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 slovenly his plough was the clumsy old Scotch one his harrows had oftener teeth of wood than of iron; his carts were heavy and lowwheeled the axles were of wood; he winnowed 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 experiments, and too prejudiced to speculate. He rooted up no bushes, dug up no stones; neither did he drain or enclose; the dung which he bestowed on the soil was to raise a crop of potatoes: 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 ordinary richness, at fifteen, shillings an acre. The farmer differed little in wealth and condition 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 provision as two hundred thousand in times of peace. With the demand, the price of corn augmented; the farmer rose on the wings of sudden wealth 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 marketnights 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 Ellisland; but Burns was too poor and too impatient 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 produced one of the best as well as the longest of all his poems-"Tam O'Shanter." For this noble tale we are indebted to something like accident. Grose, the antiquarian, was on a visit to Riddell of Friars-Carse, who, like himself, had a collection

"Of auld nick-nackets,
Rusty airn caps and jinglin' jackets

Wad haud the Lothians three in tackets
A towmont gude."

The Poet was invited to add wings to the evening hours, and something like friendship was established between him and the social Englishman, which both imagined would be lasting. In conversing about the antiquities of Scotland, Burns begged that Grose would introduce Alloway 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. Burns relates that, observing Robert walking with long swinging sort of strides and apparently 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 seemed not to observe her, but continued his walk;

66

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-white 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 materials with him, and, leaning on a turf fence

which commanded a view of the river, he committed 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 contains 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 correspondent, "my gilt-headed Wangee rod in my left hand-an instrument indispensably necessary-in the moment of inspiration and rapture; 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 traditions. 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 farmer was plashing homewards from the forge with plough-irons on his shoulder. As he approached Alloway kirk, he was startled by a light glimmering in the haunted edifice; he walked up to the door, and saw a cauldron suspended over a fire, in which the heads and limbs of unchristened children were beginning to simmer. 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. Another 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 kirkyard, 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 motion 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 runding 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 further 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 informed that the handsome wife of one of his neighbours was dangerously ill, and not expected 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 inquirer, was informed on the spot that the places where the packman was smothered in the snow

where drunken Charlie broke his neck— where the murdered child was found by hunters and where the mother of poor Mungo hanged herself, were no imaginary matters. The poetry of Burns is full of truth.

"Tam O'Shanter" was received with all the applause to which it is richly entitled. "I have seldom in my life," says Lord Woodhouslee, "tasted of higher enjoyment from any work of genius than I have received from this composition; and I am much mistaken if this poem alone, had you never written another syllable, would not have been sufficient to have transmitted 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, manly, 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 describing 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."

66

"The Whistle" is another poem of this happy 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

suasion that they would announce it to the astonished 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 contest 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, Stockholm, Moscow, and Warsaw, and was only prevented 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 diningroom, ordered the corks of the claret to be drawn. They had already swallowed six bottles a-piece, and day was breaking, when Ferguson, decanting a quart of wine, dismissed it at a draught. Upon this Glenriddel, recollecting 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 our bard, like a prophet in drink :— 'Craigdarroch, thou'lt 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 cultivated, 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

Burns.'

6

"Learning his tuneful trade from every bough." How he demeaned himself as gauger, farmer, and poet, has been related by an able and ob"I had an adventure with servant judge: him," said Ramsay of Ochtertyre," when passing through Dumfries-shire in 1790, with Dr. Stewart of Luss. Seeing him pass quickly near Closeburn, I said to my companion, that is the ostler told us he would be back in a few On coming to the inn (Brownhill), 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 perfect gentleman. After leaving a note to be delivered 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 qualis, and the Poet's modest mansion, so unlike the habitation of ordinary peasants. In the evening, he suddenly bounced in upon us, and said as he entered, 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 Macquechan'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 interesting. 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 commencing with the early vicissitudes of the fortunes of Bruce-recording his strange, his heroic and sometimes laughable, adventures, till all ended in the glorious consummation at Bannockburn. He allowed, as was his wont, the

subject to float about in his mind, 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 Graham 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 labour. 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 bills 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 fascinated 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-burnwood," 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 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:

her

"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 resembled 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 wandered back to a part of his early history, which

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 Gilbert, "to my brother, by the Auld man's Address to the Widow, printed in Ramsay's Tea - table Miscellany." A vein of pawkie simplicity runs through it.

"Wha is that at my bower-door?

O wha 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'll 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 herself, he lets us a little into the mystery of his ballad-making."I have heard of a gentleman of some genius who was dexterous with his pencil; wherever this person met with a character in a more than ordinary degree congenial 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 my 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 Eolian 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, have heard, alludes to Clarinda, 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?
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' bonnie Doon," was Miss Kennedy of Dalgarrock, in Ayr-shire, a young creature beautiful, ac

H