It was one of the most remarkable gifts of this person, that he could invest any object he took a fancy for, however prosaic in the eyes of other people, with the most exalted interest. At the time of his residence near Mauchline, a girl named Mary Campbell, originally from Campbellton in Argyleshire, served at Coilsfield in the humble capacity of byreswoman, or dairymaid. She has been described to us by a surviving fellow-servant as a goodlooking, middle-sized young woman, somewhat stout, neat footed, of a fair complexion, blue-eyed, and very slightly marked with small-pox. In the eyes of her compeers, she was simply what is called in Scotland a trig lass: in the eyes of Burns, she was an angel. Either before or after being at Coilsfield, she served a year in the house of Mr Gavin Hamilton, the poet's friend, at Mauchline; and it is the tradition of that gentleman's family, that Burns's passion for her was the cause of her being discharged. According to the poet himself, after a pretty long trial of the most ardent reciprocal attachment, they met by appointment on the second Sunday of May, in a sequestered spot by the banks of the Ayr, where they spent a day in taking a farewell, before she should embark for the West Highlands, to arrange matters among her friends for her intended marriage to Burns. Probably the two lovers did not confine themselves to the Banks of the Ayr, but wandered through the woods of Coilsfield, and along the banks of the Faile; for a spreading thorn is pointed out near the house as somehow connected with their story, either as a scene of meeting or of parting; and the poet himself, in his poetical account of the transaction, addresses the scene at large :

Ye banks, and braes, and streams around

The castle o' Montgomerie;

Green be your woods, and fair your flowers,
Your waters never drumlie.

There summer first unfaulds her robes,

And there they langest tarry,

For there I took my last farewell

Of my sweet Highland Mary.

How sweetly bloom'd the gay green birk,
How rich the hawthorn's blossom,
As, underneath the fragrant shade,
I clasp'd her to my bosom !
The angel hours, on golden wings,
Flew o'er me and my dearie;
For dear to me, as light and life,
Was my sweet Highland Mary.
Wi' mony a vow and lock'd embrace,
Our parting was fu' tender,
And, pledging aft to meet again,
We tore ourselves asunder;
But oh! fell death's untimely frost,
That nipt my flower sae early!
Now green's the sod and cauld's the clay,
That wraps my Highland Mary.

O pale, pale now, those rosy lips,
I aft hae kissed sae fondly;

And closed for aye the sparkling glance
That dwelt on me sae kindly!
And mouldering now in silent dust,
The heart that lo'ed me dearly!
But still within my bosom's core
Shall live my Highland Mary.

According to another authority, the adieu of these lovers was performed with certain ceremonials, calculated to deepen the impression of even love itself. They stood on each side of a small brook-they laved their hands in the limpid stream-and holding a Bible between them, pronounced their vows to be faithful to each other. This Bible is or was lately in possession of a surviving sister of Mary, at Ardrossan. Upon the boards of the first volume is inscribed, in Burns's handwriting, "And ye shall not swear by my name falsely, I am the Lord."-Levit. chap. xix. v. 12. On the second volume-" Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shall perform unto the Lord thine oaths."-St Matth. chap. v. 33. And on a blank leaf of either-" Robert Burns, Mossgiel," with his mason-mark.

The parting was an eternal one. On returning to Greenock, on her way to Ayrshire, Mary Campbell died

of an inflammatory distemper, and was buried in the churchyard there, where a monument, commemorating her story, was about ten years ago erected to her memory: her mother was then resident in Greenock.

What turn might have been given to the fate of Burns, if he had been united to this amiable though humble person, and thus redeemed in all probability from many subsequent follies, it were vain to speculate. It is to be supposed, however, that he often had occasion afterwards, when "musing on wasted time," and perhaps writhing under a consciousness that the tenor of his life was neither innocent nor profitable, to say with Serjeant Bothwell, in his most touching record of early and unfortunate passion,

Both heaven and earth might now approve me,

If thou hadst lived, and lived to love me.

66

Other attachments, including many less pure as well as less impassioned, afterwards possessed his breast; but the recollection of " Mary" seems to have ever remained with him, and even to have recurred more particularly when the consequences of those less worthy attachments were pressing upon him. At the time when one of these was about to drive him into a degraded exile, he composed the following verses, which powerfully express the bitterness of his feelings on the occasion :

O'er the mist-shrouded cliffs of the lone mountain straying,
Where the wild winds of winter incessantly rave,
What woes wring my heart while intensely surveying
The storm's gloomy path on the breast of the wave!

Ye foam-crested billows, allow me to wail,

Ere ye toss me afar from my loved native shore;

Where the flower which bloom'd sweetest in Coila's green vale,
The pride of my bosom, my Mary's no more.

No more by the banks of the streamlet we'll wander,
And smile at the moon's rimpled face in the wave;
No more shall my arms cling with fondness around her,
For the dewdrops of morning fall cold on her grave.

No more shall the soft thrill of love warm my breast;
I haste with the storm to a far distant shore,
Where, unknown, unlamented, my ashes shall rest,

And joy shall revisit my bosom no more.*

To pursue this affecting tale in the words of Mr Lockhart "That noblest of all his ballads, To Mary in Heaven, was, it is on all hands admitted, composed by Burns in September 1789 [at Ellisland], on the anniversary of the day on which he heard of the death of his early love. But Mr Cromek has thought fit to dress up the story with circumstances which did not occur. Mrs Burns, the only person who could appeal to personal recollection on this occasion, and whose recollections of all the circumstances connected with the history of her husband's poems are represented as being remarkably distinct and vivid, gives what may at first appear a more prosaic edition of the history. According to her, Burns spent that day, though labouring under a cold, in the usual work of his harvest, and apparently in excellent spirits. But as the twilight deepened, he appeared to grow 'very sad about something,' and at length wandered out into the barn-yard, to which his wife, in her anxiety for his health, followed him, entreating him in vain to observe that frost had set in, and to return to the fireside. On being again and again requested to do so, he always promised compliance, but still remained where he was, striding up and down slowly, and contemplating the sky, which was singularly clear and starry. At last Mrs Burns found him stretched on a mass of straw, with his eyes fixed on a beautiful planet, 'that shone like another moon,' and prevailed on him to come in. He immediately, on entering the house called for his desk, and wrote, exactly as they now stand, with all the ease of one copying from memory, the sublime and pathetic verses

First published in the Edinburgh Literary Journal, of November 21, 1829; being taken from a manuscript in the possession of Mr Lewis Smith, bookseller, Aberdeen.

Thou lingering star, with lessening ray,
That lovest to greet the early morn,
Again thou usher'st in the day

My Mary from my soul was torn.
O Mary! dear departed shade!

Where is thy blissful place of rest?
See'st thou thy lover lowly laid ?

Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast?

That secret hour can I forget,

Can I forget the hallow'd grove,
Where by the winding Ayr we met,
To live one day of parting love?
Eternity will not efface

Those records dear of transports past;
Thy image at our last embrace;

Ah! little thought we 'twas our last.

Ayr gurgling kiss'd his pebbled shore,
O'erhung with wild woods thick'ning green:
The fragrant birch, and hawthorn hoar,
Twined amorous round the raptured scene.
The flowers sprang wanton to be press'd,
The birds sang love on every spray,
Till too, too soon the glowing west

Proclaim'd the speed of winged day.

Still o'er these scenes my mem'ry wakes,
And fondly broods with miser care;
Time but the impression deeper makes
As streams their channels deeper wear.

My Mary! dear departed shade!

Where is they blissful place of rest?

See'st thou thy lover lowly laid ?

Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast ?"

To wander through these woods of Coilsfield, and reflect that, as the residence of rank and affluence, they are as nothing, but derive immortal glory from the attachment of a ploughman to a menial servant, both of whom lived forty years ago, fills the mind with reflections which we would vainly attempt to describe.*

In a cottage amidst the Coilsfield woods lives Hugh Andrew, aged 73, who in Burns's days served Colonel Montgomery in the capacity of whipperin. We conversed with this man, and obtained from him the above de