she that lo'es me Caledonia. (There was once a day, &c.) O, lay thy loof in mine, lassie . The Fete Champetre. (0, wha will to St. Stephen's house) . Here's a health to them that's awa Meg o' the Mill. (O ken ye what Meg o' the Mill has gotten) The Dumfries Volunteers. (Does haughty Gaul invasion threat ?) The Winter of Life. (But lately seen in gladsome green) . Mary ! (Could aught of song declare my pains) The Highland Widow's Lament. (Oh ! I am come to the low countrie) Welcome to General Dumourier. Bonny Peg-a-Ramsay. (Cauld is the e'ening blast) There was a bonnie lass. (A sketch) . O Mally's meek, Mally's sweet . 206. 207. 208. 209. 210. 211. 212. 213. 214. 215. 216. 217. 218. 219. 220. 221. 222. 431 ib. 432 ib. ib. 433 ib. 434 ib. 435 ib. . 436 ib. 437 438 ib. 439 ib. ib. OF . 440 ib. 444 SONGS, AND CORRESPONDENCE BURNS with GEORGE THOMSON. Autobiographical Notice 1792. No. I. Thomson to Burns, requesting the Bard to write twenty-five songs suited to particular melodies, &c 442 II. Burns to Thomson, stating that by comply- ing it will positively add to his enjoyments . III. Thomson to Burns, sending some tunes . IV. Burns to Thomson, with "The Lea rig," and " Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary ?" [Original Version of " The Lea-rig"] . . ib. V. Burns to Thomson, with " My wife's a win- some wee thing," and " O saw ye bonnie 445 Lesley?" ib. VI. Burnsto Thomson, with" Highland Mary" 446 Notice of " Highland Mary" . . . ib. VII. Thomson to Burns — Critical observations 448 VIII. Burns to Thomson, enclosing an addi- tional Stanza to "The Lea-rig" . IX. Burns to Thomson, with Morris" and " Duncan Gray" X. Burns to Thomson, with cauld," and " Galla Water" Original song of " Galla Water" 1793. XI. Thomson to Burns, requesting anecdotes of particular songs— Tytler of Woodhouselee — 44: Auld Rob O'Poortith il. 450 451 SONGS AND CORRESPONDENCE. Pleyel — Peter Pindar's Lord Gregory — Postscript from the Hon. A. Erskine XII. Burns to Thomson — complies with his re- quest, and encloses his own "Lord Gregory" XIII. Burns to Thomson, with" Mary Morison" XIV. Burns to Thomson, with " Wandering Willie" XV. Burns to Thomson, with " Open the door tome, Oh!" XVI. Burns to Thomson, with "Young Jessie" XVII. Thomson to Burns, enclosing a list of songs, and Wandering Willie altered . XVIII. Burns to Thomson, with " The poor and honest Sodger" and "Meg o' the Mill" XIX. Burns to Thomson — Voice of Coila, Criticism on various songs — Anecdote re- specting The lass o' Patie's Mill XX. Thomson to Burns — Rejoices to find that ballad-making continues his hobby-horse XXI. Burns to Thomson — Simplicity requisite in a song — Sacrilege in one poet to mangle the words of another ..... XXII. Burns to Thomson — wishes that the national music may preserve its native fea- tures ........ XXIII. Thomson to Burns — Thanks, and ob- servations on Scottish Songs XXIV. Burns to Thomson — Fraser the haut- boy player — sends " Blithe hae I been on yon hill" XXV. Burns to Thomson, with " O Logan, sweetly didst thou glide" .... Original song of "Logan Braes" " O gin my love were yon red rose," and two additional verses XXVI. Thomson to Burns — Encloses the Poet a small mark of his gratitude XXVII. Burns to Thomson, with "Bonny Jean," (There was a lass and she was fair) . XXVIII. Burns to Thomson— Hurt at the idea of pecuniary recompense — Remarks on Songs [Fair Helen of Kirkconnell] XXIX. Thomson to Burns — In the way cer- tain songs are frequently sung, one must be contented with the sound without the sense . XXX. Burns to Thomson — Holds the pen for his friend Clarke, who, at present, is studying the music of the spheres at his elbow . XXXI. Burns to Thomson, with " Phillis the Fair" XXXII. Thomson to Burns — Robin Adair — David Allan's drawing from John Anderson my Jo XXXIII. Burns to Thomson, with " Had I a cave on some wild distant shore" — shrewdly suspects that some favourite airs might be common both to Scotland and Ireland XXXIV. Burns to Thomson, with " By Allan stream I chanc'd to rove" .... XXXV. Burns to Thomson, with " Whistle AGR ib. 452 453 454 ib. 455 456 457 458 459 ib. 460 461 ib. 462 ib. 463 464 ib. 465 ib 466 ib. 467 ib. CONTENTS. SONGS AND CORRESPONDENCE. PAGE and I'll come to you my lad," and " Adown winding Nith" 468 XXXVI. Burns to Thomson, with " Come let me take thee to my breast" . . . 469 XXXVII. Burns to Thomson, with " Dainty Davie" ib. XXXVIII. Thomson to Burns, Delighted with the productions of the Poet's muse, and whilst she is so propitious requests the favour of no fewer than twenty- three more Songs ! 470 XXXIX. Burns to Thomson, with " Bruce's address to his Army at Bannockburn" . .471 XL. Burns to Thomson, with " Behold the hour the boat arrives" .... 472 XLI. Thomson to Burns — Submits with great deference some alterations in Burns's Ode of "Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled" . . ib. XLI I. Burns to Thomson — Alteration in " Down the burn, Davie" — Remarks on songs — his own method of composition, with " Thou hast left me ever, Jamie," and " Auld lang syne" ....... 474 Ancient Version of " Auld lang Syne" . ib. XLI 1 1. Burns to Thomson, with an improved Version of " Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled" 476 Letter to Captain Miller of Dalswinton. [Notice of Sir William Wallace] . . ib. XLIV. Thomson to Burns, Remarks on Scot- tish Songs — again suggests alterations in the heroic Ode of Bannockburn . . . 477 XLV. Burns to Thomson, — Remains firm with regard to his Ode — sends "Fair Jenny" 578 XL VI. Burns to Thomson—" Deluded Swain the Pleasure," and Remarks on Irish Airs . 479 XLVII. Burns to Thomson, with " Thine am I, my faithful fair" 480 And three songs by Gavin Turnbull : " O condescend, dear charming maid," " The Nightingale," and " Laura" . . . 481 XLVIII. Thomson to Burns — Apprehension from long silence, and thanks for an English Song ib. XLIX. Burns to Thomson, with " Husband, husband, cease your strife" . . . . ib. And " Wilt thou be my Dearie ?" . . 482 1794. L. Thomson to Burns — Melancholy compari- son between Burns and Carlini — Allan's Sketch from The Cotter's Saturday Night . ib. LI. Burns to Thomson — Praise of David Allan, and encloses " The Banks of Cree" . . 483 LII. Burns to Thomson — Anxious to hear news of Pleyel — encloses his " Address to Miss Graham of Fintray," " Here where the Scot- tish muse immortal lives" .... ib. LIU. Thomson to Burns — Fears he shall ljave no more songs from Pleyel, but is desirous, nevertheless, to be prepared with the poetry, ib. LIV. Burns to Thomson, with " On the Seas and far away" 484 487 ib. 488 ib. 491 ib. 492 SONGS AND CORRESPONDENCE. PAGE LV. Thomson to Burns — Criticism on the last Song 484 LVI. Burns to Thomson, with "Ca' the yowes to the Knowes" ib. LVII. Burns to Thomson, with " She says she lo'es me best of a'" Stanza to Dr. Maxwell 485 LVIII. Thomson to Burns — Thinks he might produce a Comic Opera in three Acts, that would live by the poetry .... LIX. Thomson to Burns — Ritson, Peter Pin- dar, and John Pinkerton-~the Scottish Col- lections of Airs and Songs .... LX. Burns to Thomson — Glorious recipe for a love Song — encloses " Saw ye my Phely" Remarks and Anecdotes — " How lang and dreary is the night" — " Let not woman e'er complain" — "The lover's morning salute to his mistress" and — a musical curiosity, an East Indian Air, " The Auld man" . [Song of " Donocht-Head"] LXI. Thomson to Burns, Wishes to know the inspiring fair one of so many fine Songs — Ritson — Allan — Maggie Lauder . LXII. Burns to Thomson — Has begun his Anecdotes — Visits his fair one, and sends " My Chloris, mark how green the groves" . Remarks on Conjugal love, &c. . " The charming month of May" — " Lassie wi' the lint- white locks" . . . . ib LXIII. Burns to Thomson — " Farewell thou stream that winding flows" — Recipe for com- posing a Scots Air — The black keys — Difficult to trace the origin of our Scottish Airs — Re- quests a copy of his songs for Chloris . LXI V. Thomson to Burns — Remarks on Song, with three copies of the Scottish melodies . LXV. Burns to Thomson, with "O Philly, happy be that day" — Remarks . " Contented wi' little and cantie wi' mair" . XVI. Burns to Thomson, with " Canst thou leave me thus, my Katy ?" — Reply by Mrs. Riddel — Stock and Horn — [Dr. Leyden's dissertation on ancient musical instruments] 497 LXVII. Thomson to Burns — Unqualified praise of his songs — Requests more of a hu- morous cast — Picture of the Soldier's Return 498 LXVII I. Burns to Thomson, with " My Nan- nie's Awa" ....... 499 1795. LXIX. Burns to Thomson, with " Is there for honest poverty" and — " Craigie-burn wood" 500 Ancient Version . . . . . ib. LXX. Thomson to Burns, Thanks for the many delightful songs sent him . . . ib. LXXI. Burns to Thomson, with " Lassie art thou sleeping yet ?" 501 And her answer . "O tell na me o' wind and rain" ib. LXXII. Burns to Thomson — The unfortunate, wicked, little village of Ecclefechan ! . . 502 LXXIII. Thomson to Burns — His two last 493 494 495 496 ■Co) CONTENTS. SONGS AND CORRESPONDENCE. PAGE epistles prove that, drunk or sober, his " mind is never muddy" ..... 502 LXXI V. Burns to Thomson, " Address to the wood-lark" ...... ib. " On Chloris being ill" . . . .503 "Their groves o' sweet myrtle" . . . ib. " 't was na her bonnie blue e'e was my ruin" 504 LXXV. Thomson to Burns, with Allan's picture from the " Cotter's Saturday Night" ib. LXXVI . Burns to Thomson, with " How cruel are the parents," and " Mark yonder pomp of costly fashion 1 ' ...... ib. LXXVII. Burns to Thomson— Thanks for his elegant present of Allan's picture . . 505 LXXVIII. Thomson to Burns— Thinks he never can repay him for his kindness . ib. LXXIX. Burns to Thomson, with an im- provement in — " Whistle and I'll come to ye, my lad" — "O, this is na my ain lassie" . 506 " Now spring has clad the grove in green" . ib. "O bonnie was yon rosy brier" . . . 507 " 'Tis friendship's pledge, my fair, young friend" ib. LXXX. Thomson to Burns — His eyes feasted with his last packet — Introducing Dr. Brianton ib. LXXXI. Burns to Thomson, with " Forlorn, my love, no comfort near" .... 508 LXXXII. Burns to Thomson, with " Last May a braw wooer cam down the lang glen," and "Why, why tell thy lover" . . .510 LXXXIII. Thomson to Burns — For what we have received, Lord, make us thankful ! . ib. 1796. LXXXIV. Thomson to Burns — Awful pause! laments the poet's afflicted state . . . ib. LXXXV. Burns to Thomson — Thanks for the remaining vol. of Peter Pindar, and sends — " Hey for a Lass wi' a Tocher" . ib. LXXXVI. Thomson to Burns — Allan has designed and etched about twenty plates for an Octavo edition of the " Songs" . .511 LXXXVII. Burns to Thomson— Afflicted by sickness, and counts time by the repercussions of pain ! Is pleased with Allan's etchings . ib. LXXXVIII. Thomson to Burns — Sympa- thises in his sufferings, but beseeches him not to give up to despondency . . .512 LXXXIX. Burns to Thomson, with " Here's a health to ane I lo'e dear" . . . ib. XC. Burns to Thomson — Introducing Mr. Lewars — Has taken a fancy to review his songs — Hopes to recover . . . .513 XCI. Burns to Thomson — Dreading the hor- rors of a jail, solicits the advance of five pounds, and encloses his last song " Fairest maid on Devon banks" . . . . ib. XCII. Thomson to Burns — Sends the exact sum the poet requested — Advises a Volume of poetry to be published by subscription . ib. [Pope published the Iliad so.] BURNS'S REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONG WITH ANECDOTES, &c. 1. The Highland Queen . 2. Bess the Gawkie . 3. Oh, open the door, Lord Gregory 4. The Banks of the Tweed . 5. The beds of Sweet Roses 6. Roslin Castle 7. Ditto Second Version . 8. Saw ye Johnnie cummin ? quo' sh 9. Clout the Caldron 10. Saw ye nae my Peggy . 1 1 . The Flowers of Edinburgh . [Highland Laddie. Note] 12. Jamie Gay .... 13. My Dear Jockey . 14. Fye, gae rub her o'er wi' strae 15. Ramsay's Version of Horace's ninth Ode 16. The Lass o' Livingston 17. The last time I came o'er the Moor 18. Johnny's grey Breeks . 19. The happy marriage 20. The lass of Patie's Mill 21. The Turnimspike . 22. The Auld Highland Laddie . 23. Another Version The Highlander's Prayer at Sheriff-Muir 24. The Gentle Swain 25. He stole my tender heart away 26. The Fairest of the Fair 27. The Blaithrie o't . 28. May Eve, or Kate of Aberdeen 29. Tweed Side .... 30. The Posie .... 31. Mary's Dream 32. The maid that tends the goats 33. I wish my love were in a mire 34. Allan Water 35. There's nae luck about the house 36. Tarry Woo .... 37. Gramachree 38. The Collier's bonny lassie . 39. My Ain kind Dearie, O 40. Mary Scott, the Flower of Yarrow 41. Down the burn, Davie . 42. Blink o'er the burn, sweet Bettie 43. The blithesome bridal . 44. John Hay's bonny lassie 45. The bonnie brucket lassie Notice of Balloon Tytler . 46. Sae merry as we twa hae been 47. The banks of Forth . 48. The bush aboon Traquair 49. Cromleck's Lilt . 50. My dearie, if thou die . 51. She rose and let me in . PAGE 518 538 ib. 539 ib. ib. 541 ib. ib. 542 543 ib. :# P: CONTENTS. BURNS'S REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONG, W ANECDOTES, &c Additional Verses . 52. Will ye go to the Ewe-bugbts, Marion ? 53. Lewis Gordon 54. The wauking o' the fauld 55. Oh ono Chrio PAOli 544 ib. ib. 545 ib. ib. 546 ib. 547 ib. 548 ib. ib. 549 ib. 550 ib. 551 ib. 69. Ah ! the poor Shepherd's mournful fate 552 56. 57. 58. 59. 1*11 never leave thee Corn Rigs are bonnie . The mucking o' Geordie's byre Bide ye yet .... The Poet's Preface to the Second Volume of the Museum Tranent Muir Pol wart on the Green . 62. Strephon and Lydia 63. My Jo, Janet 64. Love is the cause of my mourning 65. Fife and a' the lands about it 66. Were na my heart light I wad die 67. The young man's Dream 68. The Tears of Scotland . ib. 553 ib. ib. 554 ib. 555 ib. ib. 556 blest? 557 d my 70. The Mill, Mill, 7 1 . We ran and they ran . 72. O Waly, waly, up yon bank 73. Duncan Gray 74. Dumbarton Drums 75. Cauld Kail in Aberdeen 76. For lack of Gold she's left me Oh 77. Here's a health tq my true love 78. Hey, Tutti, Taiti 79. Tak your auld cloak about ye 80. Ye Gods, was Strephon's picture 81. Since robb'd of all that charm view ib. 82. Young Damon 558 83. Kirk wad let me be . . . ib. [Auld Glenae] 84. Blythe was she 559 85. Johnny Faa, or the Gypsie Laddie . ib. 86. To Daunton me 560 87. The Bonnie Lass that made the bed to me ib. 88. Absence ib. 89. I had a horse and I had nae mair. . 561 90. Up and warn a' Willie . . . . ib. 91. Auld Rob Morris ib. 92. Nancy's Ghost 562 93. Tune your Fiddles, &c. ... ib. 94. Gil Morice 563 95. When I upon thy bosom lean . . ib. 96. The Highland Character . . .564 97. Leader Haughs and Yarrow . . . ib. 98. Burn the Violer 565 99. 'This-is no my Ain house . . . 566 100. Laddie, lie near me .... ib. 101. The Gaberlunzie Man . 1 02. The black Eagle . 103. Johnny Cope 104. Cease, cease, my dear friend to explore 105. Auld Robin Gray. 106. Donald and Flora. 107. The Captive Ribband . 108. The Bridal o't . 109. Todlen hame 110. The Shepherd's Preference . 111. John o'Badehyond 112. A Waukrife Minnie . 113. Tullochgorum 114. Auld lang Syne . 115. The Ewie wi' the crooked horn 116. Hughie Graham . 117. A Southland Jenny 118. My Tocher's the Jewel 119. Then, Guidwife, count the lawin 120. The Sodger Laddie 121. Where wad Bonnie Annie lie ? 122. Galloway Tam . 123. As I cam down by yon castle wa' 124. Lord Ronald, my Son . 125. O'er the Moor among the heather 126. To the Rosebud . 127. Thou art gane awa' 128. The tears I shed must e'er fall 129. Dainty Davie 130. Lucky Nansy 131. Bob o' Dumblane THE AYR-SHIRE BALLADS. 132. The dowie dens of Yarrow . . .581 133. Rob Roy 582 134. Young Hyndhorn . . . . ib. 135. [Ancient Version. Note.] . . 583 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. [The letters marked * now appear for the first time.] Remarks by Sir Walter Scott . 585 Francis, Lord Jeffrey Professor Wilson . Lockhart Professor Walker . Dr. Currie 1781. No. I. To William Burness, Dec. 27— Weak- ness of his nerves — heartily tired of life — inspired by reading the 7th Chapter of Revelations 588 . ib. . ib. . 586 . ib. . 587 CONTENTS. GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. PAGE 1783. II. To John Murdoch, Jan. 15 — His present studies and temper of mind . . . 589 Murdoch's Reply 590 III. To James Burness, Montrose, June 21 — His father's illness — wretched state of the country ....... ib. IV. To Miss Eliza B * * * Lochlea, on love . 591 V. To the same, on ditto .... 592 VI. To the same, on ditto . . . . ib. VII. To the same — On her refusal of his hand 593 1784. VIII. To James Burness, Montrose, Feb. 17 — Death of his father ..... IX. To the same, Aug. — Account of the Bu- ib. chanites 1786. -His poetical 595 ib. X. To John Richmond, Feb. 17 progress 594 XI. To Robert Muir, Kilmarnock, March 20 — Enclosing his " Scotch Drink XII. To Mr. Aiken, April 3 — Enclosing lines to Mrs. C XIII. To Mr. M'Whinnie, Ayr, April 17 Sending copies of his prospectus . XI V. To John Kennedy, April 20 — Enclos ing " The Gowan, or Mountain Daisy" XV. To John Kennedy, May 17— Enclosing the " Epistle to Rankine" .... XVI. To John Ballantyne, Ayr, June — Aiken's coldness — Armour's destruction of his mar- riage certificate . XVII. ToDavidBrice,t/imel2 — Jean Armour — Her perjury — is printing his Poems XVIII. To Robert Aiken, July— Wilson de clines printing a Second Edition of his poems —Excise appointment— His belief in the immortality of the soul — Disclaims misanthropy ...... XIX. To Mrs. Dunlop, July— Thanks for her kind notice of his poems — Sir William Wallace ....... [Account of Mrs. Dunlop.] Note . XX. To David Brice, Glasgow, July 1 7 — Jean Armour — Now fixed to go to the West Indies ib. ib. 596 ib. ib. 597 598 ib. XXI. To John Richmond, July 30 — Intended departure for Jamaica XXII. To James Smith, Mauchline, Aug. — His voyage delayed — Woman, lovely woman ! XXIII. To John Kennedy, Aug. — Farewell . XXIV. To Robert Muir, Kilmarnock, Sep. — Poor Jean Armour repays him double — His poem of the Calf XXV. To Mr. Burness, Montrose, Sep. 26— Domestic affections — His departure un- certain 599 ib. ib. 600 @= GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. PAGE XXVI. To Dr. Arch d . Lawrie, Nov. 13— The peaceful unity of St. Margaret's Hill . . 601 XXVII. To Miss Alexander, Nov. 18— Scene — The bonny lass of Ballochmyle . . ib. XXVIII. To Mrs. Stewart of Stair, Nov.— Enclosing the Song of "Ettrick banks" — as a grateful recollection of his kind recep- tion at Stair 602 XXIX. To Robert Muir, JVow. 18— Enclosing '' Tam Samson" — His Edinburgh expedition ib. XXX. To Dr. Mackenzie, Mauchline, Nov.— On dining with Lord Daer — Character of Dugald Stewart 603 XXXI. To Gavin Hamilton, Esq. Dec. 7— His rising fame — Dalrymple of Orangefield, and other kind patrons .... ib. XXXII. To John Ballantine, Esq. Ayr, Dec. 13 — The Caldonian Hunt subscribe each for a copy of his poems — " The Lounger, &c." ib. XXXIII. To Robert Muir, Dec. 20— On his subscribing for sixty copies of his poems . 604 XXXIV. To William Chalmers, Ayr, Dec. 27 — A humourous sally — the heavenly Miss Burnet 605 1787. *XXXV. To Gavin Hamilton, Esq. Jan. 7— Jean Armour — Meets with a Lothian farmer's daughter — delicious ride from Leith . . ib. XXXVI. To the Earl of Eglinton, Jan.— Gratitude for his Lordship's munificence . ib. XXXVII. To John Ballantyne, Esq. Jan. 14 — Not so far gone as Willie Gaw's skate — ■ Miller's offer of a farm — the Grand Lodge of Scotland dub him " Caledonia's Bard" . ib. XXXVIII. To the same, Jan. — Encloses his song of " Bonnie Doon" — while sitting sad and solitary in a little country inn . .606 XXXIX. To Mrs. Dunlop, Jan. 15— Miserably awkward at a fib — Kindness of Dr. Moore — trembles for the consequences of his popu- larity ........ ib. XL. To Dr. Moore, Jan. — Thanks for hi3 kind notice — not vain enough to hope for distinguished poetic fame .... 607 [Notice of Dr. Moore. Note] . . ib. XLI. To the Rev. G. Laurie, Feb. 5— Grati- tude for his friendly hints — Compliments paid to Miss Lawrie by the Man of Feeling . 608 [Letter of Dr. Lawrie to the Poet. Note] ib. XLII. To Dr. Moore, Feb. 15— Scorns the affectation of seeming modesty to cover self- conceit — Helen Maria Williams . . . 609 Reply to the Poet ib. XLIII. To John Ballantine, Esq. Feb. 24— Is getting his phiz done by an eminent en- graver 610 XLIV. To the Earl of Glencairn, Feb.— En- closes Stanzas for a picture of his Lordship, and requests permission to publish them . ib. XLV. To the Earl of Buchan, Feb.— Grate- ful for his Lordship's advice — it touches the --© XIV CONTENTS. GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. ] darling chord of his heart — Wisdom dwells with Prudence — must return to his humble station at the plough tail .... *XLVI. To Gavin Hamilton, Esq., Mar. 8— Poor Capt n . Montgomery — his sympathy for the hapless fair one — His two Songs on Miss Alexander and Miss Kennedy tried by a jury of literati, and declared defamatory libels ........ XL VII. To James Candlish, Mar. 21— Still " The old man with his deeds" . XLVIII. To William Dunbar, W. S. Mar.— Acknowledges the present of Spenser's Poems — about to return to his shades . XLIX. To On Fergusson's Head- stone — Conscience ..... L. To Mrs. Dun lop, Mar. 22 — Wishes to sing of Scottish scenes and Scottish story — Uto- pian thoughts — Intends returning to the plough, but not to give up poetry LI. To the same, April 15 — Gratitude for her goodness — about to appear in print LII. To Dr. Moore, April 23— Gratitude- for the honour done to him — about to return to his rural shades ...... [Dr. Moore's Reply] LIII. To Mrs. Dunlop, April 30— Happy that his own favourite pieces are distinguished by her approbation LIV. To the Rev. Dr. Hugh Blair, May 3— On leaving Edinburgh — thanks for his patronage ....... [Dr. Blair's Reply] LV. To Mr. Pateson, Bookseller, Paisley, May 11 — Acknowledging payment for ninety copies of his Poems LVI. To William Nicol, Edinburgh, June 1 — A humorous description of his journey on his favourite mare, Jenny Geddes LVII. To James Smith, Linlithgow, June 11 Disgusted with the mean, servile compliance of the Armour family .... LVI II. To William Nicol, June 18— Charmed with Dumfries' folks — carries Milton per- petually about with him .... LIX. To James Candlish, June — Dissipation and business engross every moment — engaged in assisting an honest Scotch enthusiast (Johnson, the engraver of the Museum) — begs the song of "Pompey's Ghost'" . LX. To William Nicol, June — Ramsay of Auchtertyre LXI. To William Cruikshank, Edinburgh, June — Storm-staid two days at the foot of the Ochill-hills 611 ib. 612 ib. ib. 614 ib. ib. 615 616 LXI I. To Miss June — Her piano and herself have played the deuce about his heart ib. 617 ib. 618 ib. 619 620 ib. ib. LXII. To Robert Ainslie,Jwwe28— Written from Arrachar [LIFE, p. 60.] . *LXII. To James Smith, June 30 — Adven- ©■ GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. PAGE ture with a Highlandman — drinking, danc- ing, &c. [LIFE, p. 60-1.] .... LXIII. To John Richmond, July 7— On the death of an old confounder of right and wrong — -runs a drunken race and tumbles off Jenny Geddes 621 LXIV. To Robert Ainslie, Esq., 5 . CLVT. To William Creech, May 30— The tooth-ache — fifty troops of infernal spirits driving post from ear to ear along his jaw bones ........ CLVII. To Mr. M c Auley of Dumbarton, June 4 — As he has entered into the holy state of matrimony, he trusts his face is turned com- pletely Zionward, and hopes that the little poetic licenses of former days will fall into oblivion ....... CLVIII. To Robert Ainslie, June 8— Life is a serious matter — serious counsel to young, unmarried, rake-helly dogs .... CLIX. To Mr. M c Murdo, June 19— A poet and a beggar are in many points of view alike— if you help either the one or the other to a mug of ale, they will repay you with a song — what it is to patronize a poet . CLX. To Mrs. Dunlop, June 21— His religi- ous creed 673 CLXI. To Miss Williams, Aug. — His way of reading poetry— has honesty enough to tell her what he takes to be truths, even when they are not quite on the side of approbation CLX1I. To John Logan,^w#.7— "The Kirk's Alarm"— Dr. M c Gill CLXIII. To Mr. Sfep.— The tomb- stone over poor Fergusson — his many virtues CLX IV. To Mrs. Dunlop, Sep. 6— No dab at fine-drawn letter writing— religion the true comfort ! — Zeluco ib. 676 ib. 07; ib ib. 679 ib. 681 CLXV. To Captain Riddel, Carse, Oct. 16— Anxious for the day of contention for the Whistle . ib. CLXVI. To the same— Gratitude— " An old song" generally the only coin a poet has to pay with 682 CLXVII. To Robert Ainslie, Nw. 1— Reasons for entering into the Excise— fifty pounds a 6= GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. PAGE year, and a provision for widows and orphans, no bad settlement for a poet — encourage- ment given by a recruiting serjeant — fickle- ness — love of change has ruined many a fine fellow, as well as many a blockhead . . 682 CLXVIII, To Richard Brown, Nov. 4— Labour endears rest, and both absolutely necessary for the due enjoyment of life . 683 CLXIX. To Robert Graham of Fin tray, Esq Dec. 9 — The visits of the muses, like those of good angels, are short and far between — is too little a man to have any political at- tachments ........ ib. CLXX. To Mrs. Dunlop, Dec. 13— Reflections on immortality ...... 684 CLXXI. To Lady Winifred Maxwell Consta- ble, Dec. 6 — Has the honour of being con- nected with her ladyship by one of the strongest and most endearing ties — common < sufferers in the cause of heroic loyalty ! . 685 CLXXII. To Provost Maxwell, of Lochma- ben, Dec. 20 — His poor distracted mind is so torn, jaded, racked, and bedevilled, to make "one guinea do the business of three," that he detests, abhors, and swoons at, the very name of business . . . . ib. 1790. CLXXIII. To Sir John Sinclair, Bart.— Ac- count of a book society among the Nithsdale farmers 686 CLXXIV. To Charles Sharpe, of Hoddam, Esq. — Enclosing a ballad, under a fictitious character 687 CLXXV. To Gilbert Burns, Jan. 11— Nerves in a cursed state — his farm has undone him 688 CLXXVI. To William Dunbar, W. S. Jan. 14 — Since we are creatures of a day, why bar the enjoyment of a mutual correspond- ence—resolved never to breed up a son of his to any of the learned professions — Hopes of a better world ib. CLXXVII. To Mrs. Dunlop, Jan. 25— Some account of Falconer, the unfortunate Author of " The Shipwreck" — misery is like love : to speak its language truly, the author must have felt it 689 CLXXVIII. To Peter Hill, Bookseller, Edin- burgh, Feb. 2 — Enquiry as to the fate of his poor name-sakeMademoiselle Burns — orders some books 690 CLXXIX. To William Nicol, Feb. 9— His d — d mare dead — theatricals in Dumfries — Sutherland's company . . . .691 CLXXX. To Alex r . Cunningham, Feb. 13— Apologies for his unsightly sheet of paper — — is there a science of life ? — obliged to break the Sabbath — one thing frightens him much — that we are to live for ever, seems " too good news to be true" . . . 692 CLXXXI. To Peter Hill, Edinburgh, Mar. 2 — Orders more books — thinks mankind are >cy: CONTENTS. GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. PAGE by nature benevolent, except in a few scoun- drelly instances . . . . . .693 CLXXXII. To Mrs. Dunlop, April 10— Couplet of his favourite poet, Goldsmith — national prejudices — conduct of " able states- men" — their measure of conduct is not what they " ought" but what they " dare" — is in raptures with the " Mirror and Lounger" — Mackenzie the Scottish Addison — purity, tenderness, dignity and elegance of soul absolutely disqualify, in some degree, for making a man's way into life . . . ib. CLXXXIII. To Collector Mitchell— Mercy to the thief is injustice to the honest man . 694 CLXXXIV. To Dr. Moore, July 14— Has quite disfigured " Zeluco" with his annota- tions — Charlotte Smith's sonnets. . . 695 CLXXXV. To Mr. Murdoch, London, July 16 — Respecting his brother William . . ib. [Murdoch's Reply] 696 CLXXXVI. To Mr. M c Murdo, Aug. 2— En- closing his poem on the death of Captain Matthew Henderson . . . . . ib. CLXXXVII. To Mrs. Dunlop, Aug. 8— A " ci-devant" friend has given his feelings a wound that will gangrene dangerously ere it cure 697 CLXXXVIII. To Alex r . Cunningham, Aug. 8 — Aspirations after independence . . ib. CLXXXIX. To Dr. Anderson— Apologizes for inability to aid in a literary work — like Milton's Satan, he is forced "To do what yet, tho' damn'd I would abhor" . . . ib. CXC. To Crawford Tait, Esq., Edinburgh, Oct. 15 — Character of his friend Mr. William Duncan — an earnest appeal to his generosity 698 CXCI. To Dr. M c Gill's case — doubtful whether he can be of any service . 699 CXC II. To Mrs. Dunlop, Nov.— Rejoices on the birth of her grand-child — is much flat- tered by her approbation of Tarn o' Shanter ib. 1791. CXCIII. To Lady W. M. Constable, Jan. 11 — Thanks for the gift of a valuable snuff- box with a fine picture of Queen Mary on the lid ib. CXCIV. To William Dunbar, W. S., Jan. 17 — Not yet gone to Elysium — good wishes — encloses a poem ...... 700 CXCV. To Mrs. Graham, of Fintray, Jan.— Enclosing " Queen Mary's Lament" — in- dulges the flattering faith that his poetry will outlive his poverty . . . . . ib. CXC VI. To Peter Hill, Edinburgh, Jan. 17 — Eloquent apostrophe to poverty . .701 CXCVII. To Alex r . Cunningham, Jan. 23— Enclosing " Tam o' Shanter" — and a portion of his " elegy on Miss Burnet" . . . ib. CXCVIII. To A. F. Tytler, Esq., Feb.— To have his poem of Tam o' Shanter so much ©^ GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. * PAGE applauded by one of the first judges was the most delicious vibration that ever thrilled along the heart strings of a poor poet . . 702 CXCIX. To Mrs. Dunlop, Feb. 7— Has had a fall from his horse — the late Miss Burnet — the "little floweret" and the "mother plant" ib. CC. To the Rev. Arch. Alison, Feb. 14— Doctrine of Association of ideas—" Essays on Taste" 703 CCI. To the Rev. G. Baird, Feb.— Respecting the poems of Michael Bruce . . . 704 CCII. To Dr. Moore, Feb. 28— Captain Grose — poems have the same advantage as Roman Catholics ; they can be of service to their friends after they have passed that bourne where all other kindness ceases to be of avail — a wise adage . . . . . ib. [Dr. Moore's Reply] ib. CCIII. To Alex r . Cunningham, Mar. 12— Novelty irrebriates the fancy, and not un- frequently dissipates and fumes away like other intoxication 706 CCIV. To Alex r . Dalzel, Factor, Mar. 19— On the death of his patron Lord Glencairn, wishes to know privately the day of inter- ment that he may cross the country, to pay a tear to the last sight of his ever revered benefactor ib. CC V. To Afar.— When he matricu- lates in the Herald's Office, he intends that his supporters shall be two sloths — his crest a slow-worm and his motto " Deil tak the foremost" 707 CC'VT. To Mrs. Dunlop, April 11— Birth of his third son — peculiar privilege and blessing of our pale, sprightly damsels — the famous census of Venus ...... ib. CCVII. To Alex r . Cunningham, June 11— Pleads in behalf of Mr. Clarke, of Moffat, a persecuted school-master — God help the children of dependence ! 708 CCVIII. To the Earl of Buchan, June— En- closing an ode to celebrate the birth-day of Thomson . . . . . . . ib. CCIX. To Thomas Sloan, Sep. 1— Suspense worse than disappointment — strange drunken scene at the public sale of his crops . . 709 CCX. To Lady E. Cunningham, ^.—En- closing his lament for the Earl of Glencairn — the sables he wore were not the " mockery of woe" ib. CCXI. To Colonel Fullarton, Oct. 3— Ambi- tious of being known to a gentleman whom he is proud to call his countryman . .710 CCXII. To Mr. Ainslie— " Miserable 1 of his mind .... state , 711 CCXIII. To Miss Davies— Lethargy of con- science — a delightful reverie — woman is the blood royal of life . . . . . ib. CCXIV. To Mrs. Dunlop, Dec. 17— "Scene ^ — a field of battle — his song of death" .712 =@ CONTENTS. GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. PAGE 1792. CCXV. To William Smellie, Jan. 22— Cha- racter of Maria Woodleigh . . . .713 CCXVI. To Peter Hill, Bookseller, Feb. 5— Enclosing money for erecting the stone over the grave of poor Fergusson . . . ib. CCXVII. To William Nicol, Feb. 20— Ironi- cal thanks for his advice . . . .714 CCXVIII. To Francis Grose, Esq., F. S. A.— Character of Dugald Stewart . . . ib. CCXIX. To the same— With three legends respecting Alloway Kirk . . . .715 CCXX. To J. Clarke, Edinburgh, July 16— Humorous invitation to come to the country to teach music ..... 716 CCXXI. To Mrs. Dunlop, Aug. 22— Almost in love with Miss Lesley Baillie — separation from friends ...... ib. CCXXTI. To Alex r . Cunningham, Sep. 10— Wild apostrophe to a spirit — religious non- sense — the conjugal state . . - . 717 CCXXIII. To Mrs. Dunlop, Sep. 27— Con- doles with her on Mrs. Henri's situation in France — the life of a farmer, paying a dear, unconscionable rent, is a " cursed life" — his own increasing family . . . . .719 CCXXIV. To the same, Sep.-— Condoles on the death of her daughter — Mrs. Henri . . ib. CCXXV. To the same— Dec. 6— Melancholy reflexions on the death of friends — birth of his daughter — Poetical quotations . . ib. CCXXVI. To Robert Graham, of Fintray, Esq., Dec. — Distress of mind in consequence of an order of the Board of Excise to en- quire into his political conduct — earnest ap- peal for protection . • . . . . 720 CCXXVII. To Mrs. Dunlop, Dec. 31— How fleeting are pleasures ! — resolutions against hard-drinking — no hope of promotion — for- swears politics 721 1793. CCXXVIII. To the same, Jan. 5— All set right with respect to the Board of Excise — Execrates informers — family cup of Wallace ib. CCXXIX. To Alex r . Cunningham, Mar. 3— Orders a seal to be engraved, with mottoes —merits of Allan the painter . . . 722 CCXXX. To Miss Benson, Mar. 21— Pleasure he has felt in meeting with her . . . 723 CCXXXI. To Patrick Miller, Esq., April— With a new edition of his poems . . ib. CCXXXI I. To John Francis Erskine, Esq. of Mar, April 13— Gratitude for his friendship — defence of his political principles — pathetic appeal against his supposed degradation by being an Exciseman 724 CCXXXIII. To Robert Ainslie, April 26— Damnably out of humour — Spunkie his tutelary genius ! — scholar- craft may be caught by friction — by mere dint of handling books GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. PAGB — anecdote of a wise - looking, jabbering tailor 725 CCXXXI V. To Miss Kennedy— Faint sketches of her j)ortrait — poets, of all mankind, feel most forcibly the powers of " beauty" . 726 CCXXXV. To Miss Craik, Dumfries, Aug.— Fate and character of the rhyming tribe — what we owe to the lovely Queen of the heart of man ! . . . . . .it. CCXXXVI. To Lady Glencairn— Gratitude to her noble family — would rather have it said that his profession borrowed credit from him than that he borrowed credit from his profession — has turned his thoughts on the Drama 727 CCXXXVII. To John Macmurdo, Esq., Dec. — Pays a debt of six guineas, and now, he does not owe a shilling to either man or woman — sends a collection of Scots songs of which there is not another copy in the world 728 CCXXXVIII. To the same— With a present of his poems — to no man has he ever paid a compliment at the expense of Truth . . ib. CCXXXIX. To Capt". Dec. 5— Honours him as a man, and as a patriot to whom the rights of his country are sacred — encloses " Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled" . 729 CCXL. To Mrs. Riddel— Envies her going to a party of choice spirits .... ib. CCXLI. To a Lady — In favour of a player's benefit — of all the qualities assigned to the Author of Nature, by far the most enviable is to be able " to wipe away all tears from all eyes" ib. CCXLII. To the Earl of Buchan, Jan. 12— The story of Bannockburn — Apostrophe to liberty 730 * CCXLII. To Capt n . Miller Dais win ton— En- closing " Scots wha hae wi' Wallace' bled" [See Ode, p. 477.] CCXLIII. To Mrs. Riddel — Execration of lobster-coated puppies . . . . ib. CCXLIV. To the same—" Gin-horse class" of the human genus — himself ad — d "melange" of fretfulness and melancholy . . . ib. CCXLV. To the same — Recals her late look that froze the very life-blood of his heart, but assures her of his highest esteem . . ib. CCXLVI. To the same — Renewal of inter- rupted friendship . . . . .731 CCXLVII. If it be a crime to admire, esteem, and prize, the most accomplished of women, and the first of friends, he is the most offending thing alive . . . . ib. CCXLVIII. To John Syme, Esq.— The in- comparable Mrs. Oswald . . . . ib. CCXLIX. To Miss Recollections of a dear friend — requests the return of MSS. 'ent to him . . . . . .732 CCL. To Alex*. Cunningham, Feb. 26— Can he minister to a mind diseased ? — his hypo- chondria- — requests consolation — the two XX CONTENTS. GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. PAGE great pillars that bear us up, amid the wreck of misfortune — thoughts on religion . . 732 CCLI. To the Earl of Glencairn, May— Re- collections of the generous patronage of his late illustrious brother .... 733 CCLII. To David Macculloch, Esq., June 21 — His projected journey in Galloway . . ib. CCLIII. To Mrs. Dunlop, June 25— Melan- choly forebodings as to his health — stanza of an Ode to Liberty 734 [Stature of Sir William Wallace (Note)] . ib. CCLIV. To James Johnson — " Has almost hung his harp on the willow trees" — sends forty-one songs for the fifth volume of "The Museum" — Lord Balmerino's dirk . . ib CCLV. To Peter Miller, jun., Esq. of Dals- winton, Nov. — Dares not accept of his ge- nerous offer of a salary to write for the Morning Chronicle — has long had it in his head to try his hand at little prose essays, to which Mr. Perry is welcome . . .735 CCLVI. To Samuel Clarke, jun., Dumfries, — Allusions to a drunken squabble with a Captain — the obnoxious toast . . . 736 CCLVII. To Mrs. Riddel— As from the other world — from the regions of Hell, amid the horrors of the damned — apology for his being intoxicated . . . . . ib. 1795. CCLIX. To Miss Fontenelle.— Her charms as a woman, &c. 737 CCLX. To Mrs. Dunlop, Dec. 15— Anxiety respecting his family — is almost distracted — Dumfries theatricals — Cowper's "Task" a glorious poem ib. CCLXI. To Alexander Findlater— Enclosing two schemes — good wishes .... 738 CCLXII. To the Editor of the Morning Chronicle, in the name of a friend — the rights of human nature . . . . ib. CCLXIII. To Colonel W. Dunbar.— Not yet gone to Elysium — many happy returns of the season .... . . 739 CCLXIV. To Mr. Heron, of Heron— Pillory on Parnassus — a life of literary leisure, with a decent competency, the summit of his wishes ....... ib. CCLXV. To Mrs. Dunlop, Dec. 20— Has the honour to preside over the Scottish verse in Thomson's collection of songs — appointed to a temporary supervisorship — religion early implanted in his mind — the humour of Dr. Moore perfectly original .... 740 CCLXVI. Ironical address of the Scottish Distillers to the Right Hon. William Pitt, signed John Barleycorn, Praeses . . ib. CCLXVII. To the Hon. the Provost, Bailies, and Town Council of Dumfries — requesting the privilege of sending his children to the Burgh schools 741 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. 1796. CCLXVII I To Mrs. Riddel, Jan. 20— Ana- charsis an indisputable desideratum to a son of the Muses — his health flown for ever . 742 CCLXIX. To Mrs. Dunlop, Jan. 31— Has lateiy drunk deep of the cup of affliction — become the victim of a most severe rheu- matic fever ...... ib. CCLXX. To Mrs, Riddel, June 4— Racked with rheumatism — meets every face with a greeting like that of Balak to Balaam . ib. CCLXXI. To Mr. Clarke, Schoolmaster, For- far, June 26 — Still, still the victim of af- fliction ! — begins to fear the worst — bewails the prospects of his wife and children — there he is as weak as a woman's tear . .743 CCLXXII. To James Johnson, Edinburgh, July 4 — Hope is the cordial of the human heart — endeavours to cherish it as well as he can ib. CCLXXIII. To Alexander Cunningham, July 7 — Fears the voice of the Bard will soon be heard no more ! — his spirits fled ! fled ! — his last and only chance is sea-bathing, country quarters, and riding ..... 744 CCLXXI V. To Gilbert Burns, July 10— His appetite totally gone — can scarcely stand on his legs — God keep his wife and children ! . ib. CCLXXV. To Mrs. Burns? from Brow, July 10 — Sea bathing affords little relief . . ib. CCLXXVI. To Mrs. Dunlop, July 12— His illness will, in all probability, speedily send him beyond that " bourne whence no tra- veller returns" — her friendship dearest to his soul ....... 745 CCLXXVII. To James Burness, Montrose, July 12 — Solicits aid — alas ! he is not used to beg ! — melancholy and low spirits half his disease — his brother's affairs — fears he must cut him up ...... ib. CCLXXVIII. To James Gracie, Esq., July 16 — His loss of appetite still continues — shall not need his kind offer (to bring him to town in a post chaise) .... 746 CCLXXIX. To James Armour, Mauchline, July 18 — Begs for Heaven's sake that Mrs. A. may come to attend his wife in her con- finement — feels his strength gone . .747 [To Mr. Burness, Montrose, from John Lew- ars, July 23 — Announcing the death of the Poet — Note to page 745.] .... [To Mrs. Robert Burns, Dumfries, from James Burness, July 29 — Condolence on the death of her husband ib,] .... [To Mr. Burness, Montrose, from the Poet's widow, Aug. 23 — Acknowledgment for his kinduess — Note to page 746] [The Wife of the Poet — Note to page 746-7] [Anecdote of Mrs. Burns — ib.] [Song by Robert Burns, jun. — ib.] I @= Oj CONTENTS. FIRST COMMON PLACE - BOOK, BEGUN IN APRIL 1783. PAGIi To Robert Ripdel, Esq., — Observations, hints, songs, scraps, of poetry, &c., by Ro- bert Burness 748 April, 1783. Connexion between love, music, and poetry ib. Sep. Remorse — the most painful sentiment that can embitter the human bosom . . ib. March, 1784. Every man, even the worst, has something good about him — love- verses, without any real passion, the most nauseous of all conceits 749 April, 1784. The whole species of young men may be divided into two grand classes, the "grave" and the " merry" . . . ib. Aug. 1784. The grand end of human life . 750 May, 1785. Egotisms from my own sensa- tions .....»•• pf' Aug, 1785. The glorious Wallace the Sa- viour of his country ib. Sep. 1785. Irregularity in the Old Scottish Songs . . . . . . • .751 Oct. 1785. Let a young man, as he tenders his own peace keep up a regular, warm inter- course with the Deity ib. SECOND COMMON PLACE-BOOK, BEGUN IN EDINBURGH, APRIL, 1787. Prefatory Remarks 752 Philosophy, benevolence, and greatness of soul 753 The whining cant of love . . . . ib. The Wabster's grace ib. An old man's dying ib. The powers of beauty . . . . . ib. The much- talked- of world beyond the grave . ib. The Poet's Assignment of his Works . . 754 LETTERS TO CLARINDA, BY ROBERT BURNS, UNDER THE SIGNATURE OF SYLVANDER. No. I. Dec. 6, 1787. Fiction, the native region of poetry ....... 755 II. Dec. 8. Uulucky fall from a coach . . ib. III. Dec. 22. No holding converse with an amiable woman, much less a " gloriously amiable fine woman," without some mixture of that delicious passion whose most devoted slave he has more than once had the honour of being 756 IV. Jan. 1788. A friendly correspondence goes for nothing, except one writes his or her un- disguised sentiments — his definition of worth — Clarinda's song " Talk not of love" — adds a fourth stanza ...... 757 V. Jan. 21. Epigram on Martial — "The night is my departing night." — " What art thou, © LETTERS TO CLARINDA. PAGE love?" — likes to have quotations for every occasion ....... 758 VI. Jan. 26. His favourite feature in Milton's Satan ib. VII. Jan.27. Impertinence of fools . . 759 Jan. 28. Saying of Locke — fears incon- stancy — the consequent imperfection of hu- man weakness — mysterious faculty of that thing called imagination ! — fairy fancies — Devotion the favourite employment of his heart ....... ib. VIII. His religious tenets — the witching hour of night 760 IX. His friendship, a life-rent business — his likings strong and eternal . . . .761 X. Thoughts on religion — Bolingbroke's say- ing to Swift — scorns dissimulation . . ib. XI. The devotion of love . . . .762 XII. Her person unapproachable, by the laws of her country — wretched condition of one haunted with conscious guilt — lines on re- ligion ib. XIII. Never does things by halves — she is the soul of his enjoyment # . . . ib. XIV. Feb. 7. Fortune, the most capricious jade ever known — Nature has a great deal to say with Fortune 763 XV. Feb. 9. The pensive hours of "Philo- sophic melancholy" — a peep through " The dark postern of time long elaps'd" — child- ish fondness of the every-day children of the world — innocence .... 764 XVI. Feb. 10. Invocation to Heaven — vows to be hers in the way she thinks most to her happiness ....... ib. XVII. Feb. 12. Was "behind the scenes with her" — saw the noblest immortal soul cre- ation ever showed him — fears his acquaint- ance is too short to make that lasting impression on her heart he could wish . ib. XVIII. Prays to the Father of Mercies to make him worthy of her friendship . . 765 XIX. Esteems and loves her as a friend . . ib. XX. When matters are desperate, we must put on a desperate face — her fame, her wel- fare, her happiness, dearer to him than any gratification whatever .... 776 XXI. Feb. 17. Attraction of love . . . ib. XXII. March 2. Insidious decree of the Per- sian monarch's mandate — his farming scheme .... . ib. XXIII. March 7. Stung with her reproach for unkindness — we ought, when we wish to be economists in happiness, to fix the standard of our own character 767 XXIV. Thoughtless career we run in the hour of health ib. XXV. In whatever company he is, when a married lady is called on as a toa$t, he con- stantly gives the name of Mrs. Mack — his. round of Arcadian Shepherdesses . . 768 [Recent account of Clarinda — Note] . . ib. @= BURNS. His genius was universal. In satire, in humour, in pathos, in description, in sentiment, he was equally great : but his satire and his humour partake of the soil whence they sprung. They are rude, forceful, and manly: they are not polished into elegance, nor laboured into ease ; but in every composition I am inclined to regard him as one of the few geniuses who arise to illumi- nate the hemisphere of mind. Education had nothing in the formation of his character ; what he wrote was the pure offspring of native genius : and if we reflect how excellent he was in all ; what various powers he has shewn in paths that are amongst the highest of poetical delineation ; we may, without much offence to justice, place him by the side of the greatest Raines this country has produced. ThornhilVs Virgil, p. 443. (Oj- -© CHRONOLOGY OF BURNS'S LIFE AND WORKS. 1759. Jannarv 25. — Born in a clay-built cottage, raised by his father's own hands, on the banks of the Doom, in the district of Kyle, and county of .Ayr. A few days after his birth a wind arose, that crushed the frail structure, and the unconscious Poet was carried unharmed to the shelter of a neighbouring house. 1765.— (atat 6.) Sent by his father to a school at Alloway Miln— taught by one Camp- bell — same year placed under the care of Mr. Murdoch. 1766.— (7.) May 25.— His father removes to the farm of Mount Oliphant, ill the parish of Ayr, leased him by Mr. Fergus ■ of Doonholra. 1768.— (9.) In the absence of Murdoch, he is taught arithmetic in the winter evenings by his father, who instructs him also in the knowledge of History and Geography. On hearing Murdoch read the tragedy of Titus Andronieus, he is so shocked at the recital that he threatens to bum the book. 1769.- -(10.) The latent seeds of poetry cultivated in his mind by an old woman who resides in the family, and who had the largest collection in the country of tales and songs concerning devils, ghosts, fairies, witches, warlocks, apparitions, giants, enchanted towers, &c. The recital of these had so strong an effect on his imagination that for ever after- wards, in his nocturnal rambles, he kept a sharp look out in suspicious places. 1772.- (13.) Sent to the Parish School of Dalrymple, for improvement in penman- ship. Resumes his studies with Murdoch, in the town of Ayr. Revises his Grammar, and acquires a knowledge of French. Attempts the Latin, but makes little progress. 1773.— (14.) Forms several connexions with other younkers, who possess superior advantages, but who never insult the clouterly appearance of his plough-boy carcase, the two extremes of which were often exposed to all the inclemencies of the seasons. They give him stray volumes of books, and one (the late Sir John Malcolm), whose heart, not even the Mutiny Begum scenes have tainted, helped him to a little French. Parting with these young friends, as they occasionally went off for the East or West Indies, was often a sore affliction, but he is soon called to more serious evils. His father's farm proves a ruinous bargain, and, to clench the misfortune, he falls into the hands of a scoundrelly factor, who afterwards sat for the picture he drew of one in his Tale of The Twa Doss. He becomes a dexterous ploughman for his age, but his indignation boils at the insolent threatening letters of the factor, which sets the family all in tears. 1774.— (15.) Is the principal labourer in his father's farm— suffers great depression of spirits — is afflicted with head-ache in the evenings — forms bis first attachment for Nelly Blair, a bonnie sweet sonsie lass, the tones of whose voice makes his heart-strings thrill like an Mohan harp. Com- poses his first song in praise of his Handsome Nelly. 1775.— (16.) A Collection of Songs, his vade mecum— these he pores over, while drivin? his cart, or walking to labour, song by song, verse by verse, carefully noting the true tender, or sublime, from affectation and fustian. To this practice he owes much of his critic craft. Hitherto, he was, perhaps, the most ungainly, awkward boy in the parish— no solitaire less acquainted with the ways of the world. 1776.— (17.) He goes to a country dancing school to give his manners a brush, strongly against the wish of his father, who was subject to strong passions, and, from that instance of disobedience, took a sort of dislike to him, which, he believes, was one cause of the apparent dissipation which marked his succeeding years— the great misfortune of his life was to want an aim— the only two openings by which he can enter the temple of fortune are the gate of niggardly economy, or the path of little chicaning bargain-making. A constitutional melancholy makes him fly solitude, and he becomes a welcome guest wherever he visits— his freatest impulse is un penchant pour Vadnrable moitii du genre umain— his heart is completely tinder, and eternally lighted up by some goddess or other. At the plough, scythe, or reap-hook, he fears no competitor, and spends his evenings after his own heart. His zeal, curiosity, and intrepid dexterity, recommend him as a confidant in all love adventures, and he is in the secret of half the loves of the parish of Tarbolton. 1777.— (18.) May 25.— His father removes to the farm of Lochlea. The young poet composes the ballad •' My father was a farmer upon the Carrick border;" and the best of all his songs — "It was upon a Lammas night." 1778.— (19.) Spends his nineteenth summer on a smuggling coast at a noted school in Kirkoswald, where he learns mensuration, surveying, dialling, &c, but makes a greater progress in the knowledge of mankind. He falls in Op occasionally with the smugglers, and learns to fill his glass and mix without fear in a drunken squabble, yet he goes on with a high hand with his geometry, till the sun enters Virgo, a month always a carnival in his bosom, when a charming fillette, who lives next door to the school, oversets all his trigonometry, and sets him off at a tangent from the sphere of his studies. Returns home considerably improved — engages several of his schoolfellows to keep up a literary correspon- dence — pores over a collection of Letters of the Wits of Queen Anne's reign. 1779.— (20.) Vive I' amour, et vive la bagatelle, his sole principles of action — Tristram Shandy and the Matt of Feeling his favourite books. Poetry the darling walk of his mind— usually half-a-dozen or more pieces on hand. His passions now rage like so many devils, till they find vent in rhyme. Composes "Winter, a Dirge," the eldest of his printed pieces— The Death of poor Mailie, John Barleycorn, and several songs. 1780.— (21.) November. —Forms, in conjunction with Gilbert, and seven or eight young men, a Bachelors' Club, in Tarbolton, the rules of which he after- wards draws up— the declared objects are — relaxation from toil — the pro- motion of sociality and friendship, and the improvement of the mind. 1781.— (22.) Midsummer. — Partly through whim, and partly that he wishes to set about doing something in life, he joins a flax-dresser in Irvine, of the name of Peacock, a relation of his mother— where he spends six mouths learning the trade. December 27. — Writes a remarkable letter to his father, in which he states that the weakness of his nerves has so debilitated his mind that he dares neither review past wants, nor look forward into futurity. He is quite transported at the thought that ere long, perhaps very soon, he shall bid adieu to all the pains, and uneasiness, and disquietudes of this weary life ; for he is heartily tired of it, and, if he does not very much deceive himself, he could contentedly and gladly resign it. He concludes by saying, " My meal is nearly out, but I am going to borrow till I get more." December 31.— His shop accidentally catches fire, as he is giving a welcome carousal to the new year, and is burned to ashes, and, like a true poet, he is left without a sixpence. 1782.— (23.) The clouds of misfortune gather thick round his father's head ; and he is visibly far gone in consumption. To crown the distresses of the poet, a belle Jill e, whom he adores, and who had pledged her soul to meet him in the field of matrimony, jilts him, with peculiar circum- stances of mortification. His constitutional melancholy is now increased to such a degree that for three months he is in a state of mind scarcely to be envied by the hopeless wretches who have got their mittimus — depart from me, ye accursed! He forms a friendship with a young fellow, a very noble character, bu" a hapless son of misfortune, whose mind was fraught with independence, magnanimity, and every manly virtue. He was the only man he ever saw who was a greater fool than himself, where woman was the presiding star ; but he spoke of illicit love with the levity of a sailor, which hitherto he had regarded with horror. Here his friendship did him a mischief, and the consequence was, that soon after he resumed the plough, he wrote "The Poet's Welcome to his Illegitimate Child." Meeting with Fergusson's Scot- tish Poems, he strings anew his wildly-souuding lyre. 1783.— (24.) April.— Commences his Common Place Book, entitled: "Observa- tions, Hints, Songs, Scraps of Poetry, &c. By Robert Burness ; a man who had little art in making money, and still less in keeping it." June 21.— Writes to his cousin, James Burness, that his father is in a dying condition ; and sends, probably for the last time in this world, his warmest wishes for his welfare and happiness— He becomes a Free Mason, being his first introduction to the life of a boon companion. 1784.— (25.) January.— Writes his " First Epistle to Davie, a Brother Poet," in which he alludes to his Darling Jean, The first idea of his becoming an Author started on this occasion. February 13.— Death of his Father ; whose all went among the hell- hounds that growl in the kennel of Justice— He makes shift to collect a little money in the family ; and he and his brother Gilbert take the neighbouring farm of Mossgiel, on which he enters with a full resolu- tion, Come, go to, I will be wise ! — He reads farming books, calculates crops, attends markets ; and, in spite of the devil, the world, and the flesh, he believes he would have been a wise man ; but the first year, from unfortunately buying bad seed, the second from a late harvest, they lost half their crops. This overset all his wisdom, and he returns, like the dog to his vomit, and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire. He now begins to be known in the neighbourhood as a maker of rhymes, and the first of his poetic offspring that saw the light was The Holy Tuilzie or Twa Herds, a burlesque sham imitation of a quarrel between two reverend Calvinists, both of them dramatis per- sona in his Holy Fair. Holy Willie's Prayer next makes its appear- ance, and alarms the Kirk-session so much that they hold several meetings, to look over their spiritual artillery. Unluckily for him, his wanderings lead him on another side, within point blank shot of their heaviest metal. This is the unfortunate story that gave rise to his printed poem, The Lament. He is compelled to perform penance in church— inveighs against the clergyman for rebuking him— writes his " Epistle to Raukine" and his song " The Ranting Dog the Daddie o't." --© 1785.— (setat 26.) Espouses the cause of Gavin Hamilton against the Auld Light Fanatics ; and produces, in succession, The Kirk's Alarm, The Ordi- nation, The Holy Fair, ^c— His Address to the Deil, and Death and Doctor Hombouh. April 1 — 21. Writes his Epistles to Lapraik, and, ill the course of the year, Halloween, The Jolly Beggars, The Cotter's Saturday Night, and various songs. 1786.— (27.) March 20.— Encloses Mr. Robert Muir, Kilmarnock, his Scotch Drink, with a wish that the may follow, with a blessing, for his edification. April 3.— Writes to Mr. Aiken that his proposals for publishing by sub- scription, he is just going to send to press, aiid signs his name, for the last time — Burncss. April 20.— Encloses Mr. John Kennedy, his Mountain Daisy (entitled in the MS. The Gowan), as being the very latest of his productions, and composed while holding the plough.— His connexion with his bonny Jean- She presents him with Twins— Anger of her father— The distress of the Poet— Perforins penance a second time in the Kirk for his incon- tinency — Is culled upon to find security for the maintenance of his children— Is unable to raise the money, and the alternative is expatria- tion, or a jail— Prefers the former. August 1.— Publishes the first Edition of his Poems— Realizes above 20/., and takes out his passage lor Jamaica— Composes the last song he believes he shall ever measure in Caledonia, " The Gloomy Night is gathering fast ;" when a letter from Dr. Blacklock fortunately arrives, which overthrows all his schemes, by opening new prospects to his poetic ambition. His poems everywhere received with rapture— Cul- tivates friendship with Professor Dugald Stewart, Dr. Blair, Dr. Robert- son, Dr. Gregory, Mrs. Dunlop, &c— Visits Katrine, the seat of Dugald Stewart, where' he meets Lord Daer, and Mrs. Stewart of Stair, whom he celebrates in his Song, Flow gently, sweet Afton — Composes the Lnss of Ballochmyle, and forwards the Song to the heroine, Miss Alexander — f s treated by her with coldness, which he resents with bitterness. November 28.— Arrives in Edinburgh. 1787.— (28.) January 7. — Writes to Gavin Hamilton that he feels a miserable blank in his heart, from the want of his bonnie Jean. " I don't think," he says, " I shall ever meet with so delicious an armful again. She has her faults ; but so have you and I ; and so has everybody." January 14. — Attends a Grand Masonic Lodge, &c. — Received with acclamation as the Bard of Caledonia — Resides with his friend Rich- mond, in the house of Mrs. Carfrae, Lawumarket, in a single room, at the rent of 3s. a week— Meets the Duchess of Gordon, and his conversa- tion completely carries her off her feet. April 4.— Publishes the second Edition of his Poems, of which 3000 copies are subscribed for- Commences his second Common Place Book. May 6.— Sets out on a Border Tour, in company with Robert Aiuslie, Esq.— Presented by the Magistracy of Jedburgh with the freedom of the town — his reception every where triumphant. May 13.— Visits Dryburgh Abbey, and spends an hour among the ruins, since hallowed by the dust of Scott. June 8.— Returns to Mossgiel — The family of his bonnie Jean now court his society— Returns to Edinburgh, where he obtains permission to erect a tombstone over the grave of Fergusson. The architect was two years in completing it, and the Poet was two years in paying him ; for which they are quits. " He had," says the Poet, " the hardiesse to ask for interest on the sum, but considering that the money was due by one Poet, for putting a tombstone over another, he may with grateful surprise, thank heaven that ever he saw a farthing of it." Proceeds on his first Highland Tour, by way of Stirling, to Inverarv— Visits the Harviestou ladies, and becomes acquainted with Miss Chalmers. July. — Spends this month at Mossgiel — Writes his Epistle to Willie Chalmers. August. — Re- visits Stirling-shire, in company with Dr. Adair of Har- rowgate— Visits the ruined Abbey of Dunfermline— Kneels down and kisses with sacred fervour the stone which covers the grave of Robert Bruce— Shewn at Linlithgow the room where the beautiful and injured Mary Queen of Scots was born — Crosses the Forth, and arrives in Edinburgh. August 25.— Sets out on his third and last Highland Tour, in company with his friend Nicol — Visits the Duke and Duchess of Gordon — Dines with them, and forgets his friend Nicol, who, in a foaming rage, in- duces the Poet reluctantly to turn his back on bonnie Castle Gordon, with a vexation he was unable to conceal. September 16.— Arrives once more in Edinburgh, having travelled 600 miles in 22 days— Composes verses on LochTurit, and Bruar Water — Forms an intimacv with Clarinda— Is overturned in a hackney-coach, by a drunken coachman ; and is confined to his room for six weeks with abruised limb— Writes his celebrated Letters to Clarinda— Contributes numerous Songs to Johnson's Musical Museum. December 30.— Writes to his friend Brown that Almighty love still reigns in his bosom ; and that he is at this moment ready to hang him- self for a young Edinburgh IVidow. (She turns jut to be a married lady, whose husband is absent in Jamaica.) December 31.— Attends aGrand Dinner to celebrate the birth of Prince Charles Stuart, and produces an Ode on the occasion. 1788.— (29.) March 30. — Composes (partly on horseback) The Chevalier's Lament. April 13.— Settles with his Publisher, Creech, and receives upwards of 600/., as' the produce of his Second Edition— Advances 200/. to assist his brother Gilbert ; but, when afterwards solicited to become bail for him to a considerable amount, he is compelled to decline injustice to his family. May 25.— Takes the farm of Ellisland. August 3. — Marries his bonnie Jean, and contributes many of his best Songs to the Museum. 1789.— (30.) July.— Receives an Epistle, part Poetic and part prosaic, from a young Poetess, Miss Janet Little, which he does not well know how to answer, being no dab at finc-dra>vn letter-writing. September.— Writes the noblest of all his ^ballads, •• To Mary in Heaven," Lines on Friar's- Carse Hermitage, &c. October 16.— Contends for the prize of "The Whistle," at Friars Carse — Drinks bottle for bottle in the Contest, and celebrates the occa- sion by a Poem. December 20.— Writes to Provost Maxwell that his poor distracted mind is so torn, so jaded, so racked and bedevilled with the task of the superlatively damned, to make one guinea do the work of three, that he detests, abhors, and swoons at, the very name of business. 1790.— (31.) January 25. — Communicates to Mrs. Dunlop some interesting parti- culars of the life and death of Falconer, the unfortunate author of the Shipwreck— Finds his farm a ruinous affair— His " nerves in a cursed state," and a horrid hypochondria pervading every atom of both body and soul— Resumes his intercourse with the Sluse, and writes in Novem- ber his inimitable Tarn o' Shanter, the best of all his productions— Is appointed to the Excise— Has an adventure with Ramsay of Ochtertyre. 1791.— (32.) April 11.— Birth of a third son— Becomes a member of the Dumfries Volunteers, and their Poet Laureate — Writes several patriotic Songs, and his " Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled "—Fires off his " Five Car- lines," and other Political Squibs, and satirizes both Whigs and Tories — Visited in the summer by two English gentlemen, who dine with him, and partake freely of his Whiskey Punch— They forget the flight of time; lose their wav on returning to Dumfries, and can scarcely count its three steeples, although assisted by the morning dawn. August 25. — Sells his crop at a guinea an acre above value — A strange scene of drunkenness on the occasion— About 30 people engaged in a regular battle, every man for his own hand, and fight it out for three hours — In-doors folk lying drunk on the floor, and decanting until his dogs get so tipsy by attending them that they can't stand — Enjoys the scene — Relinquishes Ellisland, and removes to Dumfries — Is invited by the Earl of Buchan to assist at the coronation of the bust of Thomson, on the 23rd of September — Apologizes, but sends an Ode for the occa- sion—Presented by Lady Wiuifred Maxwell Constable with a valuable snuff-box, on the lid of which is a miniature of Mary Queen of Scots, as an acknowledgment for his " Lament " of that ill-starred Princess. 1792.— (33.) February 27-— Puts himself at the head of a party of soldiers, and captures, sword in hand, a French Smuggler — Communicates to Francis Grose, Esq., the celebrated Antiquary, three remarkable Witch Stories relating to Alloway Kirk. September.— Commences his celebrated Correspondence with George Thomson, and composes for his Collection of_ Scottish Songs upwards of one hundred and twenty of the finest lyrics in the language. September 10. — Writes a remarkable letter to his friend Alexander Cunningham, in which he gives him his ideas of the conjugal state. '* Ah, my friend ! matrimony is quite a different thing from what your love-sick youths and sighing girls take it to be 1" December 8.— Birth of his Daughter. 1793.— (34.) Publishes a Fourth Edition of his Poems, in 2 vols. — Makes an excur- sion through Galloway and the neighbouring country, in company with Syme of RyeUalc, the same who related to Sir Walter Scott his story of The Sword Cane — Continues pouring forth his beautiful Songs to the Museum of Johnson— Admonished by the Excise that his business is to act, not to think, in allusion to his political opinions— Rejects the offer of an Annuity of 50/. to write Poetical Articles for the Morning Chronicle. December.— Writes to Mr. Macmurdo that he does not owe a shilling to either man or woman. 1794.— (35.) February 25. — Writes to Alexander Cunningham commencing with these words : — " Canst thou minister to a mind diseased ?" and stating that for two months he has been unable to wield the pen. May. — Publishes a Fifth Edition of his Poems, finally corrected with bis own hand. At Midsummer he removes from the Bank Vennel, Dumfries, to Mill Hill Brae. June 25. — Writes to Mrs. Dunlop from a solitary inn, in a solitary vil- lage, in Castle Douglas, that he is in poor health, and that he is afraid he is about to suffer for the follies of his youth.— His medical friends threaten Lira with a dying gout, but he trusts they are mistaken. 1795.— (36.) January. — Writes his manly song " For a' that and a' that." In the Autumn he loses his only daughter — Writes his Heron Ballads. In November he is visited by Professor Walker, who spends two days with him, and writes a description of the Poet's appearance. December 29.— Writes to Mrs. Dunlop that he already begins to feel the rigid fibre and stiffening joints of old age coming fast over his frame. 1796.— (37.) January 31.— Becomes the victim of a severe Rheumatic Fever— Rack'd with pain— Every face he meets with a greeting like that of Balak to Balaam : " Come, curse me Jacob, and come, defy me Israel." — Implores his friends in Edinburgh to make interest with the Board of Excise to grant him his full Salary — His application refused ! July 5.— Affecting interview with Mrs. Riddel at Brow. July 7 —Writes to his friend Cunningham :— " I fear the voice of the Bard will soon be heard among you no more ! You actually would not know me. Pale, emaciated, and so feeble as occasionally to need help from my chair— My spirits fled, fled '." — Goes to Brow for the benefit of sea air. July 12.— Writes to George Thomson for Five Pounds, and to his cousin James Burness for Ten Pounds, to save him from the horrors of a jail ! — Sends his last letter to Mrs. Dunlop, stating that, in all probabi- lity, he will speedily be beyond that bourne whence no traveller returns, July 18. — Returns to Dumfries in a dying state— His good humour is unruffled, and his wit never forsakes him. He looks to one of his brother Volunteers with a smile, as he stood weeping by his bedside, and says, " John, don't let the awkward squad fire over me '." July 21.-His Death. Julv 25.— His remains removed to the Town Hall of Dumfries, where they iie in state, and his funeral takes place on the following day. Cyv\JL to U^Wi CMpfU V-W ( &i to MM W^F KEiLW ~r^<^ lL Seal : -~>v-T-rts^-\T/-\-r r\ r~\ iC©TB WSIA EAE W J-aaa) <4( vvwUaj U\hx. 'utw\ }/~Aa) JfdoKj ^l [ I 1,1, K I; 0># I' \ LS sv I S ■ . yd v^JA (s^AA4bYVV\l\_, WfKM WA dcu, / " "Xcr/ to /je / f vxJu nwtY\A?M ^WVv wwm>> THE LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. PART I.— AYR-SHIRE. The national poetry of Scotland, like her thistle, is the oflspring of the soil. To the poems of our first James, the strains of forgot- ten minstrels, or the inspiration of shepherds and husbandmen, its origin has been ascribed. Where proof cannot be procured, we must be content with conjecture : classic or foreign lore can claim no share in the inspiration which comes from nature's free grace and liberality. From what- ever source our poetry has sprung, it wears the character and bears the image of the north : the learned and the ignorant have felt alike its ten- derness and humour, dignity and ardour; and both have united in claiming, as its brightest ornament, the poetry of Him of whose life and works I am now about to write. This, how- ever, has already been done with so much affec- tion by Currie, care by Walker, and manliness by Lockhart — the genius, the manners, and fortunes of Burns have been discussed so fully by critics of all classes, and writers of all ranks, that little remains for a new adventurer in the realms of biography, save to extract from the works of others a clear and judicious narrative. But, like the artist who founds a statue out of old materials, he has to re-produce them in a new shape, touch them with the light of other feeling, and inform them with fresh spirit and sentiment. Robert Burns, eldest son of William Burn ess and Agnes Brown his wife, was born Jan. 25, 1 759, in a clay-built cottage, raised by his fa- ther's own hands, on the banks of the Doon, in the district of Kyle, and county of Ayr. The >eason was ungentle and rough, the walls weak and new : — some days after his birth a wind arose which crushed the frail structure, and the unconscious Poet was carried unharmed to the shelter of a neighbouring house. He loved to allude, when he grew up, to this circumstance ; and ironically to claim some commiseration for the stormy passions of one ushered into the world by a tempest. This rude edifice is now an ale- house, and belongs to the shoemakers of Ayr : the recess in the wall, where the bed stood in which he was born, is pointed out to inquiring- guests : the sagacious landlord remembers, too, as he brings in the ale, that he has seen and conversed with Bums, and ventures to relate traits of his person and manners. There is no- thing very picturesque about the cottage or its surrounding grounds ; the admirers of the Muses' haunts will see little to call romantic in low meadows, flat enclosures, and long lines of pub- lic road. Yet the district, now emphatically called " The land of Burns," has many attrac- tions. There are fair streams, beautiful glens, rich pastures, picturesque patches of old natural wood ; and, if Ave may trust proverbial rhyme, " Kyle for a man''" is a boast of old standing. The birth of the illustrious Poet has caused the vaunt to be renewed in our own days. The mother of Burns was a native of the county of Ayr ; her birth was humble, and her personal attractions moderate ; yet, in all other respects, she was a remarkable woman. She was blest with singular equanimity of temper 5 her religious feeling was deep and constant ; she loved a well-regulated household ; and it was frequently her pleasure to give wings to the weary hours of a chequered life by chanting old songs and ballads, of which she had a large store. In her looks she resembled her eldest son ; her eyes were bright and intelligent ; her perception of character, quick and keen. She lived till Jan. 14, 1820, rejoiced in the fame of the Poet, and partook of the fruits of his genius. His lather was from another district. He was the son of a farmer in Kincardine-shire, and born in the year 1721, on the lands of the noble family of Keith-Marischall. The retainer, like his chief, fell into misfortunes ; his household was scattered, and William Burhess, with a small knowledge of farming, and a large stock of speculative theology, was obliged to leave his native place, in search of better fortune, at the age of nineteen. He has been heard to relate with what bitter feelings he bade farewell to his younger brother, on the top of a lonely hill, and turned his face toward the border. His first resting-place was Edinburgh, where he obtained a slight knowledge of gardening: thence he :. LIFE OF BURNS. 1766. went into Ayr-shire, and procured employment first from Crawford of Doonside, and second, in the double capacity of steward and gardener, from Ferguson of Doonholm. Imagining now that he had established a resting-place, he took a wife, Dec. 1757, leased a small patch of land for a nursery, and raised that frail shealing, the catastrophe of which has already been re- lated. During his residence with the laird of Doon- holm, a rumour was circulated that William Burness had fought for oar old line of princes in the late rebellion, the fatal 1745. His austere and somewhat stately manners caused him to be looked upon as a man who had a secret in re- serve, which he desired to conceal ; and, as a report of that kind was not calculated for his good, he procured a contradiction from the hand of the clergyman of his native parish, acquitting him of all participation in the late "wicked re- bellion." I mention this, inasmuch as the Poet, speaking of his forefathers, says, "they followed boldly where their leaders led," and hints that they suffered in the cause which crushed the fortunes of their chief. Gilbert Burns, a sensi- ble man, but no poet, imagined he read in his brother's words an imputation on the family loyalty, and hastened to contradict it, long after his father had gone where the loyal or rebellious alike find peace. He considered his father's religious turn of mind, and the certificate of his parish minister, as decisive : and so they are, as far as regards William Burness ; but the Keiths- Marischall were forfeited before he was born, and the Poet plainly alludes to earlier matters than the affair of the " Forty-five." — " My an- cestors," he says, " rented lands of the noble Keiths-Marischall, and had the honour of sharing their fate. I mention this circumstance because it threw my father on the world at large." Here he means that the misfortunes of the fathers were felt by the children ; he was accurate in all things else, and it is probable he related what his father told him. The feelings of the Poet were very early coloured with Ja- cobitism. Though William Burness sought only at first to add the profits of a small stewardship to those of a little garden or nursery, and toiled along with his wife to secure food and clothing, his increasing family induced him to extend his views ; and he accordingly ventured to lease Mount Oliphant, a neighbouring farm of a hundred acres, and entered upon it in 1765, when Robert was between six and seven years old. The elder Burns seems to have been but an indifferent judge of land : in a district where much fine ground is in cultivation, he sat down on a sterile and hungry spot, which no labour could render fruitful. He had commenced, too, on borrowed money ; the seasons, as well as the soil, proved churlish ; and Ferguson his friend dying, "a stern factor," says Robert, "whose threatening letters set us all in tears," inter- posed ; and he was compelled, after a six years' struggle, to relinquish the lease. This harsh- ness was remembered in other days : the factor sat for that living portrait of insolence and wrong in the " Twa Dogs." How easily may endless infamy be purchased ! From this inhospitable spot William Burness removed his household to Lochlea, a larger and better farm, some ten miles off, in the parish of Tarbolton. Here he seemed at once to strike root and prosper. He was still strong in body, ardent in mind, and unsubdued in spirit. Every day, too, was bringing vigour to his sons, who, though mere boys, took more than their proper share of toil ; while his wife superintended, with care and success, the whole system of in-door economy. But it seemed as if fortune had de- termined that nought he set his heart on should prosper. For four years, indeed, seasons were favourable, and markets good ; but, in the fifth year, there ensued a change. It was in vain that he laboured with head and hand, and re- solved to be economical and saving. In vain Robert held the plough with the dexterity of a man by day, and thrashed and prepared corn for seed or for sale, evening and morning, before the sun rose and after it set. " The gloom of hermits, and the unceasing moil of galley slaves," were endured to no purpose ; and, to crown all, a difference arose between the tenant and his landlord, as to terms of lease and rotation of crop. The farmer, a stern man, self-willed as well as devoutly honest, admitted but of one inter- pretation to ambiguous words. The proprietor, accustomed to give law rather than receive it, explained them to his own advantage ; and the declining years of this good man, and the early years of his eminent son, were embittered by disputes, in which sensitive natures suffer and worldly ones thrive. Amid all these toils and trials, William Bur- ness remembered the worth of religious instruc- tion, and the usefulness of education in the rearing of his children. The former task he took upon himself, and in a little manual of devotion still extant, sought to soften the rigour of the Calvinistic creed into the gentler Armi- nian. He set, too, the example which he taught. He abstained from all profane swearing and vain discourse, and shunned all approach to levity of conversation or behaviour. A week- day in his house wore the sobriety of a Sunday ; nor did he fail in performing family worship in a way which enabled his son to give the world that fine picture of domestic devotion, the "Cot- ter's Saturday Night." The depressing cares of the world, and a consciousness, perhaps, that he was fighting a losing battle, brought an al- most habitual gloom to his brow. He had nothing to cheer him but a sense of having done his duty. The education of his sons he confided to other hands. At first he sent Robert @- MTAT. G-7. EDUCATION. to a small school at Alloway Mile, witliin a mile of the place of his birth ; but the master was removed to a better situation, and his place was supplied by John Murdoch, a candidate for the honours of the church, who undertook, at a moderate salary, to teach the boys of Lochlea, and the children of five other neighbouring farmers, reading, writing, arithmetic, grammar, and Latin. He was a young man, a good scholar, and an enthusiastic instructor, with a moderate knowledge of human nature, and a competent share of pedantry. He made himself accepta- ble to the elder Burness by engaging in con- versations on speculative theology, and in lend- ing his learning to aid the other's sagacity and penetration; and he rendered himself welcome to Robert by bringing him knowledge of any kind — by giving him books — telling him about eminent men — and teaching him the art — which he was not slow in learning — of opening up fresh sources of information for himself. Of the progress which Robert made in knowledge, his teacher has given us a very clear account. In reading, writing and arith- metic, he excelled all boys of his own age, and took rank above several who were his seniors. The New Testament, the Bible, the English Grammar, and Mason's collection of verse and prose, laid the foundation of devotion and knowledge. As soon as he was capable of understanding composition, Murdoch taught him to turn verse into its natural prose order ; sometimes to substitute synonymous expressions for poetical words, and to supply all the ellipses. By these means he perceived when his pupil knew the meaning of his author, and thus sought to instruct him in the proper arrangement of words, as well as variety of expression. For some two years and a half, Robert continued to receive the instructions of his excellent teacher under his father's roof. On Murdoch's nomination to the Grammar School of Ayr, his pupil did not forsake him, but took lodgings with him ; and, during the ordi- nary school hours, walks in the evening, and other moments of leisure, he sought to master the grammar, in order to take upon himself the task of instructing his brothers and sisters at home. Under the same kind instructor he strove to obtain some knowledge of French. " When walking together, and even at meals," says Murdoch, "I was constantly telling him the names of different objects, as they presented themselves, in French, so that he w T as hourly laying in a stock of words, and sometimes little phrases. In short, he took such pleasure in learning, and I in teaching, that it was difficult to say which of the two was most zealous in the business ; and about the end of our second week of study of the French, we began to read a little of the Adventures of Telemachus, in Fenelon's own words." All the French which the young Poet picked up, during one fortnight's course of instruction, could not be much ; the coming of harvest called him to more laborious duties ; nor did he, save for a passing hour or so, ever seriously resume his studies in Tele- machus. Of these early and interesting days, during which the future man was seen, like fruit shaping amid the unfolded bloom, we have a picture drawn by the Poet's own hand, and touched off in his own vivid manner. — " At seven years of age I was by no means a favourite with any body. I was a good deal noted for a retentive memory, a stubborn sturdy something in my disposition, and an enthusiastic idiot piety* — I say idiot piety, because I was then but a child. Though it cost the schoolmaster j some thrashings, I made an excellent English | scholar ; and, by the time I was ten or eleven | years of age, I was a critic in substantives, 1 verbs, and particles. The earliest composition j that I recollect taking pleasure in was the I vision of Mirza, and a hymn of Addison's, j beginning, " How are thy servants blest, O Lord !" I particularly remember one half-stanza, which [ was music to my ear — " For though on dreadful whirls we hung, High on the broken wave." I met with these in Mason's English collec- tion, one of my school-books. The first two books I ever read in private, and which gave me more pleasure than any two I have read since, were the Life of Hannibal, and the His- tory of the Acts and Deeds of Sir William Wallace. Hannibal gave my young ideas such a turn that I used to strut in raptures up and down after the recruiting drum and bagpipe, and wish myself tall enough to be a soldier ; j while the story of Wallace poured a Scottish j prejudice into my veins, which will boil along j there till the floodgates of life shut in eternal rest." The education of Burns was not over when | the school-doors were shut. The peasantry of j Scotland turn their cottages into schools ; and j when a father takes his arm-chair by the evening fire, he seldom neglects to communicate I to his children whatever knowledge he possesses j himself. Nor is this knowledge very limited : it extends, generally, to the history of Europe, i and to the literature of the island ; but more i particularly to the divinity, the poetry, and what may be called the traditionary history of Scot- land. An intelligent peasant is intimate with all those skirmishes, sieges, combats, and quarrels, domestic or national, of which public writers take no account. Genealogies of the chief families are quite familiar to him. He has by heart, too, whole volumes of songs and ballads ; nay, long poems sometimes abide in [* Idiot, for idiotic. Corkie.] LIFE OF BURNS. 1774. his recollection ; nor will he think his know- ledge much, unless he knows a little about the lives and actions of the men who have done most honour to Scotland. In addition to what he has on his memory, we may mention what he has on the shelf. A common husbandman is frequently master of a little library : history, divinity, and poetry, but most so the latter, compose his collection. Milton and Young are favourites ; the flowery Meditations of Hervey, the religious romance of the Pilgrim's Progress, are seldom absent; while of Scottish books, Ramsay, Thomson, Fergusson, and now Burns, together with songs and ballad-books innu- merable, are all huddled together, soiled with smoke, and frail and tattered by frequent use. The household of William Burness was an ex- ample of what I have described ; and there is some truth in the assertion that in true know- ledge the Poet was, at nineteen, a better scholar than nine-tenths of our young gentlemen when they leave school for the college. Let us look into this a little more closely ; nor can we see with a clearer light than what Burns himself has afforded us. — " What I knew of ancient story," he observes, "was gathered from Salmon and Guthrie's Geographical Grammars ; and the ideas I had formed of modern manners, of literature and criticism, I got from the Spectator. These, with Pope's Works, some plays of Shakspeare, Tull, and Dickson on Agriculture, the Heathen Pantheon, Locke on the Human Understanding, Stack- house's History of the Bible, Justice's British Gardener's Dictionaiy, Boyle's Lectures, Allan Ramsay's Works, Taylor's Scripture Doctrine of Original Sin, A Select Collection of English Songs, and Hervey's Meditations, had formed the whole of my reading." But when to these we add Young's Night Thoughts, which his own poems prove him to have admired, we cannot see that we have advanced far on the way in which he walked, when he disciplined himself for the service of the Scottish muse. In truth, none of the works we have enumerated, save the poems of Allan Ramsay, could be of farther use to him than to fill his mind with informa- tion, and shew him what others had done. The " Address to the Deil," " Highland Mary," and "Tarn o' Shanter" are the fruit of far different studies Burns had, in truth, a secret school of study, in which he set up other models for imitation than Pope or Hervey. — " In my infant and boyish days," he observes to Doctor Moore, ""I owed much to an old woman who resided in the family (Jenny Wilson by name), remark- able for her ignorance, credulity, and supersti- tion. She had, I suppose, the largest collection in the country of tales and songs, concerning devils, ghosts, fairies, brownies, witches, war- locks, spunkies, kelpies, elf-candles, dead-lights, wraiths, apparitions, cantraips, giants, enchanted towers, dragons, and other trumpery. This cultivated the latent seeds of poesie ; but had so strong an effect upon my imagination that to this hour in my nocturnal rambles I sometimes keep a look-out in suspicious places." Here we have the Poet taking lessons in the classic lore of his native land and profiting largely ; yet, to please a scholar like his correspondent, he calls his instructress an ignorant old woman, and her stories idle trumpery . Let the name of Jenny Wilson be reverenced by all lovers of the northern muse ; her tales gave colour and cha- racter to many fine effusions. The supernatural in these legends was corrected and modified by the natural which his growing sense saw in human life and found in the songs of his native land. — " The collection of songs," he says, ' ' was my vade-mecum. I pored over /them, driving my cart or walking to labour, song by song, verse by verse, carefully noting the true tender or sublime, from affectation and fus- tian. I am convinced I owe to this practice much of my critic craft, such as it is." He is rarely if ever wrong in his remarks on the songs of Scotland. They had, in no remote day, the advantages of the schooling which in these early hours he gave his fancy and understanding. He had not yet completed these uncon- scious studies. In his farther progress his mother was his instructress. Her rectitude of heart, and the fine example of her husband, made an impression too strong to be ever effaced from the mind of her son. This was strengthened by the songs and ballads which she commonly chanted ; they all wore a moral hue. The ballad which she loved most to sing, or her son to hear, is one called " The Life and Age of Man." It is a work of imagination and piety, full of quaintness and nature ; it compares the various periods of man's life to the months of the year ; and the parallel is both ingenious and poetic. — " I had an old grand-uncle," says Burns, " with whom my mother lived a while in her girlish years : the good old man, for such he was, was long blind ere he died, during which time his highest enjoyment was to sit down and cry, while my mother would sing the simple old song of ' The Life and Age of Man.' " The mother of the Poet, on being questioned respecting it D^ Cromek, some years before her death, repeated the ballad word for word, saying it was one of the many nursery songs of ner mother, and that she first heard and learned it from her seventy years before. The noble poem of " Man was made to mourn," bears a close resemblance to this old strain, both in language and sentiment. It taught Burns the art, which too few learn, of adding a moral aim to his verse ; and though he rose in song to the highest pitch of moral pathos and sublimity, he took his first lesson from this now neglected ballad. In all his letters and memoranda, we .V.T.YT. 15. HIS FIRST LOVE. sec him continually pointing to the rustic pro- ductions with which he was in youth familiar, and thus affording as in sonic measure the moans of knowing how little of his excellence is reflected from other to his own inspiration A student in art first studies the works of earlier masters; as he advances, living figures are placed before him, that he may see nature with his ow r n eyes. Burns, who knew no- thing of academic rules, pursued a similar course in poetry. He had become acquainted with limb and lineament of the muse as she had been seen by others : he could learn no more from the dead, and now had recourse to the living : he had hitherto looked on in silence ; it was now time to speak. Beauty first gave utterance to his crowding thoughts; with him love and poetry were coevals. "You know," he says, in his communication to Moore, "our country custom of coupling a man and woman toge- ther as partners in the labours of harvest. In my fifteenth autumn, my partner w r as a bewitch- ing creature, a year younger than myself. My scarcity of English denies me the pow r er of doing her justice in that language ; but you know the Scottish idiom, ' she was a bonnie sweet sonsie lass.' In short, she altogether, unwittingly to herself, initiated me in that delicious passion which, in spite of acid disap- pointment, gin-horse prudence, and book- worm philosophy, I hold to be the first of human joys, our dearest blessing here below ! How r she caught the contagion T cannot tell. You medical people talk much of infection from breathing the same air, the touch, &c. ; but I never expressly said I loved her. Indeed, I did not know r myself why I liked so much to loiter behind wdth her, w r hen returning in the evening from our labours — why the tones of her voice made my heart-strings thrill like an Eolian harp — and particularly why my pulse beat such a furious ratan w r hen I looked and fin- gered over her little hand to pick out the cruel nettle-stings and thistles. Among her other love-inspiring qualities, she sang sweetly : and it w' as her favourite reel to wdiich I attempted giving an embodied vehicle in rhyme. I w r as not so presumptuous as to imagine that I could make verses like printed ones, composed by men who had Greek and Latin ; but my girl sung a song which was said to be composed by a country laird's son, on one of his father's maids with whom he was in love : and I saw no rea- son why I might not rhyme as well as he — for, excepting that he could smear sheep and cast peats, his father living in the moorlands, he had no more scholar-craft than myself. Thus with me began love and poetry." This inter- course with the softer and gentler part of the creation — this feeling in the presence of youth and loveliness, and desire to give voice to his passion in song — were, to his slumbering emo- tions, what the voice in scripture was among the " dry bones of the valley," calling them into life and action. It is true that his brother looked upon some of the ladies of these early verses as so many moving broomsticks on which fancy hung her garlands. They seemed otherwise to the Poet. He saw charms in them which prosaic spirits failed to see. We would take the word of the muse in such mat- ters against a whole battalion of men, li Who, darkling, grub this earthly hole In low pursuit." Having given, as he said, his " heart a heeze" among those soft companions, the Poet, like the picker of samphire on the beetling cliff, proceeded to seek farther knowledge in a perilous place — viz. among the young and the heedless — "the ram-stam squad, who zigzag on," without any settled aim or a wish ungrati- fied. He offended his father, by giving his " manners a brush," at a country dancing- school. The good man had no sincere dislike, as some Calvinists have, to this accomplish- ment ; still he tolerated rather than approved of it ; he did not imagine that religion took to the barn- floor, — '"And reel'd, and set, and cross'd, and cleekit;" cracking her thumbs and distorting, as Milton says, her " clergy climbs," to the sound of a fiddle ; dancing, in short, he shook his head at, though he did not frown. The Poet felt, therefore, that in this he had approached at least to disobedience — a circumstance which he re- grets in after-life, and regards as the first step from the paths of strictness and sobriety. " The will-o'-w^sp meteors of thoughtless whim" began, he says, to be almost the sole lights of his way ; yet early-ingrained piety preserved his innocence, though it could not keep him from folly. " The great misfortune of my life," he wisely observes, "w r as to want an aim. The only two openings by which I could enter the temple of fortune were the gate of niggardly economy, or the path of little chicaning bargain - making. The first is so contracted an aperture, I never could squeeze myself into it ; the last I always hated — there was contamination in the very entrance. Thus abandoned of aim or view in life, with a strong appetite for sociability, as well from native hilarity, as from a pride of observation and re- mark — a constitutional melancholy or hypo- chondriacism that made me fly solitude ; add to these incentives to social life my reputation for bookish knowledge, a certain wild logical talent, and a strength of thought, something like the rudiments of good sense ; and it will not seem surprising that I was generally a welcome guest where I visited ; or any great wonder that always where two or three met together, =@ ^J LIFE OF BURNS. 1777. there was I among them. Another circumstance in my life, which made some alteration in my mind and manners, was, that I spent my nine- teenth summer on a smuggling coast, a good distance from home, at a noted school,* to learn mensuration, surveying, dialling, &c, in which I made pretty good progress. But I made greater progress in the knowledge of mankind. The contraband trade was at that time very successful, and it sometimes happened to me to fall in with those who carried it on. Scenes of swaggering riot and roaring dissipation were till this time new to me ; but I was no enemy to social life. Here, though I learnt to fill my || glass and to mix without fear in a drunken squabble, yet I went on with a high hand with my geometry till the sun entered Virgo — a month which is always a carnival in my bosom — when a charming fillette, who lived next door to the school, upset my trigonometry, and set me off at a tangent from the sphere of my studies." [The following additional particulars, re- specting this period of his life, will be found interesting to every admirer of the Poet. They were collected by Mr. Robert Chambers, and appeared originally in Chambers' Edinburgh Journal : — " If Burns be correct in stating that it was his nineteenth summer which he spent in Kir- koswald parish, the date of his residence there must be 1777. What seems to have suggested his going to Kirkoswald school was the con- nection of his mother with that parish. She was the daughter of Gilbert Brown, farmer of Craigenton, in this parochial division of Carrick, in which she had many friends still living, particularly a brother, Samuel Brown, who resided, in the miscellaneous capacity of farm-labourer, fisherman, and dealer in wool, i at the farm-house of Ballochneil, above a mile from the village of Kirkoswald. This Brown, though not the farmer or guidman of the place, was a person held to be in creditable circum- stances, in a district where the distinction be- tween master and servant was, and still is, by no means great. His wife was the sister of Niven, the tenant ; and he lived in the "Cham- ber" or better portion of the farm-house, but was now a widower. It was with Brown that Burns lived during his attendance at Kirkoswald school, walking every morning to the village where the little seminary of learning was situate, and returning at night. The district into which the young poet of Kyle was thus thrown has many features of a remarkable kind. Though situated on the shore of the Firth of Clyde, where steamers are every hour to be seen on their passage be- * This was the school of Kirkoswald. t "This business was first carried on here from the Isle of Man, and afterwards to a considerable extent from France, Ostend, and Gotteuburg. Persons engaged in @ tween enlightened and busy cities, it is to this day the seat of simple and patriarchal usages. Its land, composed of bleak green uplands, partly cultivated and partly pastoral, was, at the time alluded to, occupied by a generation of primitive small farmers, many of whom, while preserving then- native simplicity, had superadded to it some of the irregular liabits, arising from a concern in the trade of intro- ducing contraband goods on the Carrick coast. t Such dealings did not prevent superstition from flourishing amongst them in a degree of vigour of which no district of Scotland now presents any example. The parish has six miles of sea-coast ; and the village, where the church and school are situate, is in a sheltered situation about a couple of miles inland. The parish schoolmaster, Hugh Rodger, en- joyed great local feme as a teacher of men- suration and geometry, and was much employed as a practical land-surveyor. On the day when Burns entered at the school, another youth, a little younger than himself, also en- tered. This was a native of the neighbouring town of Maybole, who, having there com- pleted a course of classical study, was now sent by his father, a respectable shopkeeper, to acquire arithmetic and mensuration under the famed mathematician of Kirkoswald. It was then the custom, when pupils of their age first entered a school, to take the master to a tavern, and complete the engagement by treating him to some liquor. Burns and the Maybole youth, accordingly, united to regale Rodger with a potation of ale, at a public- house in the village, kept by two gentlewomanlv sort of persons named Kennedy — Jean and Anne Kennedy — the former of whom was des- tined to be afterwards married to immortal verse, under the appellation of Kirkton Jean, and whose house, in consideration of some pre- tensions to birth or style above the common, was always called ''the Leddies' House." From that time, Burns and the Maybole youth became intimate friends, insomuch that, during this summer, neither had any companion with whom he was more frequently in company than the one with the other Burns was only at the village during school hours ; but when his friend Willie returned to the paternal dome on Saturday nights, the poet would accompany him, and stay till it was time for both to come back to school on Monday morning. There was also an interval between the morning and afternoon meetings of the school, which the two youths used to spend together. Instead of amusing themselves with ball or any other sport, like the rest of the scholars, they would it found it necessary to go abroad, and enter into busi- ness with foreign merchants; and, by dealing in tea, spirits, and silks, brought home to their families and friends the means of luxury and finery at the cheapest rate." — Statist. Account of Kirkoswald, 1794. ©te MTAT 18. KIRKOSWALD. take a walk by themselves in the outskirts of the village, and converse on subjects calculated to improve their minds. By and bye, they fell upon a plan of holding disputations, or arguments on speculative questions, one taking- one side, and the other the other, without much regard to their respective opinions on the point, whatever it might be, the whole object being to sharpen their intellects. They asked several of their companions to come and take a side in these debates, but not one would do so ; they only laughed at the young philosophers. The matter at length reached the ears of the master, who, however skilled in mathematics, possessed but a narrow understanding and little general knowledge. With all the bigotry of the old school, he conceived that this supererogatory employment of his pupils was a piece of ab- surdity, and he resolved to correct them in it. One day, therefore, when the school was fully met, and in the midst of its usual business, he went up to the desk, where Burns and Willie were sitting opposite to each other, and began to advert in sarcastic terms to what he had heard of them. They had become great de- baters, he understood, and conceived them- selves fit to settle affairs of importance, which wiser heads usually let alone. He hoped their disputations would not ultimately become quar- rels, and that they would never think of coming from words to blows ; and so forth. The jokes of schoolmasters always succeed amongst the boys, who are too glad to find the awful man in any thing like good humour to question either the moral aim or the point of his wit. They therefore, on this occasion, hailed the master's remarks with hearty peals of laughter. Nettled at this, Willie resolved he would " speak up" to Rodger ; but first he asked Burns, in a whisper, if he would support him, which Burns promised to do. He \hen said that he was sorry to find that Robert and he had given offence ; — it had not been intended. And in- deed he had expected that the master would have been rather pleased, to know of their endeavours to improve their minds. He could assure him that such improvement was the sole object they had in view. Rodger sneered at the idea of their improving their minds by nonsensical discussions, and contemptuously asked what it was they disputed about ? Willie replied that, generally, there was a new subject every day ; that he could not recollect all that I had come under their attention ; but the ques- j tion of to-day had been — " Whether is a great general or a respectable merchant the most valuable member of society?" The dominie laughed outrageously at what he called the silliness of such a question, seeing there could be no doubt for a moment about it. " Well," s 'id Burns, " it you think so, I shall be glad if you take any side you please, and allow me to take the other, and let us discuss it before the school." Rodger most unwisely assented, and commenced the argument by a flourish in favour of the general. Burns answered by a pointed advocacy of the pretensions of the merchant, and soon had an evident superi- ority over his preceptor. The latter replied, but without success. His hand was observed to shake ; then his voice trembled : and he dissolved the school in a state of vexation pitiable to behold. In this anecdote, who can fail to read a prognostication of future eminence to the two disputants ? The one became the most illustrious poet of his country ; and it is not unworthy of being mentioned, in the same sentence, that the other advanced, through a career of successful industry in his native town, to the possession of a large estate in its neighbourhood, and some share of the honours usually reserved in this country for birth and aristocratic connection. The coast, in the neighbourhood of Burns's residence at Ballochneil, presented a range of rustic characters upon whom his genius was destined to confer an extraordinary interest. At the farm of Shanter, on a slope overlooking the shore, not far from Turnberry Castle, lived Douglas Graham, a stout hearty specimen of the Carrick fanner, a little addicted to smugg- ling, but withal a worthy and upright member of society, and a kind-natured man. He had a wife named Helen M'Taggart, who was un- usually addicted to superstitious beliefs and fears. The steading where this good couple lived is now no more, and the farm has been divided for the increase of two others in its neighbourhood; but genius has given them a perennial existence in the tale of Tarn o' Shanter, where their characters are exactly delineated under the respective appellations of Tarn and Kate. * * * At Ballochneil, Burns engaged heartily in the sports of leaping, dancing, wrestling, putting (throwing) the stone, and others of the like kind. His innate thirst for distinc- tion and superiority was manifested in these, as in more important, affairs ; but though he was possessed of great strength, as well as skill, he could never match his young bed- fellow John Niven. Obliged at last to ac- knowledge himself beat by this person in bodily warfare, he had recourse for amends to a spi- ritual mode of contention, and would engage young Niven in an argument about some speculative question, when, of course, he inva- riably floored his antagonist. His satisfaction on these occasions is said to have been extreme. One day, as he was walking slowly along the street of the village, in a manner customary with him, — his eyes bent on the ground, he was met by the Misses Biggar, the daughters of the parish pastor. He would have passed without noticing them, if one of the young ladies had not called him by name. She then rallied @: LIFE OF BURNS. 1777. him on his inattention to the fair sex, in pre- ferring to look towards the inanimate ground, instead of seizing the opportunity afforded him, of indulging in the most invaluable privilege of man, that of beholding and conversing with the ladies. " Madam," said he, " it is a natural and right thing for man to contemplate the ground, from whence he was taken, and for woman to look upon and observe man, from whom she was taken." This was a conceit, but it was the conceit of-" no vulgar boy." There is a great fair at Kirkoswald in the beginning of August — on the same day, we believe, with a like fair at Kirkoswald in Northumberland, both places having taken their rise from the piety of one person, Oswald, a Saxon king of the heptarchy, whose memory is probably honoured in these observances. During the week preceding this fair, in the year 1777, Burns made overtures to his Maybole friend, Willie, for their getting up a dance, on the evening of the approaching festival, in one of the public-houses of the village, and inviting their sweethearts to join in it. Willie 'knew little at that time of dances or sweethearts ; but he liked Burns, and was no enemy to amuse- ment. He therefore consented, and it was agreed that some other young men should be requested to join in the undertaking. The dance took place, as designed, the requisite music being supplied by a hired band ; and about a dozen couples partook of the fun. When it was proposed to part, the reckoning was called, and found to amount to eighteen shil- lings and fourpence. It was then discovered that almost every one present had looked to his neighbours for the means of settling this claim. Burns, the originator of the scheme, was in the poetical condition of not being mas- ter of a single penny. The rest were in the like condition, all except one, whose resources amounted to a groat, and Maybole Willie, who possessed about half-a-crown. The last individual, who alone boasted any worldly wis- dom or experience, took it upon him to extricate the company from its difficulties. By virtue of a candid and sensible narration to the land- lord, he induced that individual to take what t'ley had, and give credit for the remainder. The payment of the debt is not the worst part of the story. Seeing no chance from beg- ging or borrowing, Willie resolved to gain it, if possible, by merchandise. Observing that stationery articles for the school were procured at Kirkoswald with difficulty, he supplied himself with a stock from his father's ware- house at Maybole, and for some weeks sold pens and paper to his companions, with so much advantage, at length, that he realised a sufficient amount of profit to liquidate the expense of the dance. Burns and he then went in triumph to the inn, and not only settled the claim to the last penny, but gave !-,- the kind-hearted host a bowl of thanks into the bargain. Willie, however, took care from that time forth to engage in no schemes for country dances without looking carefully to the probable state of the pockets of his fellow adventurers. Burns, according to his own account, con- cluded his residence at Kirkoswald in a blaze of passion for a Mrjillette who lived next door to the school. At this time, owing to the de- struction of the proper school of Kirkoswald, a chamber at the end of the old church, the bu- siness of parochial instruction was conducted in an apartment on the ground floor of a house in the main street of the village, opposite the church-yard. From behind this house, as from behind each of its neighbours in the same row, a small stripe of kail-yard (Anglice, a kitchen-garden) runs back about fifty yards, along a rapidly ascending slope. When Burns went into the particular patch behind the school to take the sun's altitude, he had only to look over a low enclosure to see the similar patch connected with the next house. Here, it seems, Peggy Thomson, the daughter of the rustic occupant of that house, was walking at the time, though more probably engaged in the business of cutting a cabbage for the family dinner, than imitating the flower-gathering Proserpine, or her prototype Eve. Hence the bewildering passion of the poet. Peggy after- wards became Mrs. Neilson, and lived to a good age in the town of Ayr, where her children still reside. At his departure from Kirkoswald, he en- gaged his Maybole friend and some other lads to keep up a correspondence with him. His object in doing so, as we may gather from his own narrative, was to improve himself in composition. " I carried this whim so far," says he, w that, though I had not three farthings' worth of business in the world, yet almost every post brought me as many letters as if I had been a broad plodding son of day-book and ledger." To W T illie, in particular, he wrote often, and in the most friendly and con- fidential terms. When that individual was commencing business in his native town, the poet addressed him a poetical epistle of appro- priate advice, headed with the well-known lines from Blair's Grave, beginning " Friendship ! mysterious cement of the soul, Sweetener of life and solder of society." This correspondence continued till the period of the publication of the poems, when Bums wrote to request his friend's good offices in increasing his list of subscribers. The young man was then possessed of little influence ; but what little he had, he exercised with all the zeal of friendship, and with no ittle success. A considerable number of copies were accordingly transmitted in proper time to ji:tat 18. EDUCATION.— MURDOCH. 9 his care, and soon after, the poet came to May- bole to receive the money. His friend collected a few choice spirits to meet him at the King's Anns Inn, and they spent, a happy night toge- ther. Bums was on this occasion particularly elated, for Willie, in the midst of their convi- viality, handed over to him above seven pounds, being the first considerable sum of money the poor bard had ever possessed. In the pride of his heart, next morning, he determined that he should not walk home-, and accordingly ! he hired from his host a certain poor hack j mare, well known along the whole road from Glasgow to Portpatrick — in all probability the first hired conveyance that Poet Burns had ever enjoyed, for even his subsequent journey to Edinburgh, auspicious as were the prospects under which it was undertaken, was per- formed on foot. Willie and a few other youths who had been in his company on the preceding night, walked out of town before him, for the purpose of taking leave at a particular spot ; and before he came up, they had prepared a few mock-heroic verses in which to express ; their farewell. When Burns rode up, accord- ingly, they saluted him in this formal manner, a little to his surprise. He thanked them, however, and instantly added, " What need of all this fine parade of verse ? It would have been quite enough if you had said — Here comes Burns, On Rosinante ; She's d poor, But he's d canty." The company then allowed Burns to go on his way rejoicing.]"* Nature, in all this, resumes Mr. Cunningham, was pursuing her own plan in the education of Burns. The melancholy of which he complains ] was a portion of his genius ; the invisible object , to which he was impelled was poetry. No one i can fail to perceive, in the scenes winch he de- 1 scribes as dear to his heart and fancy, the very- materials over which his muse afterwards breathed life and inspiration ; and no one can fail to feel, that ail this time he had been walking in the path of the muse without knowing it. He complains that he was unfitted with an aim. He looked around, and saw no outlet I for his ambition. Farming he failed to find the [* " All this pleasantry was not without its bitter. The poet's Maybole frend, on inspecting: the volume, was mortified to find the poetical epistle which had been addressed to him, printed with the name Andrew substituted for his own, and the motto from Blair, as was but proper, omitted. He said nothing at the time ; but, young, ambi- tious, and conscious of having done all in his humble power for friendship's cause, he could not forgive so marked a slight. He therefore from that time ceased to answer Burns's letters. When the poet was next at Maybole, he asked the cause, and Willie answered by inquiring if he could not himself divine it. He said he thought he could, and adverted to the changed name in the poem. Mr. ©- same as it is in Virgil — elegance united with toil. The high places of the land were occupied, and no one could hope 1 to ascend save the titled or the wealthy. The church he could not reach without an expensive education, or patronage less attainable still. Law held out temptation to talent, but not to talent without money ; while the army opened its glittering files to him who could purchase a commission, or had, in the words of the divine, "A beauteous sister, or convenient wife," to smooth the way to preferment. With a con- sciousness of genius, and a desire of distinction, he stood motionless, like a stranded vessel whose sails are still set, her colours flying, and the mariners a-board. He had now and then a sort of vague intimation from his own heart that he was a poet ; but the polished and stately versi- fication of English poetry alarmed and dismayed him : he had sung to himself a song or two, and stood with his hand on the plough, and his heart with the muse. The strength which he could not himself discover was not likely to be found out by others. It is thus we find him spoken of by his good old kind preceptor : — " Gilbert," says Murdoch, " always appeared to me to possess a more lively imagination, and to be more of the wit, than Robert. I at- tempted to teach them a little church music. Robert's ear, in particular, was remarkably dull, and his voice untuneable. It was long before I could get him to distinguish one tune from another. Robert's countenance was gene- rally grave, and expressive of a serious, con- templative, and thoughtful mind. Gilbert's face said — " Mirth, with thee I mean to live ;" and certainly, if any person who knew the two boys had been asked which of them was most likely to court the muses, he would surely never have guessed that Robert had a pro- pensity of that kind." The simple school- master had perhaps paid court to some small heritor's daughter, and dressed his face in smiles for the task ; he accordingly thought that the Muse was to be wooed and won in the same Malvolio way, and never imagined that the face inspired with contemplation and melan- choly could be dear to her heart. While the boy was thus rising into the man, Robert Aiken, writer in Ayr, had been, he said, a useful friend and patron to him. He had a son commencing a commercial life in Liverpool. I thought, he said, that a few verses addressed to this youth would gratify his father, and be accepted as a mark of my gratitude. But, my muse being lazy, I could not well make them out. After all, this old epistle occurred to me, and by putting his name into it, in place of yours, I made it answer this purpose. Willie told him in reply that he had just exchanged his friend- ship for that of Mr. Aiken, and requested that their respective letters might be burnt — a duty which he scru- pulously performed on his own part. The two disputants of Kirkoswald never saw or corresponded with each other again."] @ 10 LIFE OF BURNS. 1781. and the mind was expanding with the body, both were in danger of being crushed, as the daisy was, in the Poet's own inimoiTal strains, beneath the weight of the furrow. The whole life of his father was a continued contest with fortune. Burns saw, as he grew up, to what those days of labour and nights of anxiety would lead, and set himself, with heart and hand, to lighten the one, and alleviate the other. At the plough, scythe, and reaping hook, he feared no competitor, and so set all fears of want in his own person at defiance : he felt but for his father. All this is touchingly described by Gilbert. " My brother, at the age of thirteen, assisted in thrashing the crop of corn, and, at fifteen, was the principal labourer on the farm ; for we had no hired ser- vant, male or female. The anguish of mind we felt, at our tender years, under these straits and difficulties, was very great. To think of our father growing old — for he was now above fifty, broken down with the long-continued fatigues of his life, with a wife and five other children, and in a declining state of circum- stances — these reflections produced in my bro- ther's mind and mine sensations of the deepest distress. At this time he was almost constantly afflicted in the evening with a dull head-ache, which, at a future period of his life, was ex- changed for a palpitation of the heart, and a threatening of fainting and suffocation in his bed in the night-time." The elder Burness, while in the Lothians, had paid attention to gardening ; but he could not bring much agricultural knowledge from his native county. His toil was incessant ; but it was of the body, not of the brain. More is required in farming than mere animal vigour and dexterity of hand. A skilful farmer may be called a learned man ; — to work according to the season, and in the spirit of the soil ; to anticipate sunshine, and be prepared for storms ; to calculate chances and consequences ; suit demands at home, and fit markets abroad ; require what not many fully possess. I know not how much of this knowledge William Burness possessed. He was, how- ever, fertile in expedients: when he found that his farm was unproductive in corn, he thought the soil suitable for flax, and re- solved himself to raise the commodity, while to the Poet he allotted the task of manufacturing it for the market. To accomplish this, it was necessary that he should be instructed in flax- dressing : accordingly, at Midsummer, 1781, Robert went to Irvine, where he wrought under the eye of one Peacock, kinsman to his mother. His mode of life was frugal enough. "He possessed," says Currie, " a single room for his lodging, rented, perhaps, at the rate of a shilling a week. He passed his days in con- stant labour as a flax-dresser, and his food consisted chiefly of oatmeal seut to him from his father's family." A picture of his situation and feelings is luckily preserved of his own drawing : the simplicity of the expression, and pure English of the style, are not its highest qualities. He thus wrote to his father: — "Honoured Sir: — I have purposely delayed writing, in the hope that I should have the pleasure of seeing you on new year's day : but work comes so hard upon us that I do not choose to be absent on that account. My health is nearly the same as when you were here, only my sleep is a little sounder, and, on the whole, I am rather better than otherwise, though I mend by very slow degrees. The weakness of my nerves has so debilitated my mind that I dare neither review past wants, nor look forward into futurity : for the least anxiety or perturbation in my breast produces most unhappy effects on my whole frame. Sometimes, indeed, when for an hour or two my spirits are a little lightened, I glimmer a little into futurity : but my principal, and indeed my only pleasurable, employment is looking backwards and forwards in a moral and reli- gious way. I am quite transported at the thought that ere long, perhaps very soon, I shall bid an eternal adieu to all the pains, and uneasinesses, and disquietudes of this weary life ; for I assure you I am heartily tired of it : and, if I do not very much deceive myself, I could contentedly and gladly resign it. r As for this world," he continues, " I despair of ever making a figure in it. I am not formed for the bustle of the busy, nor the flutter of the gay. I shall never again be capable of entering into such scenes. Indeed, I am alto- gether unconcerned at the thoughts of this life. I foresee that poverty and obscurity pro- bably await me, and I am in some measure prepared, and daily preparing, to meet them. I have but just time and paper to return you my grateful thanks for the lessons of virtue and piety you have given me, which were too much neglected at the time of giving them, but which I hope have been remembered ere it is yet too late." This letter is dated Dec. 27, 1781. No one can mistake the cause of his melancholy : obscure toil and an undistinguished lot on earth directed his thoughts in despair to another world, where the righteous "shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more ; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat." To plough, and sow, and reap were poetic labours, compared with the dusty toil of a flax-dresser : with the lark for his companion, and the green fields around him, his spirits rose, and he looked on himself as forming a part of creation : but when he sat down to the brake and the heckle, his spirits sank, and his dreams of ambition vanished. Flax-dressing, in the poet's estimation, seemed any thing but the way to wealth and fame : the desponding tone of his letter was no JET AT '2'2. DEATH OF JUS FATHEE. good augury ; the catastrophe of the business is not quite in keeping with quotations from Scripture and hopes in heaven. " Partly through whim, "' said the bard to Moore, "and partly that I wished to set about doing something in life, I joined a Max-dresser in Irvine, to learn his trade. This was an unlucky affair : as we were giving a welcome carousal to the new year, the shop took fire and burnt to ashes, and I was left, like a true poet, not worth a six- pence." This disaster was followed by one much more grievous. " The clouds of mis- fortune," says Burns, "were gathering fast round niy father's head. After three years- tossing and whirling in the vortex of litigation, he was just saved from the horrors of a jail by a consumption, which, after two years' pro- mises, kindly stepped in and carried him away to ' where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.' His all went among the hell-hounds that prowl in the kennel of justice. The finishing evil that brought up the rear of this infernal file, my constitutional formed ; my brother' seven pounds per annum melancholy being increased to such a degree, that for three months I was in a state of mind scarcely to be envied by the hopeless wretches who have got then- mittimus — ' Depart from me, ye accursed V" The intelligence, recti- tude, and piety of William Bumess were an honour to the class to which he belonged : his eminent son acknowledged, when his own inter- course w r ifh the world entitled his opinions to respect, that he had met with few who under- stood men, their manners, and their ways, equal to his father: "but stubborn, ungainly integ- j rity, and headlong, ungovernable irascibility," | he added, " are disqualifying circumstances in j the paths of fortune." " I remember William Bumess well," said the venerable Mrs. Hun- j ter, daughter to Ferguson of Doonholm ; I " there w T as something very gentlemanly in his \ manners and appearance : unfortunately for him my father died early, the estate passed into other hands, and was managed by a factor, who, it is said, had no liking for the family of Mount Oliphant." Robert and his brother were afflicted, but did not despair ; they collected together the little property which law and misfortune had spared,* and, in the year 1784, took the farm of Mossgiel, near Mauchline, consisting of 118 acres, at an annual rent of ninety pounds. Their mother superintended the daiiy and the house- hold, while the Poet and Gilbert undertook for the rest. " It w r as," observes the latter, " a joint concern among us : every member of the family was allowed wages for the labour per- * [Both Robert and Gilbert speak of the total ruin of their father at the time of his death. " His all," says Robert, "went among the hell-hounds that prowl in the kennel of justice." In order to reconcile this statement with one immediately ensuing, by Gilbert, " that Mossgiel was stocked by the property and individual savings of the whole family," it is necessary to add that, at the bankruptcy of William allowance and mine was and his expenses never in any year exceeded his slender income. His temperance and frugality were every thing that could be wished." It is pleasing to con- template a picture such as this. We are now about to enter into the regions of romance. "I began," says Burns, "to be known in the neighbourhood as a maker of rhymes." The course of his life, hitherto, has shewn that his true vocation was neither the plough nor the heckle. He acquired, indeed, the common knowledge of a husbandman ; but that was all he knew, or cared to know, of the matter. " Farmer Attention," says the proverb, "is a good farmer all the world over :" and i Burns was attentive as far as ploughing, sow- ing, harrowing, reaping, stacking, thrashing, winnowing, and selling, went ; he did all this by a sort of mechanical impulse ; but success in farming demands more. The farmer should know what is doing in his way in the world around ; he must learn to anticipate demand, and, in short, to time every thing. But he who pens an ode on his sheep, when he should be driving them forth to pasture — who stops his plough in the half-drawn furrow, to rhyme about the flowers which he buries — who sees visions on his way from market, and makes rhymes on them — who writes an ode on the horse he is about to yoke, and a ballad on the girl who shews the whitest hands and brightest eyes among his reapers — has no chance of ever growing opulent, or of purchasing the field on which he toils. The bard amidst his ripen- ing corn, or walking through his fields of grass and clover, beholds on all sides images of pathos or of beauty, connects them with moral influ- ences, and lifts himself to heaven: a grosser mortal sees only so many acres of promising corn or fattening grass, connects them with rising markets and increasing gain, and, instead of rising, descends into " Mammon's filthy delve." That poetic feelings and fancies such as these passed frequently over the mind of Burns in his early days, we have his own assurance ; while labour held his body, poetry seized his spirit, and, unconsciously to himself j asserted her right and triumphed in her victory. Some obey the call of learning, and become poets ; others fall, they know not how, into the company of the muse, and break out into num- bers. Love was the voice which called up the poet in Burns ; his Parnassus was the stubble- field, and his inspirer that fair-haired girl from whose hands he picked the thistle-stings, and delighted to walk with when but some fifteen Burness, his children had, respectively, considerable claims upon his estate, on account of their services to him in the farm, which claims were preferable to those of the other creditors. They thus, with the perfect approbation of the law, and, we may add, of justice also, rescued a portion of his property from the "hell-hounds " alluded to. Chambers.] a>; c? 12 LIFE OF BURNS. 1783. years old. The song which he made in her praise he noted down in a little book entitled " Observations, Hints, Songs, Scraps of Poetry, by Robert Burness; a man who had little art in making money, and still less in keeping it." " I composed the song," he said, long after- wards, "in a wild enthusiasm of passion, and I never recollect it but my heart melts and my blood sallies." The passion which he felt failed to find its way into the verse ; there is some nature, but no inspiration : — "My Nelly's looks are blythe and sweet, And what is best of a' — Her reputation is complete, And fair without a flaw. She dresses aye sae clean and neat. Both decent and genteel ; And then there's something in her gait Gars ony dress look weel." These lines give little indication of future strength ; his vigour of thought increased with Ids stature ; before he was a year older, the language of his muse was more manly and bold :— " I dream'd I lay where flowers were springing Gaily in the sunny beam, List'ning to the wild birds singing By a falling crystal stream ; Straight the sky grew black and daring, Thro' the woods the whirlwinds rave, Trees, with aged arms are warring O'er the swelling drumlie wave." Few of the early verses of Burns are pre- served ; some he himself destroyed, others were composed, but not perhaps committed to paper ; while it is likely that not a few are entirely lost. In his nineteenth summer, the leisure season of the farmer, while studying mensura- tion at a school on the sea-coast, he met with j the Peggy of one of his earliest songs. " Step- I ping into the garden," he says, " one charming noon to take the sun's altitude, there I met my angel — " Like Proserpine gathering flowers, Herself a fairer flower.'' It was in vain to think of doing any more good at school. The remaining week I staid, I did nothing but craze the faculties of my soul about her, or steal out to meet her ; and the two last nights of my stay in the country, had sleep been a mortal sin, the image of this modest and innocent girl had kept me guiltless." On his return home, the harvest was commenced. To the fair lass of Kirkoswald, he dedicated the first fruits of his fancy, in a strain of equal freedom and respect, beginning — " Now wastlin' winds and slaught'ring guns Bring Autumn's pleasant weather; The moorcock springs on whirring wings Amang the blooming heather ; Now waving grain wide o'er the plain Delights the weary farmer, And the moon shines bright when I rove at night To muse upon my charmer." In a still richer strain he celebrates his nocturnal adventures with another of the fair ones of the west. Burns could now write as readily as he could speak, and pour the passion which kindled up his veins into his compositions. It is thus he sings of Annie — " I hae been blythe wi' comrades dear, I hae been merry drinkin' ; I hae been joyfu' gatherin' gear, I hae been happy thinkin'. But a' the pleasures e'er I saw, Tho' three times doubled fairly, That happy night was worth them a', Amang the rigs o' barley." He who could write such lines as these had little to learn from the muse ; and yet he soon surpassed them in liquid ease of expression. and happy originality of sentiment. It is one of the delusions of his biographers that the sources of his inspiration are to be sought in English poetry : but, save an image from Young, and a Avord or so from Shakspeare, there is no trace of them in all his compositions. Burns read the English poets, no doubt, with wonder and delight : but he felt he was not of their school ; the language of life with him was wholly different ; the English language is, to a Scottish peasant, much the same as a foreign tongue ; it was not without reason that Mur- ray, the oriental scholar, declared that the English of Milton was less easy to learn than the Latin of Virgil. Any one, conversant with our northern lyrics, will know what school of verse Burns imitated when he sang of Nannie, a lass who dwelt nio-h the banks of the Lugar ; " Behind yon hills where Lugar flows, 'Mang moors and mosses many, O ; The wintry sun the day has closed And I'll awa' to Nannie, O. " Her face is fair, her heart is true, As spotless as she 's bonnie, O ; The opening gowan, wat wi' dew, Nae purer is than Nannie, O." Such was the language in which the Poet addressed the rustic damsels of Kyle. Ladies are not very apt to be won by verse, let it be ever so elegant ; they set down the person who adorns them with the lilies and the roses of imagination as a dreamer, and look around for more substan- tial comfort. Waller's praise made Sacharissa smile — and smile only ; and another lady of equal beauty saw in Lord Byron a pale-faced lad, lame of a foot — and married a man who could leap a five-barred gate ; yet Burns was, or imagined himself, beloved ; he wrote from his own immediate emotions ; his muse was no visionary dweller by an imaginary fountain, but a substantial " Fresh vountr landart lass," 3= JET AT '24. MRS. STEWART, OF AFTON. 13 whose charms had touched his fancy. Nor was he one of those who look high, and muse on dames nursed in velvet laps, and fed with golden spoons. "He had always,'' says Gilbert, "a particular jealousy of people who were richer than himself; bis love, therefore, rarely settled on persons of this description. When he se- lected any one out of the sovereignty of his good pleasure, to whom he should pay his particular attention, she was instantly invested with a sufficient stock of charms, out of the plentiful stores of his own imagination ; and there was often a great dissimilitude between his fair captivator, as she appeared to others, and as she seemed when invested with the attributes he gave her." His own words partly confirm the account of Gilbert. " My heart was completely tinder, and was eternally lighted up by some goddess or other ; and, as in every other warfare in this world, my fortune was various, sometimes I was received with favour, and sometimes mortified with repulse/"' That his love was sometimes repulsed we have the assurance of a poem, now lost, in which, like Cowley, he had recorded his labours in the way of affection ; when doors w T ere closed against him, or the Annie or Nannie of the hour failed in their promises, he added another verse to the ballad, the o'erword of which was "So Fll to my Latin again." If he sought consolation in studying the Latin rudiments, when jilted, his disappointments in that way could not be many, for his knowledge of the lan- guage was small. In his twenty-fourth year, his skill in verse enabled him to add the crowning glory to his lyric compositions ; who the lady was that inspired it we are not told, but she must have been more than commonly beautiful, or more than usually kind : as the concluding compliment might have been too much for one, he has wisely bestowed it on the whole sex. The praise of other poets fades away before it. " There 's nought but care on every han', In ev'ry hour that passes, O ! What signifies the life o' man, An' 'twere na for the lasses, O ! " Auld nature swears, the lovely dears Her noblest work she classes, O ! Her 'prentice han' she tried on man, An' then she made the lasses, O ! " One of those heroines was servant in the household of General Stewart, of Stair and Afton ; Burns, during a visit with David Sillar, left, it is said, one of his songs, which was soon chanted in bower and hall, and attracted the notice of Mrs. Stewart, a lady both beautiful and accomplished, who sent for the Poet on his next visit, and by her remarks and praise confirmed his inclination for lyric verse. He afterwards alluded to these interviews in a con- versation with Anna Stewart, of Afton, and said he should never forget with what trepidation of heart he entered the parlour and approached her mother : this early notice was also present to his mind in copying some of his later pieces of poetry : he addresses them — the original is now before me — to " Mrs. General Stewart, of Afton, one of his first and kindest patronesses." The progress which Burns made in the more serious kind of verse, during this lyrical fit, was not at all so brilliant ; his attempts have more of the language of poetry, than of its simple force and true dignity. There are passages, indeed, of great truth and vigour, but no continued strain either to rival his after flights, or compare with the unity and finished excel- lence of " My Nannie, O," and " Green grow the Rashes." He had prepared himself, how- ever, for those more prolonged efforts ; nature had endowed him Avitli fine sensibility of heart and grandeur of soul; he had made himself familiar with, nature, animate and inanimate ; with the gentleness of spring, the beauty of summer, the magnificence of autumn, and the stormy sublimity of winter ; nor was he less so with rural man and his passions and pursuits. Though indulging in no sustained flights, he had now and then sudden bursts in which his feelings over-mastered all restraint. The fol- lowing stanza, written in his twenty-fourth year, shows he had read Young, and felt the resemblance which the season of winter bore to his own clouded fortunes : — "The sweeping blast, the sky o'ercast, The joyless winter day, Let others fear, to me more dear Than all the pride of May ; The tempest's howl, it soothes my soul, My griefs it seems to join ; The leafless trees my fancy please, Their fate resembles mine." " There is scarcely any earthly object," says Bums, " gives me more — I do not know that I should call it pleasure — but something which exalts me, something which enraptures me — than to walk in the sheltered side of a wood or a high plantation, in a cloudy winter day, and hear the stormy wind howiing among the trees, and raving over the plain. It is my best sea- son for devotion : my mind is wrapt up in a kind of enthusiasm to Him who, in the pom- pous language of the Hebrew bard, ' walks on the wings of the wind.' " In another mood he wrote what he called "a wild rhapsody, miserably deficient in versification, but full of the sentiment of my heart." This ditty wants harmony and vivid force of expression : but it breathes of the old ballad : — " My father was a farmer, Upon the Carrick border, And carefully he bred me up In decency and order : ©' © 14 LIFE OF BURNS. 1783. He bade me act a manly part, Though I had ne'er a farthing, For without an honest manly heart No man was worth regarding." In one of his desponding fits, when he " looked back on prospects drear/' or beheld the future darkening, he wrote that Prayer, in which some have seen nothing but sentiments of contrition and submissiveness, and others a desire to lay on the Creator the blame of the follies with which he charges himself. I have heard his enemies quote the following verse with an air of triumph : — " Thou knowest that Thou hast formed me With passions wild and strong, And, listening to their witching voice, Has often led me wrong." Poetry had now become with Burns a dar- ling pursuit : he had no settled plan of study, for he composed at the plough, at the harrow, and with the reaping-hook in his hand, and usually had half-a-dozen or more poems in progress, taking them up as the momentary tone of his mind suited the sentiment of the verse, and laying them down as he grew careless or became fatigued. None of the verses of those days are in existence, save the " Death of Poor Mailie," a performance remarkable for genuine simplicity of expression ; and " John Barleycorn," a clever imitation of the old ballads of that name, a favourite subject with the minstrels of Caledonia. His mode of com- position was singular : when he hit off a happy verse, in a random fit of inspiration, he sought for a subject suitable to its tone of language and feeling, and then completed the poem. This shows a mind full of the elements of poetry. " My passions," he said, " when once lighted up, raged like so many devils till they got vent in rhyme, and then the conning over my verses, like a spell, soothed all into quiet." When Bums succeeded in evoking the demon of passion by the spell of verse, he had leisure, or at least peace, for a time ; but he could not be idle : he turned his attention to prose. His boyish feelings had been touched, he tells us, on reading the Vision of Mirza, and many passages in the Bible ; he had read too, with attention, a collection of letters, by the wits of Queen Anne's reign. This improved his taste ; and as he grew up, and correspondence was forced upon him by business or by friendship, i he was pleased to see that he could express himself with fluency and ease. He thought so well of those performances that he made copies of them, and, in moments of leisure or vanity, sought, and found, satisfaction in comparing them with the compositions of his companions. He observed, he said, his own superiority. Nay, he says, he carried the whim so far that, though he had not three farthings' worth of business in the world, yet almost every post brought him as many letters, as if he had been a plodding son of the day-book and ledger. He now extended his reading to the Specta- tor, the Man of Feeling, Tristram Shandy, Count Fathom, and Pamela : he studied as well as read them, and endeavoured to form a prose style, uniting strength and purity. There are passages of genuine ease and unaffected sim- plicity in his early, as well as his later, letters ; yet there is too much of a premeditated air, and a too obvious desire of showing what fine, bold, vigorous things he could say. No one, however, can peruse his prose of those days without wonder ; it shows a natural vigour of mind, and a talent for observation : there are out-flashings, too, of a fiery impetuosity of spirit worthy of a genius cultivated as well as lofty, and passages of great elegance and feeling. In his common-place book, his rhymes are accompanied with explanations in prose, and, as he commenced these insertions in April 1783, he has afforded us the means of measuring the extent of his acquirements in early life. He seemed not unconscious that he could say some- thing worth the world's attention. — "As he was but little indebted," he said, "to scholastic education, and bred at a plough-tail, his per- formances must be strongly tinctured with his unpolished, rustic way of life ; but it may be some entertainment, to a curious observer of human nature, to see how a ploughman thinks and feels under the pressure of love, ambition, anxiety, grief, with the like cares and passions, which, however diversified by the modes and manners of life, operate pretty much alike on all the species." In these compositions we may continually trace thoughts and images, which groAving taste and increasing vigour enabled him, afterwards, to beautify and expand. The following pas- sage suggested the fine stanza on happy love in the "Cotter's Saturday Night :"— " Not- withstanding all that has been said against love, respecting the folly and wickedness it leads a young inexperienced mind into, still I think it, in a great measure, deserves the highest encomiums that have been passed upon it. If any thing on earth deserves the name of rapture or transport, it is the feelings of green eighteen, in the company of the mistress of his heart, when she repays him with an equal return of affection." In the same strain he traces, elsewhere, the connexion between love, music, and poetry, and points out, as a fine touch in nature, that passage in a modern love composition — " As toward her cot he jogged along, Her name was frequent in his song." " For my own part," he observes, " I never had the least thought, or inclination, of turning @ ® jktat. 24. HIS EARLY MODELS. 15 poet till I once got heartily in love, and then rhyme and song were, in a manner, the sponta- neous Language of my heart." No one has accounted more happily for the passionate eloquence of his songs than he has done himself. That he extended his views, and desired, after having sung of the maidens of Carrick and Kyle, to celebrate their streams and liills, and statesmen and heroes, we have evidence enough in other parts of his works. — "I am hurt," he says in his Memoranda, " to see the other towns, rivers, woods, haughs, &c, of Scotland immortalized in song, while my dear native country, the ancient bailieries of Carrick, Kyle, and Cunningham, famous, both in an- cient and modern times, for a gallant and warlike race of inhabitants — a country where civil, and particularly religious, liberty, have ever found their first support and their last asylum — a country, the birth-place of many famous philosophers, soldiers, and statesmen, and the scene of many important events re- corded in history, particularly a great many of the actions of the glorious Wallace — yet we have never had one Scottish poet of any emi- nence to make the fertile banks of Irvine, the romantic woodlands and sequestered scenes of Ayr, and the heathy, mountainous source and winding sweep of the Doon, emulate Tay, Forth, Ettrick, and Tweed. This is a complaint I would gladly remedy ; but alas ! I am far une- qual to the task both in genius and education." No one ever remedied an evil of this kind with such decision and effect. The Ayr, the Doon, the Irvine, and the Lugar are now flowing in light, nor have their heroes and their patriots been forgotten. In another passage, in his common-place book, he acquaints us with the models his muse set up for imitation : — " There is a noble sublim- ity, a heart-melting tenderness, in some of our ancient ballads, which shew them to be the work of a masterly hand, and it has often given me many a heart-ache to reflect that such glorious old bards— bards who very pro- bably owed all their talents to native genius, yet have described the exploits of heroes, the pangs of disappointment, and the meltings of love, with such fine strokes of nature — that their very names — O, how mortifying to a bard's vanity ! — are now ' buried among the wreck of things which were.' O, ye illustrious names unknown ! who could feel so strongly, and describe so well — the last, the meanest of the muses' train — one who, though far inferior to your flights, yet eyes your path, and, with trem- bling wing, would sometimes soar after you ; a poor rustic bard unknown pays this sympathetic pang to your memory. Some of you tell us, with all the charms of verse, that you have been unfortunate in the world, unfortunate in love : he, too, has felt the loss of his little fortune, the loss of friends, and, worse than all, the loss of the woman he loved. Like you, all his consolation was his muse ; she taught him in rustic measures to complain : happy could he have done it with your strength of imagination and flow of verse ! May the turf lie lightly on your bones, and may you now enjoy that solace and rest which the world rarely gives to the heart tuned to all the feel- ings of poesie and love !" Much of the man and the poet is visible in this remarkable pas- sage ; it prepares us for his approaching sun- burst of poetry, which lightened more than Carrick and Kyle. Those who imagine Burns to have been only a rhyming, raving youth, who sauntered on the banks of streams, in lonely glens, and by castles grey, musing on the moon, and woman, and other inconstant things, do him injustice 5 a letter in 1783 to his cousin, James Burness, writer in Montrose, shews something of the world around him. — " This country, till of late, was flourishing incredibly in the manu- facture of silk, lawn, and carpet-weaving ; and we are still carrying on a good deal in that way, but much reduced from what it was. We had also a fine trade in the shoe way, but now entirely ruined, and hundreds driven to a starving condition on account of it. Farming is also at a very low ebb with us. Our lands, generally speaking, are mountainous and bar- ren ; and our landholders, full of ideas of farming, gathered from England, and the Lothians, and other rich soils in Scotland, make no allowance for the odds in the quality of land, and consequently stretch us much beyond what in the event we will be found able to pay. We are also much at a loss for want of proper methods, in our improvements of farm- ing. Necessity compels us to leave our old schemes, and few of us have opportunities of being well informed on new ones. In short, my dear Sir, since the unfortunate beginning of this American war, and its still more unfortu- nate conclusion, this country has been, and still is, decaying very fast." Here the poet is sunk, and the observing farmer rises: in the same letter he touches on a theme which had its influence on his own character and habits — at least he imagined so. " There is a great trade of smuggling carried on along our coasts, which, however destructive to the interests of the kingdom at large, cer- tainly enriches this corner of it, but too often at the expense of our morals. However, it enables individuals to make, at least for a time, a splendid appearance ; but fortune, as is usual with her when she is uncommonly lavish of her favours, is generally even with them at the last ; and happy were it for numbers of them, if she would leave them no worse than when she found them." At the period to which this refers, many farmers on the sea-coast were engaged in the contraband trade : their horses and servants @r- :@ 16 LIFE OF BURNS. 1783. were frequently employed in disposing, before the dawn, of importations, made during the cloud of night ; and though Burns, perhaps, took no part in the traffic, he associated with those who carried it on, and seemed to think that insight into new ways of life, and human character, more than recompensed him for the risk he ran. It is dangerous for a bare hand to pluck a lily from among nettles ; men of few virtues and many follies are unsafe companions. " I have often observed," he says, " in the course of my experience of human life, that every man, even the worst, has something good about him, though very often nothing else than a happy temperament of constitution inclining him to this or that virtue. For this reason, no man can say in what degree any other per- son, besides himself, can be with strict justice called wicked. Let any of the strictest cha- racter for regularity of conduct among us examine, impartially, how many vices he has never been guilty of, not from any care or vigilance, but for want of opportunity; and how many of the weaknesses of mankind he has escaped, because he was out of the line of such temptation. I say, any man who can thus think will scan the failings, nay, the faults and crimes, of mankind around him with a brother's eye. I have often courted the ac- quaintance of that part of mankind, commonly known by the ordinary phrase of blackguards, sometimes further than was consistent with the safety of my character. Those who, by thoughtless prodigality or headstrong passions, have been driven to ruin, though disgraced by follies, I have yet found among them, in not a few instances, some of the noblest virtues, magnanimity, generosity, disinterested friend- ship, and even modesty." All this is time ; but men of evil deeds are not, till they have puri- fied themselves, fit companions for the young and the inflammable. There is no human being so depraved as to be without something which connects him with the sympathies of life. Dirk Hatteraick, before he hung himself, made out a balanced account to his owners, shewing that, though he had cut throats and drowned bant- lings as a smuggler, he could reckon with the house of Middleburg for every stiver. It is more pleasing to perceive, in the Poet's early prose, sentiments similar to those which he afterwards more poetically expressed in his " Address to the Rigidly Righteous." " Then gently scan your brother man, Still gentler sister woman ; Th#' they may gang a kennin' wrang, To step aside is human. One point must still be greatly dark, The reason why they do it ; And just as lamely can ye mark, How far, perhaps, they rue it." The people of Kyle an ere slow in apprecia- ting this philosophy. When they saw him hand-and-glove with roving smugglers, or sit- ting with loose comrades, who scorned the de- cencies of life, or looking seriously at a horde of gypsies huddled together in a kiln, or musing among ' ' randie, gangrel bodies " in Poosie Nancie's, they could not know that, like a painter, he was studying character, and making sketches for future pictures of life and man- ners : they saw nothing but danger to him- self from such society. And here lies the secret of the complaint he has recorded against the world, in his twenty-fourth year.—" I don't well know what is the reason of it, but, some- how or other, though I am pretty generally beloved, yet I never could find the art of com- manding respect. I imagine it is owing to my being deficient in, what Sterne calls, the under- strapping virtue of discretion." No doubt of it. The sober and sedate saw that he respected not himself; they loved him for his manliness of character, and eloquence, and independence ; but they grieved for a weakness out of which they could not see that strength and moral beauty would come. The glory of his poetry was purchased at a price too dear for himself. " In Irvine," says Gilbert, "he had contracted some acquaint- ance of a freer manner of thinking, whose society prepared him for overleaping the bounds of rigid virtue, which had hitherto restrained him." — "The principal thing which gave my mind a turn," says Burns to Dr. Moore, "was a friendship I formed with a young fellow, a very noble character, but a hapless child of misfortune. He was the son of a simple me- chanic ; but a great man, taking him under his patronage, gave him a genteel education, with a view of bettering his situation in life. The patron dying, just as he was ready to launch out into the world, he went to sea in despair. His mind was fraught with independence, magnanimity, and every manly virtue. I loved and admired him to a degree of enthusiasm, and, of course, strove to imitate him ; in some measure I succeeded. I had pride before ; but he taught it to flow in proper channels. His knowledge of the Avorld was vastly superior to mine, and I was all attention to learn. He was the only man I ever saw who was a greater fool than myself, where woman was the presiding star ; but he spoke of illicit love with the levity of a sailor, which hitherto I had regarded with horror. Here his friendship did me a mis- chief." Richard Brown, to whom this refers, survived the storms which threatened ship- wreck to his youth, and lived and died re- spected. When spoken to on the subject, he exclaimed, " Illicit love ! levity of a sailor ! The Post had nothing to learn that way when 1 saw him first." That Burns talked and thought too freely and indiscreetly, in his early years, we have evidence in verse. In his memorandum-book i =® JETAT. 24. MOSSGIEL— TARBOLTON CLUB. 17 there are entries which, amid all their spirit and graphic beauty, contain levities of expression which may be'tolerated when the wine is flow- ing and the table in a roar, but which look not so becoming on the sober page which reflec- tion has sanctioned. In May, 1785, he wrote the lively chant called " Robin," in which he gives an account of his birth : " There was a lad was born in Kyle, But what'n a day o' what'n a style I doubt its hardly worth our while To be sae nice \vi' Robin. " The gossip keekit in his loof, Quo' she, wha lives will see the proof, This waly boy will be nae coof — I think we'll ca' him Robin. " But sure as three times three mak nine, I see, by ilka score and line, This chap will dearly like our kin', So leeze me on thee, Robin." In these lines he approaches the border -land between modesty and impropriety — we must quote no farther, nor seek to shew the Poet in still merrier moods. Burns, in all respects, arose from the people : he worked his way out of the darkness, drudgery, and vulgarities of rus- tic life, and, in spite of poverty, pain, and dis- appointment, emerged into the light of heaven. He was surrounded by coarse and boisterous companions, who were fit for admiring the ruder sallies of his wit, but incapable of un- derstanding those touches of moral pathos and exquisite sensibility with which his sharpest things are accompanied. They perceived but the thorns of the rose — they felt not its fine odour. The spirit of poesie led him, in much peril, through the prosaic wilderness around, and prepared him for asserting his right to one of the highest places in the land of song, As the elder Burness was now dead, the Poet had to exercise his own judgment in the affairs of Mossgiel : at first all seemed to prosper. — "I had entered," he says, "upon this farm with a full resolution — ( Come, go to, I will be wise ;' I read farming books ; I calculated crops 5 I attended markets ; and, in short, in spite of the devil, the world and the flesh, I believe I should have been a wise man ; but the first year, from unfortunately buying bad seed, the second from the late harvest, we lost half our crops. This overset all my wisdom, and I returned, ( like the dog to his vomit, and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.' " — " The farm of Mossgiel," says Gilbert, "lies very high, and mostly on a cold, wet bottom. The first four years that we were on the farm were very frosty, and the spring was very late. Our crops, in conse- quence, were very unprofitable, and, notwith- standing our utmost diligence and economy, we found ourselves obliged to give up our bar- gain, with the loss of a considerable portion of our original stock." The judgment could not # be great which selected a farm that lay high, on a cold, wet bottom, and purchased bad seed- corn. That Burns put his hand to the plough and laboured incessantly there can be no doubt — but an unsettled head gives the hands much to do : when he put pen to paper, all thoughts of crops and cattle vanished ; he only noted down ends of verse and fragments of song : his copy of Small's Treatise on Ploughs is now before me ; not one remark appears on the margins ; but on the title-page is written " Robert Burns, Poet." He had now decided on his vocation. This study of song, love of reading, wan- derings in woods, nocturnal excursions in matters of love, and choice of companions, who had seen much and had much to tell, was, unconsciously to himself, forcing Burns upon the regions of poesie. To these may be added the establishment of a club, in which subjects of a moral or domestic nature were discussed. The Tarbolton club consisted of some half- dozen young lads, sons of farmers ; the Poet who planned it was the ruling star ; the place of meeting was a small public-house in the vil- lage ; the sum expended by each was not to exceed three-pence, and, with the humble cheer which this could bring, they were, when the debate was concluded, to toast then- lasses and the continuance of friendship. Here he found a vent for his own notions, and as the club met regularly and continued for years, he disci- plined himself into something of a debater and acquired a readiness and fluency of language ; he was never at a loss for thoughts. Burns drew up the regulations. — " As the great end of human society," says the exor- dium, "is to become wiser and better, this ought, therefore, to be the principal view of every man in every station of life, But, as experience has taught us that such studies as inform the head and mend the heart, when long continued, are apt to exhaust the faculties of the mind, it has been found proper to relieve and unbend the mind, by some employment or another, that may be agreeable enough to keep its powers in exercise, but, at the same time, not so serious as to exhaust them. But, super- added to this, by far the greater part of man- kind are under the necessity of earning the sustenance of human life, by the labour of their bodies, whereby not only the faculties of the mind, but the sinews and nerves of the body, are so fatigued that it is absolutely necessary to have recourse to some amusement or diver- sion, to relieve the wearied man, worn down with the necessary labours of life." The first meeting was held on Halloween, in the year 1780. Burns was president, and the question of debate was, " Suppose a young man, bred a farmer, but without any fortune, has it in his power to many either of two women, the one a girl of large fortune, but neither handsome :<§> 18 LIFE OF BURNS. 1785. in person, nor agreeable in conversation, but who can manage the household affairs of a farm well enough ; the other of them a girl every way agreeable, in person, conversation, and behaviour, but without any fortune : which of them shall he choose?" Other questions of a similar tendency were discussed, and many matters regarding domestic duties and social obligations were considered. This rustic in- stitution united the means of instruction with happiness ; but, on the removal of the poet from Lochlea, it lost the spirit which gave it life, and, dissensions arising, the club was scat- tered, and the records, much of them in Burns' hand-writing, destroyed. No sooner was the Poet settled at Mossgiel, than he was requested to aid in forming a similar club in Mauchline. The regulations of the Tarbolton institution suggested those of the other ; but the fines for non-attendance, instead of being spent in drink, were laid out in the purchase of books ; the first work thus obtained was the Mirror, the second the Lounger, and the time was not distant when the founder's genius was to supply them with a work not destined soon to die. This society subscribed for the first edition of the poems of its cele- brated associate. The members were originally country lads, chiefly sons of husbandmen — a description of persons, in the opinion of Burns, more agreeable in their manners, and more de- sirous of improvement, than the smart, self- conceited mechanics of towns, who were ready to wrangle and dispute on all topics, and whose vanity would never allow that they were confuted. One of the biographers of Burns has raised what the Poet calls " a philosophic reek," on the propriety of refining the minds of hinds and farmers, by means of works of elegance and delicacy : without believing, with Currie, that if not a positive evil, it is a doubtful blessing, we may question whether more titan a dozen, out of ten thousand hinds and mechanics, would feel inconvenience from increased delicacy of taste. On a vast number such lessons would be utterly lost, for no polish can convert a com- mon pebble into a diamond ; while, from the minds of many, it would remove the weeds with the same discriminating hand that the Poet cleared his riggs of corn, and " spared the symbol dear," the Scottish thistle. In truth, the danger which Currie dreaded has been en- countered and overcome ; more than all the works he enumerated, as forming the reading of Burns, are to be found in the hands of the peasantry of Scotland. Milton, Thomson, Young, poets of the highest order and of polished elegance, are as well known to the peasantry as the Bible is : yet no one has com- plained that a furrow more or less has been drawn in consequence, that our shepherds smear their sheep with too delicate a finger, and that our rustics are oppressed by a fastidi- ous nicety of taste. It would have been better for the Poet if he had maintained that purity in himself, which, in the regulations of his clubs, he desired to see in others. The consequences of keeping company with the free and the joyous, were now to be manifested. Soon after his father's death, one of his mother's maids, in person not at all attractive, produced his " Sonsie, smirking, dear-bought Bess," and furnished him with the opportunity of standing, as a sinner, on the stool of repentance, and commemorating the event in rhymes, licen- tious as well as humorous. He had already sung of his own birth in a free and witty way, and he now put a song into the mouth of the partner of his folly, in which she cries, with rather more of levity than sorrow — " Wha will own he did the fau't, Wha will buy the groanin-maut, Wha will tell me how to ca't ? The rantin' dog, the daddie o't. " When I mount the creepie chair, Wha will sit beside me there ? Gie me Rob, I'll ask nae mair, The rantin' dog, the daddie o't." Nor can any one applaud the taste of "Rob the Rhymer's Address to his Illegitimate Child :" he glories in a fault which, he imagines, perplexed the church ; for, he sought not to conceal from himself, that both the minis- ter and elders were all but afraid of meddling with a delinquent, who could make the country merry at their expense. In a third poem, he gives a ludicrous account of his appearance before the session, and of the admonition he received. Instead of promising amendment, he draws consolation from Scripture with equal audacity and wit : — " King David, o' poetic brief, Wrought 'mang the lasses such mischief, As fill'd his after life with grief, An' bluidy rants, An' yet he's rank'd amang the chief O' lang-syne saunts. " And maybe, Tam, for a' my cants, My wicked rhymes, an' drucken rants, I'll gi'e auld cloven Clootie's haunts An unco slip yet, An' snugly sit amang the saunts At Davie's hip yet." It is painful to touch, even with a gentle hand, on the moral sores of so fine a genius, but his character cannot be understood other- wise : almost any other erring youth would have resigned himself, without resistance, to the discipline of the kirk, and bowed to its rebuke : Burns was npt to be so tamed — stricken, he struck again, and, instead of courting silence and seclusion, sung a new song, and walked out into the open sunshine of remark and ob- ©: JRTAT. 26. OLD AND NEW LIGHT FACTIONS. 19 serration. I cannot set this regard] essness ! down to growing hardness within, nor to petri- | fied feeling : it arose from a want of taste in I seeking distinction. " The mair they talk, I'm kenn'd the better," he had already adopted as a motto ; he knew that folly such as his was not uncommon, and he hoped, for one person who censured, there would be two who thought him a clever fellow, with wit at will — a little of a sinner, but a great deal of a poet. This desire of distinction was strong in Burns. In those days he would not let a five pound note pass through his hands, without bearing away a witty endorsement in rhyme : a drinking-glass always afforded space for a verse : the blank leaf of a book was a favourite place for a stanza ; and the windows of inns, and even dwelling-houses, which he frequented, exhibit to this day lively sallies from his hand. Yet, perhaps, a love of fame was not stronger in him than in others. In his time magazines were few, and newspapers not numerous ; into the daily, weekly, or monthly papers, aspirants in verse can now pour their effusions : but Burns had no such facilities when he started, and was obliged to take the nearest way to notice. He began, likewise, to talk of his exploits over the pint-stoup : he gave to him- self, in one of his rhymes, the name of " drunken ranter," and, with ordinary powers, and but a moderate inclination, desired to be numbered with five - bottle debauchees, who saw three horns on the moon, and had " A voice like the sea, and a drouth like a whale." He went farther: he asserted, with Meston, good rhyme to be the product of good drink, and sung — " I've seen me daizet upon a time I scarce could wink, or see a styme, Just ae half-mutchkin does me prime, Ought less is little ; Then back I rattle on the rhyme As gleg's a whittle." This vaunted insobriety in verse must not be taken literally. We have seen Burns passion- ately in love in rhyme — we know that he was not less so with his living goddess of the hour ; but it was otherwise with him in the matter of strong drink. He was no practised toper, but thought it necessary to look a gay fellow in poetry. Inspiration, in both ancient and mo* dern times, has been imputed to wine, and Burns wished to be thought inspired. Wine was out of his reach ; his muse found her themes among humble and familiar things, and it was his boast that the Ferintosh could work intellectual wonders as well as the Falernian. For others, he wished Parnassus a vineyard ; but for himself, he preferred the banks of the Ayr or the Lugar, to those of Helicon, and the juice of barley to that of the grape. W r hen he had neither money to spend on liquor, nor health to relish it, he was chanting songs in honour of tippling ; putting himself down in the list of topers, and recording that whiskey was the northern ambrosia, too good for all, save gods or Scotsmen. This is not unlike the madness of Johnson from poverty, at College. In the case of Burns, there was something national as well as personal : whiskey and ale are the offspring of the Scottish vales, and he preferred them to " dearthfu' wine or foreign gill." Liquor was not then, and I believe never was, a settled desire of soul with the Poet. When Burns supposed that his "drunken rants" and nocturnal excursions among the lasses of Kyle had made him " Slander's common speech, A text for infamy to preach," he found, to his surprise, that in another way he had won the approbation of certain minis- ters of the kirk of Scotland. How this came about may be briefly described. Calvinism, at that time, was agitated with a schism among its professors, and the factions were known in the west by the names of Old Light and New Light. The Old Light enthusiasts aspired to be ranked with the purest of the Covenanters ; they patronized austerity of manners and hu- mility of dress, and stigmatized much that the world loved, as things vain and unessential to salvation. The New Light countenanced no such self-denial ; men were permitted to gallop on Sunday, to make merry and enjoy them- selves ; and women were indulged in the article of dress, and failings or follies were treated with mercy at least, if not indulgence. The former refused to lean on the slender reed of human works, thought a good deed savoured of selfishness, and that faith, and faith alone, was the light which led to heaven : the latter thought a cheerful heart was an acceptable thing with God ; that good works helped to make a good end, and that faith, and faith alone, was not religion, but a false light, which led to perdition. Like the writers in the late singular controversy on Art and Nature in Poetry, the divines of the west of Scotland perhaps never concluded that faith and works were both essential to salvation, and that, in truth, Christianity required them. Each side thundered from the pulpit ; their sermons partook of the character of curses, and their conversation in private life had the hue of controversy. Their parishioners, too, raised up then voices — for, in Scotland, the meanest pea- sant can be eloquent and puzzling on speculative theology — and the whole land rung with mys- tical discussions on effectual calling, free grace, and predestination, when Burns precipitated himself into the midst of the conflict. The Poet sided with the New Light faction. For this several reasons may be assigned — he was not educated closely in the tenets of Cal- 20 LIFE OF BURNS. 1785. vinism ; and his own good taste and sense taught him that faith without works was folly. His experience in church discipline, in the case of " Sonsie Bess," had not tended to increase his reverence for the Old Light professors, among whom " Daddie Auld," his parish pastor, was a leader. Moreover, Gavin Hamilton, of whom he held his land, was not only a New-Light- ite, but a friend of the Poet, and a martyr in the cause of free-agency. We may add to all this, that the Poet naturally fell into the ranks of those who allowed greater liberty of speech, and a wider longitude of morals. Perhaps the chiefs of the Old Light Association would have regarded little an attack in prose, as to such missiles they were accustomed ; but their new enemy assaulted them with a weapon against which the armour of dulness was no defence. He attacked and vanquished them with witty verse, much to the joy of the children of the New Light, and greatly to the amusement of the country. Of the effect of these satiric attacks, the Poet himself gives an account to Moore : — " The first of my poetic offspring which saw the light was a burlesque lamentation on a quarrel be- tween two reverend Calvinists, both of them dramatis persona in my ' Holy Fan'.' I had a notion myself that the piece had some merit : but, to prevent the worst, I gave a copy of it to a friend who was very fond of such things, and told him that I could not guess who was the author of it, but that I thought it pretty clever. With a certain description of the clergy, as well as laity, it met with a roar of applause. ' Holy Willie's Prayer' next made its appear- ance, and alarmed the kirk -session so much that they held several meetings to look over their spiritual artillery — if haply any of it might be pointed against' profane rhymers." This is al- most all that the Poet says of Ins satiric labours in aid of the New Light. The poem to which he first alludes is called " The Holy Tuilzie," and relates the bickering and battling which arose between Moodie, minister of Riccarton, and Russel, minister of Kilmarnock — both child- ren of the Old Light. The poetic merit of the piece is small ; the personalities marked and strong. " The Ordination" succeeded, and is in a better vein. There is uncommon freedom of language and happiness of expression in al- most every verse. The crowning satire of the whole is "Holy Willie's Prayer," a daring work, personal/ poetical, and profane. The hero of the piece was a west country pretender to superlative godliness ; one of the Old Lio-ht faction ; an elder of the kirk — a man with many failings, who made himself busy in search- ing for faults in the flock. Burns first sig- nalized him in an epitaph, in which he consigns him to reprobation, and then warns the devil that to lay his " nine-tailed cat" on such a con- temptible delinquent would be little to his own credit. Then he makes Willie honestly confess his own backslidings, and explain predestination in a way that causes us to shudder as well as to smile : — " O Thou, wha in the heavens dost dwell, Wha, as it pleases best thysel', Sends ane to heaven, and ten to hell, A' for thy glory, And no for onie guid or ill They 've done afore thee !" He next bethinks him of his own glory and errors ; the latter, it is quite plain, he considers but as spots in the sun — specks in the cup of the cowslip. He claims praise in the singular, and acknowledges folly in the plural : — " And sometimes, too, wi' warldly trust, Vile self gets in ; But Thou remembers we are dust, Defil'd in sin." Nor can Burns be said to have overlooked his own interest ; he compliments Hamilton of Mossgiel as one — " Who has so many taking arts, Wi' great and sma', Frae God's ain priests the people's hearts, He steals awa'." In a similar strain of poetry and wit, he, in another poem of the same period, congratulates Goudie of Kilmarnock on his work respecting revealed religion. The reasoning and the learn- ing of the essayist are slumbering with all for- gotten things ; but the verses they called into life are not fated soon to die : — " O Goudie ! terror of the Whigs, Dread of black coats and reverend wigs, Sour Bigotry, on her last legs, Girning looks back, Wishing the ten Egyptian plagues Wad seize you quick." In after-life the poet seemed little inclined to remember the verses he composed on this ridi- culous controversy ; and I have heard that he was unwilling to'talk about the subject. Per- haps he felt that he had launched the burning darts of verse against men of blameless lives, and honesty, and learning ; that his muse had wasted some of her time on a barren and pro- fitless topic, and had sung less from her own heart than for the gratification of others. Of all these poems, he admitted but the " Ordina- tion" into his works, willing, it would seem, to let the rest die with the controversy which occasioned them. The New Light professors seemed to care little what sort of weapon they employed : the verse of Burns has two edges, like a Highland sword, and Presbyterianism suffered as well as the Old Light. It is almost incredible that venerable clergymen applauded those profane sallies, learned them by heart, car- ried copies in their pockets, and quoted and re- JETAT. 26. HIS PERSON AND MANNERS. 21 cited them till they grew popular, and were on every lip. Even " Holy Willie's Prayer" was countenanced by the New Light pastors. Among the Poet's papers was found an epistle to the Rev. John Mac Math, enclosing a copy of the Prayer which he had requested ; the date of this communication, Sept. 17, 1785, fixes the season of this western dispute. It seems, however, to approach the close ; the Poet is grown weary of his work, as well he might : — " My musie, tir'd with mony a sonnet, On gown, and band, and douce black bonnet, Is grown right eerie now she's done it, Lest they should blame her, An' rouse their holy thunder on it, And anathem her." Burns, during this drudgery, was strengthen- ing his hands for higher and purer duties. In labouring to accommodate his thoughts, and " Riving the words to gar them clink," in unison with the technicalities of mystical controversy, he was acquiring an almost auda- cious vigour of expression, and a ready skill in handling subjects either of fact or of fancy. It is true that he learned to speak profanely, but then this was in the service of the kirk ; he learned something more when he dined with drunken lawyers, and grew tipsy among godly priests. The muse of Kyle helped to extinguish the Old Light, but she left predestination where she found it. A Mauchline mason said to the Poet, when he read him " Holy Willie's Prayer," " It's a' very weel and very witty, and I have laughed that shouldna have laughed ; but ye'll no hinder me from thinking that Pro- vidence kenn'd weel what he was doing when he made man — foresaw the upshot — wha was to be good and wha was to be bad : and know- ing this, and making man a fallible creature still, looks as like predestination as ought I ever heard of." These satiric rhymes established the fame of Bums in his native place ; his company was now courted by country lairds, village lawyers, and parish school-masters, and by all persons who had education above common, or kept some state in their households. He was always wel- come to Gavin Hamilton and his family ; equally so to Robert Aiken, a worthy writer in Ayr ; and now he became so to all who had any relish for wit, or any soul for poetry. He was at once the companion of the grave and of the giddy ; now dining with the minister and a douce friend or two at the manse ; then presiding in a Mason- meeting, chanting songs, and pushing about the punch with the " brethren of the mystic level," or communing on the severity of the ex- cise laws with a "blackguard smuggler," or some Highland envoy from the dominions of Ferintosh, whose " cousin did as good as keep a small still." When he appeared in company @- he was expected to say something clever or shrewd ; he was pointed out at church and at market, and peasant spoke of him to peasant as a wild, witty lad, who lived at Mossgiel, and had all the humour of Ramsay, and more than the spirit of Fergusson. It is humiliating to think that works which Burns seemed willing to forget brought him first into notice. Some of the most exqui- site lyrics ever said or sung failed to do for him what " The Holy Tuilzie" and " The Ordina- tion" accomplished at once : and there can be no question that " Holy Willie's Prayer" and the " Epistle to Goudie" prepared the minds of the people around him for admiring his " Hal- loween" and his " Cotter's Saturday Night." In truth, poetry, which only embodies senti- ments and feelings common to our nature, can- not compete, in the race of immediate fame, with verse appealing to our passions and our pre- judices, and glowing with the heat of a passing dispute. Time settles and explains all. The true Florimel is found to be of delicate flesh and blood, breathing of loveliness and attraction, and adorned by nature ; while the false Duessa, is discovered to be a thing of shreds and patches, with jewels of glass, and an artificial complex- ion. Nature and truth finally triumph, and to nature and truth Burns accordingly returned. He left the agitated puddles of mysticism to drink at the pure springs with the muse of love, and joy, and patriotism. Of the person and manners of the Poet, at this important period of his life, we have various accounts ; but the portraits, although differing in posture as well as in light and shade, all express the same sentiment. He was now grown up to man's estate, and had taken his station as such in society : he was the head, too, of his father's house, and though his ex- penses were regulated upon a system of close economy, his bargains, as a farmer, controlled by his brother Gilbert, and his demeanour at the fire-side under the mild influence of his mother, he had in all other matters his own will. He has recorded much of himself at this period both in verse and prose, nor can this be set doAvn to egotism : from all the world, save the little community of Kyle, he was completely shut out, and he turned his eyes on himself, and wrote down Ins own hopes and aspirations. He has even recorded his stature in rhyme : — ■ " O ! why the deuce should I repine, Or be an ill foreboder ? I'm twenty-three, and five feet nine, I'll go and be a sodger." His large dark expressive eyes ; his swarthy visage ; his broad brow, shaded with black waving hair ; his melancholy look, and his well-knit frame, vigorous and active — all united to draw men's eyes upon him. He affected, too, a certain oddity of dress and manner. He =© 22 LIFE OF BURNS. 1785. was clever in controversy ; but obstinate, and even fierce, when contradicted, as most men are who have built up their opinions for themselves. He used with much taste the common pithy- saws and happy sayings of his country, and in- vigorated his eloquence by apt quotations from old songs or ballads. He courted controversy, and it was to this period that Murdoch, the accomplished mechanic, referred, when he told me that he once heard Burns haranguing his fellow-peasants on religion at the door of a change-house, and so unacceptable were his re- marks that some old men hissed him away. Nor must it be supposed that, even when listened to, he was always victorious. — " Burns, sir," said one of his old opponents, "was a 'cute chield and a witty ane, but he didna half like to have my harrow coming owre his new-fangled notions." The early companions of the Poet were men above the common mark. Smith, to whom he addressed some of his finest poetic epistles, was a person of taste and sagacity ; David Sillar, a good scholar, and something of a poet; Ranken, an out-spoken, ready-witted man, and a little of a scoffer ; Lapraik lived at a distance ; he had written at least one song worthy of notice. Hamilton was open-hearted and open-handed, and of a good family ; Aiken seems to have abounded in good sense and good feeling ; Bal- lantyne was much of a gentleman ; Parker, kind and generous ; Mackenzie, of Irvine, a skilful surgeon and a good scholar, who intro- duced the Poet to Dugald Stewart, Whiteford, Erskine, and Blair ; — but his chief comrade and confidant was his brother Gilbert, who at an early age distinguished himself for sense and discernment. " Gilbert," says Mackenzie, " partook more of the manner and appearance of the father, and Robert of the mother. In the first inter- view I had with him at Lochlea, he was frank, modest, well - informed, and communicative. The Poet seemed distant, suspicious, and with- out any wish to interest or please. He kept himsell very silent in a dark corner of the room, and, before he took any part in conversation, I frequently observed him scrutinizing me, while I conversed with his father and his brother. From the period of which I speak, I took a lively interest in Robert Burns. Even then his conversation was rich in well-chosen figures, animated and energetic. Indeed, I have always thought that no person could have a just idea of the extent of Barns' talents who had not heard him converse. His discrimination of cha- racter was greatly beyond that of any person I ever knew, and I have often observed to him that it seemed to be intuitive. I seldom ever knew him make a false estimate of character when he formed the opinion from his own observation." The sketch drawn by Sillar is of another kind : — " Robert Burns was some time in the parish of Tarbolton, prior to my acquaintance with him. His social disposition easily pro- cured him acquaintance ; but a certain satirical seasoning with which he and all poetical geniuses are in some degree influenced, while it set the rustic circle in a roar, was not unaccompanied with suspicious fear. I recollect hearing his neighbours observe, he had a great deal to say for himself, but that they suspected his prin- ciples. He wore the only tied hair in the parish ; and in the church his plaid, which was of a particular colour (I think fillemot), he wrapped in a peculiar manner round his should- ers. These surmises, and his exterior, made me solicitous of his acquaintance. I was intro- j duced by Gilbert not only to his brother, but i to the whole of that family, where, in a short j time, I became a frequent, and, I believe, not unwelcome, visitant. After the commencement of my acquaintance with the bard, we fre- quently met upon Sundays at church ; when, between sermons, instead of going with our friends or our lasses to the inn, we often took a walk in the fields. In these walks, I have often been struck with his facility in addressing the fair sex : many times when ■ I have been bashfully anxious how to express myself, lie would have entered into conversation with them, with the greatest ease and freedom ; and it was generally a death-blow to our conversation, how- ever agreeable, to meet a female acquaintance. Some of the few opportunities of a noon-tide walk that a country life allows her laborious sons, he spent on the banks of the, river, or in the woods, in the neighbourhood of Stair. Some book or other he always carried, and read, when not otherwise employed ; it was likewise his custom to read at table." A third hand completes the sketch : — " Though Burns," says Professor Walker, " was still un- known as a Poet, he already numbered several clergymen among his acquaintance : one of these communicated to me a circumstance which con- veyed, more forcibly than many words, an idea of the impression made upon his mind by the powers of the Poet. This gentleman had re- peatedly met Burns in company, when the acuteness and originality displayed by the latter, the depth of his discernment, the force of his expressions, and the authoritative energy of his understanding, had created in the former a sense of his power, of the extent of which he was unconscious till revealed to him by accident. The second time that he appeared in the pul- pit, he came with an assured and tranquil mind ; and though a few persons of education were present, he advanceel some length in the ser- vice with his confidence and self-possession un- impaired. But when he observed Burns, who was of a different parish, unexpectedly enter the church, he was instantly affected with a tremour and embarrassment, which apprized him of the impression his mind, unknown to itself, had previously received." JETAT. 20. THE HOLY FAIR, &c. 23 Authorities such as these confute the incon- siderate assertions of Heron, respecting the " opening character" of the Poet. We have no proof that he became discontented in early life with the humble labours to which he saw him- self confined, and with the poor subsistence he was able to earn by them — that he could not help looking upon the rich and great whom he saw around, with an emotion between envy and contempt, as if something had still whis- pered to his heart that there was injustice in the external inequality between his fate and theirs. The early injuries of fortune oppressed him at times ; but, till he was thirty years old, his spirit was buoyant and unbroken, and he looked with an unclouded brow on the world around him. In " The Holy Fair," the Poet, accidentally or purposely, rose out of the lower regions of personal invective into the purer air of true poetry, and gave us a picture of singular breadth and beauty. The aim of the poem is chiefly to reprehend', by means of wit and humour, those almost indecent festivities which, in many western parishes, accompany the administration of the sacrament. Instead of preaching to the staid and the pious under the roof of the kirk, the scene is transferred to the open church-yard, where a tent or pulpit is erected for the preachers ; while, all around, the people of the parish seat themselves on graves or grave-stones, decorously to look and listen. In the earlier days of the church, when men were more in earnest, there is no doubt that a scene such as this in the open air was attended with nothing of an objection- able nature ; nay, at present, the thoughtful and the serious contemplate it as something edify- ing and impressive ; but with the pious and the orderly come swarms of the idle and the pro- fligate ; bevies of lads and lasses keep moving about, in search of better seats or finer points of view, and tiring, or affecting to tire, of the ser- mon, which is sometimes of the longest, retire to a neighbouring change-house, or to the open door of an ale-booth, where, as they empty the glass, they may hear the voice of the preacher. There is no doubt that these " Holy Fairs," as they were scoffingly called, afforded scenes more than justifying serious as well as sarcastic re- proof. In the poem, Burns here and there shews he had been reading other poets. His allegorical personages are partly copied from Fergusson, and the hares that hirpled down the furs did the same for Montgomery. "The farcical scene the Poet there describes," says Gilbert, " was often a favourite field for his observation, and most of the incidents he men- tions had actually passed before his eyes." Burns now openly took upon himself the name of Poet ; he not only wrote it in his books, but wrought it into his rhymes, and be- gan to entertain hopes of distinction in the realms of song. But nothing, perhaps, marks 4= the character of the man more than the alteration which he made in his own name. He had little relish for by-gone things ; there are few gazings back at periods of honour or of woes in all his strains. The name he had hitherto borne was of old standing, the Poet sat in judgment upon it, concluded that it had a barbarous sound, and threw away Burness — a name two syllables long, and adopted that of Burns in its stead. Had his father been alive, this might not have j happened. On the 20th of March, 1780, he says to one of his Correspondents : — " I hope some time before we hear the gouk, to have the j pleasure of seeing you at Kilmarnock, when I j j intend having a gill between us in a mutchkin stoup, which will be a great comfort and conso- lation to, dear Sir, your humble servant, Robert Burness." — This is the latest time that I find his original name in his own hand-writing ; it is plain, that up to this period, he imagined he had achieved nothing under that of his father deserving to live. On the 20th of April he wrote his name "Burns" in a letter enclosing to his friend Kennedy that beautiful poem the "Mountain Daisy," headed "The Gowan." This was with the Poet a season of changes. Burns commenced emblazoning his altered name with all that is bright and lasting in verse. From the day that he entered upon Mossgiel with the resolution of becoming rich, till the dark hour on which he quitted it, re- duced well nigh to beggary, he continued to pour forth poem after poem, and song succeed- ing song, with a variety and rapidity truly won- derful. His best poems are the offspring of those four unfortunate years, and the history of each has something in it of the curious or the romantic. "The Death and dying words of poor Mailie," and, better still, " Poor Mailie's Elegy," suggested to him probably by "The Ewie wi' the crooked horn " of Skinner, were written before the death of his father — at least the former was. The Poet had, it seems, bought a ewe with two lambs from a neighbour, and tethered her in a field at Lochlea. " He and I," says Gilbert, " were going out with our teams, and our two younger brothers to drive for us, at mid-day, when Hugh Wilson, a. cu- rious-looking awkward boy, clad in plaiding, came to us with much anxiety in his face, with the information that the ewe had entangled her- self in the tether, and was lying in the ditch." The "Elegy" has much of the Poet's latter freedom and force. He had caressed this four- footed favourite till she followed at his heels like a dog : — "Through a' the town she trotted by him, A lang half-mile she could descry him, Wi' kindly bleat, when she did spy him, She ran wi' speed ; A friend mair faithfu' ne'er come nigh him, Than Mailie dead." One of the rejected verses ought to be remem- j C6): ■<$ 24 LIFE OF BURNS. 1785. bered in Kyle, were it but for the honour done to the lambs of Fairlee : — " She was nae get o' runted rams, Wi' woo' like goats, an' legs like trams, She was the flower o' Fairlee lambs, A famous breed ; Now Robin, greetin' chews the hams O' Mailie dead." The image in the two last lines is out of har- mony with the sentiment of the poem ; and Burns, whose taste was born with him, omitted the verse in consequence. The " Epistle to David Sillar " was written some time in the summer of 1784. Burns was in the habit of composing verse at the plough or the harrow : — he turned it over in his mind for several days, and when he had polished it to his satisfaction, or found a moment's leisure, he committed it to paper. Gilbert relates that he was weeding with Robert in the kail-yard, when he repeated the principal part of the Epistle. The first idea of his becoming an author was then started. " I was much pleased," says his brother, "with the Epistle, and said to him that I was of opinion it would bear be- ing printed, and that it would be well received by people of taste : that I thought it at least equal, if not superior, to many of Allan Ram- say's epistles, and that the merit of these, and much other Scottish poetry, seemed to consist principally in the knack of the expression ; but here there was a train of interesting sentiment, and the Scotticism of the language scarcely seemed affected, but appeared to be the natural language of the poet ; that, besides, there was certainly some novelty in a poet pointing out the consolations that were in store for him when he should go a-begging. Robert seemed pleased with my criticism, and we talked of sending it to some magazine." If we credit the accuracy of the verse, and the memory of Gilbert, the Poet was, in 1784, acquainted with Jean Armour, and had become her admirer and lover. But it is more likely that the verse in which her name occurs was added afterwards, unless we believe that he had made an inroad among the " Mauchline belles," almost as soon as he went to Mossgiel. His Epistles are of high merit. They are, perhaps, the finest compositions of the kind in the lan- guage — airy, elegant, and philosophic — with more nature than Prior's Epistle to " Fletwood Shepherd," and equal power of illustration. He had already begun to take those serious looks at human life of which his poems are full ; nor did he fail to perceive how unequally the gifts of fortune, as well as those of genius, are divided. " It's hardly in a body's power, To keep at times from being sour, To see how things are shar'd ; How best o' chiels are whiles in want, While coofs on countless thousands rant, And kenna how to wair't." He lived long enough to think more deeply and more darkly on this topic. At present the world was brightening before him — the mist seemed rolling away from his path, and he felt disposed to enjoy life without murmuring. The epistolary form was a favourite way with Burns of giving air to his opinions and feelings ; when he had doubts of fame — was o'ermastered with his passions — or disgusted with " The tricks of knaves and fash of fools," he lifted the pen and indited an epistle to a friend, and poured out the loves, the cares, the sorrows, the joys, the hopes, and fears of the passing moment. It is truly wonderful with what ease and felicity — nay, with what elegance, he twines the garlands of his fancy round a barren topic. Much of his history may be sought for in these compositions. In his " Epistle to James Smith," he alludes to his Poems : intimates that he had thoughts of printing them, pretends to take alarm at the sight of moths revelling on the pages of authors : — " Far seen in Greek, deep men o' letters." and philosophically exclaims, as well as poeti- cally — " Then farewell hopes o' laurel-boughs To garland my poetic brows : Henceforth I'll rove where busy plough Are whistling thrang, An' teach the lonely heights an' howes My rustic sang." Burns takes a loftier view of the matter in his epistle to Lapraik, written on the first of April, 1785. He intimates that he is no poet, in the high acceptation of the word ; but a rhymer, who deals in homely words, and has no pretence to learning. He pulls himself down, but he refuses to let any one else up ; he prefers a spark of nature's fire to all the arti- ficial heat of education, and speaks contemptu- ously of " critic folk," and learned judges : — " What's a' your jargon o' your schools, Your Latin names for horns an' stools ; If honest Nature made you fools, What sairs your grammars ? Ye'd better ta'en up spades and shools, Or knappin-hammers. " A seto' dull, conceited hashes, Confuse their brains in college classes ! They gang in stirks, and come out asses, Plain truth to speak : An' syne they think to climb Parnassus By dint o'Greekl" in a second epistle to the same person, Burns claims for "the ragged followers of the Nine" a life of immortal light, and presents to their contemplation the sordid sons of Mammon suffering under the transmigration of souls: — :;>. -Co) @ -03 .SET AT 26. ADDRESS TO THE DEIL. 25 14 Though here they scrape, and squeeze, and growl, Their worthless neivefu' of a soul May in some future carcase howl, The forest's fright ; Or in some day-detesting owl May shun the light." In a poetic letter to another of his com- panions, while exulting in the idea of making the rivers and rivulets of Kyle flow bright in future song, he lets us into the secret of his own mode of musing : — " The Muse, nae poet ever fand her, Till by himsel' he learned to wander Adown some trotting burn's meander, An' no think lang ! O ! sweet to stray, an' pensive ponder A heartfelt sang ! ' ' Of these poems, we are informed that the first epistle to John Lapraik was written in con- sequence of a clever song, which that indifferent rhymer had made, under the inspiration of ad- versity. The epistle to Ranken carries its own explanation with it : we may allow it to remain half concealed in the thin mist of allegory. The epistle to Smith is perhaps the very best of all these compositions : the singular ease of the verse ; the moral dignity of one passage ; the wit and humour of a second ; the elegance of compliment in a third ; and the life which animates the whole, must be felt by the most ordinary mind. One of the verses was frequent on the lips of Byron during the darkening down of his own day : " When ance life's day draws near the gloamin,' Then fareweel vacant, careless roamin,' An'fareweel cheerfu' tankards foamin,' An' social noise ; An' fareweel, dear, deluding woman ! The joy of joys!" In the winter of 1785, Burns composed his " Address to the Deil." His sable majesty is familiar to the imagination of every Scottish peasant, and there are few wild glens in which he has not been heard or seen. The Satan of Milton was a favourite with the Poet ; he admired his fortitude in enduring what could not be remedied, and pitied a noble and ex- alted mind in ruins. This feeling he united to the traditions of shepherds and husbandmen, and treated the Evil Spirit with much of the respect due to fallen royalty. " It was, I think/' says Gilbert, " in the winter, as we were going together with carts for coal to the family fire — and I could yet point out the particular spot — that the author first repeated to me the ' Address to the Deil.' " That Burns was now acquainted with Jean Armour, the variations of this poem sufficiently prove : — " Lang syne, in Eden's happy scene, When strappin' Adam's days were green, And Eve was like my bonny Jean, My dearest part, A dancin', sweet, young, handsome quean, Wi' guileless heart." The evil spirit of religious controversy was now fairly out of him : he makes no allusions, though the temptation was great, to the clergy, but treats the subject with natural truth and vigour. All northern natures sympathize in the follow- ing fine stanza : — " I've heard my reverend grannie say, In lanely glens ye like to stray ; Or where auld ruin'd castles gray, Nod to the moon, Ye fright the nightly wand'rer's way Wi' eldritch croon." There is something of serious jocularity in the verse which expresses the Poet's fears and hopes of futurity : — "An' now, auld Cloots, I ken y're thinkin,' A certain Bardie's rantin', drinkin', Some luckless hour will send him linkin' To your black pit ; But, faith ! he'll turn a corner, jinkin', An' cheat you yet." In the contemplated repentance of Satan, Burns seems to hint at universal redemption — a finish- ing touch of fine and unexpected tenderness. The " Halloween" is a happy mixture of the dramatic and the descriptive, and bears the im- press of the manners, customs, and superstitions of the people. We see the scene, and are made familiar with the actors ; we not only see them busied in the mysteries of the night, but we hear their remarks ; nor can we refrain from accom- panying them on their solitary and perilous errands to " winnow wechts of naething, sow hemp-seed, pull kale-stocks, eat apples at the glass;" or, more romantic still, "wet the left sleeve of the shirt where three lairds' lands meet at a burn." The whole poem hovers between the serious and the ludicrous : in delineating the superstitious beliefs and mysterious acts of the evening, Burns keeps his own opinion to him- self. The scene is laid in the last night of har- vest, as the name implies, at a husbandman's fire-side, whose corn is gathered into the stack- yard and the barn ; and the hands which aided in the labour are met — " To burn their nits, an' pou their stocks, An' haud their Halloween." They seem not unaware that while they are merry, or looking into futurity, fairies are dancing on Cassilis-Downans, and witches are mounted on their " rag- weed nags," hurrying to some wild rendezvous, or concerting, with the author of mischief, fresh woes for man. It is the most equal of all the Poet's compo- sitions. A singular poem, and in its nature personal, was also the offspring of the same year. This is " Death and Doctor Hornbook." The hero of the piece was John Wilson, school-master of the parish of Tarbolton : a person of blame- less life, fond of argument, opinionative, and :© ,cv 26 LIFE OF BURNS. 1785. obstinate. At a mason-meeting, it seems, be provoked the Poet by questioning some of bis positions, in a speech stuffed with Latin phrases, and allusions to pharmacy. The future satire dawned on Burns at the moment, for be ex- claimed twice, " Sit down, Doctor Hornbook !" On his way home he seated himself on the parapet of abridge near " Willie's Mill," and, in the moon-light, began to reflect on what had passed. It then occurred to him that Wilson had added to the moderate income of his school, the profit arising from the sale of a few com- mon medicines ; this suggested an interview with " Death," and all the ironical commenda- tions of the Dominie, which followed. He composed the poem on his perilous seat, and, when he had done, fell asleep ; he was awakened by the rising sun, and, on going home, com- mitted it to paper. It exhibits a singular union of fancy and humour ; the attention is arrested at once by the ludicrous difficulty felt, in counting the horns of the moon, and we expect something to happen when his shadowy majesty comes upon the stage, relates his experience in "nicking the thread and choking the breath," and laments how his scythe and dart are rendered useless by the skill of Dr. Hornbook. On the appearance of the poem, Wilson found the laugh of Kyle too much for him — " The weans haud out their fingers laughin'." So he removed to Glasgow, where he engaged with success in other pursuits. He lives, but loves no one the better, it is averred, for naming the name of the Poet, or making any allusion to the poem. Burns repeated the satire to his brother, during the afternoon of the day on which it was composed. " I was holding the plough," said Gilbert, " and Robert was letting water off the field beside me." The patriotic feelings of the bard were touched when he took up the song of " Scotch Drink," against the government of the day, and uttered his " Earnest cry and prayer to the Scottish representatives in the House of Commons." Yet bitter as he sometimes is, and overflowing with humorous satire, these poems abound with natural and noble images ; nay, he scolds him- self into a pleasant mood, and scatters praise on the " chosen Five-and- Forty," with much skill and discrimination. His praise of whiskey is strangely mingled with sadness : — " Food fills the wame, an' keeps us livin' ; Though life's a gift no worth receivin' ; When heavy dragg'd wi' pine an' grievin', But, oil'd by thee, The wheels o' life gae down hill, serievin', Wi' rattlin' glee. " Thou clears the head o' doited Lear, Thou cheers the heart o' droopin' Care, Thou strings the nerves o' Labour sair, At 's weary toil ; Thou even brightens dark Despair Wi' gloomy smile." A country forge with a blazing fire, an an- xious blacksmith, and a welding heat, will rise to the fancy readily on reading these inimitable stanzas : — " When Vulcan gics his bellows breath, An' ploughmen gather wi' their graith, O rare ! to see thee fizz and freath I' the luggit caup ! Then Burnewin comes on like death At ev'ry chap. " Nae mercy, then, for aim or steel ; The brawnie, bainie, ploughman chiel Brings hard owrehip, wi' sturdy wheel, The strong forehammer, Till block an' studdie ring an' reel Wi' dinsome clamour." Nor are there wanting stanzas of a more solemn kind to bring trembling to our mirth. The Scotsman dying on a battle-field, with the sound of victory in his ear, is a noble picture : — " Nae cauld, faint-hearted doubtings tease him ; Death comes ! — wi' fearless eye he sees him, Wi' bluidy han' a welcome gi'es him, An' when he fa's, His latest draught o' breathin' lea'es him In faint huzzas ! " He steps at once from the serious to the comic : his description of Mither Scotland sit- ting on her mountain throne, her diadem a little awry, her eyes reeling, and the heather below, becoming moist during her prolonged libations, is equally humorous and irreverent. Those who may suspect that all this singing about liquor arose from a love of it, will be glad to hear that when Nanse Tinnoch was told how Burns pro- posed to toast the Scottish members in her house "nine times a week," she exclaimed, "Him drink in my house ! I hardly ken the colour o' Ins coin." The year 1785 was a harvest season of verse with Burns. Some of his poems he hesitated for awhile to make public ; others he copied, and scattered amongst his friends. Of these one of the most remarkable is " The Jolly Beg- gars." This drama, which I cannot help con- sidering the most varied and characteristic of the Poet's works, was unknown, save to some west country acquaintances, till after his death, when it came unexpectedly out. The opening seems uttered by another muse than Coila — the sound is of the elder days of verse ; but the moment the curtain draws up and shews the actors, the spirit of Burns appears kindling and animating all. It is impossible to deny his presence : — " First, niest the fire, in auld red rags, Ane sat, weel brac'd wi' mealy bags, And knapsack a' in order ; His doxy lay within his arm, Wi' usquebae an' blankets warm — She blinkit on her sodger : An' aye he gied the tosie drab The tither skelpin kiss, @= =9 iETAT. 26. TIIH JOLLY BEGGA11S. While she held up her greedy gab Just like an aumoa dish. Ilk smack still, did crack still, Just like a cadger's whup. Then staggering and swaggering lie roar'd this ditty up." — The scene of this rustic drama lies in Mauch- line, and the actors are strolling vagrants, who, having acquired meal and money by begging, pilfering, and sleight-of-hand, assemble in Poosie Nansie's, to " toom their pooks and pawn their duds," and " Gie ae night's discharge to care," over the gill-stoup and the quaigh. They hold a sort of Beggars' Saturday-night — sing-songs, utter sentiments, and lay down the loose laws of the various classes they represent. The characters are numerous. The maimed soldier, who bore scars both for Scotland and for love ; and his doxy, warm with blankets and usque- baugh, who in her youth forsook the sword for j the sake of the church, but returned to the drum when age brought reflection. The merry- andrew, who would venture his neck for liquor, who held love to be the half of his craft, and yet was a fool still ; — the highland dame who had lightened many a purse — been ducked in man}' - a well : who, with a countryman, had laid the land under contribution from Tweed to Spey, and was only hindered from making a foray, farther south, by the interposition of the " waefu' woodie !" The pigmy scraper wi' his fiddle ; — the sturdy tinker, who had " travelled round all Christian ground" in his vocation, and swore by all was swearing worth whenever he was moved ; — and, last of all, the " wight of Homer's craft," who, though lame of a foot, had three wives, and could allure the people round him in crowds, when he sung of love and country revelry. All these, and more, sing, and shout, and talk, and act in character ! and unite in giving effect to the chorus of a song which claims, for the jovial ragged ring, exemp- tion from the cares which weigh down the sedate and the orderly, and a happiness which refuses to wait on the train-attended carriage, or on the sober bed of matrimony. The curtain drops as they all shout, " A fig for those by law protected! Liberty's a glorious feast ! Courts for cowards were erected, Churches built to please the priest." There is nothing in the language which, for life and character, approaches this singular " Cantata." The Beggar's Opera is a burial compared to it ; it bears some resemblance to the Wallenstein's camp of Schiller, as translated by Lord Francis Egerton ; the same variety, and the same license of action and speech distinguish both. The origin of the Cantata is worth relating. Mauchline ale, and Mauchline maidens, fre- quently brought the Poet from Mossgiel, which lies but some half-a-mile distant. He fre- quented the public house of John Dow on those occasions, in the immediate vicinity of the scene of "The Jolly Beggars." The house of Poosie Nansie, alias Agnes Gibson, stands opposite nearly to the church-yard gate. One night it happened that James Smith of Mauchline, and Burns, on their way up the street, heard the sound of " meikle fun andjokin'" in Nansie's hostelry, and saw lights streaming from the fractured windows. On entering, they found a company of wandering mendicants enjoying themselves over their dear Kilbagie. They were welcomed with cheers, entered into the hu- mours of the scene, called for more liquor, and the noise and fun grew fast and furious. Burns paid much attention to an old soldier, with a " wooden arm and leg," whose drollery was unbounded. In a few days he rough- wrote the Cantata, and shewed it amongst his friends. He gave the only copy now known to be in existence to David Woodburn ; it was lately in the hands of Thomas Stewart of Greenock. It is probable that the Poet found it an easier task to delineate the characters, and in- dite the songs of the Cantata, than to endow the " Mouse" and the " Daisy" with sentiments of terror and of pity. A common ploughman would have stamped his tacketed shoe upon the one, saying " Down, vermin ! " or helped the furrow over upon the other, pronouncing it a weed. With far other feelings the plough- man of Mossgiel saw the ruin of the one, and the destruction of the other. " The verses to the Mouse and the Mountain Daisy," says Gilbert, "were composed on the occasions, and while the author was holding the plough. I could point out the particular spot where each was composed. Holding the plough was a fa- vourite situation with Kobert for poetic compo- sitions, and some of his best verses were pro- duced while he was at that exercise. Several of the poems were written for the purpose of bringing forward some favourite sentiment of the author." When the coulter passed through the nest of leaves and stubble, the Poet assured the timid mouse, as it fled in terror, that the best laid schemes of men were frustrated, as well as those of mice ; and that though its house was laid in ruins, and winter afforded no materials for constructing a new one, still its lot was bliss compared with his own. It was touched only with the passing, while he was affected with the past — felt the present, and dreaded the future. A similar train of senti- ment runs through the Daisy : the Poet buries its opening bloom with the plough, and grieves that he cannot save a thing so lovely ; nay, lest the flower should mistake the crash of the cruel coulter for the pressure of some gentler thing, he exclaims, with equal tenderness and beauty :— @-- 28 LIFE OF BURNS. 1786. I " Alas ! it's no thy neebor sweet, The bonnie lark, companion meet, Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet, Wi' speckled breast, When upward springing, blythe, to greet The purpling east." He suddenly turns from the fate of the flower to his own, and draws the same dark conclu- sions as he did in the " Mouse j" " Even thou who mourn'st the Daisy's fate, That fate is thine — no distant date ; Stern Ruin's plough-share drives, elate, Full on thy bloom ; Till, crush'd beneath the furrow's weight, Shall be thy doom ! ' ' His poetry abounds in melancholy predictions about himself ; he had visions of beauty and of grandeur, but along with them came darker visions : want and ruin, sorrow and neglect, death and the grave. The immortality con- ferred on this humble flower escaped not the observation of Wordsworth as he passed, in 1833, through the " Land of Burns." M Myriads of Daisies have shone forth in flower Near the lark's nest, and in their natural hour Have passed away less happy than the One That by the unwilling ploughshare died to prove The tender charm of poetry and love." The fine poem of " Man was made to Mourn" was composed by Burns for the purpose of bringing forward a favourite sentiment. — " He used to remark to me," says Gilbert, " that he could not well conceive a more mortifying pic- ture of human life than a man seeking work. In casting about in his mind how this senti- ment might be illustrated, the elegy of ' Man was made to Mourn' was composed." The germ of the composition may be found in " The Life and Age of Man," which the Poet's mother was wont to sing to his grand-uncle. The same sentiment is common to both ; the same form of expression, and the same words may be traced in every verse ; " Man is made to mourn," is the introductory exclamation of the old ; " Man was made to mourn " is the chorus of the new. Nor is the earlier poem without pathos and force ; the periods of man's life are compared to the months of the year : the child is born in January, flourishes in July, and dies in December : the parallel is well maintained : — " Then cometh May, gallant and gay, When fragrant flowers do thrive, The child is then become a man, Of age twentie-and-five. December fell, both sharp and snell, Makes flowers creep to the ground ; Then man's threescore, both sick and sore, No soundness in him found." To make each month of the year correspond with five years of a man's life, the moralizing bard of the year sixteen hundred and fifty-three extinguished 'the faculties of man at sixty ; the bard of seventeen hundred and eighty-six says nothing of life's duration, but sings the sorrows of him who, overwrought and abject, has to beg leave to toil, from a lordly fellow-worm, who scorns his poor petition, and turns him over to idleness and woe. The question which the Poet asks is one not easily answered by the oppressor : — " If I'm design'd yon lordhng's slave, By Nature's law design'd, Why was an independent wish E'er planted in my mind ? If not, why am I subject to His cruelty or scorn ? Or why has man the will and power To make his fellow mourn?" The sage of the banks of Ayr intimates to the indignant bard that a future state, where the great and the wealthy cease from troubling, is the only hope and refuge of those — " who weary laden mourn." His own desolate condition and dreary prospects raised those darksome ideas. In the truly noble poem of the "Vision" Burns imagines himself seated, in a winter night, by his fire, which burns reluctantly ; wearied with the flail, he proceeds to muse on wasted time. In his sight the scene is dark enough ; he has spent the prime of youth in making rhymes for fools to sing ; he has neg- lected advice which would have placed him at the head of a market ; and now, " half-mad, half-fed, half-sarket," he is sitting undistin- guished and poor. Stung with these reflec- tions, he starts up, and is about to swear to refrain rhyme till his latest breath, when the door opens, the fire flames brighter, and a strange and lovely lady comes blushing to his side : — " Green, slender, leaf-clad holly-boughs, Were twisted, gracefu', round her brows; I took her for some Scottish muse, By that same token ; An' come to stop those reckless vows Wou'd soon been broken." His surmise was just : she was the Muse of Kyle — his own inspirer ; nay, she had a hand- some leg like his Mauchline Jean, and looked the express image of his own mind : — "A hair-brain'd, sentimental trace, Was strongly marked in her face, A wildly-witty, rustic grace Shone full upon her ; Her eye, ev'n turn'd on empty space, Beam'd keen with honour." On her mantle were pictured the district and heroes of Kyle ; but she came to speak, and not to be looked at. She claimed Burns for her own bard ; told him to lament his luckless lot no longer ; that he was there to fulfil the social plan of Nature, and form a not unim- JETAT. 'St. THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT. 29 portant link in the great chain of being. She was intimate with all his outgoings. Her words are useful to the biographer ; they exhibit the Poet in his studious moods : — " I saw thee seek the sounding shore, Delighted with the dashing roar, Or when the North his fleecy store Drove through the sky; I saw grim Nature's visage hoar Struck thy young eye." She observed, too, that beauty agitated his frame — communicated to his tongue words of persuasion and grace, and inspired him with musical and voluntary numbers : she saw more — ■ " I saw thy pulse's maddening play Wild send thee Pleasure's devious way, Misled by Fancy's meteor-ray, By passion driven-^ But yet the light that led astray Was light from heaven." His visiter assured him that the wealth of Potosi, or the rqgard of monarchs, could not at all equal the pleasure he would feel as a rustic poet, and entreated him to fan the tuneful flame, preserve his dignity, and trust for protection to the universal plan of the Creator : — "'And wear thou this,' — she solemn said, And bound the holly round my head ; The polish 'd leaves and berries red Did rustling play ; And, like a passing thought, she fled In light away." Frequent bursts of religious feeling, and a fine spirit of morality, are visible in much that Burns wrote ; yet only one of his poems is expressly dedicated to devotion — " The Cotter's Saturday Night." The origin of this noble strain is related by his brother: — "Robert had frequently remarked to me that he thought there was something peculiarly venerable in the phrase, ' Let us worship God,' used by a decent sober head of a family, introducing family worship. The hint of the plan and title of the poem were taken from Fergusson's ' Far- mer's Ingle.' When Robert had not some pleasure in view, in which I was not thought fit to participate, we used frequently to walk together, when the weather was favourable, on the Sunday afternoons (those precious breath- ing times to the labouring part of the commu- nity), and enjoyed such Sundays as would make us regret to see their number abridged. It was in one of these walks that I first had the pleasure of hearing the Author repeat ' the Cotter's Saturday Night.' " The poem is a picture of cottage devotion, by a hand more solicitous about accuracy than effect ; for no one knew better than Bums that invention could not heighten, nor art em- bellish, a scene in which man holds intercourse with heaven. His natural good taste told him that his work-day burning impetuosity of lan- guage, and intrepid freedom of illustration, were unsuitable here ; he calmed down his style into an earnest and touching simplicity, which has been mistaken by critics for tame- ness ; but the strength of the poem is proved by the numerous and beautiful images, all of a devotional character, which it impresses on the mind. Religion is the leading feature of the whole ; but love in its virgin state, and patri- otism in its purity, mingle with it, and give a gentle tinge, rather than a decided colour to the performance. The scene is peculiar to Scotland. With what natural art the Poet introduces us to the Cotter, and to his happy home, and gradually prepares us, by a succes- sion of solemn images, for the opening of the Bible and the pouring out of prayer ! The winter day is darkening into night, the blackening trains of crows seek the pine-tree tops, and the toil-worn cotter lays together his spades and hoes, and, " hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend," walks homewards over the moor :-*- " At length his lonely cot appears in view, Beneath the shelter of an aged tree ; Th' expectant wee-things, todlin', stacher through, To meet their dad, wi' flichterin' noise and glee, His wee bit ingle, blinkin' bonnilie ; His clean hearth-stane, his thrifty wine's smile, The lisping infant prattling on his knee, Does a' his weary carking cares beguile, An' makes him quite forget his labour an' his toil." Presently the elder children, released by Saturday night from their weekly servitude among the neighbouring farmers, come " drap- ping in ; " and Jenny, their eldest hope, now woman grown, shews a " braw new gown," or puts her wages into her parents' hands, to aid them, should they require it. Amid them the anxious mother sits, and, with her needle and shears, " Gars auld claes look amaist as weel 's the new. The father mixes a' with admonition due." The admonition of this good man to his chil- dren is, to be obedient to those above them ; to mind their labours, nor be idle when unob- served ; and chiefly to fear the Lord, and duly, morn and night, implore his aid and counsel. While this is going on, a gentle rap is heard at the door, and a strappan youth, who " takes the mother's e'e," is introduced by Jenny as a neighbour lad, who, among other things, had undertaken to see her safely home. The visit is well taken, for he is neither wild nor worth- less, but come of honest parents, and is, more- over, blate and bashful, and for inward joy can scarce behave himself. The mother knows well what makes him so grave ; the father converses about horses and ploughs, while the supper-table is spread, and milk from her only ©^ :(§) I Q 30 LIFE OF BURNS. 1786. cow, and a " well-hained cheese," of a pecu- liar flavour, and a twelvemonth old, " sin lint was in the bell," are placed by the frugal and happy mother before the lothful stranger. " The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face, They, round the ingle, form a circle wide ; The sire turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace, The big ha' bible, ance his father's pride : His bonnet rev'rently is laid aside, His lyart haffets wearing thin an' bare ; Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide, He wales a portion with judicious care ; And ' Let us worship God ! ' he says, with solemn air. The canker-tooth of the most envious criti- cism cannot well fasten on a work in every respect so perfect ; nor, in expatiating upon it, are we going out of the direct line of biography : it is known to be, in part, a picture of the household of William Burness. From pictures of national manners and sentiment we must turn to matters more personal. Of the maidens of Kyle, who contributed by their charms of mind, or person, to the witch- ery of the love songs of Burns, I can give but an imperfect account. The young woman who " had pledged her soul to meet him in the field of matrimony, yet jilted him with peculiar cir- cumstances of mortification," he has not named ; and I suspect her charms, real or imaginary, have remained unsung. The Tibbie who scorn- ed the advances of the Poet, and " spak na, but gade by like stoure," was a neighbouring laird's daughter, with a portion of two acres of peat-moss, and twenty pounds Scots. The Peggy who inspired some of his early lyrics was the sister of a Carrick farmer, a girl pru- dent as well as beautiful. The Nannie, who lived among the mosses near the Lugar, was a farmer's daughter, Agnes Fleming by name, and charmed unconsciously the sweet song of " My Nannie O " from him, by the elegance of her person and the melody of her voice. " Green grow the Rashes," was a general tribute paid to the collective charms of the lasses of Kyle ; there were few with whom he had not held tryste " Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the ev'ning gale." Some of those maidens were but, perhaps, the chance inspirers of his lyric strains. "High- land Mary," and "Mary in Heaven," of whom he has so passionately sung, was a native of Ard- rossan. Those who think that poetry embalms high names alone, ladies of birth and rank, must prepare to be disappointed, for Mary Campbell was a peasant's daughter, and lived, when she captivated the Poet, in the humble situation of dairy-maid in "The Castle of Mont- gomery." That she was beautiful, we have other testimony than that of Burns : her charms attracted gazers, if not wooers, and she was exposed to the allurements of wealth. She withstood all temptation, and returned the affection of the Poet with the fervour of in- nocence and youth. ' ' After a pretty long trial," says Burns, " of the most ardent, reciprocal affection, we met, by appointment, on the se- cond Sunday of May, in a sequestered spot on the banks of the Ayr, where we spent a day in taking a farewell, before she should embark for the West Highlands, to arrange matters among her friends for our projected change of life. At the close of the autumn following, she crossed the sea to meet me at Greenock, where she had scarce landed, when she was seized with a malignant fever, which hurried my dear girl to her grave in a few days, before I could even learn of her illness." — " This adieu was per- formed, " says Cromek, "in a striking and moving way ; the lovers stood on each side of a small brook, they laved their hands in the stream, and, holding a Bible between them, pronounced their vows to be faithful to each other. They parted never to meet again ! " The Bible on which they vowed their vows was lately in the possession of the sister of Mary Campbell, at Ardrossan. On the first volume is written by the hand of Burns : " And ye shall not swear by my name falsely ; I am the Lord — Leviticus, chap, xix., v. 12l" On the second volume, the same hand has written : " Thou shalt not forswear thyself* but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths. — St. Mat- thew, chap, v., v. 33." And on the blank leaves of both volumes is impressed his mark as a mason, and also signed below, " Robert Burns, Mossgiel." These are touching inser- tions, but not more so than the verses in which he has embodied the parting scene :— " How sweetly bloom' d the gay green birk, How rich the hawthorn's blossom", As underneath their fragrant shade, I clasp'd her to my bosom ! The golden hours, on angel wings, Flew o'er me and my dearie ; For dear to me, as light and life, Was my sweet Highland Mar)' ! " To the same affectionate young creature, Burns addressed a strain of scarcely inferior beauty, beginning with " Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary, And leave auld Scotia's shore ? " Nor did he forget her worth in after-life ; his heart and fancy frequently travelled back to early scenes of joy and sorrow. A tress of her hair is still preserved : it is very long and very light and shining. Who the Mary Morison was on whom he wrote one of his earliest songs, I have not been able to discover ; nor do I know the name of the heroine of " Cessnock Banks." Their beauty seems like that of many others, to have passed suddenly over him, touching hi's fancy without affecting his heart. The Eliza, -@ - J2TAT 'J/ HIS BOX NY JEAN. 31 from -whom lie Beems BO loth to part, in one of hi? soul:-, was, I am told by John Gait, a re- lative of his. and less beautiful than witty. To the charms of Jean Armour I have already allnded. This young woman, the daughter of a devont man and master-mason, lived in Mauchline. and was distinguished less for the beauty of her person, than for the grace of her dancing and the melody of her voice. Burns seems "to have become attached to her soon after the loss of his Highland Mary. In one of his jovous moments, he warned the maidens of Mauchline against reading inflammatory novels. — •• Your fine Tom Jones and Grandisons" served only as snares, he said, for their in- nocence : — " Such witching books are baited hooks For rakish rooks, like Rob Mossgiel." Who those maidens were he tells us in rhyme : — " In Mauchline there dwells six proper young belles, The pride of the place and its neighbourhood a' ; — Their carriage and dress, a stranger would guess, In Lon'on or Paris they 'd gotten it a'. — Miss Miller is fine, Miss Markland's divine, Miss Smith she has wit, and Miss Betty is braw ; There 's beauty and fortune to get wi' Miss Morton, But Armour's the jewel for me c' them a'." How the Poet and his Jean became acquainted is easily imagined by those who know the faci- lities for meetings of the young, which fairs, races, dances, weddings, house-heatings, kirn- suppers, and bleaching scenes on burn-banks afford ; of the growth of affection between them it is less easy to give an account : we must trace it by the uncertain light of his poetry. [John Blane,* who was for four years and a half farm-servant in the Burns'" family at Lochlea and Mossgiel, relates the following interesting- circumstances respecting the attachment of the poet to Miss Armour : — There was a singing school at Mauchline, which Blane attended. Jean Armour was also a pupil, and he soon be- came aware of her talents as a vocalist. He even contracted a kind of attachment to this young woman, though only such as a country lad of his degree might entertain for the daughter of a substantial country mason. One night there was a rocking at Mossgiel, where a lad named Ralph Sillar sung a number of songs in what was considered a superior style. When Burns and Blane had retired to their usual sleeping place in the stable-loft, the former [* This individual is now '1838] residing at Kilmarnock. With Robert Burns, who was eight years his senior, he slept for a long time in the same bed, in the stable loft, at Mossgiel. Burns had a little deal table with a drawer in it, which he kept constantly beside the bed, with a small desk | on the top of it. The best of his poems were here written | during the hours of rest ; the table-drawer being the de- pository in which he kept them. The "Cotter's Saturday Night," the '-Lament," and the "Vision,' were thus I composed in the poor garret over a small farmer's stable! asked the latter what he thought of Sillar'- singing, to which Blane answered that the lad thought so much of it himself, and had so many airs about it. that there was no occasion for others expressing a favourable opinion — yet, he added, " I would not give Jean Armour for a score of him." " Y'ou are always talking of this Jean Armour." said Burns. " 1 wish you could contrive to bring me to see her." Blane readily consented to do so, and next evening, alter the plough was loosed, the two proceeded to Mauchline for that purpose. Bums went into a public-house, and Blane went into the singing school, which chanced to be kept in the floor above. When the school was dismissing, Blane asked Jean Armour if she would come to see Robert Burns, who was below, and anxious to speak to her. Having heard of his poetical talents, she said she would like much to see him, but was afraid to go without a female com- panion. This difficulty being overcome by the frankness of a Miss Morton — the Miss Morton of the Six Mauchline Belles — Jean went down to the room where Burns was sitting. " From that time," (Blane adds very naively) " I had little of the company of Jean Armour.'"'] In the " Epistle of Davie" he alludes to Jean < Armour by name, and calls her his own ; in the • • Vision " he compliments the Muse of Kyle by comparing her clean, straight, and taper limbs to those of his bonny Jean ; and, in one of his lyrics, he speaks of the sighs and vows which ; have passed between them among the sequestered I hills. It would seem, however, that during the j season of their courtship the Poet felt less'sure ; of the continuance of her affection than he had j looked for, and something like change may be j inferred from his omitting a verse in the " Ad- i dress to the Dal" in which he likened Eve to I Jean Armour : — "A dancin', sweet, young, handsome quean, Wi' guileless heart." Gilbert charges his brother with seeing charms in some of the maidens of Kyle which others could not observe ; but that may be said of all beautiful things. The ladies whom he cele- brated, in the latter days of his inspiration, were — some of them at least — eminently lovely ; and we all know that he has imputed no more merit to his Jean than what she possessed. Burns assured Professor YTalker that his first desire to excel as a poet arose from the influence of the tender passion : and he informed others that all He used to employ Blane to read the poems to him, imme- diately after their composition, that he might be able the more effectually to detect faults in them. When dissatisfied with a particular passage, he would stop the reading, make an alteration, and then desire his companion to proceed. Blane was often wakened by him during the night, that he might serve him in this capacity. The bard of Kyle was a most rigid critic of his own compositions, and burned many with which he was displeased. Chambers.] :- @ :® 32 LIFE OF BURNS. 1786. the heroines of his songs were real, and not imaginary. He dealt in " No idly feign'd poetic pains, No fabl'd tortures quaint and tame." As the Poet rose, and the lover triumphed, the farmer sunk. The farm of Mossgiel lies high, on a cold, wet bottom. During the first four years of the lease, instead of kindly and congenial seasons, the springs were frosty and late, the summers moist and cold ; and to this the Poet glances when he makes the old dame, in Halloween, relate her experiences : — " The simmer had been cauld and wat, And stuff was unco green." Frosty springs and late cold summers could not be foreseen, but any one might have known high lying land on a wet bottom. Seasons in which the sun is almost scorching other grounds are most congenial for such soils, and no one should venture upon a farm which requires something like a miracle in the weather to render it productive. That Burns took plea- sure in the labours of agriculture we have the assurance of many a voice : he often alludes to the holding of the plough, the turning of a handsome furrow ; and he rejoices, too, in the growing corn, sees it fall before the sickle, with something of a calculating eye, and raises the rick, and coats it over with broom against sleet and snow, with all the foresight of a farmer. Of his prowess with the flail, he says : — " The thresher's weary flinging tree The lee-lang day had tir'd me." And Gilbert says, with the scythe Robert ex- celled all competitors : he had the sleight which is necessary with' strength and activity. In ploughing he was likewise skilful : in the " Farmer's Address to his Ma're," evidently alluding to himself, he says : — " Aft thee and I in aught-hours gaun, In guid March weather, Hae turned sax rood beside our han' For days thegither." Elsewhere the Poet speaks of his toil in com- mitting the seed-corn to the furrow, and makes the muse plead it as an excuse for declining labouring on Parnassus in the month of April: — " Forjeskit sair, wi' weary legs, Rattlin' the corn out-owre the rigs, Or dealing through araang the naigs Their ten-hours bite, My akwart Muse sair pleads and begs I wadna write." Of his farming establishment he gives us some insight, in his facetious inventory to the surveyor of the taxes : it is pleasing to go to the homestead of even the cold and ungenial Mossgiel, and look at the " gudes, and gear, and graith," with Burns for our guide : — " Imprimis, then, for carriage cattle, I have four brutes o' gallant mettle, As ever drew afore a pettle. My lan-afore's a gude auld has-been, An' wight and wilfu' a' his days been. My lan-ahin's a weel gaun filliej That aft has borne me hame frae Killie. An' your auld burro' mony a time, In days when riding was nae crime. My fur-ahin's a worthy beast As e'er in tug or tow was trac'd. The fourth's a Highland Donald hastie, A damn'd red-wud Kilburnie blastie ! Forbye a cowt, o' cowts the wale, As ever ran afore a tail." Of his milk-cows and calves, ewes and lambs, the mandate required no specification ; the Poet proceeds to his farming implements : they are far from numerous : — "Wheel carriages I ha'e but few, Three carts, an' twa are feckly new ; An auld wheelbarrow, mair for token, Ae leg and baith the trams are broken." Ploughs, harrows, sh el-bands, rollers, spades, hoes, and fanners were not taxed, and are omitted, which I am sorry for ; we come now to the members of his household : — " For men I've three mischievous boys, Run deils for rantin' and for noise ; A gaudsman ane, a thrasher t' other, Wee Davoc hauds the nowt in fother." Nor is the Bard unmindful of maintaining rule and spreading information amongst his me- nials : — " I rule them as I ought, discreetly, An' aften labour them completely; And aye on Sundays duly, nightly, I on the questions targe them tightly." With respect to maid-servants, as his mother and sisters managed the in-door economy of the house, he had no occasion for any : he desired besides, he said, to be kept out of temptation ; neither had he a wife, and as for children, one more had been sent to him than he desired : — " My sonsie, smirking, dear-bought Bess, She stares the daddie in her face, Enough of ought ye like but grace." Burns saw in the failure of the farm the coming ruin of his mother's household, and, despairing of success in agriculture, revived a notion which he had long entertained of going- out as a sort of steward to the plantations, a situation which, for a small salary, requires the presence of many high qualities. Nor did he take this resolution one moment too soon : his poetic account of his condition and sufferings is not at all poetical : — " To tremble under Fortune's cummock, On scarce abellyfu' o' drummock, For his proud, independent stomach, Could ill agree." But bodily discomfort was not all : he might, @- --v? «TAT. HIS BONNIE JEAN, 33 to use his own language, have braved the bitter blast of misfortune, which, long mustering over his head, was about to descend ; but sorrows of a tender nature, from which there was no escape, came pouring upon him in a flood. This part of the Poet's history has been painted variously : delicacy towards the living, and respect for the dead, seemed to call for gentle handling ; but this could not always be obtained ; for rude hands were but too ready to aggravate the outline, and darken the colours. The courtship between Burns and Jean Armour continued for several years : and there is no question, had fortune permitted, but that they would have been man and wife the first year of their acquaintance. But Burns was not poor only — he had no chance of becoming rich, and the day of marriage was placed at the mercy of fortune. There were other obstacles : Jeanw r as not only the daughter of a man rigid and de- vout, but the favourite child of one of the believers in the glory of the Old Light. Her father discountenanced the addresses which " a profane scoffer" and " irreligious rhymer" was making to his child, and the lovers, denied the sanction of paternal care, and the shelter of the domestic roof, had recourse to stolen meetings under the cloud of night, to twilight interviews under the green-wood tree ; to the solace of "a cannie hour at e'en," and those "sighs and vows among the knowes" of which the Poet has sung with so much passion. In protracted courtship there is always danger; prudence seldom takes much care of the young and the warm-hearted : Jean was not out of her teens, and thought more of her father's ungentleness than of her own danger ; the Poet's respect for sweetness and innocence protected her for a while — but he was doomed to feel what he afterwards sung :— " Wha can prudence think upon, And sic a lassie by him ? Wha can prudence think upon, And sae in love as I am ?" These convoyings home in the dark, and meetings under " the milk-white thorn," ended in the Poet being promised to be made a father before he had become a husband. This, to one so destitute and utterly poor as Burns, was a stunning event : but that was not the worst ; — the father of Jean Armour heard, with much anguish, of his favourite daughter's condition ; and when, on her knees before him, she im- plored forgiveness, and shewed the marriage lines — as the private acknowledgment of mar- riage, without the sanction of the kirk, is called — his anguish grew into anger which over- flowed all bounds, and heeded neither his daughter's honour nor her husband's fame. He snatched her marriage certificate from her, threw it into the fire, and commanded her to think herself no longer the wife of the Poet. It must be accepted as a proof of paternal power that Jean trembled and obeyed : she forgot that Burns was still her husband in the sight of Heaven, and according to the laws of man : she refused to see him, or hearken to aught he could say ; and, in short, was ruled in every- thing by the blind hatred of her father. [Another event occurred to add to the tor- ments of the unhappy poet. Jean, to avoid the immediate pressure of her father's displea- sure, went about the month of May (178(3) to Paisley, and took refuge with a relation of her mother, one Andrew Purdie, a wright. There was at Paisley a certain Robert Wilson, a good looking young weaver, a native of Mauchline, and who was realising wages to the amount of perhaps three pounds a-week by his then flourishing profession. Jean Armour had danced with this " gallant w r eaver" at the Mauchline dancing-school balls, and, besides her relative Purdie, she knew no other person in Paisley. Being in much need of a small supply of money, she found it necessary to apply to Mr. Wilson, who received her kindly, although he did not conceal that he had a sus- picion of the reason of her visit to Paisley. When the reader is reminded that village life is not the sphere in which high-wrought and romantic feelings are most apt to flourish, he will be prepared in some measure to learn that Robert Wilson not only relieved the necessities of the fair applicant, but formed the wish to possess himself of her hand. He called for her several times at Purdie's, and informed her that, if she should not become the wife of Burns, he would engage himself to none while she remained unmarried. Mrs. Burns long after assured a female friend that she never gave the least encouragement to Wilson ; but, nevertheless, his visits occasioned some gossip, which soon found its way to Mauchline, and entered the soul of the poet like a demoniac possession. He now seems to have regarded her as lost to him for ever, and that not purely through the objections of her relations, but by her own cruel and perjured desertion of one whom she acknowledged as her husband. These particulars are requisite to make us fully understand much of what Burns wrote at this time, both in prose and verse. Long after- wards, he became convinced that Jean, by no part of her conduct with respect to W T ilson, had given him just cause for jealousy : it is not im- probable that he learned in time to make it the subject of sport, and wrote the song, " Where Cart rins rowing to the sea," in jocular allusion to it. But for months — and it is distressing to think that these were the months during which he was putting his matchless poems for the first time to press — he conceived himself the victim of a faithless woman, and life was to him, as he himself describes it, " a weary dream, The dream of ane that never wauks." Chambers.] D ©= 34 LIFE OF BURNS. 1786. What the Poet thought of all this we have abundance of testimony. Though his indig- nation against Mr. Armour could not but be high, it is to his honour that he refrained from giving him further pain than he had inflicted already : he spoke, too, of Jean, more in sorrow than in anger. In the first outburst of passion, on finding that she refused to call herself his wife, and had allowed her marriage lines to be burnt, he indulged in a sort of bitter mirth ; and, in a poem of great merit, and greater freedom of expression, sang of the vexation which Kyle and her maidens must feel at part- ing with one who could doubly soothe them with love-making and song. He alludes to the cause of his departure to the West Indies — " He saw Misfortune's cauld nor-west, Lang mustering up a bitter blast ; A Jillet brak his heart at last, 111 may she be ! So took a birth afore the mast, An' owre the sea." He speaks, too, of his way of life, and ac- counts for the poverty of a poet with a clear income of seven pounds a year ! — " He ne'er was gi'en to great misguiding, Yet coin his pouches wad na bide in ; Wi' him it ne'er was under hiding, He dealt it free ! The Muse was a' that he took pride in, That's owre the sea." This mirthful mood did not last long ; there is little gaiety in his letter to David Bryce, of June 12th, 1786.— « I am still in the land of the living, though I can scarcely say in the place of hope. What poor ill-advised Jean thinks of her conduct, I don't know ; but one thing I do know — she has made me completely miserable. Never man loved, or rather adored, a woman more than I did her ; and, to confess a truth between you and me, I do still love her to distraction after all. My poor dear unfortu- nate Jean ! It is not the losing her that makes me so unhappy, but for her sake I feel most severely : I foresee she is in the road to, I am afraid, eternal ruin. May Almighty God forgive her ingratitude and perjury to me, as I from my very soul forgive her ; and may his grace be with her and bless her in all her future life ! I can have no nearer idea of the place of eter- nal punishment than what I have felt in my own breast on her account. I have tried often to forget her ; I have run into all kinds of dis- sipation and riots, mason-meetings, drinking- matches, and other mischief, to drive her out of my head, but all in vain. And now for a grand cure : the ship is on her way home that is to take me out to Jamaica ; and then fare- well, dear old Scotland ! and farewell, dear ungrateful Jean ! for never, never will I see you more." In this touching letter the Poet sets off his own sufferings against Jean Armour's shame ; and we may calculate their depth and acuteness from his looking on her as ungrateful. He gave vent to the same feeling in the most pathetic of all modern poems, "The Lament for the unfortunate Issue of a Friend's Amour :" every stanza is most exquisitely mournful : — " No idly-feign'd poetic pains — My sad, love-lorn lamentings claim ; No shepherd's pipe — Arcadian strains ; No fabled tortures, quaint and tame : The plighted faith ; the mutual flame ; The oft-attested Pow'rs above, The promis'd father's tender name — These were the pledges of my love ! ' ' The account rendered by Gilbert, which maKes Robert consent to the destruction of the mar- riage lines, is at least doubtful. In truth there was much anguish on all sides ; and, con- demning the stern father as we do, we cannot help reverencing the feeling which sacrificed his daughter's peace in this world, in the belief that he was securing happiness for her in the next. That he doubted her constancy, I have heard affirmed by those who had an opportu- nity of knowing ; and, to remove temptation from her path, he acquiesced in the Poet's resolu- tion to push his fortune in Jamaica; thougli there is no foundation, perhaps, for the surmise that he more than tolerated the parish autho- rities to pursue Burns, according to law, for the maintenance of the promised babe, in order to hasten his departure. This is, nevertheless, countenanced by the circumstance of his ability to keep the child. Had he promised this, the Poet would not have been obliged to skulk "from covert to covert, under all the terrors of a gaol;" and he means more than the usual parochial authorities, when he says — " Some ill-advised persons had uncoupled the merci- less pack of the law at my heels." [In this dark period, or immediately before it, the poet signed an instrument, in anticipation of his immediately leaving the kingdom, by which he devised all property of whatever kind he might leave behind, including the copyright of his poems, to his brother Gilbert, in consi- deration of the latter having undertaken to support his daughter Elizabeth, the issue of " Elizabeth Paton in Largieside." Intimation of this instrument was publicly made at the Cross of Ayr, two clays after, by William Chal- mers, writer. If he had been upon better terms with the Armours, it seems unlikely that he would have thus devised his property without a respect for the claims of his offspring by Jean. After this we hear no more of the legal seve- rities of Mr. Armour — the object of which was, not to abridge the liberty of the unfortunate Burns, but to drive him away from the country, so as to leave Jean more effectually disengaged. The Poems now appeared, and probably had some effect in allaying the hostility of the old m HIS BONNIE JEAN. 3-3 man towards their author. It, would at least appear that, at the time of Jean's accouche- ment, the "skulking" had ceased, and the pa- rents of the young woman were not so cruel as to forbid his seeing her. At this time, Blane had removed from Moss- giel to Mauchline, and become servant to Mr. Gavin Hamilton ; but Burns still remembered his old acquaintance. When, in consequence of information sent by the Armours as to Jean's situation, the poet came from Mossgiel to visit her, he called in passing at Mr. Hamilton's, and asked John to accompany him to the house. Blane went with him to Mr. Armour's, where, according to his recollection, the bard was re- ceived with all desirable civility. Jean held up a pretty female infant to Burns, who took it affectionately in his arms, and, after keeping it a little Avhile, returned it to the mother, ask- ing the blessing of God Almighty upon her and her infant. He w as turning away to converse with the other people in the room, when Jean said, archly, " But this is not all — here is ano- ther baby," and handed him a male child, which had been born at the same time. He was greatly surprised, but took that child too for a little while into his arms, and repeated his bles- sing upon it.* (This child was afterwards named Robert, and still lives : the girl was named Jean, but only lived fourteen months.) The mood of the melancholy poet then changed to the mirthful, and the scene was concluded by his giving the ailing lady a hearty caress, and rallying her on this promising beginning of her history as a mother. It would appear, from the words used by the poet on this occasion, that he was not without hope of yet making good his matrimonial al- liance with Jean. This is rendered the more likely by the evidence which exists of his having, about this time, entertained a confident hope of obtaining an excise appointment, through his friends Hamilton and Aiken ; in which case he would have been able to present a respectable claim upon the countenance of the Armours. But this prospect ended in dis- appointment ; and there is reason to conclude that, in a very short time after the accouche- ment, he was once more forbidden to visit the house in which his children and all but wife resided. There was at this time a person named John Kennedy, who travelled the district on ! horseback as a mercantile agent, and was on I intimate terms with Burns. One day, as he was passing Mossgiel, Burns stopped him, and made the request that he would return to Mauchline with a present for his " poor wife." Kennedy consented, and the poet hoisted upon the pommel of the saddle a bag filled with the delicacies of the farm. He proceeded to Mr. * [Ultimately, while Jean continued to nurse the female baby, the boy was trans [erred to the charge of the family at ©' Armour's house, and requested permission to see Jean, as the bearer of a message and a pre- sent from Robert Burns. Mrs. Armour violently protested against his being admitted to an in- terview, and bestowed upon him sundry unce- remonious appellations for being the friend of such a man. She was, however, overruled in this instance by her husband, and Kennedy was permitted to enter the apartment where Jean was lying. He had not been there many mi- nutes, when he heard a rushing and screaming in the stair, and, immediately after, Burns burst into the room, followed closely by the Armours, who seemed to have exhausted their strength in endeavouring to repel his intrusion. Burns flew to the bed, and, putting his cheek to Jean's, and then in succession to those of the slumbering infants, wept bitterly. The Ar- mours, it is added by Kennedy, who has him- self related the circumstances, f remained un- affected by his distress ; but whether he was allowed to remain for a short time, or immedi- ately after expelled, is not mentioned. After hearing this affecting anecdote of Bums, " The Lament" may verily appear as arising from " No idly feigned poetic pains. "J] Amid all these miseries of mind and suffer- ings of body, Burns brought out that volume which first told the world that a new and mighty poet had arisen in the land. This, though forced from him by " the luckless star which ruled his lot," had been often present to his contemplation. He resorted to it not so much to gratify his love of fame, as with the hope that the publication would bring money enough to convey him over the Atlantic ; nor were friends wanting to aid him in this very moderate desire. It is to the credit of the personal merit of Burns, end to the honour of his associates, that thej- shrunk not from his side in the trying hour of adversity. Among these, Gavin Hamilton ; Robert Aikin, writer, Ayr ; John Ballantyne, banker, Ayr ; Robert Muir, merchant, Kilmarnock; and William Parker, merchant, Kilmarnock ; were the most active and conspicuous. Parker alone sub- scribed for thirty-five copies. There is little merit in discovering and befriending genius when Fame is sounding her trumpet, and cry- ing, " Behold the man whom the king delighteth to honour ! " but to mark talents, and aid them, when the possessor is struggling out of darkness into light, shews either great generosity or a fine judgment, or both. Thus supported, he was enabled to enter into terms with Wilson, a printer, in Kilmarnock. The Poet undertook to supply manuscript, walk daily into Kilmarnock to correct the press, and pay all the expenses incident to printing six hundred copies. Mossgiel, where poverty condemned him to be reared upon the milk of a young; cow.] t [In a work entitled Cobbett's Magazine.] J chambers. D2 38 LIFE OF BURNS. 1786. Of what passed in the mind of Burns at this moment, we have his own account to Moore : — "I weighed/' said he, " my productions as im- partially as was in my power. I thought they had merit ; and it was a delicious idea that I should be called a clever fellow, even though it should never reach my ears — a poor negro- driver, or perhaps a victim to that inhospitable clime, and gone to the world of spirits. To know myself had been all along my constant study ; I weighed myself alone, I balanced myself with others, I watched every means of information, to see how much ground I occu- pied as a man and a poet ; I studied assiduously Nature's design in my formation, where the lights and shades in character were intended. I was pretty confident my poems would meet with some applause ; but, at the worst, the roar of the Atlantic would deafen the voice of censure, and the novelty of West Indian scenes make me forget neglect. I threw off six hun- dred copies, having got subscriptions for about three hundred and fifty." " Wee Johnnie," the printer, the body without a soul of the poet's epigram, shrewdly remarked that a poem of a grave nature would be better for beginning with : Burns acted on the hint, and, in walk- ing between Kilmarnock and Mossgiel, com- posed, or rather completed, the " Twa Dogs." At that period, ruin had him so effectually in the wind, that even food became scanty ; a piece of oat-cake and a bottle of two-penny ale made his customary dinner, when correct- ing the first edition of his immortal works, and of this he was not always certain. In July, 1786, the poems of Burns made their appearance ; he introduced them with a preface, intimating his condition in life, and claiming for them the protection of his country. " Unacquainted with the necessary requisites for commencing poet by rule, he sings the senti- ments and manners he felt and saw, in himself and his rustic compeers around him, in his and their native language. To amuse himself with the little creations of his own fancy, amid the toils and fatigues of a laborious life ; to trans- cribe the various feelings, the loves, the griefs, the hopes, the fears in his own breast ; to find some kind of counterpoise to the struggles of a world — always an alien scene — a task uncouth to the poetical mind — these were his motives for courting the muses, and in these he found poetry to be its own reward. ' Humility,' says Shenstone, ' has depressed many a genius to a hermit, but never raised one to fame ! ' If any critic catches at the word genius, the author tells him, once for all, that he certainly looks upon himself as possessed of some poetic abilities ; otherwise his publishing, in the man- ner he has done, would be a manoeuvre below the worst character, which he hopes his worst enemy will ever give him." The heart-warm welcome which his poems received in his own district, fulfilled the hopes of the Poet ; all read who could obtain the book, and all who read applauded; even the children of the Old Light admitted that he was a wondrous rhymer to be a profane person. The whole impression was soon disposed of; the fears of "Wee John- nie," the printer, anent remuneration, were al- laj^ed, and twenty pounds and odd remained in the pockets of the wondering bard, after defraying all expenses. The first use he made of his good fortune was to renew his appli- cation for a situation in the West Indies, and lay aside a sum sufficient to waft him over the sea. With the desire of keeping such a genius at home, his steadfast friends, Hamilton and Aiken, again sought to obtain him an appoint- ment in the excise — an evil which awaited him on a later day. With some, the rising of this western star in poetry was looked for ; his poems in manu- script had been widely circulated in Ayr-shire, but to Scotland at large his appearance was unexpected ; and had a July sun risen on a December morning, the unwonted light could not have given greater surprise. The fame of the bard of Mauchline flew east, west, north, and south. A love of poetry belongs as much to the humble classes of the north as to the high ; and to people who had much of Ram- say and Fergusson by heart, the more lofty and passionate poetry of Burns could not fail to be welcome. The milkmaid sung his songs, the ploughmen and shepherds repeated his poems, while the old and the sagacious quoted his verses in conversation, glad to find that mat- ters of fancy might be made useful. My father, who was fond of poetry, procured the volume from a Cameronian clergyman, with this remarkable admonition, " Keep it out of the way of your children, John, lest ye catch them, as I caught mine, reading it on the sab- bath." " It is hardly possible," says Heron, " to ex- press with what eager admiration and delight the poems were everywhere received . They emi- nently possessed all those qualities which can contribute to render any literary work quickly and permanently popular. They were written in a phraseology, of which all the powers were universally felt ; and which being at once antique, familiar, and now rarely written, was hence fitted to serve all the dignified and picturesque uses of poetry, without making it unintelligible. The imagery, the sentiments, were at once faithfully natural, and irresistibly impressive and interesting. Those topics of satire and scandal in which the rustic delights, that humorous delineation of character, and that witty association of ideas, familiar and striking, yet not naturally allied to one ano- ther, which has force to shake his sides with laughter ; those fancies of superstition at which he still wonders and trembles ; those affecting @- =® 41 LIFE OF BURNS. 1787. driven across the sky, and cold pelting showers, at intervals, added discomfort of body to cheer- lessDess of mind. His recitation was plain, slow, articulate, and forcible, but without any eloquence of art. He did not always lay the emphasis with propriety, nor did he humour the sentiment by the variations of his voice." As Heron — a man who rose by the force of his talents, and fell by the keenness of his pas- sions — is the least favourable to the Poet of all his biographers, we may quote him without fear . — " The conversation of Burns was, in comparison with the formal and exterior cir- cumstances of his education, perhaps even more wonderful than his poetry. He affected no soft airs or graceful motions of politeness, which might have ill accorded with the 1*11 stic plain- ness of his native manners. Conscious superi- ority of mind taught him to associate with the great, the learned, and the gay, without being over-awed into any such bashfulness, as might have made him confused in thought, or hesita- ting in elocution. In conversation, he displayed a sort of intuitive quickness and rectitude of judgment upon every subject that arose ; the sensibility of his heart and the vivacity of his fanc} T , gave a rich colouring to whatever reason- ing he was disposed to advance, and his lan- guage in conversation was not at all less happy than his writings ; for these reasons he did not fail to please immediately after having been first seen. I remember that the late Dr. Robertson once observed to me, that he had scarcely ever met with any man whose conver- sation discovered greater vigour and activity of mind than that of Burns." [The recollections of Mr. John Richmond, writer in Mauchline, respecting Burns' arrival, and the earlier period of his residence, in Edin- burgh, are curious. Mr. Richmond, who had been brought up in the office of a country writer, or attorney, and was now perfecting his studies in that of a metropolitan practitioner, occupied a room in the Lawnmarket, at the rent of three shillings a-week. His circumstances, as a youth just entering the world, made him willing to share his apartment and bed with any agree- able companion, who might be disposed to take part in the expense. These terms suited his old Mauchline acquaintance, Burns, who accordingly lived with him, from his arrival in November till his leaving town in May, on his southern excursion. Mr. Richmond mentions that the poet was so knocked up, by his walk from Mauchline to Edinburgh, that he could not leave his room for the next two days. During the whole time of his residence there, his habits were temperate and regular. Much of his time was necessarily occupied in preparing his poems for the press — a task in which, as far as tran- scription was concerned, Mr. Richmond aided him, when not engaged in his own office duties. Burns, though frequently invited out into com- pany, usually returned at good hours, and went soberly to bed, where he would prevail upon his companion, by little bribes, to read to him till he fell asleep. Mr. Lockhart draws an un- favourable inference from his afterwards remov- ing to the house of his friend Nicol : but for this removal Mr. Richmond supplies a reason which exculpates the bard. During Burns' absence in the south and at Mauchline, Mr. Richmond took in another fellow-lodger ; so that, when the poet came back, and applied for re-admission to Mrs. Carfrae's humble me- nage, he found his place filled up, and was compelled to go elsewhere. The exterior of Bums, for some time after his arrival in Edinburgh, was little superior to that of his rustic compeers. " What a clod-hopper !" was the descriptive exclamation of a lady to whom he was abruptly pointed out one day in the Lawnmarket. In the course of a few weeks, he got into comparatively fashionable attire — a blue coat with metal buttons, a yellow and blue striped vest (being the livery of Mr. Fox), a pair of buckskins, so tight that he seemed to have grown into them, and top-boots, meeting the buckskins under the knee. His neckcloth, of white cambric, was neatly arranged, and his whole appearance was clean and respectable, though the taste in which he was dressed was still obviously a rustic taste. Though his habits during the winter of 1786-7 were upon the whole good, he was not alto- gether exempt from the bacchanalianism which at this period reigned in Edinburgh. Mr. William Nicol of the High School, and Mr. John Gray, City-clerk, were among his most intimate convivial friends. Nicol lived in the top of a house over what is called Buccleuch Pend, in the lowest floor of which there was a tavern, kept by a certain Lucky Pringle, hav- ing a back entry from the pend, through which visiters could be admitted, unwotted of by a censorious world. There Burns was much with Nicol, both before and after his taking up his abode in that gentleman's house. He also attended pretty frequently the meetings of the Crochallan Fencibks, at their howtf in the Anchor Close ; and of Johnnie Dowie's tavern, in Libberton's Wynd, he "v\tts also a frequent visiter. Mr. Alexander Cunningham, jeweller, and Mr. Robert Cleghorn, farmer at Saughton M ills, may be said to complete the list of Burns's convival acquaintance in Edinburgh. The inti- macy he formed with Mr. Robert Ainslie, then a young writer's apprentice, appears to have been of a ditferent character. Mr. Dalrymple of Orangefield, and the Hon. Henry Erskine, may be mentioned as indivi- duals who exerted themselves in behalf of Burns, immediately after his arrival in Edin- burg. Dr. Adam Fergusson, author of the History of the Roman Republic, may also be added to Dr. Currie's list of his literary and JET AT. '2 8. EDINBURGH. — N ASM YTH'S PICTURE. 45 philosophical patrons. At the house of the lat- ter gentleman, Sir Walter Scott met with Burns, of whom he has given his recollections in the following interesting letter to Mr. Lockhart : — " As for Burns, I may truly say, Virgilium vidi tantum, I was a lad of fifteen in 1786-7, when he came first to Edinburgh, but had sense and feeling enough to be much interested in his poetry, and would have given the world to know him ; but I had very little acquaintance with any literary people, and still less with the gentry of the west country, the two sets whom he most frequented. Mr. Thomas Grierson was at that time a clerk of my father's. He knew Burns, and promised to ask him to his lodgings to dinner, but had no opportunity to keep his word ; otherwise I might have seen more of this distinguished man. As it was, I saw him one day at the late venerable Professor Fer- gusson's, where there were several gentlemen of literary reputation, among whom I remem- ber the celebrated Mr. Dugald Stewart. Of course, we youngsters sate silent, looked, and listened. The only thing I remember, which was remarkable in Burns's manner, was the effect produced upon him by a print of Bun- bury's, representing a soldier lying dead on the snow, his dog sitting in misery on one side, — on the other, his widow, with a child in her arms. These lines were written beneath : " Cold on Canadian hills, or Minden's plain, Perhaps that parent wept her soldier slain — Bent o'er her babe, her eye dissolved in dew, The big drops mingling with the milk he drew, Gave the sad presage of his future years, The child of misery baptized in tears." " Burns seemed much affected by the print, or, rather, the ideas which it suggested to his mind. He actually shed tears. He asked whose the lines were, and it chanced that nobody but my- self remembered, that they occur in a half- forgotten poem of Langhorne's, called by the unpromising title of ' The Justice of Peace/ I whispered my information to a friend present, who mentioned it to Burns, who rewarded me with a look and a word, which, though of mere civility, I then received, and still recollect, with very great pleasure. "His person was strong and robust; his manners rustic, not clownish ; a sort of dig- nified plainness and simplicity, which received part of its effect, perhaps, from one's knowledge of his extraordinary talents. His features are represented in Mr. Nasmyth's picture ; but to me it conveys the idea that they are di- minished, as if seen in perspective. I think his countenance was more massive than it looks in any of the portraits. I would have taken the poet, had I not known what he was, for a very sagacious country farmer of the old Scotch school ; i. e. none of your modern agriculturists, who keep labourers for their drudgery, but the douce cjudeman who held his own plough. There was a strong expression of sense and shrewdness in all his lineaments ; the eye alone, I think, indicated the poetical character and temperament. It was large, and of a dark cast, which glowed (I say literally glowed) when he spoke with feeling or interest. I never saw such another eye in a human head, though I have seen the most distinguished men of my time. His conversation expressed perfect self-confidence, without the slightest presumption. Among the men who were the most learned of their time and country, he ex- pressed himself with perfect firmness, but with- out the least intrusive forwardness ; and when he differed in opinion, he did not hesitate to express it firmly, yet, at the same time, with modesty. I do not remember any part of his conversation distinctly enough to be quoted ; nor did I ever see him again, except in the street, where he did not recognize me, as I could not expect he should. He was much caressed in Edinburgh, but (considering what literary emo- luments have been since his day) the efforts made for his relief were extremely trifling. " I remember, on this occasion, I thought Burns's acquaintance with English poetry was rather limited, and also, that having twenty times the abilities of Allan Ramsay and of Fergusson, he talked of them with too much humility as his models : there was, doubtless, national predilection in his estimate. ' ' This is all I can tell you about Burns. I have only to add, that his dress corresponded with his manner. He was like a farmer dressed in his best to dine with the laird. I do not speak in malara partem, when I say, I never saw a man in com- pany with his superiors in station and informa- tion, more perfectly free from either the reality or the affectation of embarrassment. I was told, but did not observe it, that his address to fe- males was extremely deferential, and always with a turn either to the pathetic or humorous, which engaged their attention particularly. I have heard the late Duchess of Gordon remark this. — I do not know any thing I can add to these recollections of forty years since."] The more generous looked with wonder on the bold Peasant, who had claimed and taken place with the foremost, and who seemed to have endowments of every kind equal to his ambition ; while other geniuses, raised by the artificial heat of colleges and schools, glanced with scorn or envy on one who had sprung into fame, through the genial warmth of nature. Henry Mackenzie was not of the latter • as soon as he read the poems of Burns, he per- ceived that the right inspiration was in them, and recommended them and their author to public notice, in a paper in " The Lounger," written with feeling and truth. His poems dis- cover a tone of feeling, a power and energy of expression, particularly and strongly charac- © =© -•© 46 LIFE OF BURNS. 178^ teristic of the mind and voice of a poet. The critic perceives, too, passages solemn and sub- lime, touched, and that not slightly, with a rapt and inspired melancholy: together with sentiments tender, and moral, and elegiac. Of "The Daisy," he says, " I have seldom met with an image more truly pastoral than that of the lark in the second stanza. Such strokes as these mark the pencil of the poet, which delineates nature with the precision of intimacy, yet with the delicate colouring of beauty and. of taste. Burns possesses the spirit as well as the fancy of a poet ; that honest pride and independence of soul, which are sometimes the muses' only dower, break forth on every occasion in his works." The criticism struck the true note of his peculiar genius, and, with something like prescience, claimed the honours of " National Poet," which have since been so strongly conceded." This was regarded by some as not a little rash, on the part of Mackenzie ; the rustic harp of Scotland had not been for centuries swept by a hand so forcible and free ; the language was that of humble life, the scenes were the clay-cottage, the dusty barn, and the stubble- field, and the characters the clouterly children of the penfold and the plough. There was nothing in the new prodigy which could be called classic, little which those who looked through the vista of a college reckoned poetical ; and his verses were deemed rather the effusions of a random rhymer than a true poet. Speak- ing from his heart, Mackenzie spoke right ; and, in claiming for Burns the honours due to the elect in song, he did a good deed for genius. The Poet now stood at the head of northern song, and with historians, and philo- sophers, and critics applauding, he looked upon himself as "owned" by the best judges of his country. The well-timed kindness of Mackenzie was never forgotten by Burns ; from this time he prized the " Man of Feeling" as a book next in worth to the Bible ; he never mentioned the author save in terms of affectionate admiration, and ranked him among his benefactors : — " Mackenzie, Stewart, sic a brace, As Rome ne'er saw." He felt his high, and, to his fancy, dangerous elevation : — " You are afraid," he thus writes, January 15, 1787, to Mrs. Dunlop, " I shall grow intoxicated with my prosperity as a poet. Alas ! madam, I know myself and the world too well. I do not mean any airs of affected modesty; I am willing to believe that my abilities deserve some notice : but in a most enlightened age and nation, when poetry is and has been the study of men of the first natural genius, aided with all the powers of polite learning, polite books, and polite company — to be dragged forth to the full glare of learned and polite observation, with all my imperfections of awkward rusticity and crude unpolished ideas on my head — I assure you, madam, I do not dissemble when I tell you, I tremble for the consequences. I have studied myself, and know what ground I occupy ; and, however a friend, or the world, may differ from me in that particular, I stand for my own opinion, in silent resolve, with all the tenaciousness of property. I mention this to you once for all to disburthen my mind, and I do not wish to hear or say more about it. — But " When proud fortune's ebbing tide recedes," you will bear me witness, that when my bubble of fame was at the highest, I stood unintoxicated, with the inebriating cup in my hand, looking forward, with rueful resolve, to the hastening time, when the blow of calumny should dash it to the ground with all the eagerness of venge- ful triumph." The Poet speaks, about the same time, in a similar strain to the Rev. Mr. Laurie, who, it seems had warned him to beware of vanity, and of prosperity's spiced cup. A tone of de- spondency, too, is visible in his letters to Dr. Moore: — "Not many months ago," he ob- serves, " I knew no other employment than following the plough, nor could boast anything higher than a distant acquaintance with a coun- try clergyman. Mere greatness never embar- rasses me ; I have nothing to ask from the great, and I do not fear their judgment; but genius, polished by learning, and at its proper point of elevation in the eye of the world, this, of late, I frequently meet with, and tremble at its approach. I scorn the affectation of seeming modesty to cover self-conceit. That I have some merit I do not deny ; but I see, with frequent wringings of heart, that the novelty of my character, and the honest national pre- judice of my countrymen, have borne me to a height altogether untenable to my abilities." Burns indicates the station to which he must soon descend, still more plainly to another cor- respondent. The Earl of Buchan had advised him to visit the battle-fields of Caledonia, and, firing his fancy with deeds wrought by heroes, pour their deathless names in song. When the prophet retired to meditate in the desert, he was miraculously fed by ravens ; but the peer forgot to say how the poet was to be fed when musing on the fields of Stirling, Falkirk, and Bannockburn. That Heaven would send food while he produced song seems not to have en- tered into his mind : for he says — " My Lord — in the midst of these enthusiastic reveries, a long - visaged, dry, moral - looking, phantom strides across my imagination, and pronounces these emphatic words : — * I, Wisdom, dwell with Prudence. Friend, I do not come to open the ill-closed wounds of your follies and mis- fortunes, merely to give you pain. I have given «tat. 28. EDINBURGH.— DUCHESS OF GORDON. 47 you line upon line, and precept upon precept ; and while 1 was chalking out to you the straight May to wealth and character, with audacious effrontery yon have zig-zagged across the path, contemning me to my face. You know the consequences. Now that your dear-loved Scotia puts it in your power to return to the situation of your forefathers, will you follow these will-o'-the wisp meteors of fancy and ■whim, till they bring you once more to the brink of ruin ? I grant that the utmost ground you can occupy is but half a step from the veriest poverty — still it is half a step from it. You know how you feel at the iron-gripe of ruthless oppression — you know how you bear the galling sneer of contumelious greatness. I hold you out the conveniences, the comforts of life, independence, and character, on the one hand ; I tender you servility, dependence, and wretchedness, on the other. I will not insult your understanding by bidding you make a choice.' " He intimated his intention of returning to the plough still more publicly, when, in the new edition of his works, April, 1787, he thus addressed the noblemen and gentlemen of Scot- land : — "The poetic genius of my country found me, as the prophetic bard Elijah did Elisha — at the plough — and threw her inspiring mantle over me. She bade me sing the loves, the joys, the rural scenes and rural pleasures of my natal soil, in my native tongue. I tuned my wild, artless notes, as she inspired. — She whispered me to come to this ancient metropolis of Caledonia, and lay my songs under your honoured protection. I do not approach you, my lords and gentlemen, in the usual style of dedication, to thank you for past favours ; that path is so hackneyed, by prostituted learning, that honest rusticity is ashamed of it. Nor do I present this address with the venal soul of a servile author, looking for a continuation of those favours. I was bred to the plough, and am independent." This bold language sounded strangely in noble ears. It was set down by some as approaching to arrogance — was re- garded by others as the cant of independence ; or considered by a few as rude and vulgar, and remembered, when the Poet looked for some better acknowledgment of his genius than a six-shilling subscription, or an invitation to dine. Silence, perhaps, would have been best ; but if it were necessary to speak, I cannot see that he could have spoken better. The Poet spent the winter and spring of 1787, in Edinburgh, much after his own heart ; he loved company, and was not unwilling to shew that nature sometimes bestowed gifts, against which rank and education could scarcely make good their station. This was, perhaps, the unwisest course he could have pursued : a man with ten thousand a year will always be con- sidered, by the world around, superior to a man whose wealth lies in his genius ; the dullest can estimate what landed property is worth, but who can say what is the annual value of an estate which lies in the imagination ? In fame there was no rivalry ; and in station, what hope had a poet with the earth of his last turned furrow still red on his shoon, to rival the Mont- gomerys, the Hamiltons, and the Gordons, with counties for estates, and the traditional eclat of a thousand years accompanying them ? In the sight of the great and the far-descended, he was still a farmer, for whom the Grass-market was the proper scene of action, and the hus- bandmen of the land the proper companions ; his company was sought, not from a sense that genius had raised him to an equality with lords and earls, but from a wish to see how this wild man of the west would behave himself, in the presence of ladies, plumed and jewelled, and lords, clothed in all the terrors of their wealth and titles. The beautiful Duchess of Gordon was, in those days, at the head of fashion in Edin- burgh ; a wit herself, with some taste for music and poetry ; she sought the acquaintance of Burns, and invited him to her parties. Lord Monboddo, equally accomplished and whimsi- cal, gave parties, after what he called the classic fashion ; he desired to revive the splendid sup- pers of the ancients, and placed on his tables the choicest wines, in decanters of a Grecian pattern, adorned with wreaths of flowers : painting lent its attraction as well as music, while odours of all kinds were diffused from visible or invisible sources. Into scenes of this kind, and into company coldly polite and sen- sitively ceremonious, the brawny Bard of Doon, equally rash of speech and unceremonious in conduct, precipitated himself; but rich wines and lovely women, like the touch of the goddess which rendered Ulysses acceptable in the sight of a princess, brightened up the looks of the Poet, and inspired his tongue with that conquer- ing eloquence which pleased fastidious ladies. In fine company, where it was imagined he would have failed, he triumphed. The fame of all these doings flew into Ayrshire. — " There is a great rumour here," said one of his friends, " concerning your intimacy with the Duchess of Gordon ; I am really told that " Cards to invite fly by thousands each night ; " and if you had one, I suppose there would be also ' bribes for your old secretary.' It seems that you are resolved to make hay while the sun shines, a good maxim to thrive by ; you seemed to despise it while in this country, but probably some philosopher in Edinburgh has taught you better sense." Of his own feelings on these occasions the Poet has said but little: Lord Monboddo's table had other attractions than wine called Falernian, and dishes like those praised in ^ 48 LIFE OF BURNS. 1787. Latin verse. The beauty of his daughter is celebrated by Burns both in prose and poetry — " Fair Burnet strikes th' adoring eye, Heav'n's beauties on my fancy shine; I see the Sire of Love on high, And own his work indeed divine ! ' ' " I enclose you," he says to his Mend Chalmers, "two poems which I have carded and spun since I passed Glenbuck. One blank in the Address to Edinburgh, ' fan- B — ' is the heavenly Miss Burnet, daughter of Lord Mon- boddo, at whose house I have had the honour to be more than once. There has not been any thing nearly like her in all the combinations of beauty, grace, and goodness, the great Creator has formed since Milton's Eve, on the first day of her existence.' 5 Those who were afraid that amid feasting and flattery — the smiles of ladies and the applauding nods of their lords — Burns would forget him- self, and allow the mercury of vanity to rise too high within him, indulged in idle fears. When he dined or supped with the magnates of the land, he never wanted a monitor to warn him of the humility of his condition. When the company arose in the gilded and illuminated rooms, some of the fan- guests — perhaps " Her grace, Whose flambeaux flash against the morning skies, And gild our chamber ceilings as they pass," took the hesitating arm of the Bard ; went smiling to her coach, waved a graceful good- night with her jewelled hand, and, departing to her mansion, left him in the middle of the street to grope his way through the dingy alleys of the " gude town" to his obscure lodging, with his share of a deal table, a sanded floor, and a chaff bed, at eighteen pence a week. That his eyes were partly open to this, we know ; but he did not perceive that these invitations arose from a wish to relieve the ennui of a supper-table, where the guests were all too well-bred to utter any thing strikingly original or boldly witty. Had Burns beheld the matter in this light, he would have sprung up like Wat Tinlinn, when touched with the elfin bod- kin ; and, overturning silver dishes, garlanded decanters, and shoving opposing ladies and staring lords aside, made his way to the plough- tail, and recommenced turning the furrows upon his cold and ungenial farm of Mossgiel. — "I have formed many intimacies and friendships here," he observes, in a letter to Dr. Moore ; " but I am afraid they are all of too tender a construction to bear carriage a hundred and fifty miles. To the rich, the great, the fashion- able, the polite, I have no equivalent to offer ; and I am afraid my meteor appearance will by no means entitle me to a settled correspondence with any of you, who are the permanent lights of genius and literature." In these words he expressed his fears : they were prophetic. While his volume was passing through the press, he added "The Brigs of Ayr," the "Ad- dress to Edinburgh," and one or two songs and small pieces. The first poem, " The Brigs of Ayr," seems to have been written for the two- fold purpose of giving a picture of old times and new, and honouring in rhyme those who befriended him on the banks of Doon ; and, like Ballantyne, to whom it is inscribed, had " Handed the rustic stranger up to fame." There were two poems which some of his friends begged him to exclude from his new volume. On the score of delicacy, they re- quested the omission of "The Louse ;" and on that of loyalty and propriety, " The Dream." He defended the former, because of the moral with which the poem concludes, and main- tained the propriety of the latter with such wit and indiscretion that cautious divines and cool professors shrugged their shoulders, and talked of the folly of the sons of song. Mrs. Dunlop seems to have taken the matter much to heart. — " Your criticisms, madam," says the Poet, nettled a little by her remonstrance, " I under- stand very well, and could have wished to have pleased you better. You are right in your guess that I am not very amenable to counsel ; I set as little by princes, lords, clergy, and critics, as all those respective gentry do by my hardship. I know what I may expect from the world by-and-bye — illiberal abuse, and, per- haps, contemptuous neglect." In this sarcastic Dream, there was much to amuse and more to incense a king, who endured advice as little as he did contradiction. The life of George the Third was pure and blame- less ; but the young princes of his house had already commenced their gay and extravagant courses. The song of the Bard is prophetic of the two elder ones : — " For you, young Potentate o' Wales, I tell your Highness fairly, Down pleasure's stream, wi' swelling sails, I'm tauld ye're driving rarely ; But some day ye may gnaw your nails, An' curse your folly sairly, That e'er ye brak' Diana's pales, Or rattl'd dice wi' Charlie. " For you, Right Rev'rend Osnaburg, Nane sets the lawn-sleeve sweeter, Altho' a ribbon at your lug, Wad been a dress completer : As ye disown yon paughty dog That bears the keys o' Peter, Then swith ! an' get a wife to hug, Or, trouth! ye'll stain the mitre." The " Address to Edinburgh" contains some noble verses. I have heard the description of the castle praised by one, whose genius all but exempted him from error : — =£ jEtat. 28. EDINBURGH— ANECDOTES. 49 " There, watching high the least alarms, Thy rough, rude fortress gleams alar, Like some bold vet'ran, grey in arms, And mark'd with many a seamy scar : The pond'rous wall and massy bar, Grim-rising o'er the rugged rock, Have oft withstood assailing War, And oft repell'd th' invader's shock." When Burns told Mrs. Dunlop that he was determined to natter no created being, she might have smiled ; for in his " Earnest Cry and Prayer," he scattered praise as profusely as ever he scattered corn over his new-turned fur- rows. He, who could see Demosthenes and Cicero in half-a-dozen northern members of Parliament, was inclined to flatter : Dempster, Cunningham, the Campbells, — " And ane, a chap that's damn'dauld-farran, Dundas his name," were respectable debaters, but not eloquent. " Erskine, a spunkie Norland billie," came nearer to the comparison, and almost reconciles us to the lavish waste of honours on the others. Burns' taste, which in all things resembled his genius, was almost always correct : he de- pended on its accuracy, and, as he used no words at random, was unwilling to alter aught. Iu the " Cotters Saturday Night" he called Wallace the " unhappy," in allusion to his fate ; he hesitated now to change the word to " undaunted," in compliance with the criticism of Mrs. Dunlop. — " Your friendly advice" — he says to that lady, " I will not give it the cold name of criticism, I receive with reverence. I have made some small alterations in what I be- fore had printed. I have the advice of some very judicious friends among the literati here : but .with them I sometimes find it necessary to claim the privilege of thinking for myself. The noble Earl of Glencairn, to whom I owe more than to any man, does me the honour of giving me his strictures ; his hints, with respect to impropriety or indelicacy, I follow implicitly." During the spring, he sat to Alexander Nasmyth for his portrait ; it was engraved by Beugo, whose boast it was that he had added to the merit of the likeness by inducing Burns to give him a sitting or two while he touched up the plate. He also allowed his profile to be taken in small : the brow is low, the hair hangs over it, and there is a short queue behind. The portrait by Nasmyth is the best, though want- ing a little in massive vigour and the look of inspiration. He sat to whoever desired him, nor seemed to be aware that genius went to such works as well as to the manufacture of rhyme. He took pleasure in presenting proof impressions of this portrait to his friends : some- times the gift was accompanied by verse, and it has been remarked that he imagined he looked very well on paper, and expected some notice to be taken of his face as well as of his poetry. Of his verse, indeed, the notice was not always taken that he desired. On the death of Dundas of Arniston, Lord President of the Court of Session, he wrote a " Lamentation," forty lines in length. There are vigorous pas- sages ; the Poet affects an excess of grief ; he complains to the hills, the plains, and the tem- pests, of the too early removal of one who redressed wrongs, restrained violence, defeated fraud, and protected innocence. He copied the poem into a volume now before me, and pre- sented it to Dr. Geddes, with the following note, describing the success of his " Lamenta- tion." — " The foregoing poem has some tolera- ble lines in it, but the incurable wound of my pride will not suffer me to correct or even to peruse it. I sent a copy of it, with my best prose letter, to the son of the great man, the theme of the piece, by the hands, too, of one of the noblest men in God's world, Alex. Wood, surgeon ; when, behold ! his solicitorship took no more notice of my poem or me than I had been a strolling fiddler, who had made free with his lady's name, over the head of a silly new reel ! Did he think I looked for any dirty gratuity V' Some of the anecdotes related of the Poet and his proof-sheets are amusing enough. When he had made up his mind to retain a line in the words of its original inspiration — such as "When I look back on prospects drear," — he stated his reasons briefly for re- fusing to make any change, and then sat, like his own heroine, "deaf as Ailsa Craig" to all persuasion or remonstrance. Nor did he lose his serenity of mind, though the way in which he unconsciously, perhaps, crumpled up the sheet in his hand, till he almost made it illegible, shewed what was passing within him. It was on one of these occasions that a clergyman, stung with the irreverent way that Burns had handled the cloth, in some of his earlier pieces, hazarded some stern remarks on the " Holy Fair ;" not, he said, but that the poem was a clever picture, he only wished to shew that it was not constructed according to the true rules of composition. The reverend censor did not acquit himself well in his perilous undertaking : the eye of the Poet began to lighten, and his lips to give a sort of twitching announcement that something sarcastic was coming. All pre- sent looked towards him ; he spoke as they expected, saying, " No, by heaven ! I'll not touch him — ' Dulness is sacred in a sound divine.' ' — " I'll find you as apt a quotation as that," said the aggressor, " and from a poet whom I love more — • Corbies and Clergy are a shot right kittle.' " Burns laughed, held out his hand, saying, "Then we are friends again." E © : -W :@ 50 LIFE OF BURNS. 1787. He did not always come off so happily : on another occasion, Cromek tells us that, at a breakfast, where a number of the literati were present, a critic, one of those fond of seeming very acute and wise, undertook to prove that Gray's Elegy in a country Church-yard, a poem of which Burns was enthusiastically fond, violated the essential rules of verse, and trans- gressed against true science, to which he held true poetry to be amenable. He failed, how- ever, in explaining the nature of his scientific gauge, and he also failed in quoting the lines correctly, which he proposed to censure ; upon which Burns exclaimed with great vehemence, " Sir, I now perceive a man may be an excel- lent judge of poetry by square and rule, and, after all, be a d d blockhead." One of those critical scenes is well described by Professor Walker, who happened to be pre- sent ; it occurred at the table of Dr. Blair, who was fond of hearing the Poet read his own verses. — " The aversion of Burns," he observes, " to adopt alterations which were proposed to him, after having fully satisfied his own taste, is apparent from his letters. In one passage, he says that he never accepted any of the corrections of the Edinburgh Literati, except in the instance of a single word. If his ad- mirers should be desirous to know this ' single word,' I am able to gratify them, as I hap- pened to be present when the criticism was made. It was at the table of a gentleman of literary celebrity (Dr. Blair), who ooserved, that in two lines of the ' Holy Fair,' beginning — ' For Moodie speels the holy door, Wi' tidings of salvation.' The last word, from his description of the preacher, ought to be damnation. This change, both embittering the satire, and introducing a word to which Burns had no dislike, met with his instant enthusiastic approbation. ' Excel- lent !' he exclaimed with great warmth, ' the alteration shall be made, and I hope you will allow me to say, in a note, from whose sugges- tion it proceeds ;' a request which the critic with great good humour, but with equal deci- sion, refused." The Poet had not yet disco- vered what was due to clerical decorum. I must copy another of Professor Walker's pic- tures of the Poet and the Edinburgh Literati : — " The day after my introduction to Burns," says the Professor, " I supped in company with him at Dr. Blair's. The other guests were very few; and, as each had been invited chiefly to have an opportunity of meeting with the Poet, the Doctor endeavoured to draw him out, and make him the central figure of the groupe. Though he, therefore, furnished the greatest proportion of the conversation, he did no more than what he saw was evidently expected. Men of genius have often been taxed with a proneness to commit blunders in company, from that ignorance or negligence of the laws of conversation, which must be imputed to the absorption of their thoughts on a favourite sub- ject, or to the want of that daily practice in attending to the petty modes of behaviour, which is incompatible with a studious life. From singularities of this sort, Burns was unusually free : yet, on the present occasion, he made a more awkward slip than any that are reported of the poets or mathematicians, most noted for absence. Being asked from which of the public places of worship he had received the greatest gratification, he named the high church, but gave the preference as a preacher to (the Rev. Robert Walker) the colleague (and most formidable rival) of our worthy en- tertainer — whose celebrity rested on his pulpit eloquence — in a tone so pointed and decisive as to throw the whole company into the most foolish embarrassment. The Doctor, indeed, with becoming self-command, endeavoured to relieve the rest by cordially seconding the en- comium so injudiciously introduced ; but this did not prevent the conversation from labouring under that compulsory effort which was una- voidable, while the thoughts of all were full of the only subject on which it was improper to speak. Of this blunder Burns must instantly have been aware, but he shewed the return of good sense by making no attempt to repair it. His secret mortification was indeed so great that he never mentioned the circumstance until many years after, when he told me that his silence had proceeded from the pain which he felt in recalling it to his memory." It must be mentioned, to the honour of Blair, that this mortifying blunder had no influence over his well-regulated mind, and that he ap- pears, from his correspondence, to have aug- mented rather than lessened his kindness for the Poet ; the strong sense of propriety which is visible in all that Blair ever said or wrote pre- served him from this : yet he probably thought of the Poet's preference when he first saw the fragment on America, beginning : — " When Guilford good our pilot stood ;" and said, " Burns' politics always smell of the smithy." The Bard disapproved of the war waged with America ; the world at large has shared in his feelings, and the sarcasm of the Doctor falls harmless on this little hasty, though not very happy production. It was likely to Blair that Burns glanced when, in reply to the question if the critical literati of Edinburgh had aided him with their opinions, — "The best of these gentlemen," said he, "are like the wife's daughter in the west — they spin the thread of their criticism so fine, that it is fit for neither warp nor waft." He was never at a loss for illustrations drawn from do- mestic life or rural affairs. -U .etat. 28. EDINBURGH— LAWYERS. 51 [No one has equalled Lockhart's account of Burns among the literati and lawyers of Edin- burgh : — " It needs no effort of imagination to conceive what the sensations of an isolated set of scholars (almost all either clergymen or pro- fessors) must have been in the presence of this big -boned, black - browed, brawny stranger, with his great flashing eyes, who, having forced his way among them from the plough-tail, at a single stride, manifested, in the whole strain of hisbearing and conversation, a most thorough conviction that, in the society of the most eminent men of his nation, he was exactly where he was entitled to be ; hardly deigned to flatter them by exhibiting even an occasional symptom of being flattered by their notice ; by turns calmly measured himself against the most cultivated understandings of his time in discussion ; over- powered the bon wots of the most celebrated convivialists by broad floods of merriment, im- pregnated with all the burning life of genius ; astounded bosoms habitually enveloped in the thrice-piled folds of social reserve, by compel- ling them to tremble — nay, to tremble visibly — beneath the fearless touch of natural pathos : and all this without indicating the smallest willingness to be ranked among those profes- sional ministers of excitement, who are content to be paid in money and smiles, for doing what the spectators and auditors would be ashamed of doing in their own persons, even if they had the power of doing it ; and — last, and probably worst of all, — who was known to be in the habit of enlivening societies, which they would have scorned to approach, still more frequently than their own, with eloquence no less magnifi- cent ; with wit, in all likelihood, still more daring ; often enough, as the superiors whom he fronted without alarm might have guessed from the beginning, and had, ere long, no occa- sion to guess, with wit pointed at themselves. " The lawyers of Edinburgh, in whose wider circle Burns figured at his outset, with at least as much success as among the professional lite- rati, were a very different race of men from these, they would neither, I take it, have par- doned, rudeness, nor been alarmed by wit. But being, in those days, with scarcely an exception, j members of the landed aristocracy of the coun- j i * [The fact is, those who accuse Burns of drunkenness i know nothing about the history of drunkenness in Scotland at all. Let them look at the character of the Baron of J Bradwardine in one age, and of High Jinks in another, by Sir I Walter Scott, and they will find the epitome of drinking in I those ages drawn to the very life. About the beginning of I the last century, and for some time previous, drinking, among the nobility and first-rate gentry of Scotland, was I carried to a very great height. The late Provost Creech of I Edinburgh told many good stories illustrative of that age, and among others was the foUowing : — There was one Angus- j shire laird went to visit a neighbour, whose christian name ! was George. The visitor was the laird of Balnamoon, com- j monly called Bonnymoon ; he would drink nothing but ! claret : so his friend, George, made up a great number of bottles of half-brandy and half-claret, knowing that the laird would stick to his number. He did so, and commended the : try, and forming by far the most influential body (as, indeed, they still do) in the society of Scotland, they were, perhaps, as proud a set of men as ever enjoyed the tranquil pleasures of unquestioned superiority. What their haughti- ness, as a body, was, may be guessed, when we know that inferior birth was reckoned a fair and legitimate ground for excluding any man from the bar. In one remarkable instance, about this very time, a man of very extraordi- nary talents and accomplishments was chiefly opposed in a long and painful struggle for ad- mission, and in reality, for no reasons but those I have been alluding to, by gentlemen, who, in the sequel, stood at the very head of the Whig party in Edinburgh • and the same aristocra- tical prejudice has, within the memory of the present generation, kept more persons of emi- nent qualifications in the back-ground, for a season, than any English reader would easily believe. To this body belonged nineteen out of twenty of those " patricians," whose stateliness Burns so long remembered, and so bitterly re- sented. It might, perhaps, have been well for him had stateliness been the worst fault of their manners. Wine-bibbing appears to be in most regions a favourite indulgence with those whose brains and lungs are subjected to the severe exercises of legal study and forensic practice. To this day, more traces of these old habits linger about the inns of courts than in any other sections of London. In Dublin and Edinburgh, the barristers are even now emi- nently convivial bodies of men ; but among the Scotch lawyers of the time of Burns, the prin- ciple of jollity was indeed in its " high and palmy state." He partook largely in those tavern scenes of audacious hilarity, which then soothed, as a matter of course, the arid labours of the northern noblesse de la robe (so they are well called in Red Gauntlet), and of which we are favoured with a specimen in the " High Jinks" chapter of Guy Mannering. The tavern-life is now-a-days nearly extinct every where ; but it was then in full vigour in Edinburgh, and there can be no doubt that Burns rapidly familiarized himself with it during his residence. He had, after all, tasted but rarely of such excesses while in Ayr-shire.*] wine greatly ; but sat on with his friend three days and two nights without perceiving it, he being all that time in the highest glee. At the end of the third day Bonnymoon failed, grew pale, and sunk back on his chair. " Come, laird, fill your glass ; this will never do." "O, — George, — I can — do — no more — for you." " Then you had better go to bed." " O, no ! — I never sleep— from— home. Never— stay from home a — night: — never!" So off went the laird with his servant behind him— both on capital horses. The night was dark and stormy, and, in riding over a waste, off went the laird's hat. John galloped after it, and seized it, leaning on a furze bush. " John, this is not my hat at all ; go and look for the right one." " There is very little wale o' cockit hats here the night, your honour." " I say, John, this is not my hat. It would hold two heads like mine. I'll be d d hut it has taken the wig away with it." After long groping, John got the wig on another furze bush, and handed it to his E 2 l : 5-2 LIFE OF BURNS. 1787. Towards the close of April the subscription volume " On wines of wind came flying all abroad," and was widely and warmly welcomed. All that coterie influence and individual exertion — all that the noblest or the humblest could do, was done to aid in giving it a kind reception ; Creech, too, had announced it through the booksellers of the land, and it was soon diffused over the country, over the colonies, and where- ever the language w r as spoken. The literary men of the south seemed even to fly a flight be- yond those of the north. Some hesitated not to call him the northern Shakspeare ; criticism at that period had not usurped the throne, and as- sumed the functions of genius ; reviews were few in number, and moderate in influence, and followed opinion rather than led it. Had he lived in a later day, with what a triumphant air of superiority would the two leading critical journals have crushed him ! They would have agreed in this, though in nothing else, to trample down a spirit which wrote not as they wrote, and felt not as they felt ; they would have assumed the air of high philosophy and searching science, and buried him, as he did the Daisy, under the weight of a deep-drawn critical furrow. The Whig of the north would have pounced on his poetical jacobitism ; the Tory of the south upon his love of freedom ; and both would have tossed him to the meaner hounds of the kennel of criticism, after they had dissected the soul and heart out of him. Much of this these journals tried to do at a later period, when the Poet was low in the dust, and his fame as high as Heaven, and beyond their rancour or their spite. While Burns lodged with his Mauchline friend, Richmond, he kept good hours and sober company. In the course of the spring he be- came acquainted with William Xicol, one of the masters of the High-school, who lived in the Buccleugh-road, and found more suitable ac- commodation under his roof. This has been considered as a symptom that the keeping of good hours was growing irksome. The poverty of the Poet made him live frugally— nay, meanly, when he arrived in Edinburgh ; but when money came pouring in, and gentlemen of note called on him, it did not become him to remain in an apartment of which he had but a share. I see little harm in this, or proof of in- creasing irregularity. Nicol, it is true, was of a quick, fierce temper — loose and wavering in his religious opinions — fond of social company, and now and then indulged in excesses, though master. "John, this is not my wig ; just look at it : this is not my wig at all:"— he had put it on with the wrong side j foremost.^ " Ah ! guid faith, your honour, if there's little j wale o' hats, there's nae wale o' wigs here, this night," They rode on, and on coming to the North Esk, the laird's horse dashed down his head to drink, and off went the laird, his situation required sobriety. Lockhart, wmo charges the imputed irregularities of Burns on the example of Xicol, supports his conclusion by the testimony of Heron. But Heron is a doubtful evidence ; he was himself not only in- clined to gross sensual indulgence, but has been regarded as one not at all solicitous about the truth. — " The enticements of pleasure," says Heron, " too often unman our virtuous resolu- tions, even while w T e wear the air of rejecting them with a stern brow. We resist, and resist, and resist ; but at last suddenly turn and em- brace the enchantress. The bucks of Edinburgh accomplished, in regard to Burns, that in which the boors of Ayr-shire had failed. After resid- ing some months in Edinburgh, he began to estrange himself, not altogether, but in some measure, from graver friends. Too many of his hours were now r spent at the tables of persons who delighted to urge conviviality to drunken- ness." Heron knew not what resolutions Burns formed, nor how much he resisted : and to push conviviality to intoxication was common in those days at the tables of the gentlemen of the north. The entertainer set down the quantity to be drunk, locked the door, put the key in his pocket, and the guests had either to swallow all his wine, or fill the landlord tipsy, steal the key, and escape. Though Burns" had expressed doubts to Lord Buchan on the prudence of a pennyless poet visiting the battle-fields, and fine natural scenery of Scotland, and intimated to many of his friends his resolution to return to the plough, he longed to pull broom on the Cowden-knowes, look at the Birks on the Braes of Yarrow, and see whe- ther Flora smiled as sw T eetly on the Tweed as Crawford had represented. On the third of May he wrote to Dr. Blair — " I leave Edin- burgh to-morrow morning, but could not go without troubling you with half a line, sincerely to thank you for the kindness, patronage, and friendship which you have shown me." The Doc- tor answered his farewell at once, and his words weigh those of Heron to the dust. — " Your situation was indeed very singular ; and, being brought out all at once from the shades of deep- est privacy to so great a share of public notice and observation, you had to stand a severe trial. I am happy you have stood it so well ; and, as far as I have known or heard — though in the midst of many temptations — without reproach to your character and behaviour. You are now, I presume, to retire to a more private walk of life, and I trust you will conduct yourself there with industry, prudence, and honour. You have laid the foundation for just public esteem. Q^ head foremost, into the river, with a prodigious plunge. He soon, however, set up his head. "John, what was that?" " I dinna ken. I thought it had been your honour." " John, I dinna understand this." " Get up", your honour, you'll maybe understand it by and by." Hogg.] BTAT. 28. BORDER To I R. 53 In the midst of those employments which your situation will render proper, you will not, I hope, neglect to promote that esteem by cultivating \ our genius, and attending to such productions ot' it. as may raise your character still higher. At the same time, be not in too great haste to come forward. Take time and leisure to im- prove and mature your talents ; for, on any second production you give the world, your fate, as a poet, will very much depend.'' Burns, it is said, received this letter when about to mount his horse on his Border excursion ; he read as far as I have transcribed, then crumpled up the communication, and, thrusting it into his pocket, exclaimed, " Kindly said. Doctor ; but a man's first-born book is often like his first-born babe — healthier and stronger than those which fol- low." In this mood he quitted Edinburgh, after a residence of rive months and some odd days. Burns was accompanied in this tour by Robert Ainslie, a young gentleman of talents and edu- cation, whose friendship his genius had procured, and who is still living to enjoy the esteem and some of the applause of the world. The Poet directed his course by Lammermoor — whose hills he pronounced dreary in general, but at times picturesque — through Peebles, where he chanted a stave of the old song of ' ' The Wife of Peebles •" passed Coldstream, where he thought of Monk and his " reformadoe saints," and from Lanton-Edge gazed on the Merse, which he pronounced ' • glorious." [Of this tour, Burns kept a journal ; it is now before me : the entries are brief, but generally to the point. — "May 6th, 1787. Reach Berry well ; old Mr. Ainslie an uncommon character ; his hobbies — agriculture, natural philosophy, and politics. In the first, he is unexceptionably the clearest-headed, best-informed man I ever met with ; in the other two, very intelligent : as a man of business he has uncommon merit, and by fairly deserving it, has made a very decent independence. Mrs. Ainslie, an excellent, sen- sible, cheerful, amiable woman. Miss Ainslie, her person a little embonpoint, but handsome, her face, particularly her eyes, full of sweetness and good humour. She unites three qualities rarely to be found together ; keen penetration, sly witty observation and remark, and the gentlest, most unaffected, female modest}-. — Douglas, a clever, fine, promising young fellow. — The family-meeting with their brother, my compagnon de voyage, very charming ; par- ticularly the sister. The whole family remark- ablv attached to their menials — Mrs. A. full of * [" During the discourse Burns produced a neat im- promptu, conveying an elegant compliment to Miss Ainslie. Dr. B. had selected a text of Scripture that comained a heavy denunciation against obstinate sinners. In the course of the sermon Burns" observed the young lady turning o%er the leaves of her Bible, with much earnestness, in search of the text. He took out a slip of paper, and with a pencil wrote the following lines on it, which he immediately pre- sented to her: ' Fair maid, you need not take the hint, Nor idle texts pursue : 'Twas guilty sinners that he meant, Not angels such as you ! ' " Crojiek] stories of the sagacity and sense of the little trirl in the kitchen. — Mr. A. high in the praises of an African, his house servant — all his people old in his service — Douglas's old nurse came to Berrywell yesterday to remind them of its being his birth-day." Here he met with the author of " The Maid that tends the Goats," of whom he says, — " Mr. Dudgeon — a poet at times, a wor- thy, remarkable character, natural penetration, a great deal of information, some genius, and extreme modesty." In the pulpit of Dunse church, he found a character of another stamp. — " Dr. Bowmaker, a man of strong lungs, and pretty judicious remark ; but ill skilled in pro- priety, and altogether unconscious of his want of it." He preached a sermon against " obsti- nate sinners." " I am found out," whispered the Poet to a friend, " wherever I go."* On reaching the Tweed, Ainslie requested Burns to pass the stream, that he might say he had been in England. The following brief entry is all the memoranda he makes of this event : — " Coldstream — went over to England — glorious river Tweed, clear and majestic." His compa- nion has enabled me to complete the picture — " The Poet accompanied me on a horseback excursion from Edinburgh to Peebles, down the Tweed, all the way to Coldstream, and thence to Berrywell, near Dunse, the resi- dence of my father. The weather was charm- ing ; both parties then youthful and in good spirits ; and the Poet delighted with the fine ! scenery, and the many poetical associations connected with it. When we arrived at Cold- stream, where the dividing line between Scot- land, and England is the Tweed, I suggested . our going across to the other side of the river ; by the Coldstream bridge, that Burns might 1 have it to say he 'had been in England. ' We did so, and were pacing slowly along on English ground, enjoying our walk, when I was aston- ished to see the Poet throw away his hat, and, thus uncovered, look towards Scotland, kneel- ! ing down with uplifted hands, and, apparently, : in a state of great enthusiasm. I kept silence, uncertain what was next to be done, when Bums, with extreme emotion, and an expres- sion of countenance which I will never forget, prayed for and blessed Scotland most solemnly, by pronouncing aloud, in accents of the deepest devotion, the two concluding verses of 'The Cotter's Saturday Night:' — ■ ' O Scotia ! my dear, my native soil ! For whom my warmest -wish to Heaven is sent ! Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content ! ©: 54 LIFE OF BURNS. 1787. And, Oh ! may Heav'n their simple lives prevent From Luxury's contagion, weak and vile ! Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent, A virtuous populace may rise the while, And stand a wall of fire around their much-lov'd Isle. * O Thou ! who pour'd the patriotic tide That stream'd thro' Wallace's undaunted heart, Who dar'd to nobly stem tyrannic pride, Or nobly die, the second glorious part ; (The patriot's God, peculiarly thou art, His friend, inspirer, guardian, and reward!) O never, never, Scotia's realm desert ; But still the patriot, and the patriot bard, In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard !' " At Lenel- House he drank tea with Brydone the traveller ; of this he makes a brief record. — " Mr. Brydone is a man of an excellent heart, kind, joyous, and benevolent ; but a good deal of the French indiscriminate com- plaisance — from his situation, past and present, an admirer of everything that bears a splendid title, or that possesses a large estate ; Mrs. Bry- done, a most elegant woman in her person and manners ; the tones of her voice remarkably sweet — my reception extremely flattering." He slept at Coldstream, and then proceeded to Kelso, of which he pronounced the situation charming. — " Fine bridge over the Tweed — enchanting views and prospects on both sides of the river, particularly the Scottish side ; introduced to Mr. Scott of the Royal Bank — an excellent, modest fellow." He walked on to the rains of Roxburgh castle ; and wrote in his journal: — " A holly- bush growing where James II. of Scotland was accidently killed by the bursting of a cannon. A small old religious ruin, and a fine old garden, planted by the religious, rooted out and de- stroyed by an English Hottentot, a maitre d hotel of the duke's, a Mr. Cole. Climate and soil of Berwick-shire, and even Roxburgh- shire, superior to Ayr-shire — bad roads. Turnip | and sheep husbandry, their great improvements, j Mr. M"I)owal, of Caverton-Mill, a friend of I Mr. Ainslie's, with whom I dined to day, sold j his sheep, ewe and lamb together, at two guineas j a piece. They wash their sheep before shearing ; ! seven or eight pounds of washen wool in a fleece. Low markets, consequently low rents ; fine lands not above sixteen shillings a Scotch acre : magnificence of farmers and farm-houses." On his way up the Tiviot and the Jed, he visited an old gentleman, whose boast it was that he possessed an arm-chair which had belonged to Thomson the poet. Burns reverently examined the relique, could scarcely be prevailed to sit in it, and seemed to feel inspiration from its touch. In Jedburgh, the Poet found much to interest him. — "Breakfast with Mr. , a squabble between the old lady, a crazed, talkative slat- tern, and her sister, an old maid, respecting a relief minister — Miss gives Madam the lie ; and Madam, by way of revenge, upbraids her for having laid snares to entangle the said minister in the net of matrimony. Go about two miles out of the town to a roup (sale) of parks ; meet a polite soldier-like gentleman, a Captain Ruth- erford, who had been many years in the wilds of America, a prisoner among the Indians. Charming, romantic situation of Jedburgh, with gardens and orchards intermingled among the houses. Fine old ruins ; a once magnificent cathedral, and strong castle. All the towns here have the appearance of old rude grandeur, but the people extremely idle. Jed, a fine ro- mantic little river." Burns dined with Captain Rutherford — the Captain a polite fellow, fond of money in his farming way ; shewed a par- ticular respect to my hardship — his lady a proper matrimonial second part of him — Miss Ruther- j ford a beautiful girl, but too much of a woman to expose so much of a fine swelling bosom — her face very fine. Return to Jedburgh — walk up Jed with some ladies to be shewn Love-lane and Blackburn, two fairy scenes. Introduced to Mr. Potts, writer, a very clever fellow ; and to Mr. Somerville, the minister of the place; a man, and a gentleman, but sadly addicted to punning."*] Here he met with something not unlike a love adventure : in one of his walks he was ac- companied by several ladies : — " Miss Hope, a pretty girl, fond of laughing and fun ; Miss Lindsay, a good-humoured, amiable girl ; rather short, et embonpoint, but handsome, and ex- tremely graceful ; beautiful hazel eyes Ml of spirit, and sparkling with delicious moisture ; an engaging face, un tout ensemble that speaks her of the first order of female minds ; her sister, a bonny strappan, rosy, sonsie lass." The Poet, would, perhaps, have contented himself with silently admiring this dangerous companion ; but two venerable spinsters persecuted him so with their conversation that he took refuge with Miss Lindsay, who was touched, as he imagined, with his attentions. — " My heart," he says in his record, " is thawed into melting pleasure after being so long frozen up in the Greenland bay of indifference, amid the noise and nonsense of Edinburgh. Miss seems very well pleased with my Bardship's distinguishing her, and after some slight qualms, which I could easily mark, she sets the titter round at defiance, and kindly allows me to keep my hold ; and when parted by the ceremony of my introduc- tion to Mr. Somerville, she met me half, to re- sume my situation. Nota Bene. — The Poet within a point and a half of being damnably in love ; I am afraid my bosom is still nearly as i= * [After seeing this remark in print, Dr. Somerville never ' at the age of ninety years, sixty-four of which had been punned more. He was the author of two substantial works passed in the clerical profession. A son of Dr. Somerville is on the history of England between the Restoration and the husband to a lady distinguished in the scientific world. 1 accession of the Brunswick dynasty. He died, May 16, 1830, | ©: m asTAT. '28. BOKDEH TOUR. 66 much tinder as ever : I find Miss Lindsay would soon play the devil with me. The old, cross-grained, whiggish, ugly, slanderous Miss , with all the poisonous spleen of a dis- appointed, ancient maid, stops me, very unsea- sonably, to ease her bursting breast, by falling abusively foul on the Miss Lindsays, particu- larly on* my Dulcinea; — I hardly refrain from cursing her to her face for daring to mouth her calumnious slander on one of the finest pieces of the workmanship of Almighty Excellence ! Sup at Mr. 's ; vexed that the Miss Lind- says are not of the supper party, as they only are wanting. Mrs. and Miss still improve infernally on my hands. Set out next morning for Wauchope, the seat of my corres- pondent, Mrs. Scott ; — breakfast by the way with Dr. Elliott, an agreeable, good-hearted, climate-beaten, old veteran, in the medical line ; now retired to a romantic, but rather moorish place, on the banks of the Roole — he accom- panies us almost to Wauchope — we traverse the country to the top of Bochester, the scene of an old encampment, and Woolee Hill. Wau- chope — Mr. Scott exactly the figure and face commonly given to Sancho Panca — very shrewd in his farming matters, and not unfrequently stumbles on what may be called a strong thing rather than a good thing. Mrs. Scott all the sense, taste, intrepidity of face, and bold, criti- cal decision, which usually distinguish female authors. — Sup with Mr. Potts — agreeable party. — Breakfast next morning with Mr. Somerville — the bruit of Miss Lindsay and my hardship, by means of the invention and malice of Miss . Mr. Somerville sends to Dr. Lindsay, begging him and family to breakfast if conve- nient, but at all events to send Miss Lindsay ; accordingly Miss Lindsay only comes — I met with some little flattering attentions from her. Mrs. Somerville an excellent, motherly, agree- able woman, and a fine family. — Mr. Ainslie and Mrs. S , junrs., with Mr. , Miss Lindsay, and myself, go to see Esther, a very remarkable woman for reciting poetry of ail kinds, and sometimes making Scotch doggerel herself — she can repeat by heart almost every thing she has ever read, particularly Pope's Homer from end to end — has studied Euclid by herself, and, in short, is a woman of very ex- traordinary abilities. — On conversing with her I find her fully equal to the character given of her.* — She is very much flattered that I send for her, and that she sees a poet who has put out a book, as she says. — She is, among other things, a great florist — and is rather past the meridian of once celebrated beauty. I walk in Esther's garden with Miss Lindsay, and after * [" This extraordinary woman then moved in a very humble walk of life ; — the whe of a common working gar- dener. She is still living — her time is principally occupied in her attentions to a little day school, which not being suf- some little chit-chat of the tender kind, I pre- sented her with a proof print of my Nob, which she accepted with something more tender than gratitude. She told me many little stories which Miss had retailed concerning her and me, with prolonging pleasure — God bless her ! " He seems ready to burst into song as he proceeds with his journal. " Took farewell of Jedburgh with some melancholy, disagreeable sensations. Jed, pure be thy crystal streams, and hallowed thy sylvan banks ! Sweet Isabella Lindsay, may peace dwell in thy bosom unin- terrupted, except by the tumultuous throbbings of rapturous love ! That love - kindling eye must beam on another, not on me : that grace- ful form must bless another's arms, not mine ! Was waited on by the magistrates, and hand- somely presented with the freedom of the town. " Kelso ; dine with the Farmer's Club ; all gentlemen talking of high matters : each of them keeps a hunter, of from thirty to fifty pounds' value, and attends the fox-huntings in the county. Go out with Mr. Ker, one of the club, and a friend of Mr. Ainslie's, to sleep : Mr. Ker, a most gentlemanly, clever fellow ; a widower, with some fine children ; his mind and manner astonishingly like my dear old friend, Robert Muir, in Kilmarnock ; he offers to ac- company me on my English tour : dine with Sir Alexander Don ; a pretty clever fellow, but far from being a match for his divine lady." On the thirteenth of May, Burns visited Dryburgh Abbey, and, though the weather was wild, spent an hour among the ruins, since hal- lowed by the dust of Scott ; he crossed the Leader, and went up the Tweed to Melrose, which he calls a " far-famed glorious ruin." Though desirous of musing on battle-fields, he seems to have left Ancram-moor unheeded; nor did he pause to look at the spot where " Gallant Cessford's heart-blood dear Reek'd on dark Elliot's border spear." He sat for some time, indeed, among the broom of the Cowden-knowes, and had a chat with the Souters of Selkirk, concerning the field of Flodden ; but no one seems to have told him of Huntly-burn, where True Thomas flirted with the Fairy Queen ; nor of Philiphaugh, where Montrose and his cavaliers w T ere routed by Lesly : nor of Carterhaugh, made memorable in song by the fine ballad of Tamlane. He was not in a pastoral mood ; for he says briefly, — " The whole country hereabout, both on Tweed and Ettrick, remarkably stony." In the inspi- ration necessary for verse, there is none of the spirit of prophecy ; he passed over some broken ground and peat-haggs, where his mare, Jenny ficient for her subsistence, she is obliged to solicit the charity of her benevolent neighbours. ' Ah, who would love the lyre ! '"" Cromek.] £> 56 LIFE OF BURNS. 1787. Geddes, kept her feet with difficulty, uncon- scious that on that desolate spot the Towers of Abbotsford would, ere long, arise, and those immortal romances be written which have made his own the second name in Scottish literature. The weather having settled, the Poet visited Inverleithing, a famous shaw, and in the vici- nity of the palace of Traquaid, "where," says he, "I dined and drank some Galloway whey, and saw Elibanks and Elibraes on the other side of the Tweed." In the morning he continued his journey, and found other places made famous in tale and song. — " Dine at a country inn, kept by a miller in Earlston, the birth-place and re- sidence of the celebrated Thomas the Rhymer, and saw the ruins of his castle." He now shaped his course to Dunse, where he dined with the Farmers'-Club — found it impossible to do them justice — met "the Rev. Mr. Smith, a famous punster, and Mr. Meikle, a celebrated mechanic, and inventor of the threshing-mills." The next day, " breakfast at Berry well, and walk into Douse to see a famous knife made by a cutler there, and to be presented to an Italian prince. — A pleasant ride with my friend Mr. Robert Ainslie, and his sister, to Mr. Thom- son's, a man who has newly commenced farmer, and has married a Miss Patty Grieve, formerly a flame of Mr. Robert Ainslie's. — Company — Miss Jacky Grieve, an amiable sister of Mrs. Thomson's, and Mr. Hood, an honest, worthy, facetious farmer, in the neighbourhood. Ber- wick he looked on as ' an idle town, rudely picturesque.' Meet Lord Errol in walking round the walls. — His Lordship's flattering no- tice of me. — Dine with Mr. Clunzie, merchant — nothing particular in company or conversa- tion. — Come up a bold shore, and over a wild country to Eyemouth — sup and sleep at Mr. Grieve's. Wm. Grieve, the oldest brother, a joyous, warm-hearted, jolly, clever fellow — takes a hearty glass, and sings a good song. — Mr. Robert, his brother, and partner in trade, a good fellow, but says little. Take a sail after dinner. — Fishing of all kinds pays tythes at Eyemouth. The Miss Grieves very good girls. My Bardship's heart got a brush from Miss Betsey. Mr. AVilliam Grieve's attachment to the family-circle, so fond that when he is out, which by the bye is often the case, he cannot go to bed 'till he see if all his sisters are sleeping- well. — Pass the famous Abbey of Coldingham, and Pease-bridge. — Call at Mr. Sheriff's, where Mr. A. and I dine. — Mr. S. talkative and con- * [The entry made on this occasion in the Lodge Books of St. Abb's is honourable to " The brethren of the mystic level." "Eyemouth, 19th May, 1787. " At a general Encampment held this day, the following brethren weie made Royal Arch Masons, viz. Robert Burns, from the Lodge of St. James's, Tarbolton, Ayr-shire, and Robert Ainslie, from the Lodge of St. Luke's, Edinburgh, by ceited. I talk of love to Nancy the whole evening, while her brother escorts home some companions like himself." At Eyemouth, he loved the look of the sea and shore so much that he took a sail after dinner ; here, in compli- ment to his genius, so runs the brotherly record, he was made a royal arch mason of St. Abb's lodge.*—" Sir James Hall, of Dun- glass, having heard," he says, "of my being in the neighbourhood, comes to Mr. Sheriff's to breakfast ; takes me to see his fine scenery on the stream of Dunglass. Dunglass, the most romantic, sweet place I ever saw. Sir James and his lady, a pleasant happy couple ; he points out a walk, for which he has an uncom- mon respect, as it was made by an aunt of his to whom he owes much." Burns seems to have fallen into something of a cynical mood on leav- ing the author of the ingenious work on the "Origin of Gothic Architecture." "A Mr. Robinson, brewer, at Ednam, sets out with us to Dunbar." — A lady, of whose charms and conversation he was no admirer, resolved to accompany him by way of making a parade of him as a sweetheart ; his description of her is severe and clever : — " She mounts an old cart-horse, as huge and lean as a house ; a rusty old side-saddle without girth or stirrup, but fastened on with an old pillion-girth : herself as fine as hands could make her, in cream-coloured riding clothes, hat and feather, &c. I, ashamed of my situation, ride like the devil, and almost shake her to pieces on old Jolly — get rid of her by refusing to call at her uncle's with her." On reaching Dunbar he notes in his journal — " Passed through the most glorious corn country I ever saw. Dine with Provost Fall, an eminent merchant, and respectable charac- ter, but indescribable, as he exhibits no marked traits. Mrs. Fall, a genius in painting ; fully more clever in the fine arts and sciences than my friend, Lady Wauchope, without her con- summate assurance of her own abilities. Call with Mr. Robinson (who, by the bye, I find to be a worthy, much respected man, very modest ; warm, social heart, which with less good sense than his would be perhaps, with the children of prim precision and pride, rather inimical to that respect which is man's due from man) on Miss Clarke, a maiden, — in the Scotch phrase, < Guid enough? She wanted to see what sort of raree show an author was ; and to let him know that, though Dunbar was but a James Carmichael, Wm. Grieve, Daniel Dow, John Clay, Robert Grieve, &c. &c. Robert Ainslie paid one guinea admission dues ; but, on account of R. Burns s remarkable poetical genius, the Encampment unanimously agreed to admit him gratis, and considered themselves honoured by having a man of such shining abilities for one of their companions." Extracted from the Minute Book of the Lodge by Thos. Bowhill.] MTAT. 28. BORDER TOUR. 57 little town, yet it was not destitute of people of parts. Breakfast next morning at Skateraw, at Mr. Lee's, a farmer of great note. — Mr. Lee, an excellent, hospitable, social fellow, rather oldish ; warm-hearted and chatty — a most judi- cious, sensible farmer. Mr. Lee detains me till next morning. — Company at dinner. — My Rev. acquaintance Dr. Bowmaker, a reverend, rat- tling old fellow. — Two sea lieutenants ; a cousin of the landlord's." The sarcastic humour of the Poet continues : he meets a lady, " but no brent new ; a clever woman, with tolerable pretensions to remark and wit, while time had blown the blushing bud of bashful modesty into the full-blos- somed flower of easy confidence." " A fellow whose looks are of that kind which deceived me in a gentleman at Kelso, and has often deceived me ; a goodly, handsome figure and face, which incline one to give them credit for parts which they have not." "Mr. Clarke, a much cleverer fellow, but whose looks, a little cloudy, and his appearance rather ungainly, with an every day observer, may prejudice the opinion against him. Dr. Brown, a medical young gentleman from Dunbar, a fellow whose face and manners are open and engaging. — Leave Skateraw for Dunse next day, along with collector , a lad of slender abilities, and bashfully diffident to an extreme." The cloud now begins to pass away. In good time comes an antidote ; he reached Dunse, and " found Miss Ainslie, the amiable, the sensible, the good - humoured and sweet Miss Ainslie, all alone at Berrywell. Heavenly powers, who know the weakness of human hearts, support mine ! What happiness must I see only to remind me that I cannot enjoy it ! Lammer-muir Hills, from East Lothian to Dunse very wild. — Dine with the Farmer's Club at Kelso. Sir John Hume and Mr. Lumsden there, but nothing worth remembrance, when the following circumstance is considered — I walk into Dunse before dinner, and out to Berrywell in the evening with Miss Ainslie. How well- bred, how frank, how good she is ! Charming Rachel ! may thy bosom never be wrung by the evils of this life of sorrows, or by the vil- lany of this world's sons!" Burns was now joined by Mr. Ker ; they dined with Mr. Hood, and set off on a jaunt to England : sudden illness seized him by the way ; the entry in his journal is charac- teristic. — "I am taken extremely ill, with strong feverish symptoms, and take a ser- vant of Mr. Hood's to watch me all night. Embittering remorse scares my fancy at the gloomy forebodings of death. I am determined to live for the future in such a manner as not to be scared at the approach of Death : I am sure I could meet him with indifference but for The something beyond the grave." He recovered his health and spirits, and went to see the roup (auction) of an unfortunate farmer's stock. He surveyed the scene with a darkening brow and a @- troubled eye. — " Rigid economy, and decent industry," he said, " do you preserve me from being the principal dramatis persona in such a scene of horror ! Meet my good old friend Mr. Ainslie, who calls on Mr. Hood in the evening, to take farewell of my Bardship. This day I feel myself warm with sentiments of gratitude to the great Preserver of men, who has kindly restored me to health and strength once more. A pleasant walk with my young friend, Douglas Ainslie, a sweet, modest, clever young fellow." He now recom- menced his tour. " Sunday, May 27. — Cross Tweed, and tra- verse the moors, through a wild country, till I reach Alnwick — Alnwick-Castle, a seat of the Duke of Northumberland, furnished in a most princely manner. A Mr. Wilkin, agent of His Grace, shews us the house and policies. Mr. Wilkin, a discreet, sensible, ingenious man. Monday — Come still through bye -ways to Wark worth, where we dine. Warkworth, situ- ated very picturesque, with Coquet Island, a small rocky spot, the seat of an old monastery, facing it a little in the sea ; and the small but romantic river Coquet running through it. Sleep at Morpeth, a pleasant - enough little town, and on next day to Newcastle." Meet j with a very agreeable, sensible fellow, a Mr. Chattox, who shews us a great many civilities, and who dines and sups with us." The Poet seems to have found little in Newcastle to interest him : tradition says that at dinner he was startled at seeing the meat served before the soup. "This," said his facetious entertainer, "is in obedience to a Northum- berland maxim, which enjoins us to eat the beef before we sup the broth, lest the hungry Scotch make an inroad and snatch it." Burns laughed heartily. On leaving Newcastle he rode over a fine country to Hexham, to break- fast — from Hexham to Wardrue, the celebrated Spa, where he slept. Thence he proceeded on to Longtown, which he reached on a hiring day. — " I am uncommonly happy," he says, " to see so many young folks enjoying life." Here he parted with his good friends, Messrs. Hood and Ker. He arrives at Carlisle, and meets his good friend, Mr. Mitchell, and walks with him round the town and its environs, and through his printing-works, &c. — " four or five hundred people employed, many of them wo- men and children. — Dine with Mr. Mitchel, and leave Carlisle. — Come by the coast to An- nan. — Overtaken on the way by a curious old fish of a shoemaker, and miner, from Cumber- land mines." [Here the Manuscript of his Border Tour abruptly terminates.] He sat down and gave a brief account of his jaunt, to his friend Nicol, in very particular Scotch ; saying, in conclusion, " I'll be in Dum- fries the morn, gif the beast be to the fore, and ---@ 58 LIFE OF BURNS. 1787. the branks bide hale. Gude be wF you, Willie. Amen." From Carlisle he went along the coast to Annan and Dumfries. — " I am quite charmed," he says, " with Dumfries folks. Mr. Burnside, the clergyman, in particular, is a man whom I shall ever gratefully remember : and his wife — Gude forgie me ; I had almost broke the tenth Commandment on her account. Simplicity, elegance, good sense, sweetness of disposition, good humour, and kind hospitality, are the constituents of her manner and heart : in short — but if I say one word more about her, I shall be directly in love with her." Burns next pro- ceeded to Dalswinton, and walked over the unoccupied farms ; but, though he expressed himself pleased with the general aspect of the valley, he declined for the time the handsome offer of a four-nineteen years' lease on his own terms ; and, saying he would return in autumn, departed. " From my view of the lands," he said in a letter to Nicol, "and Mr. Miller's reception of my hardship, my hopes in that business are rather mended, but still they are but slender." The friends of Burns considered this an agri- cultural rather than a poetic tour. It partook of the nature of both ; remarks on varieties of soil ; rotation of crop, and on land, pastoral or cultivated, mingle curiously with sketches of personal character, notices of visits paid to hoary ruins, or to scenes memorable in song. His curiosity was excited : his heart a little touched, but neither the fine scenery, nor the lovely women, produced any serious effect on his muse. The sole poetic fruit of the excursion is an epistle to Creech, dated Selkirk, May 13, and written, he says, " Nearly extempore, in a solitary inn, after a miserable wet day's riding." It is, in its nature, complimentary : the dripping sky, and, "the worst inn's worst room," induced the Poet to make light of " The Eden scenes on crystal Jed, And Ettrick banks, now roaring red," and think of the wit and the wine of Edinburgh, and see, in imagination, philosophers, poets, " And toothy critics by the score, In bloody raw," crowding to the levee of the patronizing biblio- pole. After an absence of six busy, and to him eventful, months, Burns returned to Mossgiel the 8th of June, 1787. His mother, a woman of few words, met him with tears of joy in her eyes at the threshold, saying, " Oh, Robert !" He had left her hearth in the darkness of night, and he came back in the brightness of day ; he went away an obscure and almost nameless ad- venturer, and he returned with a name, round which there was already a halo not destined soon to be eclipsed. In his own eyes, his early aspirations after fame seemed as hopeless as " the blind groping of Homer's Cyclops round the walls of his cave ;" he had now made his way to the mountain-top, his pipe was at his lips, and all the country round was charmed with his melody. The last lines which he expected to measure in Caledonia were not yet uttered, and he who, to use his words, was lately " Darkling dern'd in glens and hallows, And hunted, as was William Wallace, By constables, those blackguard fallows, And bailies baith," was now a poet of the highest order j the fit and accepted companion of the proud and the lordly, with gold, the fruits of his genius, in his pocket, and more promised by the muse. Those who formerly were cold or careless, now approached to praise and to welcome him ; while his mother, who never imagined that aught good could come from idle rhyme, re- ceived all as something dropped from heaven, and rejoiced in the fame of her son. He remained at home some ten or twelve days. He went little out. His acquaintance with Jean Armour was probably not at that time renewed, nor did he visit more than one friend or two ; his chief occupation was in writing to his literary acquaintances, and dis- cussing with his brother Gilbert the chances of success in agriculture. He was restless — he was not satisfied with his position in society ; he neither belonged to the high nor to the low. Rank, he felt, had taken his hand coldly to squeeze and to drop it, while his rustic brethren looked upon him as having risen above their condition. The feelings which agitated him are forcibly — nay, darkly, expressed in a letter to Nicol, dated Mauchline, June 18 : — " I never, my friend, thought mankind very capa- ble of any thing generous ; but the stateliness of the patricians in Edinburgh, and the servi- lity of my plebeian brethren (who perhaps formerly eyed me askance) since I returned home, have nearly put me out of conceit al- together with my species. I have bought a pocket Milton, which I carry perpetually a- bout with me, in order to study the sentiments — the dauntless magnanimity — the intrepid, un- yielding independence — the desperate daring, and noble defiance of hardship, in that great personage, Satan. 'Tis true, I have just now a little cash ; but I am afraid the star that hitherto has shed its malignant, purpose-blasting rays full in my zenith — that noxious planet, so bane- ful in its influences to the rhyming tribe, I much dread it is not yet beneath my horizon. Misfor- tune dodges the path of human life ; the poetic mind finds itself miserably deranged in, and un- fit for, the walks of business. Add to all that, thoughtless follies and hare-brained whims, like so many ignes fatui, eternally diverging from the right line of sober discretion, sparkle with 2BTAT. 28. HIGHLAND TOUR. 59 step-bewitching blaze in the idly-gazing eyes of the poor heedless bard, till pop, ' he falls, like Lucifer, never to hope again.' God grant this may be an unreal picture with re- spect to me ! but should it not, I have very little dependence on mankind .... The many ties of acquaintance and friendship which I have, or think, I have, in life, I have felt along the lines, and d n them, they are almost all of them of such frail contexture that I am sure they would not stand the breath of the least adverse breeze of fortune." ["Among those," says Lockhart, "who having formerly ' eyed him askance,' now ap- peared sufficiently ready to court his society, were the family of Jean Armour. Burns's af- fection for the beautiful young woman had out- lived his resentment of her compliance with her father's commands in the preceding summer ; and, from the time of this reconciliation, it is probable he always looked forward to a perma- nent union with the mother of his children. * ' Burns at least fancied himself to be busy with serious plans for his future establishment ; and was very naturally disposed to avail himself, as far as he could, of the opportunities of travel and observation, which an interval of leisure, des- tined probably to be a short one, might present. Moreover, in spite of his gloomy language, a specimen of which has just been quoted, we are not to doubt that he derived much pleasure from witnessing the extensive popularity of his writings, and from the flattering homage he was sure to receive m his own person, in the various districts of his native country ; nor can any one Avonder that, after the state of high excitement in which he had spent the winter and spring, he, fond as he was of his family, and eager to make them partakers in all his good fortune, should have, just at this time, found himself incapable of sitting down con- tentedly, for any considerable period together, in so humble and quiet a circle as that of Mossgiel."] In this mood he left Mauchline, and hurried to Edinburgh. In some of the doings of Bums during the latter half of the year 1787, we see a mind " unfitted with an aim ;" he moved much about without any visible purpose in his motions. We have now to follow him northward in three successive and hurried excursions, in w T hich he passed into the Western Highlands, examined Stirling-shire, and penetrated eastward as far as Inverness. In his first tour he was mounted on Jenny Geddes, named after the devout virago who threw a stool at the Dean of Edin- burgh's head — perhaps the lady celebrated in song :— " Jenny Geddes was the gossip Put the gown upon the Bishop." Of this journey we know little that is pleasant. Burns seems to have been possessed with a spirit of ill-humour during the greater part of the expedition. He first bent his steps to Car- ron, and, desiring to see the celebrated Foun- dry, was repulsed from the gate, rudely as he thought : for he put his complaint into no very decorous language : — " We came na' here to view your warks In hopes to be mair wise, But only, lest we gang to hell, It might be nae surprise." He then proceeded to Stirling. The Poet was an intense lover of his country and her glory : the displeasure with which the people of Scotland regarded the Union, which had re- moved all visible symbols of power and inde- pendence, was not in those days subsided ; and, when he looked on the Hall, where princes once rtned and Scottish parliaments assembled, and reflected that it was laid in ruins by a prince of the house of Hanover, he gave vent to his pro- per indignation in the following lines : — " Here Stuarts once in glory reigned, And laws for Scotland's weal ordained ; But now unroof d their palace stands, Their sceptre's sway' a by other hands ; The injur' d Stuart line is gone, A race outlandish fills the throne." Two other lines followed, forming the bitter point to the epigram — they were remembered in after-days to the poet's injury. He seems not to have been very sensible at that time of his imprudence ; — for some one said, " Burns, this will do you no good." — " I shall reprove myself," he said ; and wrote these aggravating words : " Rash mortal, and slanderous poet, thy name Shall no longer appear in the records of fame ; Does not know that old Mansfield, who writes like the Bible, 1 Says, the more 'tis a truth, Sir, the more 'tis a libel?" Such satire was not likely to pass without re- j monstrance ; Hamilton, of Gladsmuir, wrote a ' reply, wherein he lamented that a mind, ", Where Genius lights her brightest fires," should disdain truth, and law, and justice ; "And, skulking with a villain's aim, Thus basely stab his monarch's fame." There are few who will not concur in the pro- j priety of this rebuke. This writer, however, ! resolved to be prophet, as well as poet and | priest : — " Yes, Burns, 'tis o'er — thy race is run, And shades receive thy setting sun : These few rash lines shall damn thy name, And blast thy hopes of future fame." Poetic sarcasms on ruling powers may keep a man from rising in the church where princes are patrons, but they have no influence on his 60 LIFE OF BURNS. 1787. ascent up Parnassus : of this no one was more aware than Bums, nor was he long at a loss for an answer to the minister of Gladsnmir, " Like Esop's lion, Burns says, sore I feel All others scorn — but damn that ass's heel." After leaving Stirling, we hear no more of Burns till, having traversed a portion of the Western Highlands, passed through Inverary, and made his appearance at Arrochar, he thus addresses Ainslie : "I write you this on my tour through a country where savage streams tum- ble over savage mountains ; thinly overspread with savage flocks, which starvingly support as savage inhabitants. My last stage was In- verary — to-morrow night's stage Dumbarton. I ought sooner to have answered your kind letter, but you know I am a man of many sins." This was on the 28th of June. At Inverary, he found the principal inn filled by a visiting party to the Duke of Argyle, who engrossed all the attention of the landlord ; and the poor Bard, mounted on a sorry mare, without friend or lackey, was neglected. He avenged him- self with unmerited bitterness : — " Whoe'er he be who sojourns here, I pity much his case, Unless he's come to wait upon The lord their god, his Grace ; There's naething here but Highland pride, But Highland cauld anrt hunger ; If Providence has sent me here 'Twas surely in his anger." If the Poet wrote these lines on the window of the inn, he must have administered the spur at his departure with little mercy to the sides of Jenny Geddes ; for Highland wrath is as hot as Highland hospitality. Burns recovered his composure of mind be- fore reaching Dumbarton ; he had, moreover, fallen into very pleasant company. Having dined with a hospitable Highland gentleman, he was introduced to a merry party, and danced till the ladies left them, at "three in the morn- ing. — "Our dancing/' says the Bard, "was none of the French or English insipid formal movements. The ladies sung Scotch songs like Angels ; then we flew at l Bab at the bowster/ ' Tulloch - gorum/ ' Loch - Erroch side,' &c, like midges sporting in the mottie sun, or craws prognosticating a storm in a hairst day. When the dear lasses left us, Ave ranged round the bowl till the good-fellow hour of six ; except a few minutes that we went out to pay our devotions to the glorious lamp of day peering over the towering top of Benlomond. We all kneeled. Our worthy landlord's son held the bowl, each man a full glass in his hand, and I, as priest, repeated some rhyming nonsense : like Thomas the Bhymer's prophecies, I sup- pose." These Highland high-jinks were not yet con- J eluded. After a few hours'* sleep they dined at another good fellow's quently pushed the bottle house, and conse- Burns then mounted the restless this weary rode along Lochlomond side on his way to Dumbarton. — " We found ourselves," he says, " ' no very fou, but gayly yet/ and I rode \ soberly, till by came a Highlandman at the gallop, on a tolerably good horse, but which had never known the ornaments of iron or leather. We scorned to be out-galloped by a Highlandman, so off we started, whip-and-spur. My companions fell sadly a-stern ; but my old mare, Jenny Geddes, one of the Rosinante fa- mily, strained past the Higlilandman, in spite of \ all his efforts with the hair halter. Just as I j was passing liim, Donald wheeled his horse, as i if to cross before me to mar my progress, when clown came his horse, and threw his rider's breekless bottom into a clipt hedge, and down j came Jenny Geddes over all, and my hardship ! between her and the Highlandman's horse. Jenny trode over me with such cautious re- verence that matters were not so bad as might well have been expected ; so I came off with a few cuts and bruises, and a thorough resolu- tion to be a pattern of sobriety for the future. As for the rest of my acts and my wars, and all my wise sayings, and why my mare was called Jenny Geddes, they shall be recorded, in a few weeks hence at Linlithgow, in the chronicles of your memory." Burns returned to Mauchline by the way of Glasgow, and remained with his mother during the latter part of the month of July. He re- newed his intercourse with the family of the Armours. Jean's heart still beat tenderly to- wards " the plighted husband of her youth ;" and Burns, much as his pride was wounded, could not help regarding her with affection. He had, as yet, no very defined notion of what he should do in the world : he trusted to time and chance. " I have yet fixed," he thus writes to a friend, " on nothing with respect to the serious business of life. I am just as usual — a rhyming, mason-making, raking, aimless fellow. However, I shall somewhere have a farm soon — I was going to say a wife, too ; but that must never be my blessed lot. I am afraid I have almost ruined one source, the principal one indeed, of my former happi- ness — that eternal propensity I always had to fall in love. My heart no more glows with feverish rapture. I have no paradisiacal evening interviews, stolen from cares and prying inhabitants of world. I have only * * * *. This last is one of your distant acquaintances, has a fine figure, and elegant manners ; and, in the train of some great folks whom you know, has seen the politest quarters in Europe. I do like her a good deal ; but what piques me is her conduct at the commencement of our acquaintance. I fre- quently visited her when I was in , ©■ jKTAT. 28. SECOND HIGHLAND TOI'll. 61 and after passing regularly the intermediate de- grees between the distant formal bow and the familiar grasp round the waist. I ventured, in my careless way, to talk of friendship in rather am- biguous terms ; and after her return to , I wrote to her in the same style. Miss, con- struing my words farther, I suppose, than even I intended, flew off in a tangent of female dignity and reserve, like a mounting lark in an April morning ; and wrote me an answer which mea- sured me out very completely what an immense way I had to travel before I could reach the climate of her favour. But I am an old hawk at the sport, and wrote her such a cool, delibe- rate, prudent reply as brought my bird from her aerial towerings, pop, down at my foot, like Corporal Trim's hat." The young lady to whom the poet alludes in this letter was very beautiful and very proud — it is said she gave his bard- ship such a specimen of both her pride and temper as " Made poor Robin stand abeigh." " I am but a younger son of the house of Par- nassus ; and, like other younger sons of great families, I may intrigue, if I choose to run all risks, but must not marry." It is plain that Burns regarded the burning of his marriage lines as not only destroying all evidence of his engagements with Jean Armour, but as a deliberate revocation of vows, on her part, which released him from the responsibili- ties of wedlock. Nay, this seems to have been the notion of graver men : for the Poet thus writes to David Bryce, July 17th, 1786 : — " Poor Jean is come back to Mauchline. I went to call for her, but her mother forbade me the house. I have already appeared publicly in church, and was indulged in the liberty of ; standing in my own seat. I do this to get a certificate as a bachelor, which Mr. Auld has promised me.'" In this I see the anxiety of Mr. Armour to obliterate all traces of the mar- riage, and the concurrence, at least, of the Poet in the proceeding. Robert Burns and Jean Armour might permit their friends to regard them as unmarried, and, if such was their own pleasure, call themselves single ; but their children were not, I apprehend, affected in their claims to legitimacy by this disavowal on the part of their parents ; the law would, I think, enforce their rights for them in spite of the dis- clamation of both, father and mother. Nay, I suspect, the law refuses to recognize any other dissolution of wedlock than what is effected by civil or ecclesiastical authority. However this may be, the Poet affected all the freedom of speech and action which custom concedes to bachelors, and seemed oftener than once on the point of unwittingly agitating the question, whether an Ayr-shire lass or an Edinburgh lady should plead a property in his hand. The second excursion of Burns towards the north was made in the company of Dr. Adair, of Harrow - gate, whom chance made into a comrade, and who fortunately retained the par- ticulars of the journey in his memory. He set out early in August from Edinburgh, passed through Linlithgow, and made his appearance again at the gates of Carron Foundry — they were opened with an apology for former rude- ness, which mollified the bard ; and he beheld in their tremendous furnaces and broiling labours a resemblance to the cavern of the Cyclops. A resemblance of a less classical kind had before occurred to him. From Carron he hurried to Stirling, that he might break and replace the pane of glass in the inn window, on which he had written those rash and injurious lines al- ready alluded to ; and then he proceeded to visit Ramsay of Ochtertyre, whose romantic re- sidence on the Teith he admired greatly, and whose conversation, rife as it was with know- ledge of Scottish literature, was altogether after his own heart. This visit was brief, but full of interest. The laird of Ochtertyre had a memory filled with old traditions and old songs. He had written some ingenious essays on the olden poetiy, displaying feeling and taste ; and more- over, the walls of his house were hung with long Latin inscriptions, much to the wonder of the unlearned Bard of Kyle. They discussed fit topics for the muse — a rustic drama, and Scottish Georgics. " What beautiful landscapes of rural life and manners/' says Ramsay, " might not have been expected from a pencil so faithful and forcible as his, which could have exhibited scenes as familiar and interesting as those in the Gentle Shepherd, which every one who knows our swains, in their unadulterated state, instantly recognizes as true to nature. But to have executed either of these plans, steadiness and abstraction from company were wanted, not genius." Of Burns' power of conversation, he says, " I have been in the company of many men of genius, some of them poets, but never witnessed such flashes of in- tellectual brightness as from him — the impulse of the moment — sparks of celestial fire." It is painful to think that the celestial sayings of the Poet have vanished from men's memories, while the less mental and grosser things remain. He continued two days on the Teith, and then pro- ceeded to Harvieston, where he was received with much respect and kindness by Mrs. Hamilton and her daughters. Here he saw Charlotte Hamilton for the first time. — " She is not only beautiful," he thus wrote to her brother Gavin, of Mauchline, " but lovely. Her form is elegant, her features not regular, but they have the smile of sweetness, and the settled complacency of good nature in the highest degree ; and her complexion, now that she has happily recovered her wonted health, is equal to Miss Burnet's. After the exercise 62 LIFE OF BURNS. 1787. of our riding to the Falls, Charlotte was exactly Dr. Donne's mistress : — ' Her pure and eloquent blood Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought, That one would almost say her body thought.' Her eyes are fascinating ; at once expressive of good sense, tenderness, and a noble mind." The account of Dr. Adair supplies some cir- cumstances which Burns has omitted : — "At Stirling we met with a company of tra- vellers from Edinburgh, among whom was a cha- racter in many respects congenial with that of Burns. This was Nicol, one of the teachers of the High Grammar School at Edinburgh — the same wit and power of conversation ; the same fondness for convivial society, and thoughtless- ness of to-morrow characterised both. Jaco- bitical principles in politics were also common to both of them ; and these have been suspected, since the Revolution of France, to have given place in each to opinions apparently opposite. I regret that I have preserved no memorabilia of their conversation. Many songs were sung, which I mention for the sake of observing that, when Burns was called upon in his turn, he was accustomed, instead of singing, to recite one or other of his own shorter poems, with tone and emphasis which, though not correct or har- monious, were impressive and pathethic. " From Stirling we Avent next morning through the romantic and fertile vale of Devon to Har- vieston, in Clackmannanshire, then inhabited by Mrs. Hamilton, with the younger part of whose family Burns had been previously acquainted. He introduced me to the family ; and there was formed my first acquaintance with Mrs. Hamil- ton's eldest daughter, to whom I have been mar- ried for many years. Thus was I indebted to Burns for a connexion from which I have derived, and expect further to derive, much happiness. " During a residence of about ten days at Har- vieston, we made excursions to various parts of the surrounding scenery, particularly Castle- Campbell, the ancient seat of the family of Argyle ; and the famous cataract of the Devon, called the Cauldron-Linn ; and the Rumbling- Bridge, a single broad arch, thrown by the devil, if tradition is to be believed, across the river, at about the height of a hundred feet a- bove its bed. I am surprised that none of these scenes should have called forth an exertion * According to Fordun, Robert Brnce was buried in the middle of the choir of Dunfermline Abbey. Barbour de- scribes the interment of this illustrious Scottish monarch in these lines : — 1 They have had him to Dunfermline And him solemnly yirded syne, In a fair tomb into the quire, Bishops and prelates that were there Assoilzed him, when the service Was done, as they best could device, And syne upon the other day, Sorry and wo they went their way ; of Burns' muse ; but I doubt if he had much taste for the picturesque. I well remember that the ladies at Harvieston, who accompanied us on the jaunt, expressed their disappointment at his not expressing in more glowing and fer- vid language his impressions of the Cauldron- Linn scene — certainly highly sublime, and somewhat horrible. A visit to Mrs. Bruce, of Clackmannan, a lady above ninety, the lineal descendant of that race which gave the Scottish throne its brightest ornament, interested his feelings powerfully. This venerable dame, with characteristic dignity, informed me, on my observing that I believed she was descended from the family of Robert Bruce, that Robert Bruce was sprung from her family. She was in possession of the hero's helmet and two- handed sword, with which she conferred on Burns and myself the honour of knighthood, observing that she had a better right to confer that title than some people. Her political tenets were as Jacobitical as the Poet's, a con- formity which contributed not a little to the cordiality of our reception. She gave us as her first toast after dinner, ' Awa uncos,' or away with the strangers ; — who these strangers were you will readily understand. " Mrs. Adair corrects me by saying it should be ' Hoohi uncos' — a sound used by the shepherds in directing their dogs to drive away the sheep. " At Dunfermline, we visited the ruined abbey, and the abbey - church, now consecrated to Presbyterian worship. Here I mounted the cutty-stool, or stool of repentance, assuming the character of a penitent for fornication ; while Burns, in the character of priest, admo- nished me from the pulpit on the enormity of my transgression, and the frequency of its occur- rence. The ludicrous reproof and exhortation which he addressed to me were, of course, parodied from what had been delivered to him- self in Ayrshire, were he assured me he had once been one of seven who mounted the seat of shame together. " In the churchyard, Burns knelt down, and kissed with much fervour the broad flag-stone which covered the grave of the great restorer of Scottish independence, Robert Bruce, and execrated the want of respect shewn by the local authorities to the dust of the first of Scot- tish heroes.* They returned to Edinburgh by the way of Kinross and Queensferry. And he debowelled was cleanly, And also balmed syne full richly ; And the worthy Lord of Douglas, His heart as it forsaken was, Received as in great dewtie. With fair and great solemnitie.' The neglect so much execrated by Burns has been since re- paired. When the new parish church of Dunfermline was erected in 1818, it was made to enclose the burial place of the kings, and on this occasion the tomb of the Bruce was opened. The body of the hero was found reduced to a ske- leton. The lead in which it had been wrapped was still entire, and even some of a fine linen cloth, embroidered with ©= .etat. 28. SECOND HIGHLAND TOUR. 63 The complaint of Dr. Adair and the Har- vieston ladies that Burns broke out into no poetic raptures on visiting the magnificence of the Caldron-Linn, or the melancholy splen- dour of Castle -Campbell, and that, because lie was next to silent, they concluded he had no taste for the picturesque, may be assigned to other reasons : — he disliked to be tutored in matters of taste, and could not endure that one should run shouting before him whenever any fine object appeared. On one occasion of this kind, a lady at the Poet's side said, " Burns, have you nothing to say of this?" — "Nothing, madam," he replied, glancing at the leader of the party, " for an ass is braying over it." One evening, Lockhart relates, as the Poet passed near the Carron Foundry, when the furnaces were casting forth flames, his companion ex- claimed, " Look, Burns ! look ! good heavens, look! look — what a glorious sight!" — " Sir ? " said the Bard, clapping spurs to Jenny Geddes, "I would not look! look! at your bidding, if it were the mouth of hell!" AVhen he visited Creehope-Linn, in Dumfries-shire, at every turn of the stream and bend of the wood he was called loudly upon to admire the shelv- ing sinuosities of the burn, and the caverned splendour of its all but inaccessible banks — it w T as thought by those with him that he did not shew r rapture enough — " I could not admire it more, Sir," said the Poet, " If He who made it w r ere to ask me to do it." There were other reasons for the Poet being " so bashful and so grave " in the company of | the Harvieston ladies. From his frequent praise in prose, from his admiration in song, and the general tone of his conversation, I cannot avoid concluding that he thought more than favourably of Charlotte Hamilton. In the presence of female loveliness, Burns could see no landscape beauty ; with Charlotte beside him, the Caldron-Linn seemed an ordinary cascade, and Castle-Gloom not at all romantic. There is no positive evidence that he paid his addresses to the " Fairest Maid of Devon Banks ; " but he did much to render himself acceptable, and, as an oblique way of making his approach, he strove, and not without suc- cess, to merit the good opinion of her companion, Margaret Chalmers, a young lady of beauty as well as sense, now Mrs. Hay of Edinburgh. I can give but an imperfect account of the pro- gress of the Poet's passion, for some twelve or fourteen of his most carefully written and gently expressed letters were, in an evil hour, throwm into the fire by Charlotte Hamilton, and all the record we have are his songs and what is contained in his correspondence. Of the lyrical lime-twigs which the Poet gold, -which had formed his shroud. His bones having been deposited in a new leaden coffin, half an inch thick, seven feet long, two feet five inches broad, and two feet in depth, into which was poured melted pitch to preserve them, he was re- laid on the banks of the Devon, he gives the following intimation, in a letter to Margaret Chalmers: — "Talking of Charlotte, I must tell her that I have, to the best of my power, paid her a poetic compliment. The air is ad- mirable ; true old Highland ; it was the tune of a Gaelic song which an Inverness lady sung me, and I was so charmed with it that I begged her to write me a set of it from her singing, for it had never been set before. I am fixed that it shall go in Johnson's next number, so Charlotte and you need not spend your precious time in contradicting me. I w r on't say the poetry is first-rate, though I am convinced it is very well ; and, what is not always the case with compliments to ladies, it is not only sin- cere, but just." The Poet alludes to his sweet and graceful song, "The Banks of the Devon." The praise is figurative : — " Let Bourbon exult in his gay gilded lilies, And England, triumphant, display her proud rose, A fairer than either adorns the green valleys Where Devon, sweet Devon, meandering flows." Having secured her immortality in song, and probably observed the coldness with which his harmonious compliments w r ere received, Burns complains, obliquely, of Charlotte's want of sympathy, by imagining that his words have no longer any fascination for woman. " My rhetoric," he says, u seems quite to have lost its effect on the lovely half of mankind ; I have seen the day — but that is ( a tale of other years.' — In my conscience, I believe that my heart has been so often on fire that it is absolutely vitri- fied. ] look on the sex with something like the admiration with which I regard the starry sky in a frosty December night ; I admire the beauty of the Creator's workmanship ; I am charmed with the wild but graceful eccentricity of their motions, and — wish them good night. I mean this wdth respect to a certain passion dontfai eu Vhonneur d'etre un miserable esclave : as for friendship, you and Charlotte have given me pleasure — permanent pleasure — ' which the world cannot give nor take away/ I hope ; and which will outlast the heavens and the earth." The third and last tour of Burns was per- formed in the company of Nicol. The master of the High-school had made himself agree- able to the Poet by an intrepid mode of expres- sion, and an admiration of whatever was hair- brained and sentimental. He was " A fiery ether-cap ; a fractious chiel," and altogether one of those companions who require prudent management. They com- menced their tour in a post chaise, on the 25th of August, 1787. Burns kept a journal of the journey : it is now before me, and begins thus : interred with much state and solemnity, by the Barons of the Exchequer, many of the most distinguished noblemen and gentlemen of the county being present. The tomb of the Bruce is immediately under the pulpit of the new church. :@ =© 64 LIFE OF BURNS. 1787. — " I leave Edinburgh for a northern tour, in company with my good friend Mr. Nicol, whose originality of humour promises me much entertainment. — Linlithgow — a fertile improved country. — West Lothian ; — the more elegance and luxury among the farmers, I always ob- serve, in equal proportion the rudeness and stupidity of the peasantry. This remark I have made all over the Lothians, Merse, Roxburgh, &c. ; and for this, among other reasons, I think that a man of romantic taste — a ' man of feel- ing ' — will be better pleased with the poverty, but intelligent minds, of the peasantry in Ayr- shire (peasantry they are all below the justice of peace) than the opulence of a club of Merse farmers, when he, at the same time, considers the Vandalism of their plough-folks, &c. I carry this idea so far that an unenclosed, half- improved country is to me actually more agree- able, and gives me more pleasure as a prospect, than a country cultivated like a garden." The Poet refused to look on the world through the coloured spectacles of political economists ; he preferred happiness to wealth. The soil about Linlinthgow he considered as light and thin ; the town carries the appearance of rude, decayed, idle grandeur, and the situ- ation charmingly retired and rural. — " The old Royal Palace," says his journal, "is a tolerable fine but melancholy ruin, sweetly situated on a small elevation by the brink of a loch. Shewn the room where the beautiful injured Mary Queen of Scots was born. A very pretty good old Gothic church, with the infamous stool of re- pentance standing, in the old Romish way, on a lofty situation. What a poor pimping busi- ness is a Presbyterian place of worship ! Dirty, narrow, and squalid ; stuck in a corner of old Popish grandeur, such as Linlithgow, and much more, Melrose ! Ceremony and show, if ju- diciously thrown in, absolutely necessary for the bulk of mankind, both in religious and civil matters. Go to my friend Smith's at Avon print-field — find nobody but Mrs. Meller, an agreeable, sensible, modest, good lady ; as use- ful, but not so ornamental, as Fielding's Miss Western — not rigidly polite a la Francais, but easy, hospitable, and housewifely. An old lady from Paisley, a Mrs. Lawson, whom I promise to call for in Paisley — like old Lady W , and still more like Mrs. C , her conversation is pregnant with strong sense and just remark, but, like them, a certain air of self-importance and a duresse in the eye, seem to indicate, as the Ayrshire wife observed of her cow, that 1 She had a mind o' her ain ! ' " He continues his tour, and his remarks — " Pleasant view of Dunfermline, and the * ["In the last words of Burns' note above quoted," says Lockhart, " he perhaps glances at a beautiful trait of old Barbour, where he describes Bruce's soldiers crowding rest of the fertile coast of Fife, as we go down to that dirty, ugly place, Borrowstoness — see a horse-race, and call on a friend of Mr. Nicol, a Bailie Cowan, of whom I know too little to attempt his portrait. Come through the rich Carse of Falkirk to pass the night. At Falkirk nothing remarkable, except the grave of Sir John the Grahame, over which, in the succes- sion of time, four stones have been placed. — Camelon, the ancient metropolis of the Picts, now a small village in the neighbourhood of Falkirk. — Cross the grand canal to Carron. — Come past Larbert and admire a fine monument of cast-iron erected by Bruce, the African traveller, to his wife. Pass Dunipace — a place laid out with fine taste — a charming amphithe- atre, bounded by Denny village, and pleasant seats. The Carron, running down the bosom of the whole, makes it one of the most charm- ing little prospects I have seen. Dine at Auchinbowie — Mr. Monro an excellent, worthy old man, — Miss Monro, an amiable, sensible, sweet young woman, much resembling Mrs. Grierson. Come on to Bannockburn ; shewn the old house where James III. finished so tra- gically his unfortunate life ; — the field of Ban- nockburn, — the hole where glorious Bruce set his standard. Here no Scot can pass uninter- ested. — I fancy to myself that I see my gallant, heroic countrymen coming o'er the hill, and down upon the plunderers of their country, the murderers of their fathers : noble revenge and just hate glowing in every vein, striding more and more eagerly as they approach the oppres- sive, insulting, blood-thirsty foe ! I see them meet in glorious - triumphant congratulation on the victorious field, exulting in their heroic royal leader, and rescued liberty and independ- ence !"* [" Here," says Lockhart, " we have the germ of Burns' famous Ode on the Battle of Bannockburn ."] " Sic words spake they of their king ; And for his hie undertaking Ferleyit and yernit him for to see, That with him aye was wont to be." I prefer, however, the account briefly ren- dered in one of his letters to all the rapture of his journal. — " Stirling, August 26. — This morning I knelt at the tomb of Sir John the Grahame, the gallant friend of the immortal Wallace, and two hours ago I said a fervent prayer for old Caledonia, over the hole in a blue whinstone, where Robert the Bruce fixed his royal standard on the banks of Bannock- burn ; and just now, from Stirling Castle, I have seen, by the setting sun, the glorious pros- pect of the windings of Forth through the rich around him at the conclusion of one of his hard-fought days, with as much curiosity as if they had never seen his person before.] @ = .ETAT. 28. THIRD HIGHLAND TOUR. 65 Carse of Stirling, and skirting the equally rich Carse of Falkirk." The ancient glory of his country, and the deeds of her heroes, were ever present to his mind. In his way to Crieff, Burns saw the Ochel- hills, the Devon, the Teith, and the Allan ; he rode up the romantic Earn; visited Strathallan, " a fine country, but little improved;" Auch- tertyre, where " grows the aik," as his own in- imitable song says, and, going up Glen- Almond, he visited the "traditionary grave" of Ossian. Making his way to Taymouth, he gazed long and earnestly on the spreading vale, the princely towers, and the expanding sea : his journal merely states " Taymouth— described in rhyme." This alludes to the verses written with a pencil over the mantel-piece of the parlour in the inn at Kenmore ; some of which, says Lockhart, are among his best English heroics — " Poetic ardours in my bosom swell, Lone wand'ring by the hermit's mossy cell : The sweeping theatre of hanging woods : The incessant roar of headlong-tumbling floods." Here Poesy might wake her heav'n-taught lyre, And look through nature with creative fire ; Here, to the wrongs of fate half-reconcil'd Misfortune's lighten'd steps might wander wild ; And disappointment, in these lonely bounds, Find balm to sooth her bitter, rankling wounds : Here heart-struck grief might heaven- ward stretch her scan, And injur'd worth forget, and pardon man." He passed through Dunkeld, visited the Lyon river, and knelt and said prayers in the Druid's temple, a smaller Stonehenge : of this piece of antiquity, he says, " Three circles of stone — the outermost sunk — the second has thirteen stones remaining — the innermost has eight — two large detached ones, like a gate to the south- east." Of Aberfeldy he briefly writes — " de- scribed in rhyme." He composed " The Birks of Aberfeldy" as he stood by the falls; the scene is truly beautiful, and the song rivals in truth and effect the landscape. Thence he proceeded to Birnam top : looked down the Tay, and visited a Hermitage on the Bran- water dedicated to the genius of Ossian. — " Breakfast with Dr. Stewart ; Neil Gow plays — a short, stout-built, honest Highland figure, with his greyish hair shed on his honest social brow ; an interesting face, marking strong sense ; kind open - heartedness, mixed with unmistrusting simplicity ;f visit his house — Margaret Gow." * [It is not true, says Lockhart, that this stone marks the spot where Dundee received his death wound.] t [Another northern bard has sketched this eminent musician thus : — " The blythe Strathspey springs up, reminding some Of nights when Gow's old arm (nor old the tale,) Unceasing, save when reeking cans went round, Made heart and heel leap light as bounding roe. Alas ! no more shall we behold that look So venerable, yet so blent with mirth, And festive joy sedate ; that ancient garb Unvaried, — tartan hose, and bonnet blue ! He next passed up Loch Tummcl to Blair. " Fascally, a beautiful romantic nest — wild grandeur of the Pass of Gilliecrankie — visit the gallant Lord Dundee's stone."* In re- membrance of this, in one of his after songs he makes a soldier of Mackay's say — " The bauld Pitcur fell in a fur, And Clavers got a clankie, Else I'd hae fed an Athole gled On the braes of Killiecrankie." From tne battle field, Burns proceeded to the palace of the Duke of Athol, at Blair, where he was welcomed with much kindness and courtesy : — " Sup with the duchess ; easy and happy from the manners of the family ; con- firmed in my good opinion of my friend Walker." Such is his brief record of this event ; Professor "Walker, who was at this period tutor to the family of Athol, merited the eulo- gium, and more ; no sooner did he observe Nicol than, knowing the manners of the man, he prepared an entertainment according to the nature of the fierce pedagogue. A fishing-rod and a servant to attend him by day, and choice wine and a snug table at night, charmed Nicol, and left Burns leisure to converse with the Duke and Duchess, and visit the scenes around, which he declared were fine by nature, but hurt by bad taste. Of the visit and visiter, the Professor has given us the following account : — " On reaching Blair, he sent me notice of his arrival (as I had previously been acquainted with him), and I hastened to meet him at the inn. The Duke, to whom he brought a letter of introduction, was from home ; but the Duchess, being informed of his arrival, gave him an invitation to sup and sleep at Athol House. Burns accepted the invitation ; but, as the hour of supper was at some distance, he begged I would in the interval be his guide through the grounds. It was already growing dark ; yet the softened, though faint and uncertain, view of their beauties, which the moonlight afforded us, seemed exactly suited to the state of his feelings at the time. I had often, like others, experienced the pleasures which arise from the sublime or elegant landscape, but I never saw those feelings so intense as in Burns. When we reached a rustic hut on the river Tilt, where it is overhung by a woody precipice, from which there is a noble waterfall, he threw him- No more shall Beauty's partial eye draw forth The full intoxication of his strain, Mellifluous, strong, exuberantly rich ! No more, amid the pauses of the dance, Shall he repeat those measures that, in days Of other years, could soothe a falling prince, And light his visage with a transient smile Of melancholy joy, — like autumn sun Gilding a sear tree with a passing beam ' Or play to sportive children on the green Dancing at gloamin' hour ; on willing cheer With strains unbought, the shepherd's bridal day." Geahame — British Georgics. F p 66 LIFE OF BURNS. 1787. self on the heathy seat, and gave himself up to a tender, abstracted, and voluptuous enthusiasm of imagination. I cannot help thinking it might have been here that he conceived the idea of the following lines, which he afterwards in- troduced into his poem on Bruar Water, when only fancying such a combination of objects as were now present to his eye : — " Or, by the reapers' nightly beam, Mild, chequering througli the trees, Rave to my darkly- dashing stream, Hoarse-swelling on the breeze." It was with much difficulty I prevailed on him to quit this spot, and to be introduced in proper time for supper. My curiosity was great to see how Burns would conduct himself in company so different from what he had been accustomed to. His manner was unembarrassed, plain, and firm. He appeared to have complete reliance on his own native good sense for directing his behaviour. He seemed at once to perceive and appreciate what was due to the company and to himself, and never to forget a proper respect for the separate species of dignity belonging to each. He did not arrogate conversation, but when led into it he spoke with ease, pro- priety, and manliness. He tried to exert his abilities, because he knew it was ability alone gave him a title to be there. The Duchess's fine young family attracted much of his admi- ration ; he drank their healths as ' honest men and bonnie lasses,' an idea which was much applauded by the company, and with which he has very felicitously closed his poem. Next day I took a ride with him through some of the most romantic parts of that neighbourhood, and was highly gratified by his conversation. As a specimen of his happiness of conception and strength of expression, I will mention a remark which he made on his fellow-traveller, who was walking at the time a few paces before us. He was a man of a robust but clumsy person ; and while Burns was expressing to me the value he entertained for him, on account of his vigorous talents, although they were clouded at times by coarseness of manners ; ' in short,' he added, ' his mind is like his body, he has a confounded strong in-kneed sort of a soul.' Much atten- tion was paid to Burns both before and after the duke's return, of which he was perfectly sensible, without being vain ; and at his depar- ture I recommended to him, as the most appro- priate return he could make, to write some de- scriptive verses on any of the scenes with which he had been so much delighted." [It appears that the impression made by our poet on the noble family of Athol was in a high degree favourable ; it is certain he was charmed with the reception he received from them, and he often mentioned the two days he spent at Athol-house as among the happiest of I his life. He was warmly invited to prolong his stay, but sacrificed his inclinations to his en- gagement with Mr. Nicol.] It was the wish of the Duke that Burns should visit the banks of the Bruar, where the scenery is bold and naked. The Poet, accus- j tomed to the woody banks of the Ayr and the Doon, was not disposed to admire the barren sublimity of the Bruar, and accordingly wrote his " Humble Petition," in which the water re- quests the umbrage of birch and hazel from the hands of the noble proprietor. " Let Jofty firs and ashes cool, My lowly banks o'erspread, And view, deep-bending in the pool, Their shadows' wat'ry bed ! " Let fragrant birks in woodbines drest My craggy cliffs adorn ; And, for the little songster's nest, The close embow'ring thorn." This was almost the only wish which the Poet ever uttered that any pains were taken to gratify. The banks of the Bruar are now clothed as he prescribed — the trouts are sheltered from the sun by the over-hanging boughs — the songster's nest is to be seen in its season, " And birks extend their fragrant arms To screen the dear embrace." Burns hastened his departure from Blair ; two of his biographers express regret at this. Had he remained, they observe, but a few days, he would have met Lord Melville, who had the chief management of the internal affairs of Scot- land, and who "might not improbably have been induced to bestow that consideration on the claims of the Poet which, in the absence of any personal acquaintance, Burns' works ought to have received at his hands." Lord Melville admired, with the Poet, woman's beauty, wine's allurements, and rough intrepidity of conversa- tion : there were no other links to unite them. It was more to the purpose that Burns, at the table of Athole, made the acquaintance of Gra- ham of Fintry, who has the merit of doing the little that was done for him in the way of patronage. Historic and poetic scenes — spots where bat- tles had been fought and songs sung, were most in request with Burns. On quitting Blair he shaped his course towards the Spey, and fol- lowed the stream. The straths he found rich, the mountains wild and magnificent. He saw Rothemurche and the gloomy forests of Glen- more, and, passing rapidly through Strathspey, halted an hour at a wild inn, and visited Sir James Grant, whose lady he pronounces a sweet and pleasant body. " I passed," said he to his brother Gilbert, "through a wild country, among cliffs grey with eternal snows and glens gloomy and savage." He came upon the Findhorn u in mist and darkness," visited Castle-Cawdor, where Macbeth murdered Dun- can, saw the bed in which tradition says the .KT.VT. 28. THIRD 1IKIHLAND TOUR. king was stabbed ; hurried on to Fort-George, and thence to Inverness. He took a hurried look at Loch Ness with its wild braes, and the General's Hut ; visited Urquhart Castle, with its fine strath ; and was so rapt at the Falls of Fyers that he broke out into verse. Short as the Poet's stay was in Inverness, he found leisure to admire the classic capital of the eastern Highlands. The ladies, with their snooded hair and simple elegance of dress ; the jail, which was pronounced unable to retain a prisoner who belonged to a clan ; the fort, raised during the days of Cromwell to keep the land in awe ; and the beautiful Hill of Fairies, near the river side, claimed by tradition as the grave of Thomas the Rhymer, were not looked upon without emotion and remark. On leaving Inverness he passed over Culloden Moor, a place calculated to awaken sad reflections. On that heath, so fetal to the hopes of our ancient line of princes — a heath desolate and blasted, and only relieved in its brown barrenness by the green mounds raised over the bones of the brave — the Poet paused, and w r as long lost in thought ; the fruit of his meditations was a lyric, which cannot easily be equalled for simplicity and pathos : — " The lovely lass o' Inverness, Nae joy nor pleasure can she see ; For e'en an' morn she cries, alas ' And ay the saut tear blins her ee. Drumossie moor, Drumossie day, — A waefu' day it was to me ! For there I lost my father dear — My father dear, and brethren three." The Poet reached Kilravock in time for breakfast ; his record of this halt is short, but to the point : — " Old Mrs. Rose: sterling sense, warm heart, strong passions, and honest pride, all in an uncommon degree. Mrs. Rose, jun., a little milder than the mother ; this, perhaps, owing to her being younger. Mrs. Rose and Mr. Grant accompany us to Kildrummie . Two young ladies : Miss Rose, who sung two Gaelic songs, beautiful and lovely ; Miss Sophia Brodie, most agreeable and amiable ; both of them gen- tle, mild; the sweetest creatures on earth — and happiness be with them !" Of this visit the Poet had long a grateful recollection : " There was something in my reception at Kilravock," he says, in a letter to Mrs. Rose, " so different from the cold, obsequious, dancing-school bow of politeness, that it almost got into my head that friendship had occupied her ground with- out tho intermediate march of acquaintance. I wish I could transcribe, or rather transfuse, into language, the glow of my heart. My ready fancy, with colours more mellow than life itself, painted the beautifully wild scenery of Kilra- vock — the venerable grandeur of the castle — the spreading woods — the winding river, gladly leaving his unsightly, heathy source, lingering with apparent delight as he passed the Fairy- Walk at the foot of the garden — your late distress- ful anxieties — your present enjoyments — your dear little angel, the pride of your hopes — my aged friend, venerable in worth and years, whose loyalty and other virtues will strongly entitle her to the support of the Almighty Spirit here, and His peculiar favour in a happier state of existence. You cannot imagine, madam, how much such feelings delight me ; they are the dearest proofs of my own immortality." Burns, it would appear by a letter from Mrs. Rose, had been hurried from her fire-side by the importunities of Nicol ; the two friends now continued their journey in a colder mood ; the diary was sadly neglected. It affords, however, sundry touches of character : — " Dine at Nairn ; fall in with a pleasant enough gentleman — Dr. Stewart, who had been abroad with his father in the ' Forty- Five ;' and Mr. Falconer, a spare, irascible, warm-hearted Norlan and a non- juror." He passed by Kinloss, where Edward the First halted in his conquering march, inti- midated as much by wild woods and savage hills as by the warlike people. He admired in Elgin the remains of Scotland's noblest cathe- dral, and examined at Forres the enormous slab of grey stone, in shape resembling a sword-blade, erected as a monument of peace between Sweno of Denmark, and Malcolm II. Something like sculptures on the sides, antiquarians aver, inti- mate a drawn battle and a treaty of peace. — "Mr. Brodie tells me," says the Poet, "that the moor where Shakspeare lays Macbeth' s witch - meeting is still haunted, and that the country folk won't pass it by night." * * * * " Venerable ruins of Elgin Abbey — a grander effect at first glance than Melrose, but not near so beautiful." On reaching Fochabers, the Poet left his companion at an inn, and went to pay his re- spects to the Duke and Duchess of Gordon, to whose splendid mansion the village is as a suburb. — " He was received," says Currie, " with the utmost hospitality and kindness ; and, the family being about to sit down to dinner, he was invited to take his place at table as a mat- ter of course. This invitation he accepted, and after drinking a few glasses of wine he rose up, and proposed to withdraw. On being pressed to stay, he mentioned, for the first time, his en- gagement with his fellow-traveller; and, his noble host offering to send a servant to conduct Mr. Nicol to the castle, Burns insisted on un- dertaking that office himself : he was, however, accompanied by a gentleman, a particular ac- quaintance of the Duke, by whom the invita- tion was delivered in all the forms of politeness." They found Nicol in a foaming passion : in vain the Poet soothed, explained, expostulated; he refused all apology, and kept striding up and down the streets of Fochabers, cursing the post- illions for not yoking the horses and hurrying him away. Burns, it is said, eyed the irascible & -■© 08 LIFE OF BURNS. 1787. pedagogue for a moment, as if deciding whether he should confront him with fury equal to his own, or quietly seat himself in his own nook of the chaise and proceed southward. He chose the latter alternative, and turned his back on Castle-Gordon with a vexation he sought not to conceal. ["This incident," Lockhart justly remarks, " may serve to suggest some of the annoyances to which persons m-oving, like our poet, on the debateable land between two different ranks of society, must ever be subjected. To play the lion under such circumstances must be difficult at best ; but a de^cate business, indeed, when the jackalls are presumptuous. This pedant could not stomach the superior success of his friend — and yet, alas for poor human nature ! he certainly was one of the most enthusiastic of his admirers, and one of the most affectionate of all his intimates." "The abridgment of Burns's visit to Gordon Castle was not only," says Walker, " a mortifying disappointment, but in all probability a serious misfortune ; as a longer stay among persons of such influence might have begot a permanent intimacy, and on their parts an active concern for his future advancement.''' " I shall certainly," says the Poet, in a letter to Mr James Hoy, Gordon Castle, " among my legacies, leave my latest curse on that unlucky predicament which hur- ried — tore me away from Castle Gordon. May that obstinate son of Latin prose (Nicol) be curst to Scotch mile periods, and damned to seven league paragraphs ; while Declension and Conjugation, Gender, Number, and Time, under the ragged banners of Dissonance and Disar- rangement, eternally rank against him in hos- tile array !" j The rough temper of his companion did not, however, prevent him from soliciting the muse for a song in honour of The Gordon ; but the muse seems to have been infected with the mood of Nicol ; she spoke, but not happily. He says in his journal — " Cross Spey to Foch- abers ; fine palace, worthy of the generous pro- prietor. The Duke makes me happier than ever great man did — noble, princely, yet mild, con- descending, and affable; gay and kind: the Duchess witty and sensible — God bless them !" The visit of Burns to Castle- Gordon was not altogether one of curiosity or chance. The Duchess desired to befriend the Poet ; she spoke of his merits in the north, and praised his poems in the south, in coteries where their language was dark and mystical. Her friend, Henry Addington, now Viscount Sidmouth, saw in the verses of the rustic bard a spontaneous vi- gour of expression, and a glowing richness of language, all but rivalling Shakspeare. He talked of them among the titled and enthusi- astic, and took pleasure in quoting them to Pitt and to Melville. Tins was not unknown to the Duchess : she invited him to Castle-Gordon, and promised him the company of Burns and Beattie. The future premier was unable to ac- cept the invitation ; but wrote and forwarded, it is said, these memorable lines — memorable as the first indication of that deep love which En- gland now entertains for the genius of Burns : — " Yes ! pride of Scotia's favoured plains, 'tis thine The warmest feelings of the heart to move ; To bid it throb with sympathy divine, To glow with friendship, or to melt with love. " What though each morning sees thee rise to toil; Tho' Plenty on thy cot no blessing showers, Yet Independence cheers thee with her smile, And Fancy strews thy moorland with her flowers. " And dost thou blame the impartial will of Heaven, Untaught of life the good and ill to scan? To thee the Muse's choicest wreath is given ; To thee the genuine dignity of man : Then, to the want of worldly gear resign 'd, Be grateful for the wealth of thy exhaustless mind." Aberdeen the Poet calls a lazy town, con- trary to the general opinion of Scotland. Here he met with " Mr. Chalmers, printer, a facetious fellow — Mr. Ross, a fine fellow, like Professor Tytler — Mr. Marshall, one of the poeice, vii- nores — Mr. Sheriffs, author of Jamie and Bess, a little decrepid body with some abilities — Bishop Skinner, a Nonjuror, son of the author of Tullochgorum : — a man," he says, "whose mild venerable manner is the most marked of any in so young a man. Professor Gordon, a good-natured, jolly-looking professor. Near Stonehive, the coast a good deal romantic — meet my relations. James Burness, writer in Stonehive, one of those who love fun, a gill, and a punning joke, and have not a bad heart ; his wife, sweet and hospitable, without any affectation of what is called town-breeding." The next day he breakfasted with Mr. Burness, and slept at Lawrence Kirk. Visits the Album library. Mrs. a jolly, frank, sensi- ble, love - inspiring widow. Howe of the Mearns, a rich, cultivated, but still uninclosed country. After visiting Montrose — that finely situated handsome town, he now directed his steps to Muthie, and inspected the famous caverns on its wild romantic coast ; he stopped for an hour to examine Arbroath Abbey ; passed through Dundee — "a low-lying but pleasant town," — and, having examined Broughty Castle, a finely situated ruin, on the banks of the Tay, he went " through the rich har- vests and fine hedge-rows of the Carse of Gowrie ; along the romantic margin of the Grampian Hills to the fruitful, woody, hilly country which encloses Perth." In going up Strathern he visited the banks of Endermay, fine, fruitful, cultivated Strath, famous in song ; then mused awhile on the scene made memorable by the affecting story of " Bessy Bell and Mary Gray :" and, finally, after visiting the fine scenery on the banks of the May, and enjoying S>J =® @^= J3TAT. 28. DAN(ii:il()US ACCIDENT. 69 the hospitalities of Mrs. Belcher, whom he de- scribes as " gawde, frank, affable, fond of rural sports, hunting, &c," he hurried onto Queens- ferry, " through a cold, barren country." He parted with the north in a better mood in his last than in his first journey ; he had been everywhere, save at Arbruchil, kindly received ; chiei' had vied with chief in doing him honour, and, though he took but some twenty and odd days to this extensive tour, he had seen, ob- served, and imbibed so much of the mountain spirit as coloured many of his future lyrics. He took farewell of the north in character. On passing the Lowland line he turned about and exclaimed : — " When death's dark stream I ferry o'er, A day that surely shall come, In Heaven itself I'll ask no more Than just a Highland welcome." [He arrived once more in Edinburgh on the 16th of September, having travelled near six hundred miles, windings included, in twenty- two days — greatly extended his acquaintance with his own country, and visited some of its most classical scenery — observed something of Highland manners, which must have been as interesting as they were novel to him — and strengthened considerably, among the sturdy Jacobites of the North, those political opinions which he at this period avowed.] The Poet once more visited his family at Mauchline, where he remained a week or two with his mother, and having looked leisurely over the farms which still awaited his offer on Dalswinton estate, Burns proceeded to Edin- burgh for the purpose of arranging his affairs with Creech, a sharp and yet dilatory person. He entertained a hope, too, that some of the leading men of Scotland would find him a task less alien to his feelings than farming, which in those days yielded but a bare subsistence ; and as he had been acceptable to them before, he expected to be no less so now, when the world had sanctioned their praise. His bookseller had distant correspondents to consult, and the pro- ceeds of a large edition to calculate ; and this was the work of time. The patronage, too, which the Poet anticipated, required leisure ; the great must not be pressed with eager soli- citude by the poor and the dependant; their deeds of generosity must be allowed to come in their own time and season, and seem the off- spring of their own natures. [It was at this period that his friend Mr. Ainslie says, " The Poet was a considerable time in Edinburgh, visiting Mr. Cruikshanks, then one of the masters of the High School, who lived in St. James's Square, New Town. I had then a small bachelor house on the north side of the square, and, intimate as we were, it may be supposed we spent many an hour toge- ther ; and, to me, most agreeable they were. I remember one pleasant summer afternoon, the Poet came over to me after dinner. I was then but a writer to the signet's apprentice, but had already a cellar, though it must be ad- mitted it was no extensive one, for it was no more than a window bunker, and consisted but of five bottles of port — all that remained of a dozen which had been my last laid-in store ; but it was excellent, and old, and got from a wine-merchant who favoured me. I was too hospitable not to offer a bottle to my friend, who was one of the finest fellows in the world. What then was to have been expected to hap- pen ? — that some nice points would have been discussed — an exercise in which the Poet dis- played always great eloquence — and many a fine quotation made, in which he constantly indulged with great fervour ; and, lastly, that the poor five bottles of wine might have suf- fered in the cause, to the great elucidation of all the questions, and the increase of the beauty and sublimity of all the passages quoted. But no such thing. ' No, my friend/ said Burns ; giving me at the same time, a kindly slap upon the shoulder, ' we'll hae nae wine the day ; to sit dozing in the house on sic a glorious after- noon as this ! Besides, ye ken you and I dinna require wine to sharpen our wit, nor its adven- titious aid to make us happy. No ; we'll tak a walk about Arthur Seat, and come in to a late tea/ We did so ; and I almost never found the Poet so amusing, so instructive, and altogether so delightful, as he was in the charm- ing "stroll which we had together, and during the sober ' tea drinking' which followed it.] The active spirit of Burns could not be idle ; he addressed himself to the two-fold business of love and verse. I have related the success of his poetic homage to Charlotte Hamilton. In another letter dated November 21st 1787, to the same young lady, he says that he has a heart for friendship, if not for love, and deserves the tender sympathy of the two blooming spin- sters. ' ' Charlotte and you are just two favourite resting - places for my soul in her wanderings through the weary, thorny, wilderness of this world. God knows I am ill-fitted for the struggle ; I glory in being a poet, and want to be thought a wise man ; I would fondly be generous, and I desire to be rich. After all, I am afraid, I am a lost subject. Some folk hae a hantle o' fauts, an' I'm but a ne'er-do-weel." As the correspondence proceeded, Burns was overset in a hackney coach, and one of his legs dangerously bruised. He thinks of Har- vieston and the condolence of beauty. " Here I am," he says, " under the care of a surgeon, with a bruised limb extended on a cushion, and the tints of my mind vying with the livid horror preceding a midnight thunder-storm. A drunken coachman was the cause of the first, and incomparably the lightest, evil ; misfortune, bodilj constitution, hell, and myself, have <&v : C 70 LIFE OF BURNS. 1787. formed a quadruple alliance to guarantee the other. I have taken, tooth and nail, to the Bible ; it is really a glorious book. I would give my best song to my worst foe, I mean the merit of making it, to have you and Charlotte by me. You are angelic creatures, and would pour oil and wine into my wounded spirit." Charlotte Hamilton, to whose ear and heart most of these fine things were obliquety ad- dressed, was not to be moved by the muse : she was probably aware of the more than equivo- cal situation in which the Poet stood with regard to Jean Armour, and she felt a growing regard for Adair, whom Burns had introduced. This, in some measure, accounts for the in- different success of the Poet, in a matter on which he seems to have set his heart, and also for the destruction of his letters On the 19th of the following month Ave find the Poet again addressing Miss Margaret Chal- mers, who was married in the ensuing year to a gentleman named Hay, and who we understand still lives (1840) at Pall, in the Pyrennean dis- trict of Berne : — "The atmosphere of my soul is vastly clearer than when I wrote you last. For the first time, yesterday, I crossed the room on crutches. Tt would do your heart good to see my Bardship, not in my poetic, but in my oaken, stilts, throwing my best leg with an air ! and with as much hilarity in my gait and coun- tenance as a may-frog leaping across the newly harrowed ridge, enjoying the fragrance of the refreshed earth after the long expected shower. I can't say I am altogether at my ease, when I see anywhere in my path that meagre, squalid, famine-faced spectre, Poverty, attended, as he always is, by iron-fisted Oppression and peering Contempt. But I have sturdily withstood his buffetings many a hard-laboured day, and still my motto is, I DARE ! my worst enemy is moi-meme. There are just two creatures that I would envy — a horse in his wild state traversing the forests of Asia, or an oyster on some of the desert shores of Europe. The one has not a wish without enjoyment, the other has neither wish nor fear."* ["It seems impossible to doubt," says Lock- hart, " that Burns had, in fact, lingered in Edinburgh, in the hope that, to use a vague but sufficiently expressive phrase, something would be done for him. He visited and revisited a farm, — talked and wrote scholarly and wisely about ' having a fortune at the plough-tail,' and so forth ; but all the while nourished, and as- suredly it would have been most strange if he had not, the fond dream that the admiration of * The eloquent hypochondriacism of the concluding pas- sage of his letter called forth the commendation of Francis Jeffry, now a Lord of Session in Scotland. [f It is remarkable that Burns himself in the above letter, and some of his biographers, allude to Clarinda as being a widow, notwithstanding her husband was then living abroad. The Poet says in one of his letters to her, — " Your person is unapproachable by the laws of your country ; and he loves you his country would e'er long present itself in some solid and tangible shape. His illness and confinement gave him leisure to concentrate his imagination on the darker side of his prospects ; and the letters which we have quoted may teach those who envy the powers and the fame of genius to pause for a moment over the annals of literature, and think what superior capabi- lities of misery have been, in the great majority of cases, interwoven with the possession of those very talents from which all but their possessors derive unmingled gratification."] In December 30, 1787, Burns thus addresses I his friend Richard Brown, mariner : — " I am just the same will-o' -wisp being I used to be : about the first and fourth quarters of the moon, I gene- rally set in for the trade-wind of wisdom ; but about the full and the change I am the luckless victim of mad tornadoes which blow me into chaos. All mighty love still reigns and revels in my bo- som, and I am at this moment ready to hang my- self for a young Edinburgh widow, f who has wit and wisdom more murderously fatal than the assassinating stiletto of the Sicilian banditti, or the poisoned arrow of the savage African. My Highland dirk, that used to hang beside my crutches, I have gravely removed into a neighbouring closet, the key of which I can- not command in case of spring-tide paroxysms. You may guess of her wit by the verses which she sent me the other day : — " Talk not of love ; it gives me pain : For love has been my foe ; He bound me with an iron chain, And plunged me deep in woe ! " But friendship's pure and lasting joys My heart was formed to prove, — There welcome, win, and wear the prize But never talk of love ! " Your friendship much can make me blest— O why that bliss destroy ? Why urge the odious one request You know I must deny!" This Edinburgh beauty was the Mrs. Mac of the Poet's toasts when the wine circulated — the accomplished Clarinda, to whom, under the name of Sylvander, he addressed so much prose and verse. This " mistress of the Poet's soul and queen of poetesses," could not be otherwise than tolerant in her taste, if she sympathized in the affected strains which he offered at the altar of her beauty. His prose is cumbrous, and his verse laboured : there are, it is true, passages of natural feeling and sentiments sometimes of a high order, but in general his raptures are ar- not as I do who would make you miserable." And again, he alludes emphatically to a circumstance, the occurrence of which would no longer separate them. The matrimonial connexion of this lady had proved, from no fault on her part, unhappy, and she then resided in Edinburgh, with two young children, while her husband was pushing his fortune in Ja- maica, where he ultimately became chief clerk of the Court of Common Pleas, and died in 1812.— Chambers.] ©=■ JSTAT. 28. MRS. M'LEHOSE-CLARINDA. 71 titicial and liis sensibility assumed. He puts himself into strange postures and picturesque positions, and feels imaginary pains to corres- pond ; he wounds himself, to shew how readily the sores of love can be mended ; and flogs his body like a devotee, to obtain the compassion of his patron saint. Nor is this all ; in his ad- dresses he is often audaciously bold ; he wants tenderness, too, and sometimes taste : — " In vain would Prudence with her decent sneer, Point to a censuring world, and bid me fear : Above that world on wings of love I rise, I know its worst, and can that worst despise. Wrong'd, slander'd, shunn'd, unpitied, unredrest, The mock'd quotation of the scorner's jest, Let Prudence' direst bodements on me fall — Clarinda, rich reward ! o'erpays them all !" These lines are sufficiently forward, and could not but be painful to Mrs. M'Lehose, unless she smiled on them as the fantastic effusions of a pastoral platonism. In another part of the same poem he vows, " By all on high adoring mortals know ! By all the conscious villain fears below ! By your dear self ! the last great oath, I swear, Not life nor soul were ever half so dear," to love her while wood grows and water runs, according to the tenure of entailed property. It is some apology for the Poet, perhaps, that these compositions, which I am unwilling to regard as serious — and which formed, in the opinion of James Grahame, the poet, " a ro- mance of real platonic attachment" — were pro- duced in the painful leisure which a bruised limb afforded him ; the lady to whom they were addressed now and then wrote to the crippled Bard, and diverted him with her wit, though she. refused to soothe him with her presence. It is true that the poem from which these lines are extracted contains couplets presumptuous and familiar, and asserts that they were com- mended by his fair correspondent; but this cannot well be believed by those who draw conclusions from the general spirit of the let- ters. Those who know Clarinda cannot but feel that Burns thought of her when he said, " People of nice sensibility and generous minds have a certain intrinsic dignity which fires at being trifled with or lowered, or even too closely approached." Yet cheered as he was by beauty, and praised as a poet from " Maidenkirk to John o' Groats," the poet was anything but happy. " I have a hundred times wished," he says in a letter to Mrs. Dunlop, of the 21st of January, 1788, " that one could resign life as an officer resigns his commission ; for I would not take in any poor ignorant wretch by selling out. Lately I was a sixpenny private, and, God knows, a miserable soldier enough ; now I march to the campaign a starving cadet, a little more con- spicuously wretched. I am ashamed of all this ; for, though 1 do not want bravery for the warfare of life, I could wish, like some other soldiers, to have as much fortitude or cunning, as to dissemble or conceal my cowardice." During the abode of Burns in Edinburgh, Johnson commenced his " Musical Museum," the object of which was to unite the songs and the music of Scotland in one general collection. The proprietor, a man of more enthusiasm than knowledge, inserted in his first volume, pub- lished in June, 1787, several airs of at least doubtful origin, and several songs of more than doubtful merit : before he commenced the se- cond volume, he had acquired the help of Burns ; indeed, the first bears marks of his hand. " Green grow the Rashes" is an ac- knowledged production, and " Bonnie Dundee" carries the peculiar impress of his genius : — " My blessings upon thy sweet wee lippie ; My blessings upon thy bonnie e'e bree ! Thy smiles are sae like my blythe sodger laddie, Thou's ay be dearer and dearer to me ! ' ' To the second volume, published in February, 1788, Burns contributed the preface, and no less than thirty lyrics. In the former he says, " The songs contained in this volume, both music and poetry, are all of them the work of Scotchmen. Wherever the old words could be recovered, they have been preferred ; both as generally suiting better the genius of the tunes, and to preserve the productions of those earlier sons of the Scottish muses. Ignorance and prejudice may, perhaps, affect to sneer at the simplicity of the poetry or music of some of these pieces ; but their having been for ages the favourites of nature's judges, the common people, was to the editor a sufficient test of their merit. Most of the songs which Burns contributed are of great merit. " To the Weavers gin ye go" is the homely song of a country lass who went to warp a web, and forgot her errand : for— " A bonnie westlin weaver lad Sat working at his loom, He took my heart as wi' a net, In every knot and thrum." It relates, I have heard, the story of one of his rustic sweethearts. " Whistle an' I'll come to you, my lad" is an imperfect version of one of his happiest songs. The idea is old — and some of the words. The verse which he added will ever be new : — " Come down the back stairs when ye come to court me ; Come down the back stairs when ye come to court me ; Come down the back stairs, and let naebody see, And come as ye were na coming to me." He loved to eke out the old melodies of Cale- donia. " I'm o'er young to marry yet" is sung by a very young lady, who upbraids her suitor with a design to carry her from her mother, -<© 0= 72 LIFE OF BURNS. 1788. and put her into the company of a strange man during the lonely nights of winter. She, how- ever, discovers a remedy : — " Fu' loud and shrill the frosty wind, Blaws thro' the leafless timmer, sir ; But if ye come this gate again, I'll aulder be gin simmer, sir." " The Birks of Aberfeldy" originated in an old strain called the Birks of Abergeldie, but surpasses it as far as sunshine excels candlelight. The same may be said of " Macpherson's Fare- well." Something of the rudiments of this bold rant may be found in old verses of the same name ; but they are, in comparison, as barley- chaff is to gold sand. The hero of the song, a musician and noted freebooter, was taken redhand, and hurried to execution. When the rope was round his neck, he sent for his favourite fiddle, played an air, called, after him, Macpherson's Rant, offered the instru- ment in vain to any one who could play the tune, then broke it over the hangman's head, and flung himself from the ladder. His song is in character, wild, daring, and revengeful : — " Oh ! what is death but parting breath ? On many a bloody plain I've dared his face, and in this place I scorn him yet again. Untie these bands from off my hands, And bring to me my sword, And there's no man in all Scotland, But I'll brave him at a word." The genius of the north had an influence over the Poet's musings in other compositions. In " The Highland Lassie," the lover com- plains of want of wealth, and the faithlessness of fortune, but, strong in affection, declares, " For her I'll dare the billows' roar, For her I'll trace the distant shore, That Indian wealth may lustre throw Around my Highland lassie, O." In " The Northern Lass" he utters similar sentiments : and in " Braw, braw lads of Galla Water," his hand may be traced by the curious in Scottish song ; it is too kenspeckle to be denied : — " Sae fair her hair, sae brent her brow, Sae bonnie blue her een, my dearie, Sae white her teeth, sae sweet her mou', The mair I kiss, she's aye my dearie." " Stay, my Charmer," if not of Highland ex- traction, owes its air to the north. There are but eight lines ; but he excelled in saying much in small compass : — " By my love so ill requited : By the faith you fondly plighted, By the pangs of lovers slighted, Do not, do not leave me so !" To a Jacobite feeling we owe that fine strain " Strathallan's Lament." " This air," says the Poet, "is the composition of one of the worthi- est and best men living, Allan Masterton. As he and I were both sprouts of jacobitism, we agreed to dedicate the words and air to that cause." The song is supposed to be the " Goodnight" of James Drummond, Viscount of Strathallan, who escaped to France from Culloden. Even in the days of Burns, the language which the exile is made to utter could not but be unacceptable to many : — " In the cause of right engaged, Wrongs injurious to redress, Honour's war we strongly waged, But the heavens denied success." The amended songs are numerous. In his hastiest touches there is something always which no hand but that of Burns could com- municate. " How long and dreary is the night !" is mostly his ; the last verse will go to many hearts : — " How slow ye move, ye heavy hours, As ye were wae and wearie ! It was na sae ye glinted by, When I was wi' my dearie." The hoary wooer in " To daunton me," is sketched with all the scornful spirit of a lady who has set her heart on a younger person : — " He hirples twa-fold as he dow, Wi' his teethless gab and his auld beld pow, And the rain dreeps down frae his red-bleer'd ee, That auld man shall never daunton me." In " Bonnie Peggie Alison," the Poet in- dulges in such license of language as may startle the fastidious ; yet it is but the rapture of an enthusiastic heart : — • When in my arms, wi' a' thy charms, I clasp my countless treasure, I seek nae mair o' Heaven to share Than sic a moment's pleasure." " The Dusty Miller" exhibits a few of his happy emendations. A young woman, in re- membering the attractions of a lover who wins a shilling before he spends a groat, sings with arch simplicity — " Dusty was the coat, Dusty was the colour, Dusty was the kiss I got frae the miller." He withheld his name from " Theniel Men- zies' bonny Mary." The buoyancy of the language, and the natural truth of the delinea- tion must be felt by all who know what lyric composition is : — " Her een sae bright, her brow sae white, Her haffet locks as brown 's a berry, And aye they dimpl'd wi' a smile, The rosy cheeks o' bonny Mary." " The Banks of the Devon," " Raving winds around her blowing," " Musing on the aKTAT. *29. EDINBURGH— MUSICAL MUSEUM. 73 roaring ocean," " A rose-bud by my early walk," and " Where braving angry Winter's storms," were all published in the Poet's name. In the first, he paid homage to the charms of Charlotte Hamilton ; and in the latter, to the gentle and winning graces of Margaret Chalmers. These are more finished and equal, yet scarcely so happy as some of the hasty and perhaps in- considerate snatches with which he eked out the fragmentary strains of the old minstrels. That his heart was much with this sort of work, we may gather from his letter to Mrs. Rose of Kilravock, Feb. 17th 1788 : — " I am assisting a friend in a collection of Scottish songs set to their proper tunes. Every air worth preserving is to be included. Among others, I have given ' Morag,' and some few Highland airs which pleased me most, a dress which will be more generally known, though far — far inferior in real merit." He wrote to his friends — east, west, north, and south, for airs and verses for the Museum. From his old comrade M'Candlish he begged " Pompey's Ghost," by the unfortunate Lowe — from Skin- ner of Linshart — from Dr. Blacklock he en- treated communications ; and he drew upon his own memory for some of those antique strains, picked up from the singing of his mother, or the maidens of Ayr-shire. To those who charge Burns with idleness or dissipation during this winter in Edinburgh, many will think thirty songs an answer suffici- ent, without taking into consideration his maimed limb, and his numerous letters to Clarinda. He had other matters, too, on his mind ; I have said that he exhibited early symptoms of jacobi- tism : his Highland tours and conversations with the chiefs and ladies of the north strengthened a liking which he seems to have inherited from his fathers. On the 31st of December previous, he was present at a meeting to celebrate the birth-day of the last of the race of our native princes, the unfortunate Charles Edward : he acted the part of laureate on the occasion, and recited an ode, lamenting the past, sympathizing in the present, and prophesying retribution for the future. Like almost all the verse for which Burns taxed his spirit, the ode is cumbrous and inflated ; neither the fiery impetuosity of Gra- ham, nor the calm intrepidity of Balmerino inspired him — " Ye honoured mighty dead ! Who nobly perished in the glorious cause, Your king, your country, and your laws : From great Dundee, who, smiling, victory led, [* The sum paid was £5 10, as appears from the following extract of an original letter, in Burns's hand-writing, now in the possession of Geo. H. King, Esq , of Glasgow. To Mr. Peter Hill, Bookseller, Edinburgh. — Dumfries, February 5th, 1792. — My dear friend, I send you by the bearer, Mr. Clark, a particular friend of mine, six pounds and a shilling, which you will dispose of as follows : — five pounds ten shillings, per account, I owe to Mr. Robert Burn, Architect, And fell a martyr in her arms ; What breast of northern ice but warms To bold Balmerino's undying name? Whose soul of fire, lighted at Heaven's high flame, Deserves the proudest wreath departed heroes claim 1" W T ho were the Poet's associates at this anni- versary no one has told us. The white rose of jacobitism was worn in those days by many people of rank and condition : it was the sym- bol of all who regretted that Scotland had ceased to be a separate kingdom, had lost the dignity of her parliament, the honours of her monarchy, and was compelled to send hei children into another land to represent her in- terests, where they were exposed to the scoffs and insults of a proud and haughty people. This was the jacobitism of Burns ; though he sung of the woes of Drumossie, and the suffer- ings of Prince Charles, he had no desire to see the ancient line restored, and the Hanoverian dynasty expelled, since he knew that every step towards the throne would be on a bloody corse. His heart clung to the immediate descendants of Bruce, and it is probable that he never studied the mystery of a constitution which, to secure our freedom, raised a prince to the throne who could neither speak our language, nor com- prehend the genius of the people. His whole affections were concentrated on his native land : his whole object was to do it honour : for this he sacrificed his time ; to this he dedicated his genius ; and on this, though poor, he laid out some of the little wealth he had. He saw with sorrow that the dust of Fergusson, the poet, lay among the ignoble dead, and desired to raise a memorial, such as might guide the steps of the lovers of Scottish song to the grave of his bro- ther bard. This humble wish was graciously granted by the authorities of the Canongate kirk, and he raised a monumental stone, which is still to be seen among the thick-piled grave- stones of the burial-ground. A communication from Delhi informs me that the price paid by the Poet was 5L, and that the work was ex- ecuted by Mr. Burn, father of the present distinguished architect.* That Burns could write so many songs is to be marvelled at, when we reflect that, during most of the time, a sort of civil war existed be- tween him and his bookseller, of which many symptoms are visible in his printed and manu- script correspondence. — " I have broke mea- sures," he says, " with Creech, and last week I wrote him a frosty, keen letter. He replied in terms of chastisement, and promised me, upon for erecting the stone over the grave of poor Fergusson. He was two years in erecting it, after I had commissioned him for it ; and I have been two years in paying him, after he sent me his account ; so he and I are quits. He had the hardiesse to ask me interest on the sum, but, considering the money was due by one poet for putting a tombstone over an- other, he may, with grateful surprise, thank Heaven that he ever saw a farthing of it. R. B.] @F -£' (P 74 LIFE OF BURNS. 1788. his honour, that I should have the account on Monday ; but this is Tuesday, and yet I have not heard a word from him. God have mercy on me ! a poor, damned, incautious, duped, un- fortunate fool ! The sport, the miserable victim of rebellious pride, hypochondriac imagination, agonizing sensibility, and bedlam passions ! ' I wish that I were dead, but I'm no like to die.' I have this moment got a hint — I fear I am something like undone ; but I hope for the best. Come stubborn pride and unshrinking resolu- tion ; accompany me through this, to me, miser- able world ! You must not desert me ! Your friendship I think I can count on, though I should date my letters from a marching regi- ment. Early in life, and all my life, I reckoned on a recruiting drum as my forlorn hope. Seri- ously, though, life at present presents me with but a melancholy path ; but my limb will soon be sound, and I shall struggle on." These expressions refer to whispers which had reached his ear about the solvency of Creech, and are contained in a letter to Margaret Chal- mers : the conduct of his bookseller dwelt long on his mind ; we find him, sometime after- wards, thus writing to Dr. Moore. — " I cannot boast about Creech's ingenuous dealing ; he kept me hanging on about Edinburgh from the 7th of August, 1787, until the 13th of April, 1788, before he would condescend to give me a state- ment of affairs ; nor had I got it even then, but for an angry letter I wrote him, which irritated his pride. I could not a ' tale,' but a detail, ' unfold ;' but what am I that I should speak against the Lord's anointed bailie of Edin- burgh ! I give you this information, but I give it to yourself only, for I am still much in the gentleman's mercy. Perhaps I injure the man in the idea I am sometimes tempted to have of him — God forbid I should ! A little time will try, for in a month I shall go to town to wind up the business, if possible." That Creech, after long evasion, behaved honourably and liberally to the impatient Poet is well enough known to the world ; I record these complaints to vindi- cate the latter from the charge of having loitered needlessly in Edinburgh, and refrained from putting the ploughshare in the ground which was offered for his acceptance. " His publisher's accounts," says Lockhart, " when they were at last made out, must have given the impatient author a very agreeable surprise ; for, in his letter to Lord Glencairn, we find him expressing his hopes that the gross [* Nicol, the most intimate friend of Burns, writes to Mr. John Sewars, excise-officer of Dumfries, immediately on hearing: of the poet's death. " He certainly told me that he received .£600 for the first Edinburgh edition, and ^6 J 100 afterwards for the copyright. " Dr. Currie states the pross product of Creech's edition at .£\500, and Burns himself, in one of his letters, at .£400 only. Nicol hints that Burns had contracted debts while in Edinburgh, which he might not wish to avow on all occasions ; and if we are to believe profits of his book might amount to ' better than £200 ;' whereas, on the day of settling with Mr. Creech, he found himself in possession of £500, if not of £600."* Burns now set seriously about considering his future prospects. Having settled with Creech, he wrote to Mr. Miller that he would accept his offer with regard to the farm ; he lent two hun- dred pounds to his brother Gilbert, to enable him to mend himself in the world and support his mother, whom he tenderly loved ; and, with five hundred pounds in his pocket, he resolved to unite himself to Jean Armour, carry her to the banks of the Nith, and follow the plough and the muses. What he had seen and endured in Edinburgh, during his second visit, admonished him regarding the reed on which he leant, when he hoped for a place of profit and honour from the aristocracy on account of his genius. On his first appearance the doors of the nobility opened spontaneous, " on golden hinges turn- ing," and he ate spiced meats and drank rare wines, interchanging nods and smiles with " high dukes and mighty earls." A colder reception awaited his second coming ; 'the doors of lords and ladies opened with a tardy courtesy ; he was received with a cold and measured stateli- ness, was seldom requested to stop, seldomer to repeat his visit ; and one of his companions used to relate with what indignant feeling the Poet recounted his fruitless calls and his uncordial receptions in the good town of Edinburgh. That he had high hopes is well known ; there were not wanting friends to whisper that lordly, nay, royal, patronage was certain ; nor were such expectations at all unreasonable, — but genius is not the passport to patronage ; he was allied to no noble family, and could not come forward under the shelter of a golden wing ; he was unconnected with any party which could pretend to political influence, and who had power either to retard or forward a ministerial measure; moreover, he was one of those " whim-inspired" persons of whom he sings in his inimitable " Bard's Epitaph:" — " Owre fast for thought, owre hot for rule, Owre blate to seek, owre proud to snool." His case was, therefore, next to hopeless ; he asked for nothing, and nothing was offered, though men of rank and power were aware that he was unfitted with an aim in life — that poetry alone could not sustain him, and that he must go back to the flail and the furrow. He went to Edinburgh, strong in the belief that this, which is probable, and that the expense of printing the subscription eflition should, moreover, be deducted from the ^/00 stated by Nicol, the apparent contradictions in these statements may be pretty nearly reconciled. There appears to be reason for thinking that Creech subsequently paid more than .£100 for the copyright. If he did not. how came Burns to realise, as Currie states, "nearly nine hun- dred pounds in all by his poems ?" Lockhakt.J JETAT. 29. HIS APPOINTMENT TO THE EXCISE. 75 genius such as his would raise him in society ; but he came not back without a sourness of spirit and a bitterness of feeling;. The pride of Burns, which was great, would not allow him to complain, and his ambition, which was still greater, hindered him from re- garding his condition as yet hopeless. When he complained at all, he did not make his moan to man ; his letters to his companions or his friends are sometimes stern, fierce, and full of defiance ; he uttered his lament in the ear of woman, and seemed to be soothed with her at- tention and her sympathy. — " When I must escape into a corner," he says bitterly to Mrs. Dunlop, " lest the rattling equipage of some gaping blockhead should mangle me in the mire, I am tempted to exclaim, What merits has he had, or what demerit have I had, in some state of pre-existence, that he is ushered into this state of being with the sceptre of rule and the key of riches in his puny fist, and I am kicked into the world the sport of folly or the victim of pride ? I have read somewhere of a monarch who w^as so out of humour with the Ptolomean system of astronomy that he said, had he been of the Creator's council, he could have saved him a great deal of labour and absurdity. I will not defend this blasphemous speech ; but often, as I have glided with hum- ble stealth through the pomp of Prince's-street, it has suggested itself to me, as an improve- ment on the present human figure, that a man, in proportion to his own conceit of his conse- quence in the world, could have pushed out the longitude of his common size, as a snail pushes out his horns, or as w r e draw out a perspective. This trifling alteration, not to mention the pro- digious saving it would be in the tear and wear of the neck and limb — sinews of many of his Majesty's liege subjects, in the way of tossing the head and tip-toe strutting, would evidently turn out a vast advantage in enabling us at once to adjust the ceremonials in making a bow, or making way to a great man, and that, too, within a second of the precise spherical angle of reverence, or an inch of the particular point of respectful distance, which the import- ant creature himself requires ; as a measuring glance at his towering altitude would deter- mine the affair like instinct." The condition of the Poet made, we fear, such bitter reflec- tions matters of frequent occurrence. The learned authors — and Edinburgh swarmed wdth them — claimed rank above the inspired clod of the valley ; the gentry asserted such superiority-, as their natural inheritance ; the nobility held their elevation by act of parliament or the grace of majesty ; and none of them were pre- pared to accept the brotherhood of one who held the patent of his honours immediately from nature. In the course of the w r inter Burns resolved, since no better might be, to unite the farmer W- with the poet; some one persuaded him that to both he could join the gauger. So soon as this possessed his fancy, he determined to beg the humble boon from his patrons, and, as no one seemed more likely to be kind than the Earl of Glencairn, he addressed him anxiously : — " I have weighed — long and seriously weighed — my situation. I wish to get into the excise : I am told your lordship's interest will easily pro- cure me the grant from the commissioners ; and your lordship's patronage and goodness, which have already rescued me from obscurity, wretch- edness, and exile, embolden me to ask that in- terest. You have likewise put it in my power to save the little tie of home that sheltered an aged mother, two brothers, and three sisters from destruction. I am ill qualified to dog the heels of greatness with the impertinence of solici- tation, and tremble nearly as much at the thought of the cold promise as the cold denial." What the earl did in this matter is unknown ; his conduct seems to have satisfied Burns, for at his death, which soon followed, he poured out a po- etic lament full of the most touching sensibility. The Excise commission came in an unlooked- for way. While Burns was laid up with his crushed limb, he was attended by Alexander Wood, surgeon, a gentleman still affectionately remembered as " kind old Sandy Wood :" to him the Poet had mentioned his desire to ob- tain a situation in the Excise. Wood went to work, and so bestirred himself that Graham of Fintray put his name on the roll of Excise- men at once. The Poet, who, like the hero of his own inimitable song, w r as " Contented wi' little, and cantie wi' mair," communicated this stroke of w T hat he called good fortune to Margaret Chalmers in these w r ords: — "I have entered into the Excise. I go to the w T est for about three weeks, and then return to Edinburgh for six weeks' instructions." [The following is the letter of instructions given, by the Board of Excise, to the worthy individual under whom Burns was trained for the duties of his new office : — " Mr. James Findlay, Officer, Tarbolton. " The Commissioners order, That you instruct the Bearer, Mr. Robert Burns, in the Art of Gauging, and practical Dry gauging Casks and Utensils ; and that you fit him for survey- ing Victuallers, Rectifiers, Chandlers, Tanners, Tawers, Maltsters, &c. ; and when he has kept books regularly for Six Weeks at least, and drawn true Vouchers, and Abstracts therefrom, (which Books, Vouchers, and Abstracts must be signed by your Supervisor and yourself, as well as the said Mr. Robert Burns,) and sent to the Commissioners at his expense 5 and when he is furnished with proper instruments, and well in- structed and qualified for an Officer, then (and not before, at your perils) you and your Super- visor are to certifv the same to the Board, ex- 0: -§> 76 LIFE OF BURNS. 1788. pressing particularly therein the date of this letter ; and that the above Mr. Robert Burns hath cleared his Quarters, both for Lodging and Diet ; that he has actually paid each of you for his Instructions and Examination ; and that he has sufficient at the Time to purchase a Horse for his Business. I am, your humble Servant, " A. Pearson." "Excise Office, "Edinburgh, 31st March, 1/88."] ' ' I have chosen this, my dear friend, after mature deliberation. The question is not at what door of fortune's palace shall we enter in, but what doors does she open for us. I was not likely to get anything to do. I got this without hang- ing-on or mortifying solicitation ; it is imme- diate bread, and, though poor in comparison of the last eighteen months of my existence, 'tis luxury in comparison of all my preceding life." Nor did he withhold the tidings of his ap- pointment from Mrs. Dunlop : — "I thought thirty-five pounds a year no bad dernier resort for a poor poet, if Fortune, in her jade tricks, should kick him down from the little eminence to which she has lately helped him up." Gau- ger is a word of mean sound, nor is the calling a popular one ; yet the situation is neither so humble, nor the emoluments so trifling, as some of the Poet's southern admirers have supposed. A gauger's income in those days, on the banks of Nith; was equal to three hundred a year at present in London ; an excise officer is the com- panion of gentlemen ; he is usually a well-in- formed person, and altogether fifty per cent, above the ordinary excise officers on the banks of the Thames. It is true that Burns some- times speaks with levity of his situation, but that is no proof of his contempt for it ; he loved in verse to hover between jest and earnest ; and, if he thought peevishly about it at all, it was in comparison of a place such as his genius merited. Having secured the excise appoint- ment, and, on the 13th of March, 1788, bar- gained with Mr. Miller of Dalswinton for the farm of Ellisland, in Nithsdale, he resolved to bid Edinburgh farewell. The Poet, it is said, visited the graves of Ramsay and Fergusson, then took leave of some friends — the Earl of Glencairn was one — by letter, and waited upon others : among the latter were Blair, Stewart, Tytler, Mackenzie, and Blacklock. I have heard that his recep- tion was not so cordial as formerly ; it would seem that his free way of speaking and free way of living had touched them somewhat. That Burns wrote joyous letters, uttered un- guarded speeches when the wine -cup went round, and was now and then to be found in the company of writers' clerks, country lairds, and west country farmers, is very true, and could not well be otherwise. He w r as educated in a less courtly school than professors and di- vines : mechanics and farmers had been his as- sociates from his cradle. The language of a farmer's fire-side is less polished and more na- tural than that of the college ; he spoke the language of a different class of people, and he kept their company because he was one of them. Genius had ranked him with the highest ; but it was the pleasure of fortune or his country to keep him at the plough. The man who got his education in the furrowed field — whose elo- quence sprung from the barn and the forge, " When ploughmen gather with their graith," and who wrote not classic verse, but " hamely western jingle," could not by any possibility please, by his conversation or his way of life, the polished, the polite, and the fastidious. That Burns appeared fierce and rude in their eyes is as true as that they seemed to him "white curd of asses' milk," — learnedly dull and hypocritically courteous. It was not unknown to the literati, and the lords of Edinburgh, that Burns kept a memo- randum-book, in which he not only noted down his Border and his Highland tours, but intro- duced full length portraits of all the eminent persons whom he chanced to meet or with whom he associated. " As I have seen a good deal of human life in Edinburgh," he says, " a great many cha- racters which are new to one bred up in the shades of life as I have been, I am determined to take down my remarks on the spot. Gray observes, in a letter to Mr. Palgrave, ' half a word fixed upon or near the spot is worth a cart-load of recollection.' I don't know how it is with the world in general ; but with me, mak- ing my remarks is by no means a solitary plea- sure : I want some one to laugh with me ; some one to be grave with me ; some one to please me, and help my discrimination, with his or her own remark, and, at times, no doubt, to admire my acuteness and penetration. The world are so' busied with selfish pursuits, ambition, vanity, interest, or pleasure, that very few think it worth their while to make any observation on what passes around them, except where that observation is a sucker or branch of the darling plant they are rearing in their fancy. Nor am I sure, notwithstanding all the sentimental flights of novel writers, and the sage philosophy ofmoralists, whether we are capable of so in- timate and cordial a coalition of friendship as that one man may pour out his bosom, his every thought and floating fancy, his very inmost soul, with unreserved confidence to another, without hazard of losing part of that respect which man deserves from man ; or, from the unavoidable imperfections attending human nature, of one day repenting his confidence. "For these reasons, I am determined to make these pages my confidant. I will sketch every character, that any way strikes me, to the best ff= JET AT. 29. HIS SKETCH-BOOK. of my power, with unshrinking justice. I will insert anecdotes and take down remarks in the old law-phrase, without feud or favour. Where I hit on any thing clever, my own applause will, in some measure, feast my vanity ; and, begging Patroclus' and Achates' pardon, I think a lock and key a security at least equal to the bosom of any friend whatever. My own private story likewise, my love adventures, my rambles ; the frowns and smiles of fortune on my hardship ; my poems and fragments, that must never see the light, shall be occasionally inserted." [" How perpetually." says Lockhart, " Burns was alive to the dread of being looked down upon as a man, even by those who most zealously applauded the works of his genius, might per- haps be traced through the whole sequence of his letters. When writing to men of high sta- tion, at least, he preserves, in every instance, the attitude of self-defence. But it is only in his own secret tables that we have the fibres of his heart laid bare, and the cancer of this jealousy is seen distinctly at its painful work."] " There are few," continues the Poet, " of the sore evils under the sun give me more un- easiness and chagrin than the comparison how a man of genius, nay, of avowed worth, is re- ceived every where, with the reception which a mere ordinary character, decorated with the trappings and. futile distinctions of fortune, meets. I imagine a man of abilities, his breast glowing with honest pride, conscious that men are born equal, still giving honour to whom honour is due ; he meets at a great man's table a Squire Something, or a Sir Somebody ; he knows the noble landlord, at heart, gives the bard, or whatever he is, a share of liis good wishes beyond perhaps any one at table ; yet how will it mortify him to see a fellow, whose abilities would scarcely have made an eight- penny tailor, and whose heart is not worth three farthings, meet with attention and notice, that are withheld from the son of genius and poverty ? The noble Glencairn has wounded me to the soul here, because I dearly esteem, respect, and love him. He showed so much attention, engrossing attention, one day, to the only blockhead at table (the whole company consisted of his lordship, dunderpate, and my- self) that I was within half a point of throwing down my gage of contemptuous defiance ; but he shook my hand, and looked so benevolently good at parting. God bless him; though I should never see him more, I shall love him until my dying day ! I am pleased to think I am so capable of the throes of gratitude, as I am miserably deficient in some other virtues." Burns kept this formidable book so little of a secret that he allowed a visiter sometimes to take a look at his gallery of portraits, and, as he distributed light and shade with equal freedom and force, it was soon bruited abroad that the Poet had drawn stern likenesses of his chief friends and benefactors. This book is not now to be found ; it was carried away from the Poet's lodgings by one of his visiters, who refused to restore it — enlisted in the artil- lery — sailed for Gibraltar, and died about the year 1800. From what remain, the following characters are extracted ; they make us regret the loss of the rest : — " With Dr. Blair I am more at my ease ; I never respect him with humble veneration ; but when he kindly interests himself in my welfare — or, still more, when he descends from his pinnacle and meets me on equal ground in conversation, my heart overflows with what is called liking. When he neglects me for the mere carcase of greatness, or when his eye measures the difference of our points of eleva- tion, I say to myself, with scarcely any emotion, what do I care for him or his pomp either ? It is not easy forming an exact judgment of any one, but, in my opinion, Dr. Blair is merely an astonishing proof of w T hat industry and application can do. Natural parts, like his, are frequently to be met with ; his vanity is proverbially known among his acquaintance ; but he is justly at the head of what may be called fine writing ; and a critic of the first, the very first, rank, in prose ; even in poetry, a bard of nature's making can alone take the pas of him. He has a heart not of the very finest water, but far from being an ordinary one. In short he is truly a worthy and most respectable character." Other characters were sketched with still greater freedom. Here is his satiric portrait of a celebrated lawyer : — " He clench'd his pamphlets in his fist, He quoted an' he hinted, Till in a declamation-mist His argument he tint [lost] it ; He graped for't, he gaped for't, He found it was awa', man ; But what his common-sense came short, He eked it out wi' law, man." The above portrait of the Lord Advocate is admirable for breadth and character : the fol- lowing of Harry Erskine is not so happy. He was a wit, a punster, and a poet ; and one of the most companionable, intelligent, and elo- quent men of his time : — " Collected Harry stood a wee, Then open'd out his arm, man ; His lordship sat, wi' ruefu' e'e, And ey'd the gathering storm, man : Like wind-driv'n hail, it did assail, Or torrents owre a linn, man ; The Bench sae wise, lift up their eyes, Half-waken'd wi' the din, man." The literati of Edinburgh were not displeased, it is likely, when he w r ent away ; nor were the titled part of the community without their share in this silent rejoicing ; his presence was a re- proach to them. " The illustrious of his native -© ® 78 LIFE OF BURNS. 1788. land, from whom he looked for patronage," had proved that they had the carcase of great- ness, but wanted the soul : they subscribed for his poems, and looked on their generosity as "an alms could keep a god alive." He turned his back on Edinburgh, and from that time for- ward scarcely counted that man his friend who spoke of titled persons in his presence. Whilst sailing on pleasure's sea in a gilded barge, with perfumed and lordly company, he was, in the midst of his enjoyment, thrown roughly over- board, and had to swim to a barren shore, or sink for ever. Burns now turned his steps westward. In one of his desponding moods he had lately said to a correspondent, " There are just two crea- tures that I would envy — a horse in his wild state traversing the forests of Asia, or an oyster on some of the desert shores of Europe ; the one has not a wish without enjoyment, the other has neither wish nor fear." In the same mingled spirit of despair and pleasure he com- plains — " I lie so miserably open to the inroads and incursions of a mischievous, light-armed, well-mounted banditti, under the banners of imagination, whim, caprice and passion ; and the heavy-armed veteran regulars of wisdom, prudence, and forethought, move so very, very slow, that I am almost in a state of perpetual warfare, and, alas ! frequent defeat." The thoughts of home, of a settled purpose in life, gave him a silent gladness of heart, such as he had never before known ; and, to use his own words, he moved homeward with as much hi- larity in his gait and countenance " as a May- frog, leaping across the newly harrowed ridge, enjoying the fragrance of the refreshed earth after the long-expected shower." He reached Mauchline towards the close of April : he was not a moment too soon ; the intercourse which, in his visits to Ayr-shire, he had renewed with Jean Armour, exposed her once more to the reproaches of her family ; — she might say, in the affecting words of one whose company had brought both joy and woe — " My father put me frae his door, My friends they hae disown'd me a' ; But I hae ane will take my part — The bonnie lad that's far awa." On his arrival he took her by the hand, and was re-married according to the simple and ef- fectual form of the laws of Scotland : — " Daddie Auld," and his friends of the Old-light, felt every wish to be moderate with one whose powers of derision had been already proved. He next introduced Mrs. Burns to his friends, both in person and by letter. Much of his correspondence of this period bears evidence of the peace of mind and gladness of heart which this two-fold act of love and generosity had brought to him. To Mrs. Dunlop, he says, " Your surmise, Madam, is just ; I am indeed a husband. I @=- found a once much-loved, and still much-loved female, literally and truly cast out to the mercy of the naked elements ; but I enabled her to purchase a shelter : — there is no sporting with a fellow-creature's happiness or misery. The most placid good-nature and sweetness of dis- position ; a warm heart, gratefully devoted with all its powers to love me ; vigorous health, and sprightly cheerfulness, set off to the best ad- vantage by a more than commonly handsome figure ; these, I think, in a woman, may make a good wife, though she should never have read a page but the Scriptures, nor have danced in a brighter assembly than a penny-pay wedding. To jealousy or infidelity I am an equal stranger : my preservative from the first is the most thorough consciousness of her sentiments of honour, and her attachment to me ; my antidote against the last is my long and deep - rooted affection for her. In housewife matters — in aptness to learn and activity to execute, she is eminently mistress ; and during my absence in Nithsdale, she is regularly and constantly ap- prentice to my mother and sisters in their dairy, and other rural business. The Muses must not be offended when I tell them the concerns of my wife and family will, in my mind, always take the pas ; but, I assure them, their lady- ships will ever come next in place. You are right that a bachelor state would have in- sured me more friends ; but, from a cause you will easily guess, conscious peace in the enjoy- ment of my own mind, and unmistrusting con- fidence in approaching my God, would seldom have been of the number." On the same interesting topic he writes to Margaret Chalmers : — " Shortly after my last return to Ayr-shire, I married my Jean. This was not in consequence of the attachment of romance, perhaps ; but I had a long and much- loved fellow-creature's happiness or misery in my determination, and I durst not trifle with so important a deposit ; nor have I any cause to repent it. If I have not got polite tattle, modish manners, and fashionable dress, I am not sick- ened and disgusted with the multiform curse of boarding-school affectation ; and I have got the handsomest figure, the sweetest temper, the soundest constitution, and kindest heart in the country. Mrs. Burns believes, as firmly as her creed, that I am le plus bel esprit, et le plus Jionnete homme in the universe ; although she scarcely ever in her life, except the scriptures, and the Psalms of David, in metre, spent five minutes together on either prose, or verse. I must except also from this last a certain late publication of Scots poems which she has pe- rused very devoutly ; and all the ballads in the country, as she has (Oh ! the partial lover, you will cry,) the finest "wood-note wild" I ever heard. I am the more particular in this lady's character as I know she will henceforth have the honour of a share in your best wishes." m .ETAT. 29 His MARRIAGE. These letters, and others in the same strain, have misled Walker into the belief that Bums married Jean Armour from a sentiment of duty rather than a feeling of love ; no belief can be more imaginary. The unfortunate story of his affection bad been told to the world both in prose and verse ; be was looked upon as one deserted by the object o( his regard, under cir- cumstances alike extraordinary and painful. That he forgave her for the sad requital of his love, and her relations for their severity, and sought her hand and their alliance, required something like apology to his friends. T see nothing in these matters out of harmony with affection and love. — " That he originally loved his Jean," says the Professor, " is not to be doubted ; but, on considering all the circum- stances of the case, it may be presumed that, when he first proposed marriage, it was partly from a desire to repair the injury of her repu- tation, and that his distress, on her refusal, proceeded as much from wounded pride as from disappointed love." The best answer to this is afforded by the words of the Poet. He loved her, he never had ceased to love her ; he con- sidered her sacrifice of him as made to the pious feelings and authority of her father : — " I can have no nearer idea," he says, " of the place ot eternal punishment than what I have felt in my own breast on her account. Never man loved, or rather adored, a woman more than I did her, and I do still love her to distraction after all." If this is not the language of ardent love, I know not what it means. But the Professor seems desirous of proving that this change in the Poet's affections was the necessary result of being exposed to the allure- ments of the high-bred dames of Edinburgh. — " The three years that succeeded," he ob- serves, " had opened to him a new scene : and the female society to which they had intro- duced him was of a description altogether dif- ferent from any which he had formerly known." — " Between the man of rustic life," said Burns to some one after his arrival in Edinburgh, " and the polite world, I observed little differ- ence. In the former, though unpolished by fashion, and unenlightened by science, I had found much observation and much intelli- gence. But a refined and accomplished woman was a being altogether new to me, and of which I had formed but a very inadequate idea." It is plain that the Poet, when he uttered these words, was close at the ear of one of those "high-exalted courteous dames," and making himself acceptable to her by flattery and by eloquence. It is also evident that the Profes- sor's notions of love were not at all poetic. To regulate our affections according as knowledge raises woman in the scale is paying a very pretty compliment to education ; but it is most unjust to nature. True love pays no regard to such distinctions. We see a form — we see a lace, which awaken emotions within us never before felt. The form is not perhaps the most perfect, nor the face the most fair, in the land ; yet we persist -in admiring — in loving them : — in short, we have found out, by the free-masonry of feeling, the help-mate which Heaven de- signed for us, and we woo and win our object. But in what were the ladies of the polished circles of the land superior to a well-favoured, well-formed, well-bred lass of low degree, who had a light foot for a dance, a melodious voice for a song, two witching eyes, with wit at will, and who believed the man who loved her to be the greatest genius in the world ? These are captivating qualities to all, save those who weigh the merits of a woman in a golden balance. Nay, in the very thing on which the Professor imagines a high and polished dame to be strong, she will be found weak. The shepherd maidens and rustic lasses of Scotland feel, from their unsophisticated state of mind, the beauty of the poetry 7 of Bums deeply and devoutly ; for once that a song of his is heard in the lighted hall, it is heard fifty times on the brook-banks and in the pastoral valleys of the land. His marriage reconciled the Poet to his wife's kindred : there was no wedding-portion. I Armour was a most respectable man, but not opulent. He gave his daughter some small store of plenishing ; and, exerting his skill as a mason, wrought his already eminent son-in- j law a handsome punch-bowl in Inverary marble, winch Burns lived to fill often, to the great pleasure both of himself and his friends. To make bridal presents is a practice of long stand- ing in Scotland ; and it is to the credit of the personal character of the Poet that he was not forgotten. Mrs. Dunlop bethought her of Ellisland, and gave a beautiful heifer : — another friend contributed a plough. The young couple, from a love of country, ordered their furniture — plain, indeed, and homely — from Morison, a wright in Mauchline : the farm servants, male and female, were hired in Ayr-shire, a matter of questionable prudence ; for the mode of culti- vation is different from that of the west, and the cold humid bottom of Mossgiel bears no resemblance to the warm and stony loam of Ellisland. ©' PART III.— ELLISLAND. In the month of May, 1788, Burns made his appearance as a farmer in Nithsdale ; his fame had flown before him, and his coming was expected. Ellisland is beautifully situated on the south side of the Nith, some six miles above Dumfries ; it joins the grounds of Friars- Carse on the north-west — the estate of Isle towards the south-east — the great road from Glasgow separates it from the hills of Dun- score ; while the Nith, a pure stream running --© 80 LIFE OF BURNS. 1788. over the purest gravel, divides it from the holms and groves of Dalswinton. The farm amounts to upwards of a hundred acres, and is part holm and part croft-land ; the former, a deep rich loam, bears fine tall crops of wheat ; the latter, though two-thirds loam and one- third stones on a bottom of gravel, yields, when carefully cultivated, good crops, both of potatoes and corn • yet to a stranger the soil must have looked unpromising or barren ; and Burns declared, after a shower had fallen on a field of new-sown and new-rolled barley, that it looked like a paved street ! Though he got possession of the farm in May, the rent did not commence till Martin- mas, as the ground was uninclosed and the houses unbuilt. By the agreement, Miller granted to Burns four nineteen years' leases of Ellisland, at an annual rent for the first three years of fifty pounds, and seventy pounds for the remaining seventy- three years of the tack ; the Poet undertook, for a sum not exceeding three hundred pounds, to build a complete farm onstead, consisting of dwelling-house, barn, byre, stable, and sheds, and to permit the proprietor to plant with forest trees the scaur or precipitous bank along the side of the Nith, and a belt of ground towards Friars- Carse, of not more than two acres, in order to shelter the farm from the sweep of the north- west wind. Burns was assisted in the choice of the farm, and the terms on which it was taken, by Tennant of Glenconner, one of his Ayr-shire friends : there were other farms to be let of a superior kind on the estate, and those were pointed out by my father, steward to the proprietor — a Lothian farmer of skill and ex- perience — but the fine romantic look of Ellis- land induced Burns to shut his eyes on the low-lying and fertile Foregirth ; upon which my father said, " Mr. Burns, you have made a poet's — not a farmer's — choice." I was very young when I first saw Burns. He came to see my lather ; and their conversa- tion turned partly on farming, partly on poetry, in both of which my father had taste and skill. Burns had just come to Nithsdale ; and I think he appeared a shade more swarthy than he does in Nasmyth's picture, and at least ten years older than he really was at the time. His face was deeply marked with thought, and the habit- ual expression intensely melancholy. His frame was very museular and well proportioned, though he had a short neck, and something of a plough- man's stoop : he was strong, and proud of his strength. I saw him one evening match him- self with a number of masons ; and out of five- and-twenty practised hands, the most vigorous young men in the parish, there was only one that could lift the same weight as Burns. He had a very manly face, and a very melan- * Holm is that rich meadow-land, intervening between a choly look ; but on the coming of those he es- teemed, his looks brightened up, and his whole face beamed with affection and genius. His voice was very musical. I once heard him read Tarn O'Shanter. — I think I hear him now. His fine manly voice followed all the undula-* tions of the sense, and expressed, as well as his genius had done, the pathos of humour, the hor- rible and the awful, of that wonderful perform- ance. As a man feels, so will he write ; and in proportion as he sympathizes with his author, so will he read him with grace and effect. I said that Burns and my father conversed about poetry and farming. The Poet had newly taken possession of his farm of Ellisland, — the masons were busy building, — the applause of the world was with him, and a little of its money in his pocket, — in short, he had found a resting- place at last. He spoke with great delight about the excellence of his farm, and particularly about the beauty of its situation. " Yes," my father said, "the walks on the river banks are fine, and you will see from your windows some miles on the Nith ; but you will also see farms of fine rich holm,* any one of which you might have had. You have made a poet's choice, rather than a farmer's." If Burns had much of a farmer's skill, he had little of a farmer's prudence and economy. I once inquired of James Come, a sagacious old farmer, whose ground matched with Ellisland, the cause of the Poet's failure. " Faith," said he, " how could he miss but fail, when his ser- vants ate the bread as fast as it was baked ? I don't mean figuratively, I mean literally. Con- sider a little : at that time close economy was necessary to have enabled a man to clear twenty pounds a year by Ellisland. Now, Burns' own handy work was out of the question ; he neither ploughed, nor sowed, nor reaped, at least like a hard-working farmer ; and then he had a bevy of servants from Ayr-shire. The lasses did no- thing but bake bread, and the lads sat by the fire-side, and ate it warm, with ale. Waste of time and consumption of food would soon reach to twenty pounds a year." "The truth of the case is, that, if Robert Burns liked his farm, it was more for the beauty of its situation than for the labours which it re- quired. He was too wayward to attend to the stated duties of a husbandman, and too impa- tient to wait till the ground returned in gain the cultivation he bestowed upon it. During the prosperity of his farm, my father often said that Burns conducted himself wisely, and like one anxious for his name as a man, and his fame as a poet. He went to Dunscore kirk on Sundays, though he expressed oftener than once his dis- like to the stern Calvinism of that strict old di- vine, Mr. Kirkpatrick ; — he assisted in forming a reading club, and at weddings, and house- stream and the general elevation of the adjoining country. \o) ©: .etat. 29. ELLISLAND. si heatings, and kirns,* and other scenes of festi- vity, he was a welcome gnest, universally liked by the young and the old. ["The situation in which Burns now found himself," says Currie, "was calculated to awaken reflection. The different steps he had of late taken were in their nature highly im- portant, and might be said to have, in some measure, fixed his destiny. He had become a husband and a father ; he had engaged in the management of a considerable farm, a difficult and laborious undertaking ; in his success the happiness of his family was involved ; it was time, therefore, to abandon the gaiety and dis- sipation of which he had been too much ena- moured ; to ponder seriously on the past, and to form virtuous resolutions respecting the future. That such was actually the state of his mind, the following extract from his common -place book may bear witness : — 'Ellisland, Sunday, 14th June, 1788. ' This is now the third day that I have been in this country. ' Lord, what is man ! ' What a bustling little bundle of passions, appetites, ideas, and fancies ! And what a capricious kind of existence he has here ! * * * There is indeed an elsewhere, where, as Thomson says 'virtue sole survives. 7 * Tell us, ye dead ; Will none of you in pity disclose the secret, What 'tis you are, and we must shortly be? A little time Will make us wise as you are, and as close.' ' I am such a coward in life, so tired of the service, that I would almost at any time, with Milton's Adam, gladly lay me in my mother's lap, and be at peace. ' But a wife and children bind me to strug- gle- with the stream, till some sudden squall shall overset the silly vessel, or, in the listless return of years, its own craziness reduce it to a wreck. Farewell now to those giddy follies, those varnished vices, which, though half-sanc- tified by the bewitching levity of wit and hu- mour, are at best but thriftless idling with the precious current of existence ; nay, often poi- soning the whole, that, like the plains of Jericho, the vjater is naught and the ground barren, and nothing short of a supernaturally -gifted Elisha can ever after heal the evils. ' Wedlock, the circumstance that buckles me hardest to care, if virtue and religion were to be anything with me but names, was what in a few seasons I must have resolved on ; in my present situation it was absolutely necessary. Humanity, [* Kirns. — The harvest-home dances in Scotland. Such entertainments were always given by the landlords in those days ; but this good old fashion is fast wearing out. It belonged to a more prudent, as well as humane, style of man- ners than now finds favour. [f Burns, in his happy days at Ellisland, had scrawled on the windows, with his diamond, his own and his wife's generosity, honest pride of character, justice to my own happiness for after life, so far as it could depend (which it surely will a great deal) on internal peace ; all these joined their warmest suffrages, their most powerful solicitations, with a rooted attachment, to urge the step I have taken. Nor have I any reason on her part to repent it. I can fancy how, but have never seen where, I could have made a better choice. Come, then, let me act up to my favourite motto, that glorious passage in Young — On reason build resolve, That column of true majesty in man ! ' " Under the impulse of these reflections, Burns immediately engaged in rebuilding the dwell- ing-house on his farm, which, in the state he found it, was inadequate to the accommodation of his family. On this occasion, he himself re- sumed at times the occupation of a labourer, and found neither his strength nor his skill im- paired. Pleased with surveying the grounds he was about to cultivate, and with the rearing of a building that should give shelter to his wife and children, and, as he fondly hoped, to his own grey hairs, sentiments of independence buoyed up his mind, pictures of domestic con- tent and peace rose on his imagination ; and a few days passed away, as he himself informs us, the most tranquil, if not the happiest, which he had ever experienced. t"] The Poet was now a busy and a happy man. He had houses to build, and grounds to en- close : — that he might be near both, he sought shelter in a low smoky hovel on the skirts of his farm. I remember the house well : the floor was of clay, the rafters were japanned with soot : the smoke from a hearth fire streamed thickly out at door and window, while the sunshine which struggled in at those apertures produced a sort of twilight. There he was to be found by all who had curiosity or taste, with a table, books, and drawings before him ; sometimes writing letters about the land, and the people, among whom he had dropt like a slung stone ; sometimes giving audience to workmen w r ho were busy at dyking or digging foundations ; and not unfrequently brushing up, as Mrs. Burns was wont to say, an old song for Johnson's Musical Museum. — " The hovel which I shelter in," said the Poet to Mar- garet Chalmers, " is pervious to every blast that blows, and every shower that falls ; and I am only preserved from being chilled to death by being suffocated with smoke. I do not find my farm that pennyworth I was taught to ex- initials, in many a fond and fanciful shape, where they still remain, interspersed with such inorceaux as the following :—' " An honest woman's the noblest work of God." Poor fellow ! — His own noble spirit was at rest with itself and all the world at this time.] G 82 LIFE OF BURNS. 1788. pect, but I believe in time it may be a saving bargain." If Burns had little comfort in his lodging- place, he seems to have been unfortunate in finding society to render it endurable. — " I am here," he says, on the 9th of September, " on my farm busy with my harvest; but for all that pleasurable part of life called social com- munication, I am at the very elbow of ex- istence. The only things that are to be found in this country, in any degree of perfection, are stupidity and canting. Prose they only know in graces, prayers, &c. ; and the value of these they estimate as they do their plaiding-webs — by the ell ! As for the Muses, they have as much an idea of a rhinoceros as of a poet. For my own capricious, but good-natured hussey of ' By banks of Nith I sat and wept, When •Cloila I thought on ; In midst thereof I hung my harp The willow trees upon.' I am generally about half my time in Ayr-shire with my ' darling Jean ;' and then I, at lucid intervals, throw my horny fist across my be- cobwebbed lyre, much in the same manner as an old wife throws her hand across the spokes of her spinning-wheel." In the same strain — half serious and half-humourous — he thus addresses his friend Hugh Parker : — " In this strange land, this uncouth clime, A land unknown to prose or rhyme ; Where words ne'er crost the Muse's heckles, Nor limpit in poetic shackles ; A land that prose did never view it, Except, when drunk, he stacher't through it. Here, ambush' d by the chimla cheek, Hid in an atmosphere of reek, I hear a wheel thrum i' the neuk, I hear it — for in vain I leuk. — The red peat gleams a fiery kernel, Enhusked by a fog infernal : Here, for my wonted rhyming raptures, I sit and count my sins by chapters : For life and spunk, like ither Christians, I'm dwindled down to mere existence, Nae converse but wi' Gallowa' bodies, Wi' nae ken'd face but — Jenny Geddes." Nor did his neighbours gain on him by a closer acquaintance. " I was yesterday," he writes to Mrs. Dunlop, "at Mr. Miller's, to dinner for the first time. My reception was quite to my mind — from the lady of the house quite flat- tering. She sometimes hits on a couplet or two, impromptu. She repeated one or two to the admiration of all present : my suffrage, as a professional man, was expected ; I for once went agonizing over the belly of my conscience. Pardon me, ye, my adored household gods, in- dependence of spirit and integrity of soul ! In the course of the conversation, Johnson's Mu- sical Museum, a collection of Scottish songs, with the music, was talked of. We got a song on the harpsichord, beginning : — ' Raving winds around her blowing.' The air was much admired : the lady of the house asked me whose were the words — ' Mine, madam ; they are, indeed, my very best verses.' She took not the smallest notice of them ! The old Scottish proverb says well — i King's chaif is better than other folk's corn.' I was going to make a New Testament quotation about ' casting pearls ;' but that would be too viru- lent, for the lady is actually a woman of sense and taste." The sooty shealing in which the Poet found refuge seems to have infected his whole atmos- phere of thought ; the Maxwells, the Kirk- patricks, and Dalzells were fit companions for any man in Scotland in point of courtesy and information, and they were almost his neigh- bours ; Riddell, of Friars-Carse, an accom- plished antiquarian, lived next door ; and Jean Lindsay, and her husband Patrick Miller, were no ordinary people. The former was beautiful and accomplished ; wrote easy and graceful verses, and had a natural dignity in her man- j ners which became her station ; the latter was one of the most remarkable men of his time ; an improver and inventor, and the first who applied steam to the purposes of navigation. Burns was resolved to be discontented — at least on paper— for in his conversation he exhibited no symptoms of the kind ; but talked, laughed, jested, and visited, with the ease and air of a man happy and full of hope. The walls of the Poet's onstead began now to be visible from the North side of the Nith, and the rising structures were visited by all who were desirous of seeing how he wished to house himself. The plans were simple: the barn seemed too small for the extent of the farm, and the house for the accommodation of a large family. It contained an ample kit- chen, which was to serve for dining room ; a room to hold two beds, a closet to hold one, and a garret, coom-ceiled, to contain others for the female servants. One of the windows looked down the holms, another opened on the river, and the house stood so nigh the lofty bank that its afternoon shadow fell across the stream upon the opposite fields. The garden was a little way from the house ; a pretty footpath led southward along the river side ; another ran northward, affording fine views of the Nith, and of the groves of Friars-Carse and Dals- winton ; while, half way down the steep de- clivity, a fine, clear, cool spring supplied water to the household. The situation was picturesque, and at the same time convenient for the purposes of the farm. During the progress of the work, Burns was often to be found walking among the men, urging them on, and eyeing with an anxious look the tedious process of uniting lime and stone. On laying the foundation he took off his hat, and asked a blessing on the home fc : -ETAT. 29. ELLISLAND. 83 which was to shelter his household gods. I inquired of the man who told me this, if Burns did not put forth his hand and help him in the progress of the work ! — " Ay, that he did mony a time. If he saw us like to be beat wi' a big stane he would cry, ' bide a wee !' and come rinning. We soon found out when he put to his hand — he beat a' I ever met for a dour lift." When the walls rose as high as the window-heads, he sent a note into Dumfries ordering wood for the interior lintels. Twenty carpenters flocked round the messenger, all eager to look at the Poet's hand-writing. In such touches the admira- tion of the country is well expressed. These days have been numbered by Currie among the golden days of Burns. Few of his days were golden, and most of them were full ot trouble ; but his period of truest hap- piness seems to have been that which pre- ceded and followed the first Edinburgh edition of his poems. Those were, it is true, days of feverish enjoyment ; but the tide of his for- tune, or at least of his hopes, was at the full. The way before him was all sunshine ; and, as his ambition was equal to his genius, he indulged in splendid visions of fame and glory. The neglect of the Scottish nobles rebuked his spirit ; he came to Dumfries-shire a sad- dened and dissatisfied man ; he saw that his bread must be gained by the sweat of his brow; that the original curse, from which men without a moiety of his intellect were relieved, had fallen heavy upon him ; and that he must plod labour's dull weary round, like an ox in a threshing-mill. The happi- ness present to his fancy now, was less bright and ethereal than before ; he had to hope for heavy crops, rising markets, and fortunate bargains. At a harvest-home or penny-wed- ding he might expect to have his health drunk, and hear one of his songs sung ; but this was not enough to satisfy ambition such as his. Among the rising walls of his onstead, he " Cheep'd like some bewilder' d chicken, Scar'd frae its minnie and the cleckin By hoodie craw." and complained to Mrs. Dunlop of the un- couth cares and novel plans which hourly insulted his awkward ignorance. These un- couth cares were the labours of a farm, and the novel plans were the intricate and labori- ous elegancies of a plain onstead ! I have heard my father allege that Burns looked like a man restless and of unsettled purpose. — a He was ever on the move," said he, " on foot or on horseback. In the course of a single day he might be seen holding the plough, angling in the river, sauntering, with his hands behind his back, on the banks, look- ing at the running water, of which he was very fond, walking round his buildings, or over his fields ; and, if you lost sight of him for an hour, perhaps you might see him re- turning from Friars-Carse, or spurring his horse through the Nith to spend an evening in some distant place, with such friends as chance threw in his way." The account which he gave of himself is much to the same purpose. — " There is," said he, " a foggy atmosphere native to my soul in the hour of care, which makes the dreary objects seem larger than life. Extreme sensibility, irritated and prejudiced on the gloomy s-ide, by a series of misfortunes and disappointments, at that period of my existence, when the soul is lay- ing in her cargo of ideas for the voyage of life, is, I believe, the principal cause of this unhappy frame of mind." He loved to complain : — " My increasing cares," he says, " in this as yet strange country — gloomy conjectures in the dark vista of futu- rity — consciousness of my own inability for the struggle of the world — my broadened mark to misfortune in a wife and children — I could in- dulge these reflections, till my humour should ferment in the most acid chagrin, that would corrode the very thread of lite." These are the sentiments of one resolved not to be com- forted. — " The heart of the man and the fancy of the poet are the two grand considerations," he observed, " for which I live. If miry ridges and dirty dunghills are to engross the best part of the inactions of my immortal soul, I had better been a rook or a magpie at once, and then I should not have been plagued with any ideas superior to breaking of clods, and picking up grubs, not to mention barn-door cocks or mallards — creatures with which I could almost exchange lives at any time." To Margaret Chalmers he writes in a mood a shade or so brighter : — "Ellisland, September, 14th, 1788. "lam here, driven in with my harvest- folks by bad weather ; and, as you and your sister once did me the honour of interesting yourselves much a I'egard de moi, I sit down to beg the continuation of your goodness. When I think of you — hearts the best, minds the noblest of i human kind — unfortunate even in the shades of life — when I think I have met with you, and have lived more of real life with you in eight days than I can do with almost anybody I meet with in eight years ; when I think on the im- probability of meeting you in this world again — I could sit down and cry like a child. If ever you honoured me with a place in your es- teem, I trust I can now plead more desert. I am secure against that crushing grasp of iron poverty, which, alas! is less or more fatal to the native worth and purity of, I fear, the no- blest souls ; and a late important step in my life has kindly taken me out of the way of those ungrateful iniquities which, however overlooked in fashionable license, or varnished in fashion- G 2 84 LIFE OF BURNS. 1788. able phrase, are indeed but lighter and deeper shades of Villany." After this we are scarcely prepared for his saying, " you will be pleased to hear that I have laid aside idle eclat, and bind eveiy day after my reapers.' - ' The domestic sketch of one great master has been completed by the hand of another : Sir Egerton Brydges thus relates an interview which he had with Burns on the banks of the Nith : — " I had always been a great admirer of his genius and of many traits in his character ; and I was aware that he was a person moody and -somewhat difficult to deal with. I was resolved to keep in full consideration the irrita- bility of his position in society. About a mile from his residence, on a bench, under a tree, I passed a figure, which from the engraved portraits of him I did not doubt was the Poet ; but I did not venture to address him. On ar- riving at his humble cottage, Mrs. Burns opened the door ; she was the plain sort of humble woman she has been described ; she ushered me into a neat apartment, and said that she would send for Burns, who was gone for a walk. In about half an hour he came, and my conjecture proved right : he was the person I had seen on the bench by the road-side. At i first I was not entirely pleased with his counte- nance. I thought it had a sort of capricious jealousy, as if he was half inclined to treat me as an intruder. I resolved to bear it, and try if I could humour him. I let him choose his turn of conversation, but said a few words about the friend whose letter I had brought to him. It was now about four in the afternoon of an autumn day. While we were talking, Mrs. Burns, as if accustomed to entertain visit- ers in this way, brought in a bottle of Scotch whiskey, and set the table. I accepted this hospitality. I could not help observing the curious glance with which he watched me at the entrance of this signal of homely entertain- ment. He was satisfied ; he filled our glasses. " Here's a health to auld Caledonia ! " The fire sparkled in his eye, and mine sympathetically met his. He shook my hand with warmth, and we were friends at once. Then he drank "Erin for ever !" and the tear of delight burst from his eye. The fountain of his mind and his heart now opened at once, and flowed with abundant force almost till midnight. He had amazing acuteness of intellect, as well as glow of sentiment. I do not deny that he said some absurd things, and many coarse ones, and that his knowledge was very irregular, and some- times too presumptuous, and that he did not endure contradiction with sufficient patience. His pride, and perhaps his vanity, was even morbid. I carefully avoided topics in which he could not take an active part. Of literary gossip he knew nothing, and therefore I kept aloof from it ; in the technical parts of litera- ture his opinions were crude and uninformed : but whenever he spoke of a great writer whom he had read, his taste was generally sound. To a few minor writers he gave more credit than they deserved. His great beauty was his manly strength, and his energy and elevation of thought and feeling. He had always a full mind, and all flowed from a genuine spring. I never con- versed with a man who appeared to be more warmly impressed with the beauties of nature ; and visions of female beauty and tenderness seemed to transport him. He did not merely appear to be a poet at casual intervals ; but at every moment a poetical enthusiasm seemed to beat in his veins, and he lived all his days the inward, if not the outward, life of a poet. I thought I perceived in Burns's cheek the symp- toms of an energy which had been pushed too far; and he had this feeling himself. Every now and then he spoke of the grave as soon about to close over him. His dark eye had at first a character of sternness ; but as he became wanned, though this did not entirely melt away it was mingled with changes of extreme softness." Between the farm of Ellisland and the vil- lage of Mauchline lies a dreary road, forty-six miles long : and along this not very romantic path Burns was in the habit of riding more frequently than was for the advantage of his pocket or his farm. It is true that it was Mrs. Burns who made him look to the west, and it is also true that a man should love and honour his wife ; but it seems not to have occurred to the Poet that strict economy — a vigilant look-out upon his farming operations — was the most substantial way of paying respect to her. His jaunts were frequent ; he tarried long, and there were pleasant lingerings by the way — . brought about by inclination sometimes, and sometimes by wind and rain. All this was much to be regretted, and it arose mainly from want of a residence for Mrs. Burns and his children near the farm which he superintended. He complains to Ainslie of want of time. He was not one of those who could sit quietly and let matters take their course: he had all the impatience of genius, and not a little of its irri- tability. In one of his excursions to Ayr-shire, he found the inn at which he usually got a night's lodging filled with mourners conveying the body of a lady of some note in the west to her family tomb : he was obliged to ride ten miles to another inn". The fruit of his vexation was an ode lavish of insult : — * Dweller in yon dungeon dark, Hangman of creation, mark Who in widowed weeds appears, Laden with unhonoured years. Note that eye — 'tis rheum o'erflows — Pity's flood there never rose : See those hands, ne'er stretched to save ; Hands that took, but never gave." ©= =@ iETAT. 29. FRIARS-CARSE HERMITAGE. 85 In these words, and others bitterer still, the Poet avenged himself on the memory of a frugal and respectable lady, whose body unconsciously deprived him of a night's sleep. Some will like better, some worse, the reproof which he gave to Kirkpatrick, the minister of Dunscore, for preaching down " the bloody and tyrannical house of Stuart." The Poet went to the Parish church to join in acknowledge- ments for the Revolution to which we are in- debted for civil and religious rights. The stern and uncompromising divine touched the yet lin- gering jacobitical prejudices of Burns so sharp- ly, that he seemed ready to start from his seat and leave the church. On going home he wrote thus to the London Star: — "Bred and educated in revolution principles — the principles of reason and com- mon sense — it could not be any silly prejudice which made my heart revolt at the abusive manner in which the reverend gentleman threatened the house of Stuart. We may re- joice sufficiently in our deliverance from past evils without cruelly raking up the ashes of those whose misfortune it was, perhaps, as much as their crime, to be the author of those evils. The Stuarts only contended for prero- gatives which they knew their predecessors enjoyed, and which they saw their contempo- raries, enjoying ; but these prerogatives were inimical to the happiness of a nation, and the rights of subjects. Whether it was owing to the wisdom of leading individuals, or to the jostling of parties, I cannot pretend to deter- mine ; but, happily for us, the kingly power was shifted into another branch of the family, who, as they owed the throne solely to the call of a free people, could claim nothing in- consistent with the covenanted terms which placed them there. Let every man who has a tear for the many miseries incident to hu- manity feel for a family illustrious as any in Europe, and unfortunate beyond historic pre- cedent ; and let every Briton, and particularly every Scotchman, who ever looked with re- verential pity on the dotage of a parent, cast a veil over the fatal mistakes of the kings of his forefathers." The eloquent humanity of this appeal was thrown away, perhaps, upon an intrepid Cal- vinist, to whom the good things of this world were as dust in the balance compared with what he deemed his duty to God and his conscience. — "You must have heard/' says Burns in a letter to Nicol, "how Lawson of Kirkmahoe, seconded by Kirkpatrick of Dun- score, and the rest of that faction, have ac- cused, in formal process, the unfortunate Heron of Kirkgunzeon, that, in ordaining Neilson to the cure of souls in Kirkbean, he feloniously and treasonably bound him to the Confession of Faith, as far as it was agreeable to reason and the word of God." The Poet was un- fortunate in his respect for those Galloway apostles : for worth and true nobleness of mind, Lawson and Kirkpatrick were as high above them as Criffel is above Solway. He was wayward, and scarcely to be trusted in his arguments on religious topics : — a Cameronian boasted to me how effectually Burns interposed between him and two members of the esta- blished kirk, who were crushing him with a charge of heresy. — " The Poet," said he, "proved the established kirk to be schismatic, and the poor broken remnant to be the true light. Never believe me if he wasna a gude man !" A secluded walk, or a solitary ride, were to Burns what the lonely room and evening lamp are said to be to others who woo the muse. Though sharp and sarcastic in his correspon- dence, he was kindly and obliging in other matters. He had formed a friendship with the family of Friars-Carse, and was indulged with a key which admitted him when he pleased to the beautiful grounds — to the rare collections of antique crosses, troughs, altars, and other inscribed stones of Scotland's elder day — and to, what the Poet did not love less, a beautiful hermitage, in the centre of the grove next to EHisland. He rewarded this indulgence by writing an inscription. At first the poem was all contained on one pane of glass ; but his fancy overflowed such limits :— " Thou whom chance may hither lead ; Be thou clad in russet weed, Be thou deck'd in silken stole, Grave these maxims on thy soul : — Life is but a day at most, Sprung from night, in darkness lost ; Hope not sunshine every hour ; Fear not clouds will always lour. * * * Stranger, go ! Heaven be thy guide ! Quod the Beadsman of Nithside." These sentiments show the colour of the Poet's mind rather than its original vigour. He was happier in a poem addressed to Gra- ham of Fintry ; it is rich in observation, and abounds with vivid pictures, some of them darkening into the stern and the sarcastic : — " Thee, Nature ! partial Nature ! I arraign ; Of thy caprice maternal I complain. Thou giv'st the ass his hide, the snail his shell, Th' envenom'd wasp, victorious, guards his cell ; Toads with their poison, doctors with their drug, The priest and hedge-hog in their robes are snug. But, oh ! thou bitter step-mother, and hard To thy poor fenceless naked child — the Bard ! A thing unteachable in worldly skill, And half an idiot, too— more helpless still ; No nerves olfactory, Mammon's trusty cur, Clad in rich Dullness' comfortable fur, In naked feeling, and in aching pride, He bears the unbroken blast on every side ; Vampyre booksellers drain him to the heart, And scorpion critics cureless venom dart. ©^ 86 LIFE OF BURNS. 1789. Critics !— appall'd I venture on the name ; Those cut-throat bandits in the paths of fame, Bloody dissectors, worse than ten Munroes ! He hacks to teach — they mangle to expose." The fine satire and graceful application of these lines make us regret that they were ad- dressed to one who had nothing better in his gift than situations in the Excise. In lyrical verse the muse of Burns was at this time somewhat sparing of her inspiration ; she who loved to sing of rustic happiness in her own country tongue was put out in her musings by the sound of mason's hammers and carpen- ters' saws. The first of his attempts is the ex- quisite song called " The Chevalier's Lament ;" it was partly composed on horseback, on the 30th of March previous. — "Yesterday," he says to Robert Cleghorn, " as I was riding through a track of melancholy, joyless moors, between Galloway and Ayr -shire, it being Sunday, I turned my thoughts to psalms and hymns and spiritual songs ; and your favourite air, * Cap- tain O'Keane,' coming at length into my head, I tried these words to it : — " The small birds rejoice in the green leaves returning, The murmuring streamlet winds clear through the vale, The hawthorn-tree blows in the dew of the morning, And wild scatter' d cowslips bedeck the green dale ; But what can give pleasure, or what can seem fair, While the lingering moments are numbered by care ? No flowers gaily springing, nor birds sweetly singing, Can soothe the sad bosom of joyless despair." He contributed some dozen songs or so this season to Johnson : — " I can easily see that you will very probably," he says, " have four vo- lumes. Perhaps you may not find your account lucratively in this business ; but you are a patriot for the music of your country, and I am certain posterity will look upon themselves as highly indebted to your public spirit. I see every day new musical publications advertised, but what are they ? — gaudy butterflies of a day : but your work will outlive the momentary neg- lects of idle fashion, and defy the teeth of time." Of the new songs which he wrote, " Beware of bonnie Ann" Avas the first ; Ann, the daughter of Allan Masterton, was the heroine. — "The Gardener wi' his Paidle ; verse is natural and flowing : " When rosy May comes in wi' flowers, To deck the gay green spreading bowers, Then busy, busy are his bours, The gardener wi' his paidle. The chrystal waters gently fa', The merry birds are lovers a', The scented breezes round him blaw, The gardener wi' his paidle." " On a Bank of Flowers" was written by de- sire of Johnson, to replace a song of greater merit, but less delicacy, published by Ramsay. " The day returns, my bosom bum," was com- posed in compliment to the bridal-day of the laird of Friars-Carse and his lady ; it is very beautiful : — " The day returns, my bosom burns, The blissful day we twa did meet ; Though winter wild in tempest toil'd, Ne'er simmer sun was half sae sweet." " At their fire-side," says the Poet, " I have enjoyed more pleasant evenings than at all the houses of fashionable people in this country put together." " Go fetch to me a pint o' wine " Burns introduced to his brother Gilbert as an old song which he had found among the glens of Nithsdale, and asked if he did not think it beautiful. — "Beautiful!" said Gilbert; "it is not only that, but the most heroic of lyrics. Ah, Robert ! if you would write oftener that way, your fame would be surer." He also co- pied it out as a work of the olden muse, to Mrs. Dunlop ; the second verse is magnificent : — " The trumpets sound, the banners fly, The glittering spears are ranked ready ; The shouts o' war are heard afar, The battle closes thick and bloody : But it's not the roar o' sea or shore Wad make me longer wish to tarry, Nor shouts o' war that's heard afar — It's leaving thee, my bonnie Mary." He was fond of passing off his own composi- tions as the labours of forgotten bards. "Auld lang syne" he spoke of to Mrs. Dunlop as a song that had often thrilled through his soul : nor did he hesitate to recommend it to Thomson as a lyric of other days which had never been in print, nor even in manuscript, till he took it down from an old woman's singing. Many a Scottish heart will respond in far lands to the following lines : — " We twa hae run about the braes, An' pou'd the gowans fine, But we've wandered mony a weary foot Since auld lang syne. We twa hae paidlet i' the burn Frae morning sun till dine, But seas between us braid hae roar'd Since auld lang syne." The desponding spirit of the Poet is visible in the song of "The lazy Mist." — "I'll never wish to hear it sung again," said a farmer to me once ; " it is enough to make one quit plough-hilts and harrow, and turn hermit." " Of a' the airts the wind can blaw" is as cheerful as the other is sorrowful. — " I com- posed it," said the Poet, out of compliment to Mrs. Burns : — it was," he archly adds, "during the honey-moon." This was the fruit of one of his horseback meditations, when riding to Mossgiel from Ellisland, with his rising onstead, his new-sown crop, and the charms of Jean Armour's company in his mind. He made it by the way, and sung it to his wife when he arrived. There are four verses altogether ; two of them are not com- monly printed, though both are beautiful : — @ ®: JETAT. 30. ELLISLAND. 87 " O blaw ye westlin' winds, blaw saft Amnng the leafy trees, Wi' halmy gale frae hill an' dale, Bring hame the laden bees ; And bring the lassie back to me That's aye sae neat an' clean ; Ae smile o' her wou'd banish care, Sae charming is my Jean." These verses with which Burns eked out and amended the old lyrics are worthy of no- tice. There is some happy patching in ' ' Tib- bie Dunbar :" — " I care na thy daddie, his lands and his money ; I care na thy kindred sae high and sae lordly ; But say thou wilt hae me, for better for waur, And come in thy coatie, sweet Tibbie Dunbar." In "The Tailor fell thro' the bed, thimbles an' a' ," and in " Ay waukin, O," are two or three of the Burns' touches. In " My Love she's but a lassie yet" his hand is more visible : — " My love she's but a lassie yet, My love she's but a lassie yet ; We'll let her stand a year or twa. She'll no be half sae saucy yet ; I rue the day I sought her, O, I rue the day I sought her, O ; Wha gets her need na say he's wooed, But he may say he's bought her, O." Having cut and secured his crop, seen his stable for holding four horses, and his byre for containing ten cows, erected, and his dwelling house rendered nearly habitable, he went into Ayr-shire in the middle of November ; and, in the first week of the succeeding month, re- turned with Mrs. Burns, and some cart-loads of plenishing to Ellisland. He was visited on this occasion by many of his neighbours : the gladsome looks and the kindly manners of his young wife made a favourable impression on all ; and at his house-heating, " Luck to the roof-tree of the house of Burns !" was drunk by the men, and some of his songs sung by the lasses of Nithsdale. He was looked upon now as having struck root as a poet and a farmer, and, as both, was welcome to the people of the vale around. Yet his coming brought something like alarm to a few : the ruder part of the peasantry dreaded being pickled and preserved in sarcastic verse. An old farmer told me that, at a penny-pay wedding, when one or two wild young fellows began to quarrel and threatened to fight, Burns rose up and said, " Sit down and be damned to you ! else I'll hing ye up like potatoe-bogles, in sang to-morrow." — "They ceased and sat down," said my informant, "as if their noses had been bleeding." In the letters and verses of the Poet at this period, we can see a picture of his mind and feelings. — In a letter to Mrs. Dunlop, dated January 1, 1789, he writes : — " This, dear Madam, is a morning of wishes, and would to God that I came under the apostle James's description — the "prayer of a righteous man availeth much. In that case, Madam, you should welcome in a year full of blessings ; every thing that obstructs or disturbs tranquillity and self-enjoyment should be re- moved, and every pleasure that frail humanity can taste should be yours. I own myself so little of a presbyterian that I approve of set times and seasons of more than ordinary acts of devotion, for breaking in on that habituated routine of life and thought which is so apt to reduce our existence to a kind of instinct, or even sometimes, and with some minds, to a state very little superior to mere machinery. This day — New Year's day — the first Sunday in May ; a breezy, blue-skyed noon, sometime about the beginning, and a hoary morning and calm sunny day about the end, of autumn ; these, time out of mind, have been to me a kind of holiday. I believe I owe this to that glo- rious paper in the Spectator, 'The Vision of Mirza ; ' a piece that struck my young fancy, before I was capable of fixing an idea to a word of three syllables : i On the fifth day of the moon, which, according to the custom of my forefathers, I always keep holy, after hav- ing washed myself and offered up my morning devotions, I ascended the high hill of Bagdat, in order to pass the rest of the day in me- ditation and prayer.' We know nothing, or next to nothing, of the substance or structure of our souls ; so cannot account for those seeming caprices in them that one should be particularly pleased with this thing, or struck with that, which, on minds of a different cast make no extraordi- nary impression. I have some favourite flowers in spring, among which are the mountain-daisy, the harebell, the fox-glove, the wild-brier rose, the budding birch, and the hoary hawthorn, that I view and hang over with particular de- light. I never heard the loud solitary whistle of the curlew in a summer noon, or the wild mixing cadence of a troop of grey plovers in an autumnal morning, without feeling an elevation of soul like the enthusiasm of devotion or poe- try. Tell me, my dear friend, to what can this be owing ? Are we a piece of machinery, which like the iEolian harp, passive, takes the impression of the passing accident, or do these workings argue something within us above the trodden clod? I own myself partial to such proofs of those awful and important realities — a God that made all things — man's immaterial and immortal nature, and a world of weal or woe beyond death and the grave." Thus elo- quently could Burns discourse upon his own emotions ; he was willing to accept, as proofs of an immortal spirit within him, the poetic stirrings of his own sensibility. [" Few, it is to be hoped," says the eloquent Lockhart, " can read such things as these with- out delight ; none, surely, that taste the ele- @=- LIFE OF BURNS. 1789. vated pleasure they are calculated to inspire can turn from them to the well-known issue of Burns's history without being afflicted. It is difficult to imagine anything more beautiful, more noble, than what such a person as Mrs. Dunlop might at this period be sup- posed to contemplate as the probable tenour of his future life. What fame can bring of happiness he had already tasted ; he had over- leaped, by the force of his genius, all the pain- ful barriers of society ; and there was probably not a man in Scotland who would not have thought himself honoured by seeing Burns under his roof. He had it in his power to place his poetical reputation on a level with the very highest names, by proceeding in the same course of study and exertion which had originally raised him into public notice. Surrounded by an affectionate family ; occupied, but not en- grossed, by the agricultural labours in which his youth and early manhood had delighted ; com- muning with nature in one of the loveliest dis- tricts of his native land ; and, from time to time, producing to the world some immortal addition to his verse, — thus advancing in years and in fame, with what respect would not Burns have been thought of! How venerable in the eyes of his contemporaries ! How hallowed in those of after generations, would have been the roof of Ellisland, the field on which he ' bound every day after his reapers,' the solemn river by which he delighted to wander ! The plain of Bannockburn would hardly have been holier ground."] That Burns imagined he had united the poet, farmer, and exciseman, all happily in his own person, was a dream in which he indulged only during the first season that he occupied Ellis- j land. When he thought of his bargain with Miller, his natural engagement with the Muse, and of his increasing family, he was not un- conscious that he had taxed mind and body to the uppermost : poetry was not then, more than now, a productive commodity, and he could not expect a harvest such as he had reaped in Edin- burgh every year. A farm such as his re- quired the closest, nay, most niggardly, econo- my to make it pay ; and he was not, therefore, unwise in leaning to the Excise to help out with a little ready and certain money the defi- ciencies of his other speculations. As yet, how- ever, his hopes were high, and his spirit un- touched — when he said " Come, firm Resolve, take thou the van, Thou stalk o' carle-hemp in man :" he was bracing himself up for the contest. Such fits of thought generally with him ushered in verse. When visions of fame and honest hard - earned independence passed before his sight, Burns slipt out to the " Scaur's red side," and pacing to and fro, indicated, to the hum- ming of some favourite tune, that he was busy with song. Nay, it was not unusual with him to go out, " attired as minstrels wont to be," with his head uncovered — his ancestor's broad sword buckled to his side ; and, traversing the river-bank in the glimpses of the moon, chant in a voice, deep, low, and melodious, the verses which rose on his fancy. [" On the Dalswinton side," says Lockhart, " the river washes lawns and groves ; but over against these the bank rises into a red scaur, of considerable height, along the verge of which, where the bare shingle of the precipice all but but overhangs the stream, Burns had his fa- vourite walk, and might now be seen striding alone, early and late, especially when the winds were loud, and the waters below him swollen and turbulent. For he was one of those that enjoy nature most in the more severe of her aspects ; and throughout his poetry, for one allusion to the liveliness of spring, or the splen- dour of summer, it Avould be easy to point out twenty in which he records the solemn delight with which he contemplated the melancholy grandeur of autumn, or the savage gloom of winter. Indeed, I cannot but think that the result of an exact inquiry into the composition of Burns's poems, would be, that ' his vein,' like that of Milton, flowed most happily ' from the autumnal equinox to the vernal :' — Of Lord Byron, we know that his vein flowed best at midnight ; and Burns has himself told us that it was his custom ' to take a gloamin' shot at the Muses.' "1 Nith side was a favourite place for study : southward lies a pretty walk among natural clover : northward the bank is rough witli briar and birch, while, far below the stream, roughened by the large stones of Fluechar- Ford, may be heard — " Chafing against the Scaur's red side." Here, after a fall of rain, the poet loved to walk " listening to the dashing roar," or looking at the river, chafed and agitated, bursting impe- tuously from the groves of Friar's-Carse against the bridling embankment which fences the low holms of Dalswinton. Thither he walked in his sterner moods, when the world and its ways touched his spirit ; and the elder peasants of the vale still shew the point at which he used to pause and look on the red and agitated stream. In one of these moods he produced, " I hae a wife of my ain," a rather indecorous ditty, but full of the character of the man, and breathing of resolution and independence : — " I hae a wife o' my ain — I'll partake wi' naebody ; I'll tak' cuckold frae nane, I'll gie cuckold to naebody. I hae a penny to spend — there, thanks to naebody ; I hae naething to lend — I'll borrow frae naebody. " I am naebody's lord, — I'll be slave to naebody; I hae a gude braid sword — I'll tak' dunts frae naebody. I'll be merry and free — I'll be sad for naebody; If naebody care for me, I'll care for naebody." : @ -ETAT. 30. HE ESTABLISHES LIBRARIES. 89 Burns indulged in the wish to compose a work less desultory, and more the offspring of medi- tation, than those short and casual pieces which were rather the sport of his vacant hours than the result of settled study and deliberate thought. Something like the Georgics of Virgil, a kind of composition for which he was well fitted, both by genius and knowledge, seems to have hovered before his fancy. — " It is a species of writing," he observed, " entirely new to me, and has filled my head with a thousand fancies of emulation ; but, alas ! when I read the Georgics, and then survey my own powers, 'tis like the idea of a Shetland pony drawn up by the side of a thorough-bred hunter to start for the plate." These words were addressed to Mrs. Dunlop ; he afterwards says to Dr. Moore : — " The character and employment of a poet were formerly my pleasure, but are now my pride. I have no doubt but the knack, the aptitude, to learn the Muses' trade, is a gift bestowed by Him who forms the secret bias of the soul ; but I as firmly believe that excellence in the profession is the fruit of industry, atten- tion, labour, and pains ; at least, I am resolved to try my doctrine by the test of experience. Another appearance from the press 1 put off to a very distant day — a day that may never ar- rive ; but poesy I am determined to prosecute with all my vigour." The critics of those days seem not to have felt that he had already taken a flight above any bard of his time ; they re- garded the " Address to the Deil" "The D aisy, The Mouse," and "The Cotter's Saturday Night," as " Orient pearls at random strung f and held that their worth had yet to be decided by future works of more sustained excellence. This seems to have perplexed Bums ; such opinions pointed to a school of verse in which he had never studied. The Poet did not flourish ; yet he seems to have done enough to ensure success as a farmer. He held the plough frequently with his own hands ; and he loved to lay aside his coat, and with a sowing-sheet slung across his shoul- der, stride over the new-turned furrows, and commit his seed-corn to the ground. — While his wife managed the cheese and butter depart- ment with something short of West countiy skill, he attended fairs where grain was sold, and sales where cattle were disposed of ; and, though not averse to a merry-making or a dance, he seems neither to have courted nor shunned them. — " Do you come and see me," he says to Richard Brown. " We must have a social day, and perhaps lengthen it out with half the night before you go again to sea. You are the earliest friend I now have on earth, my brothers excepted ; and is not that an endearing circumstance ? When you and I first met, we were at a green period of human life. The twig could easily take a bent, but would as [* Letter to Sir John Sinclair, Bart., in the Statistical easily return to its former state. You and I not only took a mutual bent, but, by the me- lancholy, though strong, influence of being both of the family of the unfortunates, we were in- tertwined with one another in our growth to- wards advanced age ; and blasted be the sacri- legious hand that shall attempt to undo the union !" He loved old friendships to continue, and rejoiced in the happiness of his early com- panions. The diffusion of knowledge was a favourite object with Burns ; for this he had established his reading and debating-clubs in the west, and in the same spirit he now desired to excite a love of literature among the portioners and peasants of Dunscore. He undertook the management of a small parochial library, and wrote out the rules. His friend, Gordon, a writer, happened to drop in while he was busy with the regula- tions, and began to criticise the language — a matter on which the bard was sensitive. — " Come, come, sir," said he, "let me have my rules again. Had I employed a Dumfries law- yer to draw them out, he would have given me bad Latin, worse Greek, and English spoken in the fourteenth century." Mr. Riddell, of Friar's-Carse, and other gentlemen, contributed money and books. The library commenced briskly, but soon languished. The Poet could not always be present at the meetings ; the subscribers lived far separate ; disputes and dis- union crept in, and it died away like a flower which fades for want of watering. Burns al- ludes ironically to the scheme in one of his letters. Wisdom, he averred, might be gained by the mere handling of books. One night, he said, while he presided in the library, a tailor, who lived some mile or so distant, turned over and over the leaves of a folio Hebrew concord- ance, the gift of a clergyman. — " I advised him," said Burns, " to bind the book on his back — he did so ; and Stitch, in a dozen walks between the library and his own house, ac- quired as much rational theology as the priest had done by forty years' perusal of the pages." Such ironical sallies were not likely to allure subscribers or give knowledge to the ignorant. [Nevertheless, his letters to the booksellers on the subject of this subscription library do him much honour : his choice of authors, which business was actually left to his discretion, being in the highest degree judicious. Such institutions are now common, indeed almost universal, in the rural districts of Southern Scotland ; but it should never be forgotten that Bums was among the first, if not the very first, to set the example. " He was so good," says Mr. Riddell, " as to take the whole manage- ment of this concern : he was treasurer, librarian, and censor, to our little society, who will long have a grateful sense of his public spirit and ex- ertions for their improvement and information.]* Account of Scotland — Parish of Dunscore.] =r® 90 LIFE OF BURNS. 1789. Some have hinted that his appointment in the Excise was unfortunate, as it led to the tempt- ations of pleasant company and social excess. There is no situation under the sun free from this ; even a farmer is as much exposed to such allurements as any one. The Poet, a good judge in all such matters, looked with a different eye upon it ; nor is there anything too roman- tic in the wish that journeying along the green vales, and among the fine "hills of Nithsdale and Galloway, might inspire his muse, and aid him in poetic composition. " I do not know/' he said to Ainslie, " if I nave informed you that I am now appointed to an Excise division, in the middle of which my house and farm lie. I know not how the word exciseman, or still more opprobrious, gauger, will sound in your ears. I, too, have seen the day when my auditory nerves would have felt very delicately on this subject ; but a wife and children have a won- derful power in blunting these kind of sensa- tions. Fifty pounds a -year for life, and a provision for widows and orphans, you will allow, is no bad settlement for a poet. For the ignominy of the profession, I have the encou- ragement which I once heard a recruiting serjeant give to a numerous, if not a respect- able, audience in the streets of Kilmarnock : — ' Gentlemen, for your farther and better encou- ragement, I can assure you that our regiment is the most blackguard corps under the crown ; and, consequently, with us, an honest man has the surest chance for preferment.' " In the same strain he writes to his friend Blacklock : — " But what d'ye think, my trusty fier, I'm turned a gauger. — Peace be here ! Parnassian queans, I fear, I fear, Ye'll now disdain me! And then my fifty pounds a-year Will little gain me. " Ye glaiket, gleesome, dainty damies, Wha, by Castalia's wimplin' streamies Lowp, sing, and lave your pretty limbies, Ye ken, ye ken, That Strang necessity supreme is 'Mang sons o' men. " I hae a wife and twa wee laddies, They maun hae brose and brats o' duddies ; Ye ken yoursel my heart right proud is — I need na vaunt ; But I'll sned besoms — thraw saugh woodies Before they want." In these verses we read of the man as well as the poet ; he put more of himself into all he wrote than any other poet, ancient or modern. [* A writer in the Edinburgh Literary Journal for 1829 gives the following lively anecdote : — " It may be readily guessed with what interest I heard, one Thornhill fair-day, that Burns was to visit the market. Boy as I then was, an interest was awakened in me respecting this extraordinary man, which was sufficient, in addition to the ordinary attrac- tion of a village fair, to command my presence in the mar- ket. Burns actually entered the fair about twelve ; and man, wife, and lass, were all on the outlook for a peep of the Ayr- shire ploughman. I carefully dogged him from stand to " On one occasion, however," says Lockhart, " he takes a higher tone. ' There is a certain stigma,' writes the Poet to Bishop Geddes, 'in the name of exciseman ; but I do not intend to borrow honour from my profession ;' which may, perhaps, remind the reader of Gibbon's lofty language, on finally quitting the learned and polished circles of London and Paris for his Swiss retirement : — * I am too modest, or too proud, to rate my value by that of my associ- ates."— " His farm," says Currie, " no longer occu- pied the principal part of his care or his thoughts. It was not at Ellisland that he was now in general to be found. Mounted on horseback, this high-minded Poet was pursuing the defaulters of the revenue among the hills and vales of Nithsdale, his roving eye wander- ing over the charms of nature, and muttering his wayward fancies as he moved along." Currie means something like censure in this passage. The Poet had a duty, and an arduous one, to perform ; his district reached far and wide ; he was ever punctual in his attendance; and, though he might plough and sow, reap and graze Ellisland by deputy, it required his own eyes and hands to superintend the revenue in ten parishes. That he acquitted himself dili- gently, but gently, in his vocation, there is abundance of proof ; against the regular smug- glers his looks were stern and his hand was heavy, while to the poor country dealer he was mild and lenient. The Poet and a brother exciseman one day suddenly entered a poor widow's shop in Dunscore, and made a seizure of smuggled tobacco. — " Jenny," said the Poet, " I expected this would be the upshot ; here, Lewars, take note of the number of rolls as I count them. Now Jock, did ye ever hear an auld wife numbering her threads before check- reels were invented? Thou's ane, and thou's no ane, and thou's ane a' out — listen." As he handed out the rolls, he went on with his hu- morous enumeration, but dropping every other roll into Janet's lap. Lewars took the desired note with much gravity, and saw as if he saw not the merciful conduct of his companion. On another occasion, information had been lodged against a widow who kept a small pub- lic-house in Thornhill ; it was a fair-day — her house was crowded — Burns came suddenly to the back door and said, " Kate, are ye mad ? — the supervisor will be in on ye in half an hour ! " This merciful hint saved the poor woman from ruin.* stand, and from door to door. An information had been lodged against a poor widow of the name of Kate Watson, who had ventured to serve a few of her old country friends with a draught of unlicensed ale, and a lacing of whisky on this village jubilee. I saw him enter her door, and antici- pated nothing short of an immediate seizure of a certain grey-beard and barrel, which, to my personal knowledge, con- tained the contraband commodity our bard was in quest of. A nod, accompanied by a significant movement of the fore- finger, brought Kate to the door-way entrance, and I was b 9 =r@ MTAT. 30. HIS " WOUNDED HARE." 91 Tlie muse, as he expected, accompanied Burns in his gauging excursions. He had occasion to be at Lochmaben ; INI ax well, then provost of that very small but very ancient borough, was his correspondent : — he was also acquainted with that " worthy veteran in religion and good fellowship, the Reverend Mr. Jeffrey." At the manse of the latter he met " the blue- eyed lass" in his daughter Jean, then a rosy girl of seventeen, with winning manners and laughing blue eyes. The Poet drank tea and spent the evening in the manse ; and next morning, greatly to the increase of her blushes, sent her the song which has made her im- mortal : — " I gaed a waefu' gate yestreen, A gate, I fear, I'll dearly rue ; I gat my death frae twa sweet een, Twa laughing een o' bonny blue : She talk'd, she smil'd, my heart she wil'd, She charm'd my soul, I wistna how ; But ay the stound, the deadly wound, Came frae her een sae bonny blue." In April, he wrote the poem of " The wounded hare : " he has himself described the circum- stances under w r hich he composed it, in a letter to his friend Mr. Alexander Cunningham of Edinburgh : — " One morning lately, as I was out pretty early in the fields, sowing some grass seeds, I heard the burst of a shot from a neigh- bouring plantation, and presently a poor little wounded hare came crippling by me. You will guess my indignation at the inhuman fellow who could shoot a hare at this season, when all of them have young ones. Indeed there is something in that business of destroying for our sport individuals in the animal creation that do not injure us materially, which I could never reconcile to my ideas of virtue." His account was confirmed to me by James Thomson, the son of a neighbouring farmer. — " I remember Burns," said he, " weel ; I have some cause to mind him — he used to walk in the twilight along the side of the Nith, near the march, be- tween his land and ours. Once I shot at a hare that w r as busy on our braird ; she ran bleeding past Burns : he cursed me and ordered me out of his sight, else he would throw me into the water. I'm told he has written a poem about it." — "Aye, that he has," I replied; "but do you think he could have thrown you into the Nith ? " — " Thrown ! aye, I'll warrant could he, though I was baith young and strong." He submitted the poem — certainly not one of his best — to Dr. Gregory ; the result scared him from consulting in future professional critics. — Burns said, " I believe Dr. Gregory, in his iron justice, is a good man, but he crucifies me : like the devils, I believe and tremble. Such near enough to hear the following words distinctly uttered :— " Kate, are ye mad? D'ye ken that the supervisor and me will be upon you in the course of forty minutes ? Guid-by t' ye at present." — Burns was in the street, and in the midst ®- criticisms but tend to crush the spirit out of man." The applause which his next attempt ob- tained afforded some consolation for such mer- ciless strictures ; this was the song, " O ! were I on Parnassus' hill ; " the heroine was Mrs. Burns ; the transition, from the " forked hill " and " fabled fount" of the heathen to a nearer stream and Scottish mount of inspiration, has been much admired. " O ! were I on Parnassus hill ! Or had o' Helicon my fill, That I might catch poetic skill, To sing how dear I love thee. But Nith maun be my muse's well, My muse maun be thy bonnie seP, On Corsincon I'll glow'r and spell, And write how dear I love thee." He presented the song to Miss Staig, an ac- complished young lady of Dumfries, saying, "should the respectful timidity of any one of her lovers deny him power of speech, it would be charitable to teach him, ' O ! were I on Parnassus' hill,' so that he might not lie under the double imputation of being neither able ' to sing nor say.' " The thoughts of Burns had travelled far from Corsincon, and the waters of the Nith, when he wrote "My heart's in the Highlands." The words suit a Gaelic air, and have much of the northern spirit in them : — " My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here ; My heart's in the Highlands a chasing the deer, Chasing the wild deer, and following the roe ; My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go ! " Nor were his thoughts at his own fire-side when he penned his humorous and sarcastic ditty, "Whistle o'er the lave o't." Wedded infelicity is the theme of many of our old minstrels : — " Meg was meek, and Meg was mild, Bonny Meg was Nature's child — Wiser men than me's beguil'd ; Whistle o'er the lave o't." " The Kirk's Alarm," a poem personal and satiric, with gleams of wit and poetry worthy of a subject less local, was the offspring of this season. It was composed at the request of some of his Ayrshire friends, to aid the Rev. Dr. Macgill, against whom the Kirk was di- recting its thunder for having written a heretical book. The reverend delinquent yielded, and was forgiven — not so the poet : so much more venial is it in devout men's eyes to be guilty of heresy than of satire ! His fancy was now and then fond of " step- ping westward ; " this is sufficiently indicated in his " Braes o' Ballochmyle," and with deeper of the crowd, in an instant, and I had access to know that his friendly hint was not neglected, It saved a poor lonely widow from a fine of several pounds."] m 92 LIFE OF BURNS. 1789. still in his "To Mary in Heaven/' written near the close of September, 1789. The circumstances under which the latter lyric was composed pressed painfully on the mind of his wife. — "Robert," she said, "though ill of a cold, had busied himself all day with the shearers in the field, and, as he had got much of the crop in, was in capital spirits. But when the gloaming came, he grew sad about something — he could not rest. He wandered first up the water-side, and then went to the barn-yard ; and I followed him, begging him to come in, as he was ill, and the ah* was cold and sharp. He always promised, but still re- mained where he was, striding up and down, and looking at the clear sky, and particularly at a star that shone like another moon. He then threw himself down on some loose sheaves, still continuing to gaze at the star." When he came in he seemed deeply dejected, and sat down and wrote the first verse : — " Thou ling'ring star, with less'ning ray, That lov'st to greet the early morn, Again thou usher'st in the day My Mary from my soul was torn. O Mary ! dear departed shade ! Where is thy place of blissful rest ? See'st thou thy lover lowly laid ? Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast? " On this touching topic he writes to Mrs. I Dunlop : — " Can it be possible that, when 1 resign this frail, feverish being, I shall still find myself in conscious existence ? "When the last gasp of agony has announced that I am no more to those who knew me, and the few who loved me ; when the cold, stiffened, unconscious, ghastly corse is resigned into the earth, to be the prey unsightly of reptiles, and to become in time a trodden clod, shall I be yet warm in life, seeing and seen — enjoying and enjoyed? If there is another life, it must be only for the just, the benevolent, the amiable, and the humane. What a flattering idea, then, is a world to come ! Would to God I as firmly be- lieved it, as I ardently wish it ! There I should meet an aged parent, now at rest from the many buffetings of an evil world, against which he so bravely struggled. There should I, with speechless agony of rapture, again recognize my lost — my ever dear Mary ! whose bosom was fraught with truth, honour, constancy, and love." Few wives would interpret these me- lancholy allusions into happiness for themselves. Mrs. Burns seems to have conducted herself with much gentleness. These melancholy moods seldom lasted long — and they were generally relieved by verse. Poetry, therefore, had some share in them. Nor was it unnatural, when the world pressed and the cloud descended, for Burns to cheer the present by bright images of the past. Had fortune been more kind, lie would have looked less at the Highland-Mary star, and indulged. probably, in strains of a more enlivening nature. In those days the Poet describes himself as the prey of nervous affections. — "I cannot reason," he says to the same respected lady, "I cannot think ; and but to you I would not venture to write any thing above an order to a cobbler. You have felt too much of the ills of life not to sympathize with a diseased wretch, who has impaired more than half of any faculties he Yet in the same season he wrote his joyous strain, " Willie brewed a peck o' niaut." The history of the song involves that of the Poet. Nicol, by the advice of Burns, bought the farm of Laggan in his neighbourhood, and in the autumn vacation came to look after his purchase. Allan Masterton accompanied him, and, summoning the bard, they resolved to have a " house-heating." Nicol furnished the table, Burns produced the song, and Masterton set it to music. All these lyrics, and others of scarcely inferior merit, were printed in the third volume of the Musical Museum. The song called "The banks of the Nith" partakes of the sobriety of verses written to please a friend. In vain the Poet thinks of the Thames flowing proudly to the sea, and of the Nith — •' Where Comyns ance had high command." His muse will not be satisfied till he gives her license upon another strain — the song of " Tarn Glen." Thought flows free, and words "come skelpin' rank and file," in this happy lyric. The heroine has set her heart on honest Tam, and, in spite of the persuasions and bribes of her relations, perseveres in her attachment. Besides his personal qualities, there are other reasons of weight : — " The last Halloween I was waukin', My droukit sark-sleeve, as ye ken ; His likeness came up the house staukin' — The very grey breeks o' Tam Glen." Burns went to a school in which the master caused his scholars to sing this song. The Poet was hard to please in matters of sentiment, and said, " Children can't do such things, sir ; they sing, but it is without feeling." He had now made the acquaintance and acquired the friendship of some of the chief families of the vale of Nith ; the doors of Friars- Carse, Terraughty, Blackwood, Close- burn, Barjarg, Dalswinton, Glenae, Kirkconnel, and Arbigland were opened to receive and to welcome him ; nor were those of Drumlanrig shut. The Duke of Queensbury was represented by John M'Murdo, who had taste to appreciate the merits of such a man as Burns. In one of his letters to that gentleman, he says, in his usual characteristic way, — " A poet and a beggar are in so many points of view alike, that one might take them for the same individual character under different designations ; were it @ : ©-. 2ETAT. 30. HIS PERAMBULATIONS. 93 not that though, with a trifling' poetic license, most poets may be styled beggars, yet the con- verse of the proposition does not hold, that every beggar is a poet. In one particular, however, they remarkably agree : if you help either the one or the other to the picking of a bone or a mug of ale, they will very willingly repay you with a son<£. I feel myself indebted to you, in the style ot our ballad printers, for ' five excel- lent new songs.' The enclosed is nearly my newest song, ' The Country Lass,' and one that has cost me some pains, though that is but an equivocal mark of its excellence. You see, sir, what it is to patronize a poet ; 'tis like being a magistrate in a petty borough ; you do them the favour to preside at their council for one year, and your name bears the prefatory stigma of bailie for life. With, not the compliments, but the best wishes, the sincerest prayers, of the season for you, that you may see many and happy years with Mrs. M'Murdo and your family — two blessings, by the bye, to which your rank does not by any means entitle you ; a lov- ing wife and a fine family being almost the only good things of this life to which the farm-house and cottage have an exclusive right." In the midst of visits given and received — kindness done by gentlemen, and words of ap- plause, more welcome still, from ladies, Burns was thoughtful and unhappy. From the pur- suit of " pension, post, or place," he had with- drawn with embittered feelings to a farm, and now he found that the plough and the sickle failed to give even the rustic abundance he had contemplated. On Ellisland he had expended all his money in the first year of occupation : — in the second year he writes to Provost Max- well, of Lochmaben, - - " My poor distracted mind is so jaded, so torn, so racked, and be- deviled with the task of the superlatively damned — making one guinea do the business of three, that I detest, abhor, and swoon at the very word business, though no less than four letters of my very short sirname are in it." He felt, too, that he had laid out his money in vain. " He sus- pected his mistake early. It will be recollected that he had previously said, " I do not find my farm the pennyworth I was taught to expect ; but I believe in time it may be a saving bar- gain." To Dr. Moore, he afterwards says : — " I have married my Jean, and taken a farm : with the first step, I have every day more and more reason to be satisfied ; with the last, it is rather the reverse." Still he did not despair ; nay, he sometimes saw r in imagination the poet-farmer high in the scale of opulence as well as fame. — " I am here in my old way," he writes to Mr. Macauley, " holding the plough, marking the growth of my corn, or the health of my dairy, and at times sauntering by the delightful windings [* These particulars are from a letter of David Maculloch, Esq., who being at this period a very young gentleman, a passionate admirer of Burns, and a capital singer of many of the "Nith, on the margin of which I have built my Humble domicile, praying for season- able weather, or holding an intrigue with the muses, the only gipsies with whom I have now any intercourse." [Burns, in his perpetual perambulations over the moors of Dumfries-shire had every tempta- tion to encounter which bodily fatigue, the blandishments of hosts and hostesses, and the habitual manners of those who acted along with him in the duties of the Excise, could present. He was, moreover, wherever he went, exposed to perils of his own, by the reputation which he had earned, and by his extraordinary powers of entertainment in conversation ; and he pleased himself with thinking, in the words of one of his unpublished letters to the Lady Harriot Don (dated Ellisland, December 23rd, 1789), that "one advantage he had in this new business was the knowledge it gave him of the various shades of character in man — consequently as- i sisting him in his trade as a poet." — From the j castle to the cottage, every door flew open at his approach ; and the old system of hospitality, then flourishing, rendered it difficult for the most soberly inclined guest to rise from any man's board in the same trim that he sat down to it. The farmer, if Burns was seen passing, left his reapers, and trotted by the side of Jen- ny Geddes, until he could persuade the bard that the day was hot enough to demand an ex- tra libation. If he entered an inn at midnight, after all the inmates were in bed, the news of his arrival circulated from the cellar to the gar- ret ; and ere ten minutes had elapsed, the land- lord and all his guests were assembled round the ingle ; the largest punch-bowl was pro- duced ; and ■ Be our's this night — who knows what comes to-morrow?' was the language in every eye in the circle that welcomed him.* The highest gentry of the county, whenever they had especial merriment in view, called in the wit and eloquence of Burns to enliven their carousals.] The new - year's - day of 1790 wrought a change in his mind, or rather confirmed his worst suspicions : he had now brought two years' crop to the flail, and was thus enabled to weigh the certain past against future hope. We may gather the result from his words to Gil- bert : — "I have not, in my present frame of mind, much appetite for exertion in writing : my nerves are in a cursed state. I feel that horrid hypochondria pervading every atom of both body and soul. This farm has undone my enjoyment of myself; it is a runious affair on all hands. But let it go — I'll fight it out and be off with it." Though Ellisland promised of his serious songs, used often, in his enthusiasm, to ac- company the Poet on his professional excursions. Lockhakt.] 94 LIFE OF BURNS. 1790. before the fourth of the lease was done to be a saving bargain, there is no doubt that at first it was a losing one. The heart had been wrought out of the ground by preceding tenants, and the crops of grass or corn which it yielded to the Poet afforded but a bare return for labour and outlay. The condition of a farmer in Nithsdale was in those days sufficiently humble ; his one-story house had a clay floor ; his furniture was made by the hands of a ploughwright ; he presided at meals among his children and domestics ; performed family worship, " duly even and morn •" and only put on the look of a man of substance when he gave a dinner to a douce neighbour. Out of doors all was rude and slo- venly : his plough was the clumsy old Scotch one : his harrows had oftener teeth of wood than of iron ; his carts were heavy and low- wheeled — the axles were of wood ; he win- nowed his corn by means of the wind, between two barn-doors ; and he refused to commit his seed to the earth till, seating himself on the ground at mid-day, it gave warmth instead of receiving it. He was too poor to make ex- periments, and too prejudiced to speculate. He rooted up no bushes, dug up no stones ; neither did he drain or enclose ; the dung which he be- stowed on the soil was to raise a crop of pota- toes : now and then it received a powdering of lime. His crops corresponded with his skill and his implements ; they were weak, and only enabled him to pay his rent and lay past a few pounds Scots, annually. Much of the ground in Nithsdale was leased at seven, ten, and some fields of more than or- dinary richness, at fifteen, shillings an acre. The farmer differed little in wealth and condi- tion from the peasants around him. The war, which soon commenced, raised him in the scale of existence ; the army and navy consumed much of his produce ; for a hundred thousand soldiers, in time of war, require as much provi- sion as two hundred thousand in times of peace. With the demand, the price of com augmented ; the farmer rose on the wings of sudden Avealth above his original condition ; his house obtained a slated roof and sash windows ; carpets were laid on the floors, instruments of music were placed in the parlours ; he wore no longer a coat of home-made cloth ; he sat no longer at meals among his servants ; family devotion was relinquished as a thing unfashionable, and he became a sort of rustic gentleman, who rode a blood-horse, and galloped home on market- nights at the peril of his own neck and to the terror of all humble pedestrians. His sons were educated at college, and went to the bar or got commissions in the army : his daughters changed their linsey-woolsey gowns for others of silk ; carried their heads high, and blushed for their relations who were numbered among the wrights, masons, and shoemakers of the land. When a @ change like this took place among the farmers of the vale, the dews of wealth would have fallen at the same time on the tenant of Ellis- land ; but Burns was too poor and too impa- tient to wait long for better times, he resolved to try another year or two, and then abandon farming for ever, if it refused to bring the wealth to him which it did to others. Having made this covenant to himself, he resumed his intercourse with the muse, and pro- duced one of the best as well as the longest of all his poems — "Tarn O'Shanter." For this noble tale we are indebted to something like accident. Grose, the antiquarian, was on a visit to Rid- dell of Friars-Carse, who, like himself, had a collection " Of auld nick-nackets, Rusty aim caps and jinglin' jackets Wad haud the Lothians three in tackets A. towmont gude." The Poet was invited to add wings to the even- ing hours, and something like friendship was established between him and the social English- man, which both imagined would be lasting. In conversing about the antiquities of Scotland, Burns begged that Grose would introduce Al- loway kirk into his projected work ; and, to fix the subject on his mind, related some of the wild stories of devilry and witchcraft with which Scotland abounds. The antiquarian listened to them all, and then said, " Write a poem on it, and I'll put in the verses with an engraving of the ruin." Burns set his muse to work ; he could hardly sleep for the spell that was upon him, and with his " barmy noddle working prime," walked out to his favourite path along the river-bank. " Tam O'Shanter" was the work of a single day ; the name was taken from the farm of Shanter in Carrick, the story from tradition. Mrs. Bums relates that, observing Robert walk- ing with long swinging sort of strides and ap- parently muttering as he went, she let him alone for some time ; at length she took the children with her and went forth to meet him ; he seem- ed not to observe her, but continued his walk ; "on this," said she, "I stept aside with the bairns among the broom — and past us he came, his brow flushed and his eyes shining ; he was reciting these lines : — ' Now Tam ! O Tam ! had thae been queans, A' plump and strapping in their teens, Their sarks, instead o' creeshie flannen, Been snaw-wbite seventeen hunder linen! Thir breeks o' mine, my only pair, That ance were plush, o' guid blue hair, I wad hae gi'en them aff my hurdies ! For ae blink o' the bonnie burdies !' I wish ye had but seen him ! he was in such ecstacy that the tears were happing down his cheeks." The Poet had taken writing mate- rials with him, and, leaning on a turf fence =* n. iETAT. 31. TAM O' STIANTER. 95 wliicli commanded a view of the river, he com- mitted the poem to paper, walked home, and read it in great triumph at the fire-side. It came complete and perfect from his fancy at the first heat ; — no other work in the language con- tains such wondrous variety of genius in the same number of lines. His own account of his rapture in composition confirms the description of Mrs. Burns: — " I seized," said he to a cor- respondent, "my gilt - headed Wangee rod in my left hand — an instrument indispensably ne- cessary — in the moment of inspiration and rap- ture ; and stride, stride — quick and quicker, — out skipt I among the broomy banks of the Nith to muse." Burns found his tale in several prose tradi- tions. One stormy night, amid squalls of wind and blasts of hail — in short, on such a night as the devil would choose to take the air in, a far- mer was plashing homeAvards from the forge with plough-irons on his shoulder. As he ap- proached Alloway kirk, he was startled by a light glimmering in the haunted edifice ; he walked up to the door, and saw a cauldron sus- pended over a fire, in which the heads and limbs of unchristened children were beginning to sim- mer. As there was neither fiend nor witch to protect it, he unhooked the cauldron, poured out the contents, and carried his trophy home, where it long remained an evidence of the truth of his story. We may observe in the poem the use made by Burns of this Kyle legend. Ano- ther story supplied him with two of his chief characters. A farmer having been detained by business in Ayr, found himself crossing the old bridge of Doon about the middle of the night. When he reached the gate of Alloway kirk- yard, a light came streaming from a Gothic window in the gabel, and he saw with surprise a batch of witches dancing merrily round their master the devil, who was keeping them in mo- tion by the sound of his bag-pipe. The farmer stopt his horse and gazed at their gambols ; he saw several old dames of his acquaintance among them ; they were footing it in their smocks. Unfortunately for him, one of them wore a smock too short by a span or so, which so tickled the farmer that he burst out with " Weel luppen, Maggie wi' the short sark !" He recollected himself, turned his horse's head and spurred and switched with all his might towards the brig of Doon, well knowing that — " A running stream they darena cross." When he reached the middle of the arch, one of the hags sprang to seize him, but nothing was on her side of the stream saving the horse's tail, which gave way to her grasp as if touched by lightning. In a Galloway version of the tradition, it is recorded that the witch, seizing the horse by the tail, stopt it in full career in the centre of the bridge ; upon which the farmer struck a back- handed blow with his sword that set him free, and enabled him to pass the stream without fur- ther molestation. On reaching his own house he found, to his horror, a woman's hand hanging in his horse's tail ; and next morning was in- formed that the handsome wife of one of his neighbours was dangerously ill, and not ex- pected to live. He went to see her — she turned away her face from him, and obstinately refused to say what ailed her ; upon which he forcibly bared her wounded arm, and, displaying the bloody hand, accused her of witchcraft and dealings with the devil ; thereupon she made a confession, and was condemned and burnt. The Galloway legend was too tragic for the aim of the Poet ; it would have jarred with the wild humour of the scene in the kirk, and prevented him from displaying his wondrous powers of uniting the laughable with the serious, and the witty with the awful. Cromek, a curious in- quirer, was informed on the spot that the places where the packman was, smothered in the snow — where drunken Charlie broke his neck — Avhere the murdered child was found by hunters — and where the mother of poor Mungo hanged herself, were no imaginary matters. The poe- try of Burns is full of truth. u Tarn O'Shanter" was received with all the applause to which it is richly entitled. " I have seldom in my life," says Lord Woodhous- lee, " tasted of higher enjoyment from any work of genius than I have received from this com- position ; and I am much mistaken if this poem alone, had you never written another syllable, would not have been sufficient to have trans- mitted your name down to posterity with high reputation." Of this " happiest of all mixtures of spirituality and practical life," as Sir Egerton Brydges calls the tale, the poet was justly proud. He carried it in his pocket, and read it willingly to those in whose taste he had any trust. He read it to my father. His voice was deep, man- ly, and melodious, and his eye sparkled as he saw the effect of his poem on all around — young and old. A writer who happened to be present on business, stung, perhaps, with that sarcastic touch on the brethren — " Three lawyers' tongues turn'd inside out, With lies seam'd, like a beggar's clout," remarked that he thought the language de- scribing the witches' orgies obscure. " Obscure, sir," said Burns, " ye know not the language of that great master of your own art — the devil. If you get a witch for a client, you will not be able to manage her defence." " The Whistle" is another poem of this hap- py season. The meeting, it seems, for deciding the ownership of the musical relique should have taken place sooner. — " Big with the idea," said Burns to Riddell, " of this important day (October 16, 1789,) at Friars - Carse, I have watched the elements and skies, in the full per- :(Q) 96 LIFE OF BURNS. 1790. suasion that they would announce it to the as- tonished world by some phenomena of terrific portent. The elements, however, seem to take the matter very quietly ; they did not even usher in this morning with triple suns and a shower of blood, symbolical of the three potent heroes and the mighty claret-shed of the day. For me, as Thomson, in his Winter, says of the storm, I shall * Hear astonish'd and astonish'd sing.' " The story of the " Whistle" is curious : — A Dane came to Scotland with the Princess of Denmark, in the reign of our sixth James, and challenged all the topers of the north to a con- test of the bottle. A Whistle of ebony'was to be the prize of the day ; this he had blown in triumph at the courts of Copenhagen, Stock- holm, Moscow, and Warsaw, and was only pre- vented from doing the same at the Scottish court by Sir Robert Laurie of Maxwellton, who, after a contest of three days and three nights, left the Dane under the table, "And blew on the whistle his requiem shrill." On Friday, 16th October, 1790, the Whistle was again contended for in the same element by the descendants of the great Sir Robert : — " Three joyous good fellows, with hearts clear of flaw ; Craigdarroch, so famous for wit, worth, and law ; And trusty Glenriddel, so skilled in old coins, And gallant Sir Robert, deep read in old wines." And, that their deeds might not be inglorious, they chose an inspired chronicler to attend them : — " A bard was selected to witness the fray, And tell future ages the feats of the day : A bard who detested all sadness and spleen, And wish'd that Parnassus a vineyard had been." This is one of the most dramatic of lyrics ; all is in character, and in the strictest propriety of sentiment and language. The contest took place at Friars-Carse, a place of great natural beauty ; but the combatants closed the shutters against the loveliness of the landscape, either up the Nith or down, and, lighting the dining- room, ordered the corks of the claret to be drawn. They had already swallowed six bot- tles a-piece, and day was breaking, when Fer- guson, decanting a quart of wine, dismissed it at a draught. Upon this Glenriddel, recollect- ing that he was an elder, and a ruling one in the kirk, and feeling he was waging an ungodly strife, meekly withdrew from the contest, and " Left the foul business to folks less divine." Though Sir Robert could not well contend both with fate and quart bumpers, he fought to the last, and fell not till the sun arose. Not so Ferguson, and not so Burns ; the former sounded a note of triumph on his Whistle : " Next up rose out bard, like a prophet in drink : — ' Craigdarroch, thoult soar when creation shall sink ! But if thou would flourish immortal in rhyme, Come — one bottle more — and have at the sublime !" In truth, it is said that the Poet drank bottle for bottle in this arduous contest, and, when daylight came, seemed much disposed to take up the conqueror. Though Burns had ten large parishes to look after as exciseman, and though the inclination of husbandmen for smuggling in those days kept him busy, his fields seemed as well culti- vated, and his crops little less luxuriant, than those of his neighbours. But he felt that his plough was held without profit, and his dairy managed without gain, and remained for weeks at a time at home, intent on other matters than " Learning his tuneful trade from every bough." How he demeaned himself as ganger, farmer, and poet, has been related by an able and ob- servant judge: — "I had an adventure with him," said Ramsay of Ochtertyre, il when pass- ing through Dumfries-shire in 1790, with Dr. Stewart of Luss. Seeing him pass quickly near Closeburn, I said to my companion, ' that is Burns.' On coming to the inn (Brownhill), the ostler told us he would be back in a few hours to grant permits ; that where he met with anything seizable he was no better than any other gauger : in everything else he was a per- fect gentleman. After leaving a note to be de- livered to him on his return, I proceeded to his house, being curious to see his Jean, &c. I was much pleased with his uxor Sabina quails, and the Poet's modest mansion, so unlike the habi- tation of ordinary peasants. In the evening, he suddenly bounced in upon us, and said as he en- tered, ' I come, to use the words of Shakspeare, stewed in haste.' In fact he had ridden incredibly fast. We fell into conversation directly, and soon got into the mare magnum of poetry. He told me he had now gotten a story for a drama, which he was to call " Rob Macquechaa's Elshin," from a popular story of King Robert the Bruce being defeated on the water of Cairn, when the heel of his boot having loosened in the flight, he applied to Rob to fix it on, who, to make sure, ran his awl nine inches up the king's heel. We were now going on at a great rate, when Mr. S popped in his head, which put a stop to our discourse, which had become very inter- esting. Yet in a little while it was resumed ; and such was the force and versatility of the bard's genius, that he made the tears run down Mr. S.'s cheeks, albeit unused to the poetic strain. Poor Burns ! from that time I met him no more." The Poet had imagined a drama com- mencing with the early vicissitudes of the for- tunes of Bruce — recording his strange, his heroic and sometimes laughable, adventures, till all ended in the glorious consummation at Ban- nockburn. He allowed, as was his wont, the ©^ .3ETAT. 31 RAMSAY OF OCHTERTYRE. 97 subject to float about in his niind, and drew out no plan nor list of characters on paper. "Those who recollect," says Sir Walter Scott, " the masculine and lofty tone of martial spirit which glows in the poem of Bannockburn will sigh to think what the character of the gallant Bruce might have proved under the hand of Burns ! " We find Burns at this period informing Gra- ham of Fintry that the Excise business went on much smoother with him than he had expected, owing to the generous friendship of Mitchell the collector, and Findlater the supervisor. — " I dare to be honest," said he, " and I fear no la- bour. Nor do I find my hurried life greatly inimical to my correspondence with the muses : I meet them now and then as I jog among the hills of Nithsdale, just as I used to do on the banks of Ayr." Of the lyrical fruit of this intercourse, I must render some account. In the composition of a song, Burns went to work like a painter : what a fine living model is to an artist forming a Venus or a Diana, a lovely woman was to the Poet. He was fasci- nated through the eye ; he thought of the looks of the last fair one he had met, and mused on her charms till the proper inspiration came ; and then he laid out colours worthy of a goddess, on " Fair or foul, it maks na whether." Jean Lorimer, "The lass of Craigie-burn- wood," had levity at least equal to her beauty. When the first song in her praise was written she lived at Kemmis-hall in Nithsdale ; she was extremely handsome, with uncommon sweetness in her smile, and joyousness in the glance of her eye. The Poet measured his verse over her charms to gratify a gentleman of the name of Gillespie, who was contending in vain with a military adventurer of the name of Whelpdale for the honour of her love. In " My tocher's the jewel," he expresses the scorn which a young lady feels at the selfish sentiments of her lover : " It's a' for the apple he'll nourish the tree ; It's a' for the hiney he'll cherish the bee : My laddie's sae mickle in love wi' the siller, He canna hae luve to spare for me." From love he went to wine ; nothing came wrong to him. In this his poetic power resem- bled his conversational ability. " Gudewife, count the lawin' " is the very essence of sociality and glee : — " Gane is the day, and mirk's the night, But we'll ne'er stray for fau't o' light ; For ale and brandy's stars and moon, And blude-red wine's the rising sun." A little jacobitism was in his heart when he wrote " There'll never be peace till Jamie comes hame ;" a little humour when he penned " What can a young lassie do wi' an auld man?" and in "Yon wild mossy mountains" his mind wan- dered back to a part of his early history, which the Auld man's Address to the Widow in Ramsay's Tea-table Miscellany." he says " is of no consequence to the world to know." In a happier mood of mind Burns composed " Wha is that at my bower door?" — " It was suggested," said Giibert, "to my brother, by printed A vein of nawkie simplicity runs through it. " Wha is that at my bower-door ? O whu is it but Findlay ? Then gae yere gate, ye'se no be here — Indeed maun I, quo' Findlay. " What mak ye sae like a thief? O come and see, quo' Findlay; Before the morn ye '11 work mischief — Indeed will I, quo' Findlay. " Here this night, if ye remain — I'll remain, quo' Findlay ; I dread ye'll ken the gate again — Indeed will I, quo' Findlay." "'The bonnie wee thing' was composed," says the Poet, " on my little idol, the charming lovely Davies." In a letter to the lady her- self, he lets us a little into the mystery of his ballad-making. — "I have heard of a gentle- man of some genius who was dexterous with his pencil; wherever this person met with a character in a more than ordinary degree con- genial to his heart, he used to steal a sketch of the face, merely, he said, as a nota-bene to point out the agreeable recollection to his memory. What this gentleman's pencil was to him, is iriy muse to me ; and the verses which I do myself the honour to send you are a memento exactly of the same kind that he indulged in. When I meet with a person after my own heart, I positively feel what an orthodox Protestant would call a species of idolatry, which acts on my fancy like inspiration ; and I can no more resist rhyming on the impulse than an iEolian harp can refuse its tones to the streaming air." No poet has offered prettier reasons for writing love-songs. These complimental moods gave way to a feeling more serious, when the Poet wrote "Ae fond kiss, and then we sever." The song, I have heard, alludes to Glarinda, and is supposed to embody the sentiments of the Bard when he bade farewell to that Edinburgh beauty. It says all in a few words that can be said on the subject : — " Who shall say that fortune grieves him, While the star of hope she leaves him 1 Me — nae cheerful twinkle lights me : Dark despair around benights me. Had we never loved sae kindly, Had we never loved sae blindly — Never met, or never parted, We had ne'er been broken-hearted." The heroine of the " Banks and braes o' bon- nie Do.on," was Miss Kennedy of Dalgarrock, in Ayr-shire, a young creature beautiful, ac- * ©- ^ LIFE OF BURNS. 1791. complished, and confiding ; the song was alter- ed, from its original simple measure, to suit music, accidentally composed by a writer in Edin- burgh, whom a musician told to keep to the black keys of the harpsichord and preserve some- thing like rhythm, and he would produce a Scots air. He did so, and this fine air, with a few touches from Clarke, was the result. The despair of " Ae fond kiss, and then we sever," gave way to the gentler sorrows of the " Banks and braes o' bonnie Doon ;" and, in its turn, "Love will venture in," asserted the dignity of successful love. This is a very beautiful lyric : the Poet thinks on his mistress, and, looking at all manner of fine flowers, sees her, emblemati- cally, in each : the lily, for purity ; the daisy, for simplicity ; and the violet, for modesty ; are woven into this fragrant and characteristic chaplet. Having obeyed the impulses of sorrow and serious love, mirth touched the strings of his harp, his heart brightened up, and he poured out, " O ! for ane-and-twenty, Tam." The name of the heroine is lost ; but her story is true to nature, and cannot be soon forgotten : there is a dance of words in the song suitable to the liveliness of the sentiment. " Sic a wife as Willie had," resembles the ironical and sarcastic chaunts of the old rustic ballad-makers : the picture of Willie's Spouse is not painted in kindly colours : — " She has an ee — she has but ane, The eat "has twa the very colour, * Five rusty teeth, forbye a stump, A clapper-tongue wad deave a miller ; A whiskin' beard about her mou', Her nose and chin they threaten ither : Sic a wife as Willie had I wad nae gie a button for her. ' ' This unsonsie dame dwelt in Dunscore, at no great distance from Ellisland ; her descendants have none of her unlovesome qualities. If Burns looked to living loveliness for the sake of making new songs, he looked also with affectionate eyes on the old mutilated lyrics of Scotland, and repaired them with unequalled skill. To the ballad of " Hughie Graham," he added some characteristic touches, as also to " Cock up your beaver." Into the latter he has infused a Jacobite feeling : — " Cock up your beaver and cock it fu' sprush, We'll over the Border and gie them a brush ; There's somebody there we'll teach better behaviour ; Hey ! my brave Johnnie lad, cock up your beaver." He softened a little the rudeness of " Eppie Macnab," added bitterness to " The weary pound o' tow ; some of his fine feeling found its way into " The Collier laddie," and much acid irony was infused into " The carle of Kel- lyburn- braes." — Cromek informed me that, when he consulted Mrs. Burns respecting the changes which the genius of her husband had effected in the old songs, she ran her fingers along the pages of the Museum, saying, " Ro- bert gave that one a brushing — this one got a brushing, too : — aye, I mind this one weel, it got a gay good brushing ! " But when she came to " The carle of Kellyburn-braes," she said, " He gave this one a terrible brushing." Of these dread additions one specimen will suffice : " The devil he swore by the edge of his knife, He pitied the man that was tied to a wife ; The devil he swore by the kirk and the bell, He was not in wedlock, thank heav'n, but in hell." The winter-time, which brings much leisure to the farmer, brought little or none to Burns. When he saw his corn secured against rain or snow; his " Potatoe bings weel snuggit up frae skaith ;" his plough frozen in the half-drawn furrow, and heard the curler's roaring play intimating that winter reigned over the vale, he had to mount his horse and do duty as a gauger, leaving El- lisland to the skill of his wife and the activity of his servants. As early as the harvest of 1790, it was visible to those acquainted with such matters that, as a farmer, the Poet was not thriving ; the crop promised, in the eyes of the calculating, to make but a small return, compared with the demand of the rent ; and, when he ploughed his ground in the following winter and spring, it was whispered that he would do so no more. He regretted this the less as he now looked upon the Excise as sure bread, and an improving appointment. Some time during the year 1791, his salary was raised to seventy pounds, and he was promised a more compact and less laborious district. This eased his mind amid the loss which he knew he should sustain, in turning the utensils and stock of El- lisland into money. He did not communicate his intentions to any one, though he hesitated not to say that he was losing by his bargain. This year he was doomed to lose old friends without acquiring new ones. The death of the Earl of Glencairn he regarded as a sore misfor- tune. That nobleman was not rich, nor was his influence great ; but he had a sympathy with poetic feelings not common to men of rank. AVhen he died, the hopes of the Poet seemed to have died also ; his " Lament," on the occa- sion, was a sincere one ; the words require only to be uttered by a young bard instead of an old one, to apply, in all respects, to himself. The verse is lyrical, and the sentiments those of nature : — " The bridegroom may forget the bride Was made his wedded wife yestreen ; The monarch may forget the crown That on his head an hour has been ; The mother may forget the child That smiles sae sweetly on her knee ; But I'll remember thee, Glencairn, And a' that thou hast done for me!" @= MT\T. 3*3. EARL OF BUCHAN. 99 This is the language of a man who thought himself obliged. He wrote nothing half so tender or so touching on the death of the beau- tiful Miss Burnet, which happened about this time : he tried, but the words came with re- luctance : — " Life ne'er exulted in so rich a prize As Burnet, lovely from her native skies ; Nor envious death so triumph'd in a blow As that which laid th' accomplish'd Burnet low." Some will like better the compliment which he paid her in prose. On returning from a first visit to Lord Monboddo, his friend Geddes, of Leith, said, " Well, and did you admire the young lady?" — "I admired God Almighty more than ever," said the Poet; " Miss Burnet is the most heavenly of all His works !" He did not hesitate to use expressions bordering on profanity when speaking of female charms. " As to my private concerns," he says to Dr. Moore, "lam going on a mighty tax-gatherer before the Lord, and have lately had the inter- est to get myself ranked on the lists of the Excise as a supervisor. I had an immense loss in the death of the Earl of Glencairn, the pa- tron from whom all my fame and good fortune took its rise ; independent of my grateful attach- ment to him, which was indeed so strong that it pervaded my very soul, and was entwined with the thread of my existence. So soon as the prince's friends had got in, my getting for- ward in the Excise would have been an easier business than otherwise it will be." In these modest hopes the Poet indulged. He had already numbered himself with the " prince's friends ;" but the prince was far from power ; and had Burns lived till " the dog had," as he said " got his day," he might have found rea- son to say with Scripture, " put not your trust in princes." In addition to the sorrow which he felt for the loss of valuable friends, his horse fell with him and broke his arm ; and his farm having swept away all his ready money, visions of poverty began to hover in his sight. •' ' Poverty !" he exclaimed, " thou half-sister of Death — thou cousin - german of hell ! oppressed by thee, the son of genius, whose ill starred ambition plants him at the tables of the fashionable and polite, must see, in suffering silence, his remarks neglect- ed and his person despised : while shallow great- ness, in his idiot attempts at wit, shall meet with countenance and applause." In such sarcastic sentiments as these Burns began more and more to indulge : — " How wretched is the man," he says, " that hangs upon the favours of the great ! — to shrink from every dignity of man at the approach of a lordly piece of self-consequence, who, amid all his tinsel and glitter, and stately hauteur, is but a creature formed as thou art — and, perhaps, not so well formed." He could scarcely resist, however, the request of one of the vainest of those " lordly pieces of self-consequence," the Earl of Buchan — to come to the coronation of the bust of Thomson on Ednam-hill, at Dryburgh, on the 22nd of Sep- tember, 1791. — " Suppose Mr. Burns," so runs the mandate, " should, leaving the Nith, go across the country, and meet the Tweed at the nearest point from his farm — and, wandering along the pastoral banks of Thomson's pure parent-stream, catch inspiration in the devious walk, till he finds Lord Buchan sitting on the ruins of Dryburgh ; there the Commendator will give him a hearty welcome, and try to light his lamp at the pure flame of native genius, upon the altar of Caledonian virtue." The Poet had the sickle in his hand when the invi- tation came ; he laid it down, took a walk along the banks of the Nith, composed the verses " to the Shade of Thomson," and sent them to apologize for his absence. If his poetic feelings were awakened by the invitation of Lord Buchan, his jacobitical par- tialities were gratified by the present of a valu- able snuff-box from Lady Winifred Maxwell, the last in direct descent of the noble family of Nithsdale. This was an acknowledgment for his " Lament of Mary Queen of Scots." There was a picture of that ill-starred princess on the lid. — " In the moment of poetic composition," said Burns, " the box shall be my inspiring genius." — The ballad is a pathetic one. He imagines the queen in an English prison ; she hears the birds sing — feels the odours of flowers, and her heart swells with the season : " Now blooms the lily by the bank, The primrose down the brae ; The hawthorn's budding in the glen, And milk-white is the slae : The meanest hind in fair Scotland May rove their sweets amang ; But I, the queen of a' Scotland, Maun lie in prison Strang ! ' ' He had been reading Percy's ballads, and his verses caught the olden hue and tone of those affecting compositions. The great Glasgow road ran through the Poet's ground, and the coach often set down west-country passengers, who, trusting to the airt they came from, and the accessibility of the bard, made their sometimes unwelcome appear- ance at the door of Ellisland. Such visitations — from which no man of genius is free — con- sumed his time and wasted his substance — for hungry friends could not be entertained on air. A neighbour told me that he once found a couple of Ayr -shire travellers, plaided, capped, and over- ailed, seated at the door of Burns — their sense of etiquette not allowing them to enter the house in such trim. They were drinking punch, toasting Ayr— auld town and new — vowing that Mauchline was the loveliest of all spots, and Kyle the heart of Scotland. They found their way into Dumfries some time during the night. H 4/ =© §>= =9 100 LIFE OF BURNS. 1791. In the course of this summer two English gen- tlemen, who had met Bums in Edinburgh, paid him a visit at Ellisland. On calling at the house, they were told he had walked out on the banks of the Nith. They proceeded in search of him, and found him — " In sooth it was in strange array." On a rock that projected into the stream they saw a man angling ; he had a cap of fox-skin on his head, a loose great-coat fixed round him by a belt from which hung an enormous High- land broadsword ; — it was Burns. He received them with great cordiality, and asked them to share his humble dinner. On the table they found boiled beef, with vegetables and barley- broth, of which they partook heartily. After dinner, the bard told them he had no wine to offer, nothing better than Higldand whiskey, of which Mrs. Burns set a bottle on the table, and placed his punch-bowl of Scottish marble before him. He mixed the spirit with water and sugar, filled their glasses, and invited them to drink. They were in haste — whiskey, to their southern stomachs, was scarcely tolerable ; but the ardent hospitality of the Poet prevailed — the punch began to disappear, and his con- versation was unto them as a charm. He ranged over a great variety of topics, illumina- ting- whatever he touched. He related the tales of his infancy and of his youth ; he recited some of the gayest and some of the tenderest of his poems ; in the wildest of his strains of mirth he threw in some touches of melancholy, and spread around him the electric emotions of his powerful mind. The Highland whiskey im- proved in its flavour ; the marble bowl was again and again emptied and replenished ; the Poet's guests forgot the flight of time and the prudence becoming visiters, at the hour of midnight, lost their way returning to Dumfries, and could scarcely count its three steeples assisted by the morning dawn Burns still maintained his intercourse with the literati of Scotland. He visited Edinburgh once more, and finally arranged his affairs with the difficult Creech ; called on some of his former intimates, and left his card at the door of several j lords ; but his reception seems, save from one i or two, to have been uncordial. "What the i learned thought of the grasp of the Poet's , mind may be gathered from the surprise which ! one of them expresses at his comprehending the j meaning of Alison's work on the principles of I taste : — " I own, sir," said the Poet to the philosopher, " that at first glance several of your propositions startled me as paradoxical. That j the martial clangour of a trumpet had some- thing in it vastly more grand, heroic, and sub- lime than the twingle-twangle of a Jew's harp ; that the delicate flexure of a rose-twig, when the half-blown flower is heavy with the tears of j the dawn, was infinitely more beautiful and i elegant than the upright stub of a burdock ; and that from something innate and independent of all association of ideas ; — these I had set down as irrefragable, orthodox truths, until perusing your book shook my faith." " This," says Dugald Stewart, I remember to have read with some degree of surprise at the distinct concep- tion he appeared from it to have formed of the general principles of the law of association." It would seem, however, that the Poet, if con- vinced, was convinced against his will : he was slow in believing that at any time a burdock was esteemed equal in loveliness to a rose, or the chirp of a hedge-sparrow reckoned as noble as the cry of an eagle. [" It may naturally excite some surprise," says Lockhart, " that of the convivial conver- sation of so distinguished a convivialist, so few specimens have been preserved in the Memoirs of his Life. The truth seems to be that those of his companions who chose to have the best memory for such things happened also to have the keenest relish for his wit and his humour, when exhibited in their coarser phases. Among a heap of MS. memoranda with which I have been favoured, I find but little that one could venture to present in print ; and the following specimens of that little must, for the present, suffice. "A gentleman who had recently returned from the East Indies, where he had made a large fortune, which he showed no great alacrity about spending, was of opinion, it seems, one day, that his company had had enough of wine, rather sooner than they came to that conclusion : he offered another bottle in feeble and hesitating terms, and remained dallying with the cork- screw, as if in hopes that some one would inter- fere, and prevent further effusion of Bordeaux. ' Sir,' said Burns, losing temper, and betraying in his mood something of the old rusticity — ' Sir, you have been in Asia, and for aught I know, on the Mount of Moriah, and you seem to hang over your tappit-hen as remorsefully as Abraham did over his son Isaac. — Come, Sir, to the sacrifice ! ' — "At another party, the society had suffered considerably from the prosing of a certain well- known provincial Bore of the first magnitude ; and Bums as much as any of them ; although overawed, as it would seem, by the rank of the nuisance, he had not only submitted, but con- descended to applaud. The grandee being suddenly summoned to another company in the same tavern, Burns immediately addressed him- self to the chair, and demanded a bumper. The president thought he was about to dedicate his toast to the distinguished absentee : ' I give,' said the Bard, ' I give you the health, gentle- men all, — of the waiter that called my Lord out of the room !"] If his poems of this year are not numerous, the " Elegy on Captain Matthew Henderson " iETAT. o-2. HEROIC SONG OF DEATH. 101 is one of the sweetest and most beautiful of his latter compositions. He calls on nature, ani- mate and inanimate, to lament the loss of one who held his honours immediately from God : — " Mourn, ye wee songsters o' the wood ; Ye grouse that crap the heather-bud ; Ye curlews calling thro' a clnd ; Ye whistling plover : An' mourn, ye whirring paitrick brood — He's gane for ever !" He copied out the poem, and sending it to his friend, M'Murdo, said, "You knew Hender- son ; I have not flattered his memory." The hero of this noble poem was a soldier of fortune : one who rose by deeds, and not by birth : he was universally esteemed in the northern circles for the generosity of his nature, his courtesy and gentlemanly bearing : he died young. Burns wrote several new songs, and amended some old ones, during this season, for his friend Johnson's w r ork. "Afton water" was an offering of other days to the accomplished lady of Stair and Afton. " Bonnie Bell " is in honour of the charms of a Nithsdab dame, and "The deuk's dang o'er my daddie" had its origin in an old chant, some of the words of which the song still retains. " She's fan- and fause " records the unfortunate termination of a friend's courtship ; there is all or more than the bitter- ness of disappointed love in the concluding " Whoe'er ye be that woman love, To this be never blind, Nae ferlie 'tis, tho' fickle she prove, A woman has't by kind. O woman ! lovely woman fair ! An angel form's fa'n to thy share, 'Twad been o'er meikle to gi'en thee mair — I mean an angel mind." " The DeiPs awa' wi' the Exciseman" is at once witty and ludicrous. It harmonized with the feelings of the north, where a gauger was long looked on as a national grievance, or rather insult. " The Song of Death " is the last lyric which the rural walks of Ellisland inspired. On the 17th of December, 1791, he copied it for Mrs. Dunlop, and said, — "I have just finished the following song, which, to a lady, the descendant of Wallace, and herself the mother of several soldiers, needs neither preface nor apology." He imagines a field of battle, and puts his truly heroic song into the mouths of men wounded and dying ; the senti- ments uttered were those of his heart : — " In the field of proud honour, our swords in our hands, Our king and our country to save, — While victory shines on life's last ebbing sands, Oh ! who would not die with the brave !" " This^ hymn," says Currie, " is worthy of the Grecian muse, when Greece was most con- spicuous for genius and valour." Bums thought of printing it separately with the air, which is a fine old Highland one ; some one whom he consulted advised him against this, and so pre- vented him from making his country acquainted with his unaltered feeling, at a time when his character was beginning to be maligned by the secret whisperer and the pensioned spy. Burns briefly, in his letters to his brother and others, intimates the loss he endured by continu- ing in Ellisland ; but he has no where assigned reasons, nor entered into explanations. This has been misinterpreted to his injury. He alludes to his own trials, when he says to Mrs. Dun- lop : — " I wish the farmer great joy of his new acquisition to his family : I cannot say that I give him joy of his life as a farmer. 'Tis, as a farmer paying a dear, unconscionable rent, ' a cursed life !' As to a laird farming his own property, sowing his own corn in hope, and reaping it in spite of brittle weather, in glad- ness, knowing that none can say unto him, ' What dost thou ?' — fattening his herds, shearing his flocks, rejoicing at Christmas, and begetting sons and daughters, until he be the venerated, grey - haired leader of a little tribe — 'tis a heavenly life ! but devil take the life of reap- ing the fruits that another must eat !" When it was made known in December, 1791, that Burns was about to relinquish the lease of Ellisland, his merits as a farmer were eagerly canvassed by the husbandmen around. One imputed his failure to the duties of the Excise ; to his being compelled to gallop two hundred miles per week, to inspect yeasty barrels, when his farm required his presence ; another said that Mrs. Burns was intimate with a town life, but ignorant of the labours of barn and byre ; while a third observed that Ellisland was out of heart, and, in short, was the dearest farm on Nithsdale. The failure of his farming projects, and the limited income with which he was compelled to support an increasing family and an expensive station in life, preyed upon his spirits ; and, during these fits of despair, he was willing too often to become the companion of the thoughtless and the gross. I am grieved to say that, besides leaving the book too much for the bowl, and grave and wise friends for lewd and reckless companions, he was also in the occasional practise of composing songs, in which he surpassed the licentiousness, as well as the wit and humour, of the old Scottish muse. These have unfortunately found their way to the press, and I am afraid they cannot be recalled. " The reader," says Lockhart, " must be sufficiently prepared to hear that, from the time when he entered on his excise duties, the Poet more and more neglected the concerns of his farm :' occasionally he might be seen holding the plough, an exercise in which he excelled, and was proud of excelling, or stalking down his furrows, with the white sheet of grain wrapt about him, a 'teaty seedsman;' -© ©= 102 LIFE OF BURNS. 1792. but he was more commonly occupied in far different pursuits." Had Mr. Miller of Dalswinton been on the same friendly terms with the Poet as when, in a fit of generous feeling, he offered him the ehoice of his farms at a rent of his own fixing, Bums might have lived long, and, perhaps, prosperously, in Ellisland. But they were too haughty in their natures to continue friends ; Miller required respect and submission, which the Poet was not disposed to pay ; and I have heard it averred by one who was in a situation to know, that the former was not loth to get rid of a tenant by whose industry he had no chance of being enriched, from whom he could not well exact rent, and whose wit paid little respect to persons. The Poet dispersed his stock and implements by auction, among many eager purchasers ; restored the land and onstead to the proprietor ; and, paying him one pound fourteen shillings for dilapidations in thatch, glass, and slating, moved off with his house- hold to Dumfries, leaving nothing at Ellisland but a putting-stone, with which he loved to exercise his strength — a memory of his musings which can never die, and three hundred pounds of his money sunk beyond redemption, in a speculation from which all augured happiness. PART IV.— DUMFRIES. Burns removed his wife and children, with his humble furniture, to a house near the lower end of the Bank-Vennel in Dumfries. The neigh- bourhood was to his mind ; and, as this was near the stamp-office, it is probable that John Syme, the " Stamp-office Johnnie," of the Poet's election ballad, influenced his choice. He had other neighbours whom he could not but esteem: Captain Hamilton lived on the opposite side of the way ; Provost Staig, with whose family Burns was already intimate, was but a few doors off, while Dr. Maxwell, a skilful physician, an accomplished gentleman, and a confirmed republican, dwelt in the next street. The Sands, where cattle are bought and sold, was beside him, the Nith was within a good stone's cast — the town too is compact and beautiful. The Poet had no expensive acquaintance to entertain ; and his wife, with a single servant, was frugal, and anxious to make the little they had go far. But he had no longer the rough abundance of a farm to resort to ; his meal, his malt, his butter, and his milk, were all to buy, and his small salary required the i guidance of a considerate head and hand. To j calculate was easy, had it been possible to lay | down an exact system of expenditure ; as a man of genius, he was liable to the outlay of j correspondence, distant and often unexpected; i he was exposed to the inroads of friends and I admirers, who consumed his time and his sub- stance also ; he longed for knowledge, which, to obtain, he had to buy ; he desired to see by books what the republic of literature, of which he was a member, was about, and this required money ; and he was, moreover, of a nature kindly and hospitable, and could not live in that state of frugal circumspection which a gentleman who kept a house, and sometimes a horse, on seventy pounds per annum, required. Even the wandering poor were to the Poet a heavy tax ; he allowed no one to go past his door without a halfpenny or a handful of meal. He was kind to such helpless creatures as are weak in mind, and saunter harmlessly about : a poor half-mad creature — the Madge Wildfire, it is said, of Scott — always found a mouthful ready for her at the bard's fire-side ; nor was he unkind to a crazy and tippling prodigal named Quin. "Jamie," said the Poet one day, as he gave him a penny, "you should pray to be turned from the evil of your ways ; you are ready to run now to melt that into whiskey." " Turn," said Jamie, who was a wit in his way, " I wish some one would turn me into the worm o' Will Hyslop's whiskey-still, that the drink might dribble continually through me." " Well said, Jamie !" answered the Poet, " you shall have a glass of whiskey once a week for that, if you'll come sober for it." A friend rallied Burns for indulging such creatures : — " You don't understand the matter," said he, " they are poets : they have the madness of the muse, and all they want is the inspiration — a mere trifle !" The labours of the excise now and then led him along a barren line of sea-coast, extending from Caerlaverock-Castle, where the Maxwells dwelt of old, to Annan water. This district fronts the coast of England ; and, from its vici- nity to the Isle of Man, was in those days infested with daring smugglers, who poured in brandy, Holland-gin, tea, tobacco, and salt, in vast quantities. Small fanners, and persons engaged in inland traffic, diffused these com- modities through the villages ; they were gene- rally vigorous and daring fellows, in whose hearts a gauger or two bred no dismay. They were well mounted, acquainted with the use of a cutlass, an oak-sapling, or a whip loaded with lead ; and, when mounted between a couple of brandy-kegs, and their horses' heads turned to the hills, not one exciseman in ten dared to stop them. To prevent the disembarkation of run- goods, when a smuggling craft made its appear- ance, was a duty to which the Poet was liable to be called, and many a darksome hour he was compelled to keep watch, that the pea- santry might not have the pleasure of drinking tea or brandy duty free. There was something ' which suited his fancy in all this. He had, galloping from point to point, much excitement of mind, and hopes of golden booty, but not without blows. a© ff iETAT. 33. GEORGE THOMSON. 103 In whatever adventure he Mas engaged, ''still his speech was song." Mounted on the saccessof of Jenny Geddes, whose mortal career closed at Ellisland, he " muttered his wayw ard fancies as he roved," and sang the bounty of the maidens of the land, and the pas- toral charms of the country. It was in one of his expeditions against the smugglers that he wrote the brief but exquisite lyric, " Louis, what rock I by thee 1" To say much in a few words is one of the characteristics of his " Louis, what reck I by thee, Or Geordie on his ocean ? Dyvor, beggar loons to me, — I reign in Jeannie's bosom !" " Out over the Forth " is another of his short and lucky compositions. " The carding o't" belongs to the same class ; nothing in all the compass of lyric verse is more truly natural. : — " I coft a stane o' haslock woo' To make a coat to Johnnie o't ; For Johnnie is my only jo, I lo'e him best of ony yet. For though his locks be lyart grey, And though his brow be beld aboon, Yet I hae seen him on a day The pride of a' the parishen." One day, during the month of August, he was surprised by a visit from Miss Lesley Baillie, after- wards Mrs. Cuming of Logie, a beauty of the west of Scotland. — " On which," says Burns to Mrs. Dunlop, " I took my horse, though God knows I could ill spare the time, accom- panied her father and her fourteen or fifteen miles, and dined and spent the day with them. 'Twas about nine, I think, when I left them, and, riding home, I composed the following ballad." Some of the verses of this song are in his best manner : — " To see her is to love her, And love but her for ever : For nature made her what she is, And never made anither ! The deil he couldna skaith thee, Nor aught that wad belang thee, He'd look into thy bonny face, And say, ' I canna wrang thee.' " Most of the songs which I have hitherto noticed w r ere written for the Museum of John- son. A candidate of higher pretence now made his appearance : this was George Thomson. " I have," said he, in a letter to Burns, " em- ployed many leisure hours in selecting and collecting the best of our national melodies for publication. I have engaged Pleyel, the most agreeable composer living, to put accompani- ments to these, and also to compose an instru- mental prelude and conclusion to each air. To render this work perfect, I am desirous of hav- ing the poetry improved, wherever it seems unworthy of the music ; and that it is so, in many instances, is allowed by every one con- versant with our musical collections. To remove this reproach would be an easy task to the author of ' the Cotter's Saturday Night ; ' and, for the honour of Caledonia, I would fain hope he may be induced to take up the pen." An application such as this appealed to too many associations for Burns to resist ; he replied with something like the enthusiasm of a lover when his mistress asks a favour, " As the request you make," said the Poet, September 16, 1792, "will positively add to my enjoyments in com- plying with it, I shall enter into your under- taking with all the small portion of abilities I have, strained to their utmost exertion by the impulse of enthusiasm. If you are for English verses, there is, on my part, an end of the matter. Whether in the simplicity of the ballad, or the pathos of the song, I can only hope to please myself in being allowed, at least, a sprinkling of our native tongue. As to any remuneration, you may think my songs either above or below price ; for they shall absolutely be the one or the other. In the honest enthusiasm in which I embark in your undertaking, to talk of money would be dowmright prostitution of soul !" To stipulations such as these Thomson could have no objections to offer : lie was glad to get the Bard on his own romantic terms. The first fruits of the bargain was "The Lea Rig." Though a beautiful song, it seems not to have been to the satisfaction of the Poet. " I tried my hand on the air," he says, " and could make nothing more of it than the verses w r hieh I enclose. Heaven knows they are poor enough ! All my earlier love songs were the breathings of ardent passion ; and though it might have been easy, in after times, to have given them the polish, yet that polish would have defaced the legend of my heart which was so faithfully in- scribed on them." "Highland Mary" followed this. The lyrical flow of the verse, and the truth and j pathos of the sentiments, make it a favourite with all who have voices or feelings. " I think," says the Poet, "the song is in my happiest manner : it refers to one of the most interesting passages in my youthful days ; and I own I should be much flattered to see the verses set to an afr which would ensure celebrity. Perhaps, after all, 'tis the still glowing prejudice of my heart that throws a borrowed lustre over the merits of the composition." He makes inani- mate nature a sharer in his rapture : " How sweetly bloom'd the gay green birk ! How rich the hawthorn's blossom ! As underneath their fragrant shade I clasp'd her to my bosom ! The golden hours, on angel wings, Flew o'er me and my dearie ; For dear to me, as light and life, Was my sweet Highland Mary !" This exquisite lyric proves how much the passionate affections of his youth still moved 104 LIFE OF BURNS. 1792. him. He was ready, when Mary's image rose on his fancy, to pour out his feelings in song : he was more than usually inspired whenever he thought of her. The thorn, under whose shade the lovers sat, is still pointed out and held sacred by the peasantry. The season of winter was propitious to the muse of Burns : there was something of old habit in this : the long evenings bring leisure to the farmer, and the farmer was still strong in him. "Auld Rob Morris" was written in November ; the idea is taken from an earlier song, but the Burns-spirit soon gained the ascend- ant : he has painted the portrait of his heroine in similes : — " She's fresh as the morning, the fairest in May ; She's sweet as the evening amang the new hay ; As blythe and as artless as lambs on the lea, And dear to my heart as the light to my e'e." " Duncan Gray " came to the world in Decem- ber , had he come in summer, he could not have been more " a lad ofgrace;" he went a wooing in a pleasant time, on gude Yule night, when all were joyous — but " Maggie coost her head fu' high, Looked asklent and unco skeigh, Gart poor Duncan stand abeigh." He was not however to be daunted with this : he knew woman better : — " Duncan fleech'd, and Duncan pray'd, Meg was deaf as Ailsa craig ; Duncan sigh'd baith out and in ; Grathis een baith bleer'dand blin' ; Spak o' lowpin o'er a linn !" She relented. — " Duncan Gray," said the Poet, " is a light horse-gallop of an air which precludes sentiment — the ludicrous is its ruling feature." " O ! poortith, cauld and restless love " is a song full of other feelings : the heroine is said to have been Jean Lorimer, the lass of Craigie- burn wood ; and this is countenanced by the sentiment of one impassioned verse : — " Her een sae bonny blue betray How she repays my passion ; But prudence is her o'erword ay She talks of rank and fashion. O wha can prudence think upon, And sic a lassie by him ? O wha can prudence think upon, And sae in love as I am ?" A being of a more celestial nature inspired that magnificent lyric, " The Vision." The rained college of Lincluden, which stands among antique trees on a beautiful plot of rising ground, where the Cluden unites with the Nith, a little above Dumfries, was a favourite haunt of the Poet, as it is of all lovers of landscape beauty. On a moonlight evening he imagined himself musing alone among the splendid ruins : the dust of a Scottish princess, and the bones of one of the intrepid Douglasses brought recollections of ancient independence to his mind, while the quiet and beautiful scenery around awakened inspiration. For liquid ease of language and heroic grandeur of conception " The Vision " is unequalled : the commencing verse prepares us for the coming of something more than human : — " As I stood by yon roofless tower, Where the wa' flower scents the dewy air, Where the howlet mourns in her ivy bower, And tells the midnight moon her care — The winds wei-e laid, the air was still, The stars they shot along the sky, The fox was howling on the hill, And the distant- echoing glens reply." While enjoying the scene, and looking on the northern streamers, the Vision of Liberty descended or arose before him : not the blood- stained nymph of that name beloved by the Jacobin Club, but a Liberty of Scottish extrac- tion, stern and stalwart, of the rougher sex, attired like an ancient minstrel, carrying a harp, and wearing the symbol of freedom. The ma- jestic apparition touched his harp, and chanted a strain which spoke of former joys and present sorrows, in language which the Poet durst only describe. This fine lyric was intended, with some modifications, to be wrought into the drama of " The Bruce," a subject never wholly out of the Bard's fancy. From musing on woman's love and man's freedom, Burns was rudely awakened. An inquiry regarding the sentiments which he enter- tained, and the language in which he had in- dulged concerning " Thrones and Dominions," was directed to be made by the Commissioners of Excise, pursuant to instructions, it is said, received from high quarters. It will probably never be known who the pestilent informer against the Poet was : some contemptible wretch who had suffered from his wit, or who envied his fame, gave the information on which the Board of Excise acted, and he was subjected to a sort of inquisition. The times indeed in which he lived were perilous, and government found it no easy thing to rule or tranquillize the agitated passions of the people. A new light had arisen on the nations : freedom burst out like a sum- mer's sun in France ; monarchy was trampled under foot ; democracy arose in its place ; equality in all, save intellect, was preached up, and the true order of nature was to be restored to the delighted world. This doctrine was welcomed widely in Scot- land : it resembled, in no small degree, the constitution of the Calvinistic kirk, which is expressly democratic ; and it accorded with the sentiments which education and knowledge awaken — for who is so blind as not to see that idols, dull and gross, occupy most of the high places which belong to geniu§ as a birthright? It corresponded wondrously too with the notions of Burns : it harmonised with the plan which @= i -ET.VT. 33. BOARD OF EXCISE. 105 he perceived in nature, and was in strict keep- ing- with his sentiments of tree-will and inde- pendence. " He was disposed," says Professor Walker, " from constitutional temper, from education, and from accidents of life, to a jea- lousv of power, and a keen hostility against every system which enabled birth and opulence to intercept those rewards which he conceived to belong to genius and virtue." That he desired to see true genius honoured, and wealthy presumption checked — that he wished to take his place on the table-land among peers and princes, and obtain station and importance — to adorn which his high powers, he believed, were given — were desires natural to a gifted mind ; and it could not be but galling for him to see men who had not a tithe of his talent rolling in luxury, while he w r as doomed to poverty and dependence. That these sentiments were in the heart of Burns I know ; that he ever sought to give them full utterance, or entertained them farther than as theories grateful to his mind, it would be difficult to find proof. From these charges Burns strove to defend himself: he addressed his steady friend Gra- ham, of Fintry, on the subject ; the letter is dated December, 1792. — " I have been sur- prised, confounded, and distracted by Mr. Mit- chell, the collector, telling me that he has re- ceived an order from your Board to inquire into my political conduct, and blaming me as a person disaffected to government. Sir, you are a husband — and a father. You know what you would feel to see the much-loved wife of your bosom, and your helpless, prattling little ones, turned adrift into the world, degraded and dis- graced from a situation in which they had been respectable and respected. I would not tell a deliberate falsehood, no, not though even worse horrors — if worse can be than those I have mentioned — hung over my head: and I say that the allegation, whatever villain has made it, is a he ! To the British Constitution, on revolution principles, next, after my God, I am most devoutly attached. Fortune, sir, has made you powerful and me impotent — has given you patronage and me dependence. I would not, for my single self, call on your humanity ; I could brave misfortune — I could face ruin — for, at the worst, ' Death's thousand doors stand open ; ' but the tender concerns which I have mentioned — the claims and ties which I see at this moment, and feel around me — how they unnerve courage and wither resolution ! To your patronage, as a man of some genius, you have allowed me a claim ; and your esteem, as an honest man, I know is my due. To these, sir, permit me to appeal ; by these may I adjure you to save me from that misery which threatens to overwhelm me ; and which, with my latest breath I will say it, I have not deserved." These are the words of his private letter : it enclosed another, intended for the eye of the commissioners, and which was laid before the Board. In the second epistle, Burns disclaimed all idea of setting up a republic, and declared that he stood by the constitutional principles of the revolution of 1688 : at the same time he felt that corruptions had crept in, which every patriotic Briton desired to see amended. — "This last remark," says the Poet, in his celebrated letter to John Francis Erskine, afterwards Earl of Mar, " gave great offence ; and one of our supervisors-general, a Mr. Corbet, was instruct- ed to inquire on the spot, and to document me — ' That my business was to act, not to think ; and that whatever might be men or measures, it was for me to be silent and obedient.' Mr. Corbet was my steady friend ; so, between Mr. Graham and him, I have been partly forgiven ; only I understand that all hopes of my getting officially forward are blasted." The above words were written by the Poet, April 13, 1793; yet Mr. Findlater, then his superior officer, says, " I may venture to assert that when Burns was accused of a leaning to democracy, and an inquiry into his conduct took place, he was subjected, in consequence thereof, to no more than perhaps a private or verbal caution, to be more circumspect in future. Neither do I believe his promotion was thereby affected, as has been stated." Burns, I appre- hend, knew best how this was ; an order to act, and not to think ; and, whatever might be men and measures, to be silent and obedient, seems a sharp sort of private caution. That the re- cords of the Excise-office, as some one assured Lockhart, exhibit no traces of this too memor- able matter, is not to be wondered at : expul- sions alone are entered — or, if the records say more, memoranda, so little to the honour of the commissioners, will neither be eagerly sought for, nor willingly found. That Burns never got forward is certain ; that he ceased to speak of his hopes of advancement, is also true. What was the cause of this ? That it did not arise from his want of skill or his inattention to his duties, Findlater furnishes undeniable testi- mony, and other evidence can readily be found ; nor was it because death slipt too early in and frustrated the desire of the Board to advance him, for he survived their insulting and crush- ing inquiry more than three years and a half. He survived, indeed, but he was no longer the bright and enthusiastic being who looked for- ward with eager hope ; who ascended in fancy the difficult steeps of fame, and who set coteries in a roar of laughter, or moved them to tears. Reasons for this harshness on the part of Go- vernment — for the Board of Excise was but the acting servant — have been anxiously sought, in the words and deeds of Burns. — " He stood," says Walker, "ona lofty eminence, surrounded by enemies as well as by friends, and no indis- cretion which he committed was suffered to escape." His looks were watched ; his words -c: 106 LIFE OF BURNS. 1793. weighed ; and, wheresoever he went, the eyes of the malignant and the envious were on him. I have been told, by one incapable of misleading me, that Burns sometimes made his appearance in a club of obscure individuals in Dumfries, where toasts were given, and songs sung which required closed doors. I have also been in- formed that when invited to a private dinner, where the entertainer proposed "the health of William Pitt," the Poet said sharply, " Let us drink the health of a greater and better man — George Washington;" and it is also true that when Dumourier, the republican general, de- serted the cause of his country, and joined her enemies, Burns rashly chanted that short song, beginning " You are welcome to despots, Dumourier." Nay more, I have the proof before me that he wrote a scoffing ballad on the foreign sovereigns who united to crush French liberty ; but then all these matters happened after, not before, he was "documented" by the Board of Excise. That he forgot now and then what was due to the dignity of his genius, is no new admission. The club which sung songs with closed doors, did so to hinder the landlady, not the landlord, from hearing ; the dinner where he toasted Wash- ington, and was sullen because it was not drunk, took place in 1793. In Midsummer the same year, Dumourier forsook the standard of his country, and was welcomed by despots ; and with regard to the ballad on the sovereigns, I am sure the gravest of them all would have laughed heartily at the vivid but indecorous wit of the composition. That Burns was nevertheless very indiscreet, it would be vain to deny. " I was at the play in Dumfries, October, 1792," thus writes, in 1835, a gentleman of birth and talent, " the Caledonian Hunt being then in town — the play was ' As you like it ; ' Miss Fontenelle, Rosa- lind — when ' God save the King ; was called for and sung ; we all stood up, uncovered — but Burns sat still in the middle of the pit, with his hat on his head. There was a great tumult, with shouts of * Turn him out ! ' and ' Shame, ! Burns ! ' which continued a good while, at last he was either expelled or forced to take off his hat — I forget which." A more serious indiscretion has been imputed to him. Lockhart relates that, on the 27th of February, 1792, a smuggling brig entered the Solway, and Burns was one of the party of officers appointed to watch her motions. It was soon discovered that her crew were nume- rous, well armed, and likely to resist; upon which Lewars, a brother exciseman, galloped off to Dumfries, and Crawford, the superintend- ent, went to Ecclefechan for military assistance. Burns manifested much impatience at being left on a cold exposed beach, with a force unequa to cope with those to whom he was opposed and exclaimed against the dilatory movements of Lewars, wishing the devil might take him. Some one advised him to write a song about it ; on which the Poet, taking a few strides among the shells and pebbles, chanted "The deil's awa' wi' the exciseman." The song was hardly composed, when up came Lewars with his soldiers, on which Burns, putting himself at their head, his pistols in his pockets, and his sword in his hand, waded mid- waist deep into the sea, and carried the smuggler. She was armed. The Poet, whose conduct was much commended, purchased four of her brass guns, and sent them as a present to the French Di- rectory. These, with the letter which accom- panied them, were intercepted on their way to France. The suspicions of government were awakened by this breach of decorum, and men in power turned their eyes on the bard, and opened their ears to all his unguarded sayings. That the smuggler was captured chiefly by the bravery of Burns I have been often told ; but I never heard it added that he purchased her guns and sent them to the Directory. The biographer seems to have had his information from persons connected with the Excise ; but I suspect the story is not more accurate than that, when accused of a leaning to democracy, " he was subjected to no more than perhaps a verbal or private caution to be more circumspect in future." Burns felt humbled and hurt : he was de- graded in his own eyes ; he was pushed rudely down, from his own little independent elevation, and treated like an imbecile, whose words and actions were to be regulated by the ungentle members of the Board of Excise. — " Have I not," he says to Erskine, " a more precious stake in my country's welfare than the richest dukedom in it ? I have a large family of chil- dren, and the prospect of many more. I have three sons, who, I see already, have brought into the world souls ill qualified to inhabit the bodies of slaves." It is pleasing to escape with the Poet from the racks of the Board of Excise, and accom- pany him on his excursions along the banks of the Nith, where he soothed his spirit by com- posing songs for the publications of Thomson or Johnson. In January, 1793, he wrote ' "Lord Gregory;" in March, "Wandering Willie" and "Jessie," and in April, "The Poor and Honest Sodger." The first is bor- rowed in some measure from the exquisite old ballad of "The Lass of Lochroyan," the second is more original : — " Loud blew the cauld winter winds at our parting ; It was na the blast brought the tear to my ee ; Now welcome the simmer, and welcome my Willie ; The simmer to nature — my Willie to me." The third was written in honour of the young and the lovely Jessie Staig of Dumfries ; and JET AT. 34. DUMFRIES— SONGS 107 the fourth was awakened by the prospect of coming war, which ended not till it laid many kingdoms desolate, and put the half of Britain into mourning. In the remarks of Thomson on his songs lie was not always acquiescent. — " Give me leave," he says, " to criticise your taste in the only thing in which it is reprehen- sible. You know I ought to know something of my own trade ; of pathos, sentiment, and point you are a complete judge : but there is a quality more necessary than either in a song, and which is the very essence of a ballad, I mean simplicity. Now, if I mistake not, this last feature you are apt to sacrifice to the fore- going." He was as anxious about the purity of Scottish music as about the simplicity of the verse. " One hint," he says to Thomson, " let me give you : whatever Pleyel does, let him not alter one iota of the original Scottish airs ; let our national music preserve its native fea- tures. They are, I own, frequently wild and irreducible to the more modem rules, but on that very eccentricity, perhaps, depends a great part of their effect." The beauties whom Burns met on Nithside inspired many of the sweetest of his songs : the daughters of his friend, John M'Murdo, w r ere then very young ; but they were also very lovely, and had all the elegance and simplicity which poets love. To Jean M'Murdo we owe the ballad of " Bonnie Jean." " I have some thoughts," he says to Thomson, " of inserting in your index, or in my notes, the names of the fair ones, the themes of my songs. I do not mean the name at full, but dashes or asterisms, so as ingenuity may find them out. The heroine of the foregoing is Miss M- , daughter of Mr. M of I) , one of your subscribers. I have not painted her in the rank which she holds in life, but in the dress and character of a cottager." He thought very well of this composition ; he asks if the image in the fol- lowing sweet verse is not original : — " As in the bosom* o' the stream The moonbeam dwells at dewy e'en : So trembling, pure, was faithful love Within the breast o' bonnie Jean." Her sister Phillis, a young lady equally beau- tiful and engaging, inspired the Poet also ; though he imputes the verses in which he sings of her charms to the entreaty of Clarke, the musician. The first of these lyrics begins : — " While larks, with little wing, Fann'd the pure air, Tasting the breathing spring, Forth I did fare." The other contains that fine verse : — "Her voice is the song of the morning, That wakes through the green-spreading grove, When Phoebus peeps over the mountains, On music, and pleasure, and love," U- Ideal loveliness sometimes appeared to him in his solitary wanderings. Autumn he reckoned a propitious season for verse : he wrote thus to Thomson in the month of August : — u I roved out yestreen for a gloamin- shot at the muses ; when the muse that presides over the shores of Nith, or, rather, my old inspiring dearest nymph, Coila, whispered me the following : I have two reasons for thinking that it was my early, sweet, simple inspirer that was by my elbow, ' smooth gliding without step/ and pouring the song on my glowing fancy. In the first place, since I left Coila's native haunts, not a fragment of a poet has arisen to cheer her solitary musings, by catching inspiration from her ; so I more than suspect she has followed me hither, or, at least, makes me occasional visits." The song which this celestial lady of the west awakened commences thus : — " Come, let me take thee to my breast, And pledge we ne'er shall sunder, And I shall spurn as vilest dust The world's wealth and grandeur." From lower sources other lyrics of this pe- riod are said to have sprung. To the winning- looks of a young girl wdio "brewed gude ale for gentlemen," and was indulgent even to rakish customers, we owe the song of " The golden locks of Anna," of which there are several versions, and none quite decorous, though a clerical biographer of the Bard has said otherwise. A purer song, "The mirk night of December" had its origin in a similar quarter : — " O Blay ! thy morn was ne'er so sweet, As the mirk night of December, For sparkling was the rosy wine, And private was the chamber : And dear was she I dare na name, But I will ay remember." Burns was as ready with his verse to solace the woes of others, as to give utterance to his own. " You, my dear sir," he says to Thom- son, "will remember an unfortunate part of our worthy friend Cunningham's story, which happened about three years ago. That struck my fancy, and I endeavoured to do the idea justice as follows." — The song expressing the sentiments of his friend is that sublime one — "Had I a cave on some wild distant shore." The concluding verse, a lady told me, ahvays made her shudder : — " Falsest of womankind ! canst thou declare, A.11 thy fond plighted vows— fleeting as air? To thy new lover hie, Laugh o'er thy perjury : Then in thy bosom try What peace is there!" To the influence of thunder, lightning, and rain we owe, we are told, the heroic address of ■• :@ 108 LIFE OF BURNS. 1793. Bruce at Bannockburn. I abridge the legend of John Syme, who accompanied the Poet on *a tour in Galloway : — " I got Burns a grey Highland sheltie to ride on. We dined" the first day, July 27, 1793, at Glendinning's of Parton — a beautiful situation on the banks of the Dee. In the evening we walked out and viewed the Alpine scenery around ; immediately opposite, we saw Airds, where dwelt Lowe, the author of Mary's Dream. This was classic ground for Burns ; he viewed ' the highest hill which rises o'er the source of Dee,' and would have staid till the ' passing spirit' appeared, had we not resolved to reach Kenmore that night. We arrived as ' the Gordons' were sitting down to supper. Here is a genuine baron's seat ; the castle, an old building, stands on a large natural moat, and in front the Ken winds for several miles through a fertile and beautiful holm. We spent three days with ' The Gordons,' whose hospitality is of a polished and endearing kind. We left Kenmore and went to Gatehouse. I took him the moor road, where savage and de- solate regions extended wide around. The sky was sympathetic with the wretchedness of the soil ; it became lowering and dark — the winds sighed hollow — the lightnings gleamed — the thunders rolled. The Poet enjoyed the awful scene ; he spoke not a word, but seemed rapt in meditation. In a little while the rain began to fall ; it poured in floods upon us. For three hours did the wild elements rumble their belly- ful upon our defenceless heads. We got utterly wet ; and, to revenge ourselves, the Poet in- sisted, at Gatehouse, on our getting utterly drunk. I said that in the midst of the storm, on the wilds of the Kenmore, Burns was rapt in meditation. What do you think he was about? He was charging the English army along with Bruce at Bannockburn. He was engaged in the same manner in our ride home from St. Mary's Isle, and I did not disturb him. Next day he produced me the Address of Bruce to his troops, and gave me a copy for Dalzell." Two or three plain words, and a stubborn date or two, will go far, I fear, to raise this pleasing legend into the regions of romance. The Galloway adventure, according to Syme, happened in July ; but in the succeding Sep- tember, the Poet communicated the song to Thomson in these words : — " There is a tra- dition which I have met with in many places in Scotland, that the old air of ' Hey, tuttie taitie,' was Robert Bruce's march at the battle of Bannockburn. This thought, in my yester- night's evening ivalk, warmed me to a pitch of enthusiasm on the theme of liberty and inde- pendence, which I threw into a kind of Scot- tish ode, fitted to the air, that one might sup- pose to be the gallant Royal Scot's address to his heroic followers on that eventful morn- ing. I shewed the air to Urbani, who was highly pleased with it, and begged me to make soft verses for it : but I had no idea of giving myself any trouble on the subject, till the accidental recollection of that glorious struggle for freedom, associated with the glow- ing ideas of some other struggles of the same nature, not quite so ancient, roused up my rhyming mania." Currie, to make the letter agree with the legend, altered "Yesternight's evening walk" into "solitary wanderings." Burns was, indeed, a remarkable man, and yielded, no doubt, to strange impulses : but to comuose a song " In thunder, lightning, and in rain," intimates such self-possession as few possess. He thus addressed the Earl of Buchan, to whom he sent a copy of the song : — " Independent of my enthusiasm as a Scotsman, I have rarely met with anything in history which interests my feelings as a man, equal to the story of Ban- nockburn. On the one hand, a cruel, but able, usurper, leading on the finest army in Europe to extinguish the last spark of freedom among a greatly-daring and greatly-injured people ; on the other hand, the desperate relics of a gallant nation, devoting themselves to rescue their bleed- ing country, or perish with her. Liberty ! thou art a prize truly ; never canst thou be too dearly bought !" The simplicity and vigour of this most heroic of modern lyrics were injured by lengthening the fourth line of each verse to suit the air of Lewie Gordon. The " Vision of Liberty," and " Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled," were to form part of the long-meditated drama of "The Bruce." This the Poet intimated to his friends in con- versation, and also in pencil memoranda on one of the blank leaves of Collins's poems. Several lines of verse are scattered among the prose — all shewing on what topic he was musing : — "Where Bannockburn's ensanguined flood, SwelPd with mingling hostile blood, Saw Edward's myriads struck with deep dismay, And Scotia's troop of brothers win their way. O glorious deed, to brave a tyrant's band ' O heavenly joy, to free our^iative land !" [As the letter of Mr. Syme, written soon after the excursion took place, gives an ani- mated picture of the Poet, by a correct and masterly hand, the remainder is now presented to the reader : — " From Gatehouse, we went next day to Kirkcudbright, through a fine country. But here I must tell you that Burns had got a pair of jemmy boots for the journey, which had been thoroughly wet, and which had been dried in such a manner that it was not possible to get them on again. The brawny Poet tried force, and tore them to shreds. A whiffling vexation of this sort is more trying to the temper than a serious calamity. We were going to Saint Mary's Isle, the seat of the Earl of Selkirk, and the forlorn Burns was discomfited at the thought of his ruined boots. A sick stomach V.TAT. 34. THE FIVE CA11LINS. 109 and a head-ach lent their aid, anil the man of verse was quite accdbU. I attempted to reason with him. Mercy on us, how he did fume and rage ! Nothing could reinstate him in temper. I tried various expedients, and at last hit on one that succeeded. I showed him the house of * * ~- ; % across the bay of Wigton. Against *, with whom lie was offended, he ex- pectorated his spleen, and. regained a most agreeable temper. He was in a most epigram- matic humour indeed ! He afterwards fell on humbler game. There is one ***** * whom he does not love. He had a passing blow at him : — ' When *****, deceased, to the devil went down, 'Twas nothing would serve him but Satan's own crown : Thy fool's head, quoth Satan, that crown shall wear never> I grant thou'rt as wicked, but not quite so clever.' " Well, I am to bring you to Kirkcudbright along with our poet, without boots. I carried the torn ruins across my saddle in spite of his fulminations, and in contempt of appearances ; and what is more, Lord Selkirk* carried them in his coach to Dumfries. He insisted tiiey were worth mending. " We reached Kirkcudbright about one o'clock. I had promised that we should dine with one of the first men in our country, J. Dalzell. But Burns was in a wild and obstre- perous humour, and swore he would not dine where he should be under the smallest restraint. We prevailed, therefore, on Mr. Dalzell to dine with us in the inn, and had a very agreeable party. In the evening we set out for St. Mary's Isle. Robert had not absolutely re- gained the milkiness of good temper, and it occurred once or twice to him, as he rode along, that St. Mary's Isle was the seat of a Lord ; yet that Lord was not an aristocrat, at least in his sense of the word. We arrived about eight o'clock, as the family were at tea and coffee. St. Mary's Isle is one of the most delightful places that can, in my opinion, be formed by the assemblage of ev$ry soft, but not tame, ob- ject which constitutes natural and cultivated beauty. But, not to dwell on its external graces, let me tell you that we found all the ladies of the family (all beautiful) at home, and some strangers ; and, among others, who but Urbani ! The Italian sung us many Scottish songs, accompanied with instrumental music. The two young ladies of Selkirk sung also. We had the song of Lord Gregory, which I asked for, to have an opportunity of calling on Burns to recite his ballad to that tune. He did recite it, and such was the effect that a dead silence ensued. It was such a silence as a mind of feeling naturally preserves when it is touched with that enthusiasm which banishes every other thought but the contemplation and indulgence of the sympathy produced. * This was the same Lord Selkirk, of whom Sir Walter Scott " We enjoyed a most happy evening at Lord Selkirk's. We had, in every sense of the word, a feast, in which our minds and our senses were equally gratified. The Poet was delighted with his company, and acquitted himself to admira- tion. The lion that had raged so violently in the morning was now as mild and gentle as a lamb. Next day we returned to Dumfries, and so ends our peregrination."] The Poet now and then inclined to dramatic composition, and hovered between the serious and the comic. — " I have turned my thoughts," he says to Lady Glencairn, " on the drama. I do not mean the stately buskin of the tragic muse. Does not your Ladyship think that an Edinburgh theatre would be more amused with the affectation, folly, and whim of time Scottish growth, than by manners which by far the greatest part of the audience can only know at second-hand?" There is no question that dialogues, characters, and songs, such as Burns could conceive and write, would have been welcome to a northern, and perhaps a southern, audience. His inimitable poem, "The Jolly Beggars" shews dramatic powers of a high order. Burns, in his earlier days, lent his muse as an auxiliary to the western clergy ; nor can it be forgotten that she fought the battle with a bold- ness which was only endured because the cause was thought to be a pious one. In Nithsdale she became a volunteer in a more worldly strife, and lent her breath to augment or allay the flame of a contested election. When Sir James Johnston of Westerhall, in the year 1790, offered himself as a candidate for the Dumfries district of burghs, he was opposed by Patrick Miller, the younger, of Dalswinton. The for- mer was a good man of an old family, and a determined Tory ; the latter was a captain in the army, had the promise of youth upon him, and was a resolute Whig. Burns, through the impulse of his genius, was somewhat of a re- publican. Old jacobitical prejudices, and the kindness of Graham of Fintray, inclined his feelings towards the Tories ; while his con- nexion with Miller, his regard for M'Murdo, his respect for Staig, and his affection for Syme, all combined to draw him towards the Whigs. His election-ballads of this period shew how prudently he balanced the various interests. The first of these compositions is not inap- propriately called " The Five Carlins." The burghs of Dumfries, Lochmaben, Annan, Kirk- cudbright, and Sanquhar are cleverly personi- fied in the second verse : — " There was Maggie by the banks o' Nith, A dame wi' pride eneugh ; And Marjorie o' the mony Lochs, A carlin auld and teugh ; And blinkin' Bess o' Annandale, That dwelt by Solway side ; relates an amusing anecdote in his Malagrowther Letters. ^ 110 LIFE OF BURNS. 1793. And whiskey Jean, that took her gill In Galloway sae wide ; And black Joan, frae Crichton-Peel, O' gipsey kith and kin : Five weighter carlins were na found The south coun trie within." The Border dames hesitate whether to send " The belted knight" or " The sodger youth to Lunnun town, to bring them tidings :" — " Then out spak' mim-mou'd Meg of Nith, And she spak' up wi' pride ; And she wad send the sodger youth, Whatever might betide." Not so honest Kirkcudbright : — " Then whiskey Jean spak' owre her drink— ' Ye weel ken, kimmers a' , The auld gudeman o' Lunnun court, His back's been at the wa' ; And mony a friend that kissed his caup Is now a fremit wight, But it's ne'er be said o' whiskey Jean — I'll send the Border Knight.' " 1 have heard Sir Walter Scott recite the verse which personifies Lochmaben, and call it " uncommonly happy :" — " Then slow rose Marjorie o' the Lochs, And wrinkled was her brow ; Her ancient weed was russet grey, Her auld Scots blood was true." " The five Carlins/' says one of Bums's biographers, " is by far the best-humoured of these productions." He had not seen the Poet's Epistle on the same election, addressed to Graham of Fintray. The original is before me : the measure was new to Burns : the poem is, I believe, new to the reader. The contest was | now decided. — "The Sirens of Flattery," as J the Poet said to M'Murdo, "the Harpies of Corruption, and the Furies of Ambition — those infernal deities that preside over the villanous business of politics" — had retired from the field :— " Fintray, my stay in worldly strife, Friend o' my muse, friend o' my life, Are ye as idle's I am? Come then, wi' uncouth, kintra fieg, O'er Pegasus I'll fling my leg, And yc shall see me try him. "I'll sing the zeal Drumlanrig bears, Who left the all-important cares Of princes and their darlin's, And bent on winning borough-touns, Came shaking hands wi' wabster loons, And kissin' barefit carlins. "Combustion through our boroughs rode, Whistling his roaring pack abroad Of mad, unmuzzled lions ; As Queensberry's ' buff and blue' unfurl'd, Bold Westerha' and Hopetoun hurl'd To every Whig defiance." The Poet then proceeds to relate how his Grace of Queensberry forsook the contending ranks — ©■ " The unmanner'd dust might soil his star, Besides, he hated bleeding :" but left his friends, soft and persuasive, behind, to maintain his cause and Miller's : — " M'Murdo and his lovely spouse (The enamour'd laurels kiss her brows !) Led on the Loves and Graces ; She won each gaping burgess' heart, While he, all-conquering, play'd his part Amang their wives and lasses. " Craigdarroch led a light-arm' d corps, Tropes, metaphors, and figures pour Like Hecla streaming thunder ; Glenriddel, skill'd in rusty coins, Blew up each Tory's dark designs, And bar'd the treason under." Assistance, of a kind equally effective in all such contests, it seems, was resorted to : — " Miller brought up the artillery ranks, The many-pounders of the banks." The commotion which ensued, when the con- tending parties met in the streets of old Dum- fries, is well described : — " As Highland crags by thunder cleft. When light' nings fire the stormy lift, Hurl down with crashing rattle ; As flames among a hundred woods; As headlong foam a hundred floods— Such is the rage of battle ! " The stubborn Tories dare to die, — As soon the rooted oaks would fly Before the approaching fellers ; The Whigs come on like Ocean's roar, When all his wintry billows pour Against the Buchan-Bullers." Forms were present, it seems, visible only to tne eyes of the inspired : on the Whig side appear- ed an ominous personage — " The muffled murderer of Charles." Purer spirits, those of the Grahams, were seen on the side of the Tories. But neither the wit of woman, the might of rlan, nor even the pre- sence of the celestials could hinder the defeat of Johnston and the triumph of Miller : the Poet makes his lament : — " O that my een were flowing burns ! My voice a lioness, that mourns Her darling cubs' undoing ! That I might weep, that I might cry, While Tories fall, while Tories fly, And furious Whigs pursuing ! " Thou, Pitt, shalt rue this overthrow, And Thurlow growl a curse of woe, And Melville melt in wailing ! Now Fox and Sheridan rejoice ! And Burke shall sing ' O Prince, arise ! Thy power is all prevailing ! ' " "With regard to your poor Bard," says Burns, "he is only a spectator of what he relates. Amid the hurly-burly of politics he JETAT. 34. THE HERON BALLADS. Ill resembles the redbreast in the storm, which shelters itself in the hedge and chirps away securely." In the four years which intervened between this borough contest and the county election, in which Heron of Kerronghtree was opposed by Gordon of Balmaghie, the temper of Burns seems to have suffered a serious change. In his lyrics he stills sings with gentleness, and with all the delicacy which becomes true love ; but in his election lampoons he is fierce and stern, and even venomous. Heron had erected an altar to Independence, and, through the agency, it is said, of Syme, prevailed on the Poet to bring verse to the aid of his cause. The first of these effusions is a parody on " Fye ! let us a' to the bridal." The Poet numbers the friends of the candidates, and as he names them gives us a sketch, personal and mental. The portrait of Heron is happy : — "And there Will be trusty Kerroughtree, Whose honour was ever his law ; If the virtues were pack'd in a parcel, His worth might be sample for a'." The best stanzas are the personal ones ; the following verse is very characteristic : — " And there will be maiden Kilkerran, And also Barskimmins' guid knight ; And there will be roaring Birtwhistle, Wha, luckily roars in the right." He continues his catalogue ; he brings " the Maxwells in droves" from the Nithsdale bor- der ; the lairds of Terraughty and Carruchan — " And also the wild Scot of Galloway, Sodgerin' gunpowder Blair." In spite of the Poet's song and the exertions of friends, Heron lost his election : he was not, however, daunted : he contested soon after with more success the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright against the Hon. Montgomery Stewart. Burns had still the same belief in the influence of his wit, and was ready with unpremeditated verse. He accordingly imagined himself a pedlar or troggar, and, declaring that his whole stock consisted of "The broken trade of Broughton," proceeded to sell, to all who ventured to buy, the characters of those who supported Stewart. Some of the descriptions of the facetious pedlar are comical enough ; he disliked John Stewart, Earl of Galloway, and assailed him, with all the inveteracy of satiric verse : — " There's a noble earl's Fame and high renown, For an auld sang — It's thought the gudes were stown." Against the Bushbys he bent the bitterest shafts in his quiver ; he allowed them talent : in a former satire he says of one, — " He has gotten the heart of a Bushby, But, Lord ! what's become of the head?" He is equally unkind in the present lampoon. Of John Bushby, of Tinwald-downs, the most accomplished of the name, and Maxwell of Cardoness, he says, — " Here's an honest conscience Might a prince adorn, Frae the Downs of Tinwald — Sae was never worn : Here's the stuff and lining, O' Cardoness 's head ; Fine for a sodger A' the wale o' lead." Muirhead, minister of Urr, had an apple for his crest : — " Here's armorial bearings Frae the manse of Urr, The crest — an auld crab apple, Rotten at the core." The minister of Buittle was a Maxwell : — " Here's that little wadset, Buittle's scrap o' truth, Pawn'd in a gin-shop, Quenching holy drouth." To conclude these sharp and personal things, the Poet offers for sale the worth and wisdom of Copland of Collieston, and, more curious still,— " Murray's fragments O' the ten commands." But customers seem scarce, upon which he ex- claims, — " Hornie's turning chapman, He'll buy a' the pack." And so ends his last and bitterest lampoon. — " I have privately," he says to Mr. Heron, "print- ed a good many copies of both ballads, and have sent them among friends all about the country. You have already, as your auxiliary, the sober detestation of mankind on the heads of your opponents ; and I swear, by the lyre of Thalia, to muster on your side all the votaries of honest laughter, and fair, candid ridicule !" Heron, on whose side the Poet promised to muster the votaries of mirth-, was victorious in the contest j but his return was petitioned against : a Com- mittee of the Commons declared him unduly elected ; and, worn in body, and harrassed in mind, he fell ill at York, and died before he reached Scotland. The wit of Burns, like his native thistle, though rough and sharp, suited the multitude better than more smooth and polished things : he had not the art of cutting blocks with a razor, but dragged his victims rudely along the ground at the tail of his Pegasus. Pointed and elegant satire, while it affected the edu- cated gentlemen against whom it was directed, ®: @= -© 112 LIFE OF BURNS. 1793. would have made no impression on the shep- herds and husbandmen whose scorn it was the Poet's wish to excite. The laughter and ridi- cule which his muse awakened had a local in- fluence only ; the satire which drove Dr. Horn- book from the parish, and made Holy Willie think of suicide, had a wider range : the linea- ments by which he desired we should know his Stewarts, Maxwells, Murrays, Muirheads, and Bushbys, belonged to private life — were acci- dents of character or matters of imagination, and pertained not to general nature. I turn gladly to his lyrics. All his songs bear the impress of nature ; he himself tells us in what way he made them. — " Until I am com- plete master of a tune, in my own singing, such as it is, I can never compose for it. My way is this : I consider the poetic sentiment corres- pondent to my idea of the musical expression ; then choose my theme ; begin one stanza ; when that is composed, which is generally the most difficult part of the business, I walk out, sit down now and then, look out for objects in na- ture around me that are in unison and harmony with the cogitations of my fancy, and workings of my bosom ; humming, every now and then, the air with the verses I have framed. When I feel my muse beginning to jade, I retire to the solitary fire-side of my study, and there com- mit my effusions to paper ; swinging, at inter- vals, on the hind-legs of my elbow chair, by way of calling forth my own critical strictures as my pen goes on. Seriously, this at home is almost invariably my way." He who desires to compose lyric verse according to the character and measure of an air will find the plan of Burns an useful one. The poet must either chant the tune over to himself, or be under its influence while writing, else he will fail to get the emphatic words to harmonize with the em- phatic notes. In the art of uniting gracefully the music and words, Burns was a great master ; the song which he wrote in October, 1793, to the tune of "The Quaker's Wife," echoes the music so truly that the words and air seem to have sprung from his fancy together : — " Thine am I, my faithful fair, Thine, my lovely Nancy ; Every pulse along my veins, Every roving fancy." The inspiration which produced u Lovely Nancy" came from Edinburgh; that which gave " Wilt thou be my dearie" to the air of the " Sutor's daughter" belonged to Dumfries. The former is written with warmth — the latter with respect. He delighted little in distant modes of salutation, and was prone to imagine the subject of his song beside him, and sharing in his rapture : now and then, however, he ex- hibited all the polite respect which the school of chivalrous courtship could desire : — " Lassie, 'say thou lo'es me ; Or if thou wilt na be my ain, Say na thou' It refuse me ; If it winna, canna be, Thou for thine may choose me, Let me, lassie, quickly die, Trusting that thou lo'es me." The Lady Elizabeth Heron, of Heron, inspired the " Banks of Cree," — less by the charms of her person, than by the music, which is her own composition. Cree is a stream beautiful and romantic : — Cluden is another stream, which runs not smoother down the vale of Dalgonar than it runs in the song of " My bonnie dearie." — " Hark ! the mavis' evening sang, Sounding Cluden woods amang, Then a faulding let us gang, My bonnie dearie ; We'll gae down by Cluden side, Thro' the hazels spreading wide, O'er the waves that sweetly glide To the moon sae clearly." "When Burns had done searching old -wives' barrels, or galloping under the light of the moon along the sands of Solway in search of smugglers, he retired to the solitude of his own humble dwelling, or to some lonely place, and, imagining beauty to be present, sung of its influence with equal truth and elegance. The Lass of Craigie-burn-wood seems to have been a favourite model for his heroines ; he advises Thomson to adopt his song in her praise, and observes — " The lady on whom it was made is one of the finest women in Scotland ; and, in fact, is to me what Sterne's Eliza was to him — a mistress, or friend, or what you will, in the guileless simplicity of Platonic love. I assure you, that to my lovely friend you are indebted for many of my best songs. Do you think that the sober, gin-horse routine of existence, could inspire a man with life, and love, and joy — coidd fire him with enthusiasm, or melt him with pathos equal to the genius of your book ? No ! no ! Whenever I want to be more than ordinary in song — to be in some degree equal to your diviner airs — do you imagine I fast and pray for the celestial emanation ? Tout au contraire ! I have a glorious recipe — the very one that, for his own use, was invented by the god of healing and poetry, when erst he piped to the flocks of Admetus. I put myself in a regimen of admiring a fine woman, and in proportion to the adorabilhty of her charms, in proportion you are delighted with nty verses. The lightning of her eye is the godhead of Parnassus, and the witchery of her smile the divinity of Helicon ! " The offspring of one of these interviews, real or imaginary, was that fine lyric — "She says she lo'es me best of a'." The lady's portrait is limned with the most exquisite skill ; and the last verse contains a landscape such as the ■J® @ iETAT. 34. SONGS. — THOMSON, 113 goddess of love might desire to walk in. The lonely valley, the fragrant evening, and the rising moon were frequent witnesses of his poetic rapture : — " Let others love the city, And gaudy show at sunny noon, Gi'e me the lonely valley, The dewy eve, and rising moon ; Fair beaming, and streaming Her silver light the boughs amang, While falling, recalling, The amorous thrush concludes his sans ; There, dearest Chloris, wilt thou rove By wimpling burn and leafy shaw, And hear my vows of truth and love, And say thou lo'es me best of a'." The influence of this lady's charms was not of short duration. — " On my visit the other day/' Burns says, " to my fair Chloris, she suggested an idea which I, in my return from the visit, wrought into the following song : — ' My Chloris, mark how green the groves, The primrose banks how fair ; The balmy gales awake the flowers, And wave thy flaxen hair. ' ' ' Having composed another pastoral song in praise of the same lady to the tune of " Rothe- murche's Rant," he says — " This piece has at least the merit of being a regular pastoral ; the vernal morn, the summer noon, the autumnal evening, and the winter night, are regularly rounded. If I can catch myself in more than an ordinary propitious moment, I shall write a new ' Craigie-burn-wood ' altogether : my heart is much in the theme. The lady is not a little proud that she is to make so distinguished a figure in your collection ; and I am not a little proud that I have it in my power to please her so much." The air of " Lumps of Pudding " suggested enjoyments of a less ethereal kind than those arising from beauty. On the 19th of November the frost was dry and keen. The Poet took a morning walk before breakfast, and produced one of his most delightful songs : " Contented wi' little, and can tie wi' re air, Whene'er I forgather wi' sorrow and care, I gie them a skelp as they're creeping alang Wi' a cog o' guid swats, and an auld Scottish sang. " I whiles claw the elbow o' troublesome thought, But man is a sodger, and life is a faught ; My mirth and guid humour are coin in my pouch, And my freedom's my lairdship nae monarch dare touch." When his spirit was in the right mood for song, Burns generally remembered his country : in- deed, the glory of Scotland was as dear to his heart as his own fame. This sentiment he gave full utterance to in his song of " Their groves o' sweet myrtle." He muses on the bright sum- mers and perfumed vales of Italy, and then turns to the glen of green breckan, where the burn glimmers under the yellow broom, on whose banks he had held tryste with his Jean. The ©^ conclusion which he makes is at once national and affectionate : — " Though rich is the breeze in their gay sunny valleys, And cauld Caledonia's blast on the wave, Their sweet-scented woodlands that skirt the proud palace, What are they ? the haunt of the tyrant and slave. The slave's spicy forests and gold-bubbling fountains The brave Caledonian views with disdain ; He wanders as free as the winds of his mountains, Save love's willing fetters — the chains of his Jean." That the Poet loved his country he has shewn in many a lasting verse ; but when he thought of the splendid possessions of the mean and the sordid, and of the gold descending in showers on the heads of the dull and the undeserving, it required all his poetic philosophy to hinder him from repining. He had sung in other days of the honest joys and fire -side happiness of husbandmen : he now endeavoured to pour the healing balm of verse upon the wounded spirits of the poor, the humble, and the unhappy. The song of " For a' that, and a' that," must have been welcome to many. It flew like wild- fire over the land : the sentiments accorded with the natural desire of man to be free and equal ; and, though not permitted to be sung in the streets of some of our northern borough- towns, it was chanted among the hills and dales by every tongue. Bums introduced it in these words to Thomson : — "A great critic on song, Aikin, says that love and wine are the exclusive themes for song-writing. The following is on neither subject, and consequently is no song ; but will be allowed, I think, to be two or three pretty good prose thoughts inverted into rhyme." There are five verses in all, and every one strikes the balance against rank in favour of poverty : — " A king can mak' a belted knight, A marquis, duke, and a' that ; But an honest man's aboon his might, Guid faith he maunna fa' that ! For a' that, and a' that, Our toil's obscure and a' that ; The rank is but the guinea-stamp, The man's the gowd for a' that !" Those who judge of the peace of mind and happiness of the Poet by the sentiments of af- fection and rapture which he expresses so easily and. so elegantly in his songs, would imagine that he lived in a sort of paradise, beset by temptation certainly, yet triumphing alike over political hatred and social allurements. His bright outbursts of verse flashed like sunshine amid a winter storm ; they were fever-fits of gladness and joy — came too seldom, and their coming could not be calculated upon. The in- quisitorial proceedings of the Commissioners of Excise had a deep share in the ruin of Burns. He was permitted to continue on his seventy pounds a-year, with the chance of rising to the station of Supervisor by seniority; but the I ■@ ® 114 LIFE OF BURNS. 1793. hope of becoming Collector could no more be indulged — it was a matter of political patronage. From that time forward, something seemed to prey on the Poet's mind : he believed himself watched and marked ; he hurried from company into solitude, and from solitude into company ; when alone, he was melancholy and desponding — when at table, his mirth was often wild and obstreperous ; he had passionate bursts of pathos and unbridled sallies of humour, more than were natural to him. He had for some time looked on men of rank with jealousy ; he now spoke of them in a way that amounted to dislike. — "Let me remind you," he thus writes to David Maculloch, Esq. of Ardwell, June 21, "of your kind pro- mise to accompany me to Kerroughtree ; I will need all the friends I can muster ; for I am in- deed ill at ease whenever I approach your honourables and right honourables." In a let- ter to his friend Cunningham, he speaks of the conceited dignity which even Scottish lordlings, of seven centuries' standing, display, when they mix accidentally with the many-aproned sons of mechanical life. — "I remember," he says, " in my plough-boy days, I could not conceive it possible that a noble lord could be a fool, or a godly man could be a knave : how ignorant are plough-boys ! " He says to another corres- pondent, " In times like these, sir, when our commoners are barely able, by the glimmer of their own twilight understandings, to scrawl a frank, and when our lords are what gentlemen would be ashamed to be, to whom shall a sink- ing country call for help ? To the independent country gentleman ! to him who has too' deep a stake in his country not to be earnest for her welfare : and who, in the honest pride of man, can view, with equal contempt, the insolence of office, and the allurements of corruption." Something of the same stern spirit may be found in many places of his correspondence. He seemed to imagine that he could not be in the company of men of rank without having to acknowledge his own inferior condition in life ; he did not feel so much as he ought that his genius raised him to an equality with peers, and even princes ; or, if he felt it fully, he certainly failed to act up to it. He appeared, too, to apprehend that courtesy on his part might be taken for servility, and he desired to shew, by silent and surly haughtiness, that he might be broken, but would not bend. Even his most intimate friends he now and then put at arms- length ; and, if he made a present of a song or a new edition of his poems to any one, he gene- rally recorded it as a gift of affection, and not as an act of homage. — " Will Mr. M'Murdo," he thus writes on the introductory leaf of a new edition of his poems published at this time, " do me the favour to accept of these volumes ? a trifling, but sincere, mark of the very high respect I bear for his worth as a man, his manners as a gentleman, and his kindness as a friend. However inferior now or afterwards I may rank as a poet, one honest virtue, to which few poets can pretend, I trust I shall ever claim as mine — to no man, whatever his station in life or his power to serve me, have I ever paid a compliment at the expense of truth." [" There was a great deal of stately toryism," says Lockhart, " at this time in Dumfries, which was the favourite winter retreat of many of the best gentlemen's families of the south of Scotland. Feelings that worked more violently in Edinburgh than in London acquired addi- tional energy still in this provincial capital. All men's eyes were upon Burns. He was the standing marvel of the place ; his toasts, his jokes, Ins epigrams, his songs, were the daily food of conversation and scandal ; and he, open and careless, and thinking he did no great harm in saying and singing what many of his supe- riors had not the least objection to hear and to applaud, soon began to be considered, among the local admirers and disciples of the good King and his great Minister, as the most dan- gerous of all the apostles of sedition, and to be shunned accordingly."] The witty boldness of his remarks, and the sarcastic freedom of his opinions in matters both of church and state, it must be confessed, were such as to startle the timid and alarm the devout. He was numbered among those who were possessed with a republican spirit, and all who had any hopes of rising, through political influence, were more willing to find Burns by chance, than seek his company of their own free will. This will account for the coldness with which many of the stately aristocracy of the district regarded him. Mr. David Maculloch, a son of the Laird of Ardwell, has been heard to relate that, on visiting Dumfries one fine evening, to attend a ball given during the week of the races, he saw Burns walking on the south side of the " plain-stanes," while the central part was crowded with ladies and gen- tlemen, drawn together for the festivities of the night. Not one of them took any notice of the Poet ; on which Mr. Maculloch went up to him, took his arm, and wished him to join the gentry. — " Nay, nay, my young friend," he said, " that's all over with me now ;" and quoted, after a pause, some verses of Lady Grizzel Baillie's pathetic ballad : — " His bonnet stood ance fu' fair on his brow, His auld ane look'd better than mony ane's new ; But now he lets't wear ony way it will hing. And casts himself dowie upen the corn-bing " O ! were we young now as we ance hae been, We should hae been galloping doun on yon green, And linking it owre the lily-white lea, — And were na my heart light I wad die." ["It was little in Burns's character," says Lockhart, " to let his feelings on certain subjects escape in this fashion. He, immediately after © -© jETAT. 34. DUMFRIES. Ill citing these verses, assumed the sprightliness of his most pleasing manner."] He took his friend home ; and while Mrs. Burns, with her sweet and melodious voice, supg one of her husband's latest lyrics, the Poet prepared a bowl of social punch, which they discussed with no little mirth and glee till the hour of the ball arrived. A gentleman, the other day, told me that when he visited Dumfries in the year 1793, he was warned by one or more of the leading men of the county to avoid the society of Burns, who neither be- lieved in religion as the kirk believed, nor took the fashion of his politics from the government. Burns imputed his disgrace in the Excise to the officers of a regiment then lying in Dum- fries, some of whom, he believed, informed the government of his rash language. That he seldom spoke of them but with bitterness and scorn, his correspondence will in some places witness. — " I meant," he thus writes to Mrs. Riddel, " to have called on you yesternight ; but, as I edged up to your box-door, the first object which greeted my view was one of those lobster - coated puppies, sitting like another dragon guarding the Hesperian fruit. On the conditions and capitulations you so obligingly offer, I shall certainly make my rustic phiz a part of your box furniture on Tuesday." His dislike of soldiers found its way into his conversation. — " When I was at Arbigland in 1793," said my accomplished friend Mrs. Basil Montagu, " I was introduced to Burns. His con- versation pleased me much, and I saw him often. I was at a ball given by the Caledonian Hunt in Dumfries, and had stood up as the partner of a young officer in the dance, when the whisper of ' There's Burns ! ' ran through the assembly. I looked round, and there he was — his bright dark eyes full upon me. I shall never forget that look — it was one that gave me no pleasure. He soon left the meeting. I saw him next day. He would have passed me, but I spoke. I took his arm, and said, Come, you must see me home. ' Gladly, madam/ said he j 'but I'll not go down the plain-stanes, lest I have to share your company with some of those epauletted puppies with whom the street is full. Come this way.' We went to Captain Hamilton's. Burns, I remember, took up a newspaper in which some of the letters of a man of genius lately dead were printed. ' This is sad/ he said : ' did I imagine that one- half of the letters which I have written would be published when I die, I would this moment recal them, and burn them without redemp- tion.'" Colonel Jenkinson, who commanded the Cinque-Ports Cavalry, inherited, it would seem, the dislike of his brother soldiers to the Poet ; he refused to be introduced to Burns, and never even spoke to him. This was not in keeping with the character of the mild and gentle Earl of Liverpool.