letter that he penned the epistle which is dated at "Leadhills, Thursday, noon." In the course of the letter Burns states, I have just a snatch of time," which seems to point to some pressing business in the neighbourhood. The letter contains, however, the Lament of Mary Queen of Scots," and concludes in rather a pathetic strain, as though the bleak hillsides had made a deep impression on his spirit : "Misfortune seems to take a peculiar pleasure in darting her arrows against honest men and bonie lasses.' Of this you are too, too just a proof, but may your future fate be a bright exception to the remark. In the words of Hamlet

Adieu, adieu, adieu! remember me.'

ROBERT BURNS."

This was not, however, the Bard's first visit to the district, for he was here more than a year before, when he wrote, at Ramage's," the well-known lines addressed to

Mr John Taylor

· With Pegasus upon a day,
Apollo weary flying."

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The Poet had ridden up the Mennock Pass, a road, even yet, in spite of improvements, one of the steepest in the south of Scotland. It was frosty weather, and the Poet determined to get his horse's shoes sharped" before attempting the return journey. The blacksmith at Wanlockhead, being busy at the time, would not at first undertake the job. Luckily Burns's companion, a Mr John Sloan, was intimate with the manager of the mines, Mr John Taylor, who, on being informed of the Poet's wishes, induced the smith to put the horse's caulkers in order. The smith's name was Hutchison, and he was wont to boast in later days that he had never been so well paid for his labour as he was by Burns, who paid him wi' siller, paid him wi' drink, and paid him wi' a sang." Apparently the verses, though addressed to Mr Taylor, had come into the possession of the "son of Vulcan." The lines were

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first published in Cunningham's edition

John Taylor here referred to belonged to Leadhills, where his father's and grandfather's tombstone may still be seen in the cemetery. The inscription may be considered one of the most remarkable in the country. It reads, Sacred to the memory of Robert Taylor, who was during many years an overseer to the Scotch Mining Company at Leadhills, and died May 6th, 1791, in the 67th year of He is buried by the side of his father, John Taylor,

his age.

who died in this place at the remarkable age of 137 years." Remarkable indeed! This old patriarch was of English birth, having first seen the light in Cumberland. He died in May, 1770, and, while there is reason to doubt the accuracy of the statement on the tombstone, there is evidence that he was considerably over the century. He claimed to remember a famous eclipse of the sun which astronomical investigations showed had taken place in 1652. A brother of the John Taylor who assisted Burns was James Taylor, who was associated with Patrick Miller of Dalswinton,

Burns's landlord, in his experiments regarding the application of steam to navigation. Another Leadhills man associated with these experiments was William Symington, to whose memory a handsome monument was erected in the village about thirty years ago. But there is another son of Leadhills whose influence on the Bard is noticeable in his works, and for whose memory Burns had great respect. This is Allan Ramsay, Honest Allan," who was born at Leadhills in 1686. His father was also an overseer in the mines, but he died at the early age of 24, and his widow, Alice Bower, soon afterwards married a farmer of the name of Crichton, whose farm was in Crawford Moor. Allan attended the old parochial school in Crawford till his departure for Edinburgh in 1701.

Just seven years after the death of Burns this district was visited by two of the best known of English poets, Wordsworth and Coleridge. They journeyed by way of the Mennock, and put up at the "Hopetoun Arms" in Leadhills. They afterwards crossed by a hill road to Crawfordjohn, and there they met with an accident to their gig, which delayed them somewhat. The two poets were accompanied by Miss Wordsworth (Dorothy), and we have a short description of the country as it appeared to her: Travelled through several reaches of the glen (Glengonnar), which somewhat resembled the valley of the Mennock on the other side of Wanlockhead, but it was not near so beautiful; the forms of the mountains did not melt so exquisitely into each other, and there was a coldness and, if I may so speak, a want of simplicity in the surface of the earth; the heather was poor, not covering a whole hillside, not in luxuriant streams and beds interveined with rich verdure, but patchy and stunted, with here and there coarse grass and rushes." It is in every way probable that Burns went through the parish when he visited Edinburgh in 1789. He was then residing at Ellisland, and the direct road was by way of the Dalveen Pass, through Crawford and Abington and on by way of Biggar to the capital. Biggar was regarded by travellers from Mid

Nithsdale as the half-way house on the way to Edinburgh -a point used to good purpose by Joseph Laing Waugh in one of his delightful sketches of "Robbie Doo." In the writer's opinion, this was the most likely occasion for the Bard's visit to the Parish Church of Biggar, though most writers place it earlier. Dalveen Pass is a lovely and romantic glen, with its own memories of the national and Covenanting struggles. It is mentioned

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twice by Burns under the title of the lang glen and the "lang loan in his well-known song, "Last May a braw wooer cam' down the lang glen." Originally the third line of the fourth stanza ran, He up the Gateslack to my black cousin Bess," but on Thomson objecting, the Poet changed the words to "He up the lang loan." Gateslack," says Burns, says Burns, "is positively the name of a particular place, a kind of passage among the Lowther hills, on the confines of this county." The name is still given to one of the farms in Durisdeer parish, on the side of the "lang glen."

Burns paid his last visit to Edina in November, 1791. He was then resident in Dumfries, and there is no evidence as to what road he took, so he may have traversed Crawford again, but from a remark he makes in a letter to Alex. Cunningham, it seems more likely that he travelled by Moffat and Tweedsmuir. This was

the coach road, and the scene of the disaster to the mail coach in the year of the "big snaw,' 1827. In the letter referred to he says, I am sorry I did not know him (Thom

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son) when I was in Edinburgh, but I will tell you of a plot I have been contriving. You and he shall, in the course of the summer, meet me half way, that is at the Bield Inn.' This meeting, however, never took place. The inn sits close to the highway, opposite the parish church of Tweedsmuir, about two miles south of the better-known Crook Inn. "From Berwick to the Bield," it may be noted, is the Tweedside equivalent of the Scottish "From Maidenkirk to John o' Groats."

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The parish which adjoins Crawford is Crawfordjohn, probably one of the most secluded in the south of Scotland, so much so, indeed, that men speak in proverbs," saying, "oot o' the warl' and into Crawfordjohn." Burns's friend, William Johnstone, resided at Clackcleith, on the borders of Sanquhar and Crawfordjohn. This is the Trusty auld worthy Clackcleith " of the postcript to the “Kirk's Alarm," and as seems likely Burns visited the hospitable home, he would be within a short distance of the boundary of the parish. There is still extant a short letter of Burns in which mention is made of a Crawfordjohn man who, along with "Clackcleith," assisted the Bard in his recovery of old Scots Airs:

"Memorandum for Provost E

W- to get from John French his sets of the following Scots airs :

(1) The auld yowe jumpt owre the tether.

(2) Nine nichts awa, welcome hame my dearie.

(3) A' the nichts o' the year the chapman drinks nae water. Mr Whigham will either of himself, or through that