person of a lady, who, report had it, was one of the remaining descendants of people with tails.

Grose holds each of these three collectors up to ridicule, and as some of their foibles are akin to those that Burns has charged Grose with, one is again forced to the conclusion that Burns's descriptions may have been largely chaff. And also that the incongruities that Grose related in social intercourse may have been taken by Burns as containing a substratum of truth that suited his poetic purpose.

A. J. CRAIG.

BURNS COTTAGE RELICS.

A SPURIOUS COLLECTION.

AT

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T one of the galleries in one of the most famous streets in the world-at Agnew's, Bond Street, London, to be precise-there is now being publicly exhibited “The Burns Cottage Collection, comprising the furniture of the Cottage in which the poet, Robert Burns, was born on January 25, 1759." Thus reads the title-page of the printed catalogue. The wording of the title is not ingenuous, for it gives no indication of the period at which this collection was in the Cottage, though of course the furniture of the Cottage at any time between 1757, when it was built, and 1918 may quite correctly be termed a But the "Burns Cottage collection." foreword" to the catalogue supplies what the title lacks, for it states that certain outstanding articles in the collection" were acquired from the Poet's father, and as such were shown to visitors for many years by John Goudie," tenant of the Cottage, so that the collection claims to include a considerable portion of the furnishing of the Cottage at the time when Robert Burns was born. Believing that the sole interest —and it is 'very little-attaching to the collection now exhibiting in Bond Street is that of having belonged to one who ran the Cottage as a common public-house, I propese briefly to examine the claim made on its behalf and to show cause why it cannot be accepted. The exhibition,

I note with regret, is "under the special patronage" of a Royal personage, who has visited the show, and it has been organised by the London Robert Burns Club, which has failed in its very obvious duty.

The world-famous Cottage at Alloway-built by William Burnes himself on land that he had leased, to which in 1757 he brought home his bride, and in which in 1759 his

eldest son was born-was the home of the Burnes family from 1757 till 1766. In the latter year William Burnes, with the assistance of his master, Provost William Fergusson of Doonholm, ventured on a small farm at Mount Oliphant, two miles distant from Alloway. But, though he had ceased to inhabit the "auld clay biggin," he remained lessee of the land and proprietor of the house. There is good reason from documents still existing-to believe that both house and land were let by him to Joseph Norman, seedsman in Ayr, and that afterwards the house, having been put (1779) into a good and tennable condition," was occupied by David and William Calbreth, wrights in Alloway. In 1781 William Burnes's land and house, being in the market, were purchased by the Incorporation of Shoemakers in Ayr at the price of £160 sterling.

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The records of that Incorporation show that the quondam Burnes house was occupied-at a rental of £10 --by Matthew Dick, shoemaker in Ayr, from 1782 till 1801. Dick-the man who turned the Burns Cottage into a publichouse was succeeded in the tenancy by John Maitland, flesher in Ayr, who had made offer to the trade of £25 10s of yearly rent for a 38 years' tack from Martinmas, 1801, of their houses and land presently possest by Matthew Dick." Maitland appears to have occupied the house for only two years for what reason is unknown—and in 1803 he sub-let to John Goudie. From Martinmas, 1803, until his death in 1842" Miller "Goudie, for so he was known, ran the Burns Cottage as a public-house himself-as John Keats recorded on his visit to the place in 1818—“ a mahogany-faced old jackass who knew Burns; he drinks glasses, five for the quarter, and twelve for the hour." After Goudie's death the business at the Cottage was carried on by his widow until her death in 1843; after her death it was continued by their daughter (Mrs Hastings) and her husband until Martinmas, 1845, when the Cottage was let to Davidson Ritchie, who had offered a larger rental than David Hastings.

These are plain statements of fact, mostly from the

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Book pertaining to the Shoemakers' Trade of Ayr,” which the writer was privileged to examine some years ago, and theydowna be disputed." It is necessary that they should be stated before considering the claim made for the Burns Cottage Collection."

After the death of Mrs Goudie the " whole household furniture and other effects situated within Burns' Cottage and other premises, lately possessed by Mr and Mrs Goudie," were sold by public roup on September 30, 1843; and two years later (1845) the effects of the Hastings were disposed of. Certain of the articles included in the Hastings sale were purchased by, or for, Mr James Esdaile, of Manchester: these articles form the Burns Cottage Collection which is the subject of these notes. Some personal effects and relics" of the Poet were subsequently acquired by the gentleman, and these eke out the show in Bond Street. These "personal effects and relics "as listed in the printed catalogue, by the way, seem a questionable lot, but they do not concern us at present.

That Esdaile was none too happy in the possession of his treasures may be gathered from the fact that they were exhibited in public on several occasions, but without finding a purchaser. And so the owner took to offering them privately; in 1866 to James M'Kie, the Burns collector and publisher at Kilmarnock, the price being £100; and in 1870 to the Trustees of the Burns Monument at Alloway" I have fixed on these rare articles the moderate price of £50," wrote Esdaile. Doubtless other persons also were offered these rare articles," but none would look at them; and on the death of James Esdaile they passed to his son, George Esdaile, of Rusholme, Manchester.

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Like his father, George Esdaile was a man of easy faith. He brought himself to believe that he had inherited a large portion of the furniture that had been in the Cottage when Robert Burns was born in 1759, and he spent a large part of his life in attempts to get rid of his Burns inheritance at a continually increasing price. He advertised freely, and as freely offered £300 to the agent who would find him

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a purehaser for the goods. I wish the nation would take up the matter," he once wailed, and restore the Cottage Collection to the Cottage; what is in the Cottage now is not that which was in the possession of the Goudies since 1792. It is all spurious." He proposed that a company should be formed to acquire his collection. He offered it to any whom he considered a possible purchaser. the promoters like, I will construct a facsimile Burns Cottage and put my collection into it in Glasgow for the sum of six thousand pounds, and the relics will sell for much more after," he wrote to the secretary of the Glasgow Burns Centenary (1896) Exhibition. But nothing was doing."

· If

An offer to sell his gathering to the Corporation of Edinburgh gave Esdaile an unexpected advertisement, though not exactly of the kind he would have desired, and led to the ruin of his hopes. Edinburgh had not had time to forget the scandal of the Burns forgeries (1892) when the offer from Manchester came to it, and was promptly declined. That decision was immediately followed by the irrefutable exposure of Esdaile's claim on behalf of his collection, in the columns of the Edinburgh Evening Dispatch (July-October, 1895), by the late Mr Craibe Angus, of Glasgow. Thereafter little was heard of the discredited Burns Cottage Collection"; various attempts to exploit it came to nothing, and George Esdaile recently passed to the majority. What the Esdailes-father and sonhad failed to do in 73 years the son's executors succeeded in doing in a few months' time. They decided to get rid of the Esdaile "white elephant," and it is betraying no secret to tell now that an offer was made to the Trustees of the Burns Cottage; of course, it was turned down." Subsequently-the catalogue tells us offer was received from a distinguished United States "-said to be Mr Schwabe-" and it appeared probable that the collection would cross the Atlantic. Fortunately, however, Mr Harry Maconochie, a Scottish gentleman, made a counter-offer to that received from America, and this offer was accepted." As a result these

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an acceptable resident of the