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Whether Peggy Chalmers or Charlotte Hamilton was the subject of the poet's last song "Fairest Maid on Devon Banks"-sent to Thomson, as I have said, only eleven days before his death, there will always be doubt, as Burns himself gave no hint. It certainly applies to the one or the other. Dr. Henley suggests that, although the Devon is real enough, the "maid" may have been “pure fiction;" but personality is as good as proved by the lines :

"Could'st thou to malice lend an ear?

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which refer clearly to the slander of tale-bearers causing his decline recently in the fair one's esteem.

Of the two ladies, then, either of whom might be associated with the Devon, Peggy Chalmers is the more likely, as he was always most eager to stand well in her estimation; as he corresponded with her after Charlotte Hamilton ceased to be mentioned; and because there is fervour here, and the language of loving esteem, corresponding with the pulsings of his earlier songs to Peggy, and bearing no likeness to his merely complimentary lines to Charlotte.

JEAN LORIMER

"THE LASSIE WI' THE LINT-WHITE LOCKS'

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JEAN LORIMER, more generally addressed as "Chloris," but now and again appealed to by the use of her simple and dearly familiar maiden name, and the "lassie wi' the lintwhite locks," was the fair inspirer of not less than about thirty of the poet's ever-charming love songs.

Her father, William Lorimer, resided at Craigieburn, on a beautifully exalted situation, about two miles out from Moffat, on the way to St. Mary's Loch, where he was established as a publican and farmer. When Burns became acquainted with the family in 1791, Jean, born at Craigieburn in September, 1775, would then be a girl in her sixteenth year. But already she had captivated the affections of John Gillespie, the poet's brother-exciseman at Dumfries; and the tradition survives that when business brought Burns to Moffat, it was his custom to ride out from the Black Bull Inn, ostensibly to crack a bottle with old man Lorimer, but designedly to win the daughter for his shy friend, Gillespie. Courtship by proxy, however, has seldom been successful, and the eloquence, and no less the "sleight" of Burns even, did not carry the day at Craigieburn.

Yet worse luck befel. In March, 1793, Miss Lorimer eloped suddenly one morning to Gretna Green with a wild young farmer from the county of Cumberland, who shortly before had taken the farm of Barnhill, near Moffat. The

pair had not been many weeks married when her husband, Whelpdale by name-on the verge of bankruptcy from the beginning of his Scottish career, and now about to be seized by his creditors-fled the country, leaving his wife behind him, and not temporarily, but for ever.

Lost to happiness now, and lost for ever to too canny John Gillespie, Jean Lorimer yet commanded the pity and life-long friendship and admiration of Robert Burns. Hence so many songs in her honour, hence so many lyrics extolling her personal charms. For Burns to make any one of his lady friends the subject of a love song, and fancying himself for the time being their most ardent lover, was to pay, in his estimation, the highest compliment of which he was capable. And we must never forget that he was first of all a song-maker. But because he had red-flower loves, like Clarinda, there have been among his reviewers some who could not persuade themselves that he had white-flower loves as well.

Allan Cunningham-man of genius as he was, yet the most unreliable editor of Burns that ever made serious approach to the subject-has written :

"The beauty of Chloris has added many charms to Scottish song. But that which increased the reputation of the poet has lessened that of the man. Chloris was one of those who believe in the dispensing power of beauty, and thought that love should be under no demure restraint. Burns sometimes thought in the same way himself; and it is not wonderful, therefore, that the poet should celebrate the charms of a liberal beauty who was willing to reward his strains, and who gave him many opportunities of catching inspiration from her presence. The poet gave many a glowing picture of her young, healthy, and voluptuous beauty, but let no lady envy the poetical

elevation of poor Chloris; her situation in poetry is splendid; her situation in life merits our pity-perhaps our charity."

Now, these damning words, written long, long after Burns was dead, and when poor Chloris also had been two years in her grave, and set up in cold print absolutely without authority, either cited or known to exist, even as gossip these foul and mean insinuations-besmirch not, in the minds of thinking men, the character of Burns and Chloris, but the character of Allan Cunningham, and impel every admirer of the poet to regret with Dr. James Adams, the recent vindicator of Chloris, that no male relative of the lady was left "to give the libeller the thrashing he so richly merited."

Why, Burns had been a married man for more than two years before he saw Jean Lorimer; and she was never less at any time the friend of the poet's wife than the friend of the poet himself. From the time that the Lorimers came to reside at Kemmis Hall, on the Nith, near Kirkmahoe, the closest intimacy seems to have existed between the two families, and in a letter addressed to the old man Lorimer we find Burns saying:-"I want you to dine with me to-day. I have two honest Mid-Lothian farmers with me, who have travelled three score miles to renew old friendship with the poet; and I promise you a pleasant party. Mrs. Burns desired me yester-night to beg the favour of Jeanie to come and partake, and she was so obliging as to promise that she would." Does the association of names there indicate a red-flower love? In no sense.

Unless all were pure, such a combination of persons—by choice would never have been thought of. That dinner was given in 1795. A year earlier when sending his song of "Craigieburn Wood" to George Thomson the poet had

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written :- "The lady on whom it was written is one of the finest women in Scotland; and, in fact, entre nous, is in a manner, to me, what Sterne's Eliza was to him—a mistress, or friend, or what you will, in the guileless simplicity of Platonic love. (Now, don't put any of your squinting constructions on this, or have any clishmaclaver about it among our acquaintances). I assure you that to my lovely friend you are indebted for of many of mine. Whenever I want to be more than ordinary in song; to be in some degree equal to your divine airs; do you imagine I fret 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 divinity of healing and poetry, when erst he piped to the flocks of Admetus. I put myself on a regimen of admiring a fine woman; and in proportion to the adorability of her charms, in proportion you are delighted with my verses. The lightning of her eye is the god-head of Parnassus, and the witchery of her smile the divinity of Helicon." I have quoted the passage on an earlier page, but it deserves to come in again, in its proper place.

If further evidence is needed by anyone that Chloris was a white-flower love—a song model, and no more—let the poet's widow, the least likely to be charitable if suspicion was warranted, give the final word. Answering Mr. M'Diarmid, of Dumfries, Mrs. Burns, who would at no time listen to an ill word about her, said :—

"Jean Lorimer was the daughter of William Lorimer, farmer, of Kemmis Hall, and in good circumstances. He had two daughters and three sons. Jean used to visit at Ellisland. She had remarkably fair hair, and was perfectly virtuous. She took the fancy of an Englishman at a Moffat ball, and was married to him at Gretna Green.

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