THE DUCHESS OF GORDON.

What mighty matters rise from trivial things.'

The chalky hue of the drawing-room is ascribed to the Duchess of Gordon's influence!

We mean not to insinuate that her dress was a makeup; but true it is, she figured at a ball in one very similar t'other year at Edinburgh.

Mr Burns, the ploughing poet, who owes much of his good fortune to her Grace's critical discernment and generous patronage, made this elegant stanza on that occasion:

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On the following day the Gazetteer copied the lines, stating they were made by Mr Burns on the occasion of the Duchess's appearance at a ball in white satin." On March 31st The Star returns to the matter on the authority of a correspondent, who "calls himself the friend of Mr Burns, and assures us we have been misinformed. He affirms that the Bard says not a word of King Saul nor her Grace's auld gown, but celebrates her well-known faculty of reel-dancing." Then follow three verses, beginning :

"She kiltit up her kirtle weel,

To show her bonny cutes so sma';

And walloped about the reel,

The lightest louper o' them a'."

The printer remarks, We entreat our former correspondent to substantiate the story;" and on 4th April, "solicits, which we earnestly do, the authority, by letter, of Mr Burns himself, to remove the anxiety of the Public by a certain and final decision." The dates of Burns's corrections are wrongly given in Chambers. That to The Star appears on 16th April, and not four days after the letter to The Gazetteer, which is in its issue of 17th April.

Both letters are correctly quoted and can be easily referred to, as also the editor of The Gazetteer's sneering comment as to Burns's petulance, with the announcement that the offending verses were the work of Harry Erskine, lawyer, politician, and wit. It is a fair assumption that their publication and the remarks came from him, either as a dig at the Duchess or Burns, or both. But the following interesting foreword and footnote to the Poet's long letter to The Star have not as yet found their way into print :The printer feels himself exceedingly proud of the receipt of the following letter; and as it comes from the pencil of a very ingenious Poet, whose productions are now the delight and admiration of every Reader of Taste, the Printer believes that the best mode of answering the author's intentions is by publication of his sentiments on a subject which appears interesting to his literary reputation.

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"The printer has the happiness of flattering himself with an assurance of the future correspondence of Mr Burns, the subsequent flights and inspirations of whose Muse must raise the reputation of the first print."

This was followed by the letter to Mr Peter Stuart, beginning" Mr Printer, your goodness oppresses me," and its request to be addressed as Mr Robert Burns-“ I am not R.B., Esq. No poet, by statute of Parnassus, has a right, as an author, to assume Esquire, except he has had the honour to dedicate, by permission,' to a Prince, if not to a King." Enclosed in it were the dreadful verses to the memory of Mrs Oswald of Auchencruive, beginning "Dweller in yon dungeon dark." These were not printed, and in this connection it may be noted that some contributions of 1788, mentioned by Chambers, cannot be traced in the files of The Star-notably the long and heavy letter of 8th November on Revolution, and the Address of the Scottish Distillers to the Right Honourable William Pitt. It is not generally known that that statesman referred to him as our great National Poet," and spoke in eulogistic terms of "Does Haughty Gaul

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invasion threat? But he did send, as a bribe," the stanzas" Anna, thy charms my bosom fire," which appeared in The Star on 20th April, 1789, and were copied in The Gazetteer on the 21st. He sent also the Satire, dated from Kilmarnock, 30th April, signed Duncan M'Leerie, inserted in The Star on 14th May. As neither the "Ode to the Departed Regency Bill," sent on 17th March, nor “Delia, an Ode," on 18th May, appear in The Star in either months, the two may be said to be the only direct contributions of Burns to the London press.

The most careful search of the files of the then new Times fails to reveal any reference to Burns's life, works, or death. That now great paper was then devoted to politics, scandal, and highly spiced reports of libel and crim. con. The first notice of the death is in The Star of 27th July, 1796 :

"On Thursday last died at Dumfries, after a long illness, Robert Burns, the illustrious Scottish Poet. His poetical compositions, distinguished equally by force of natural humour, by the warmth and tenderness of passion, and by the glowing touches of a descriptive pencil, will remain a lasting monument of the vigour and versatility of a mind, gifted only by the light of nature and inspiration of genius. The public, to whose amusement he has so largely contributed, will learn with regret, that the last hours of his short life were spent in indigence and illness; and his widow, with five infant children, and in the hourly expectation of a sixth, is now left without any resource but what she may hope from the regard due to the memory of her husband."

Next day the True Britain slightly varied this notice: "Burns certainly possessed a great portion of the poetical character. His imagination was vivid, and his heart was under the guidance of strong sensibility. His works exhibit a philosophic spirit as well as poetic beauty. We are sorry to learn that this rustic votary of the Muse was partly the victim of intemperance. Surely the pride of

Scotland will operate, if better motives do not prevail, and excite a liberal patronage in favour of the Caledonian Bard." In its issue dated 28th to 30th July, the London Chronicle, a quarto broadsheet published at intervals, and devoted to gazette notices, trials and circuit proceedings, has more than a page of an appreciation, which must have been written by someone acquainted with the Poet's career. The writer-who assigns the Kilmarnock, "a coarse edition," to Dumfries-concludes with a parallel between Burns and Fergusson. The Morning Chronicle, in spite of its more direct connection, has only a note on 30th July: Poor Burns, in the first edition of his Poems, inserted an Epitaph on a Bard which we have always understood he meant for himself. The following verse, which we quote from memory, expresses at once the consciousness of genius, and the sense he entertained of his own frailtyThe poor inhabitant below,' etc." On Monday, August 1st, it adds: "We do not wish to reflect on the liberality of the Patrons of Burns, but they surely discovered a want of judgment in the situation which they allotted him. was exceptionally unfortunate to make the Poet an Exciseman. Poor Burns all his life was but too apt to be led away by the temptation of good spirits. What, then, must have been the case when it became his daily oceupation to fathom the cask?"

It

Very different is the appreciation by Peter Stuart, in The Star of 1st August, along with the account of the funeral, copied from the Edinburgh Advertiser :

His manly form and penetrating eye strikingly indicated extraordinary mental vigour.

For originality of wit, rapidity of conception, and fluency of nervous phraseology, he was unrivalled.

Animated by the fire of nature, he uttered sentiments, which, by their pathos, melted the heart to tenderness, or expanded the mind by their sublimity; as a luminary, emerging from behind a cloud, he arose at once into notice; and his works and name can never die while divine poesy shall agitate the chords of the human heart."

A century and a quarter have passed, and this, the first true appreciation and eulogy of Robert Burns, by one who knew him in the flesh, and could understand him in the spirit, has never been surpassed. The name of Peter Stuart, one of the earliest, most enterprising, and notable of Scottish journalists, should never be forgotten wherever the Bard is known and loved.