BURNS'S HOUSE IN MAUCHLINE.

THE MACKENZIE EXTENSION.

BY

Y the purchase and restoration of the house in which Robert Burns and Jean Armour began married life a notable addition to Scottish national shrines was made

associations.

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nearly five years ago. That house is at the core of Burns Directly opposite stands the scene of the 'Holy Fair "Mauchline parish kirkyard, where lie four of the Poet's children and many of his friends and acquaintances. Close at hand are Mauchline Castle and Gavin Hamilton's residence, Nanse Tinnock's, the Cowgate, and "Poosie-Nansie's," in which the Jolly Beggars

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"Held the splore,

To drink their orra duddies."

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Only a mile away lies Mossgiel, and within easy reach are Lochlea and Largieside, Tarbolton and Failford, Catrine and Ballochmyle. Built of red sandstone and roofed with thatch, Burns's House faces what for many years was the Back Causeway," but now is named Castle Street." (By the way, might not the old picturesque name of the street be restored?) From its proprietor and tenant, Archibald Meikle, tailor in the village, Burns in February or March, 1788, rented one of its upper rooms for Jean Armour, and here Mrs Burns lived until near the close of that year, when the new, farmhouse on the banks of Nith at Ellisland was ready for her; in the interval, her husband records, she was "regularly and constantly apprentice to my mother and sisters in their dairy and other rural business Mossgiel. The house in Back Causeway remained private property until Whitsunday, 1915, when it was acquired by the Glasgow and District Burns Association. After necessary repairs had been carried out, the Burns room was

at

opened to visitors, the adjoining apartment was utilised as a museum, and the remaining three rooms were prepared to accommodate deserving old folks. Since it was publicly opened in August, 1915, the house has been visited by large numbers of people, many of them from distant parts of the world; and exceptional interest has been shown in the Burns room and in the contents of the museum.

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The original scheme of the Burns Association was limited to the acquisition and utilisation of Burns's House, but the members soon found that an extension of that scheme was desirable, if not inevitable. The former Back Causeway of Mauchline holds other houses that merit special attention from Burnsians. One of these, adjoining the Poet's house, was long known as the Doctor's Shop," and local tradition has it that Dr John Mackenzie, medical adviser, patron, and friend of the Poet, either resided or had his consulting-room there. That tradition may, or may not, be correct; but the title deeds show that a bond over the property-which had been purchased in 1778 from James Aird, junior, merchant in Glasgow, by William Nickle or Nicolson, merchant in Mauchline, at the price of £47-was given to Dr Mackenzie in return for the sum of £100, borrowed from him by Nicolson in 1788. Principal and arrears of interest having in 1815 amounted to £130, Nicolson, Mackenzie, and a second bondholder named Robert Paterson entered into a private agreement to sell the property to Mackenzie; and "Common-Sense," as the author of the Holy Fair" named him, held the property until Whitsunday of 1831, when he sold it to William Ronald, merchant in Mauchline.

The Book of Robert Burns tells that when Mackenzie "entered on professional business at Mauchline he rented a small shop which served as his drug store and consultingroom." It is impossible to prove relation between Charles Rogers's" small shop " and the property in Back Causeway, but it is suggestive that one of the four tenants named in Mackenzie's disposition of 1831 is Dugald Stewart Hamilton (a son of Gavin Hamilton), who had qualified as a physician,

and was then in practice at his native place. Neither is it known that Mackenzie at any time between his marriage in 1791 and his removal to Irvine in 1801 resided in the house on which he held a bond, though it is known that prior to his marriage with Helen Miller-one of the six" belles of Mauchline ”—he lodged at the Sun Inn, tenanted by her father," Auld John Trot" of Burns's" Mauchline Wedding." For 43 years Dr Mackenzie had an interest in the ownership of the property and he may have lived and had his consulting-room in the building; at that the question must remain for the present.

A fire some years ago had so damaged the quondam Mackenzie building that it was considered unsafe for habitation, and report had it that its owner would not be averse from selling. The Glasgow Burns Association accordingly entered into negotiations with his agent, and these ended in their acquiring the property as from Whitsunday, 1916. At that time it was decided, on account of conditions arising from the war, to delay restoration of the property. That work, however, has since been taken in hand, and is now complete the building has been divided into separate dwelling-houses, and four old people have been placed in possession free of rent and rates. At the same time the opportunity was taken to extend the accommodation originally provided for a museum in Burns's House. interesting articles have been presented to the Association or purchased by its Museum Committee, and so an additional room has been fitted up and the entire collection re-arranged. The work of restoration and alteration has been carried out in a most satisfactory manner by Messrs Thomas Findlay & Sons, of Mauchline, to the instructions of Mr Ninian Macwhannell, F.R.I.B.A., who has again freely given his services to the Association, and the entire cost of purchase and restoration has been found by the clubs which compose the Glasgow and District Burns Association, assisted by individual members.

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The formal opening of the Mackenzie extension of Burns's House took place on Saturday, 12th April, 1919.

MEMORIAL TO GAVIN HAMILTON AT

MAUCHLINE.

EADSTONE or slab marks the last resting-place in

maard of many of

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Mauchline parish kirkyard of many of Burns's friends and acquaintances, but none points that of the truest of them all. For more than a century Gavin Hamilton, writer and notary in Mauchline, has lain in an unmarked grave, though tradition attributes this regrettable fact to his own desire. Burns and Hamilton appear to have become acquainted in the winter of 1783, when, anticipating trouble with their father's landlord at Lochlea, the brothers Burns (or Burness, rather) took a sub-let of the farm of Mossgiel from Hamilton, who had rented it from the Earl of Loudoun. At that time the elder Burns was not yet even Coila's Bard " —he was only a farmer, son of the luckless tenant of Lochlea. The two men had much in common, and became fast friends; and both in his poetry and in his prose the Poet bears testimony to the "generous-hearted, upright" lawyer who patronised and befriended him, particularly at a dark period of his career. It was in return for that patronage and friendship that the Poet dedicated to the lawyer his first volume, the slim paper-covered Poems chiefly in the Scottish dialect which issued from the printing press in the summer of 1786. The poetical" Dedication to G—— H——, Esq.," is unique even among poets' dedications, and it fills no fewer than seven pages of print. " "Twas nae daft vapour," the author tells his patron

"But I maturely thought it proper,

When a' my works I did review,

To dedicate them, Sir, to you:

Because (ye need na tak it ill)

I thought them something like yoursel'."

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The record of such a friendship provokes a strong feeling that the burial-place of such a man ought to be at

least indicated, even at the disregard of his declared wish (if such was ever made). And so, with the courteous permission of the present representatives of the Hamilton family and of Mauchline Parish kirk-session, a white marble tablet has been affixed to the iron railing which encloses the family burial-place. The tablet is the tribute of Partick (Glasgow) Burns Club, and has been designed and cut by Mr William Vickers, of Glasgow. It carries this brief inscription in leaded letters :—

The burial-place of Gavin Hamilton

(born November, 1751; died 5th February, 1805),

the Patron and Friend of Robert Burns.

The tablet was unveiled by the President of Partick Burns Club on Saturday, 12th April, 1919, and handed over to the Glasgow and District Burns Association, which has agreed to accept custody. This will ensure the future care of a memorial earned by more wise, congenial, and long-sustained friendship than that which commemorates any member of the wide-ranging Burns circle.