Mr Cowie, who had a most enthusiastic reception, said:

He thought it was singularly appropriate that the opening ceremony in connection with the Burns House should be performed by a woman, and he was proud and honoured that that woman was his wife. As Mr Jeffrey Hunter had told them, this house was a monument to Jean Armour. It was unless he was mistakenif not the very first, one of the first memorials that had been raised in her honour, and no one could visit that old house without feeling the influence not merely of Robert Burns, but of that dear lassie who gave her whole heart and soul to the Poet from the very first day that she saw him crossing the bleaching-green with his dog, right on to the end, through rough places and smooth, through adversity and perplexity, right on to the last scene in the house at Dumfries. If ever there was a true and noble wife he thought Jean Armour might claim to be that. He (Mr Cowie) had occasion the other day to look up some of Burns's letters referring to Jean Armour, and he found that in a letter dated 28th April, 1788, to James Smith, formerly of Mauchline, who had gone to Avon Bridge as a printer of shawls, the Poet expressed himself thus :

"To let you into the secrets of my pericranium, there is, you must know, a certain clean-limbed, handsome, bewitching young hussy of your acquaintance to whom I have lately and privately given a matrimonial title to my corpus. Now for business, I intend to present Mrs Burns with a printed shawl-'tis my first present to her since I have irrevocably called her mine.”

Then, again, in a letter to his dear friend, Robert Ainslie, a month later, he wrote:

"I have the pleasure to tell you that I have been extremely fortunate in all my business and bargainings hitherto, Mrs Burns not excepted, which title I now avow to the world. I am truly pleased with this last affair. It has added to my anxieties for futurity, but it has given a stability to my mind unknown before, and the poor girl has the most sacred enthusiasm of attachment to me, and has not a wish but to gratify my every idea of her deportment."

Let them think of how Jean Armour suffered for her love for Burns, and how devoted she was to him-how when they were first married he had to leave Mauchline, had almost to leave the country; and yet when he went to Edinburgh instead of going to the West Indies, on coming back to Mauchline again his first thought was for Jean Armour, and her first thought was for him. It was after they were married in the old Castle here-the residence of Gavin Hamilton

-that they took up house and remained together until his death. No one could read or think of Jean Armour's life with Burns without feeling satisfied that she was deserving of a niche in the hearts of all Burns lovers. It was sometimes said that a man was just as good as his wife would allow him to be," and there was no question of this, that Jean Armour had a great influence over Burns, that she inspired some of his finest songs, and that she made him more of a man than he had ever been before. Who did not remember that famous honeymoon song which Burns wrote when Jean was living in this very house and when he had gone to Ellisland to get the farmhouse ready for her :

"Of a' the airts the win' can blaw

I dearly lo'e the west,

For there the bonnie lassie lives

The lassie I lo'e best."

Was there ever any song written by anyone equal to that which
Burns wrote about his Bonnie Jean? This old house was worthy
of being preserved as a memorial of Burns and Jean Armour.
Mauchline itself was a perfect museum for Burns lovers, and im-
mediately within sight of the old house was the scene of the Holy
Fair, while next door to it was the house where Dr M'Kenzie lived,
and according to all reports Dr M'Kenzie was one of the warm-
hearted friends of Jean Armour in her sore distress. A little bit
further along there was Nanse Tinnock's. In the churchyard they
found the tombs of four of Burns's children and the tombs of some
of his old companions. They found the tombstone of Daddy Auld,
and they found the grave of Gavin Hamilton, but no tombstone.
Was the grave of a man like Gavin Hamilton, the friend and adviser
of Robert Burns in all his difficulties, to be allowed to remain name-
less? True, it was his own request that no monument should be
erected to his memory, but he (Mr Cowie) thought that this was
really one of the cases where, after all, some little disregard should
be paid to even a man's dying request, and that a man whose name
was so much in the hearts of the people all over the world should
be given a monument to mark the place where he lay. They
remembered the famous lines that Burns wrote about Gavin
Hamilton:-
:-

"The poor man's friend in need,
A gentleman in word and deed."

Perhaps they would permit him to tell them something about the initiation of the scheme. When he was first summoned to a meeting of the Glasgow Burns Clubs Association and was told that the business had reference to this house, he really had a very hazy idea as to what sort of house it was, and so, he thought, had the most of them; but when half-a-dozen of them made a pilgrimage to

Mauchline and saw the room in which Burns and Jean Armour lived and the other accommodation in the building, and when, under Mr Thomas Killin's guidance, they went to the Burns Memorial Homes at the top of the hill, they thought that if something in that line could be done there—not as a rivel to that noble institution, but as a complement to it--they resolved to endeavour to raise funds to secure the house, and in that they were successful. Then they thought they would preserve the Burns room just as it might have been when Burns was the occupant of it. They also resolved to convert the room next to it into a small museum for such Burnsian relics as might be given to them. As they knew, a beginning had already been made in that direction. Strange to say, just a week or two after that, they came across an old document in the possession of one of their worthy townsmen which said that Burns occupied not only one room but two rooms in that house, and looking at the nature of the house--both rooms entering from the same stairhead he thought there was a strong probability that Burns occupied two rooms and not only one. They might get some further information about this as time went on. Mr Mitchell had referred to the article in the newspapers connected with the bed. He knew the gentleman-Mr Ewing--who wrote that article, and there was no one who knew him but knew that he wrote what he

believed to be right and true. Mr Ewing was one of the most conscientious men he had ever met, and there was no one in this country that knew Burns literature better than he did. At the same time, mark his statement. He said that that bed had been added after Burns's time. But they had no proof of that. They knew from all appearance that the house was originally a selfcontained house-probably a kind of mansion-house-and the probability was that when it was converted into small tenement houses the beds would be put in at that time, which was before the time of Burns. Besides, they had not only the evidence which Mr Mitchell gave them of the old woman who lived so long in the house, but they had the evidence of men who lived along with Burns. There was the evidence of William Patrick, who died in Mauchline in 1864, and who had been a herd-laddie at Mossgiel, and who had slept in the same room as Burns at the farm for a considerable time. There was the evidence of James Hamilton, who "ca'd the plough to Burns, and who died in 1862. Many men now living knew these men, and these men who knew Burns and had been living with him never knew that there had been any other bed in the house than the fixed-in bed that was there. Burns, it was true, spoke in one of his letters of having given Jean Armour & mahogany bed, but wherever that bed went, if it was not & poetic figure of speech, certain it was that according to the best information and the best

tradition the present bed was the bed that was occupied by Burns and Jean Armour. They had devoted the three remaining rooms to the use of old people, and might they long remain memorials of Burns and of his goodness of heart and his kindness to the poor. Perhaps in years to come they might be able to increase the accommodation for deserving people. The house next door, which was in a ruinous state, was the house that Dr M'Kenzie occupied, and that was the house that gave shelter to Jean Armour when she was put out of her father's house. On the other side of the road there was Nanse Tinnock's. That might also be acquired. These and other things, including a memorial to Gavin Hamilton, were in the lap of the future, and he trusted that the inauguration of this scheme to-day would be but the beginning of many memorials of Burns and Jean Armour which might be acquired in Mauchline. conclusion, he had only to thank the committee of the Glasgow Burns Clubs Association for the beautiful silver key which they had presented to his wife, and which she would always prize as a memento of that interesting occasion.

In

Mr T. W. M'Intyre, in moving a hearty vote of thanks to Mr M'Coll for presiding, said :—

The fact that Mr M'Coll was President of the Glasgow and District Burns Clubs Association was a sufficient guarantee of his excellent qualities. His love of Burns and his Works, and the services he had rendered to the Burns cult, proved that he was imbued with the spirit of the Poet himself. He (Mr M'Intyre) felt that it would be wrong not to say a word or two to Mr Cowie and Mr M'Coll on behalf of the people of this district. The memorial which they had inaugurated that day would be revered by lovers of Burns the world over, and the people of this district had a very special interest in it, as it was one of the things that would make the town of Mauchline and the district around it much more interesting. He was glad to hear that their friends had in contemplation the widening of their scheme, and he was sure that the people of the district would be very glad to do what they could to assist them in any way towards that end. He was sure they were all pleased that the rooms in the house apart from the Burns room were to be devoted to a useful purpose. It seemed to him that that was in keeping with the spirit of the Poet in taking Jean Armour to that house

“To mak' a happy fireside clime

For weans and wife;

That's the true pathos and sublime

Of human life."

He asked them to accord a very hearty vote of thanks to Mr M'Coll.

Mr M'Coll replied, and moved a similar compliment to the Rev. Joseph Mitchell for his scholarly and eloquent address and for his kindness in arranging for the use of the hall, after which the proceedings inside terminated with the singing of the National Anthem,

Mrs Cowie thereafter opened the door of the Burns House with the silver key, and several photographs were taken. The visitors afterwards had an opportunity of inspecting the Burns room, the museum, and the other parts of the building. The bed so much referred to in the speeches was very tastefully draped and arranged, the bed-clothes being the gift of Mrs M. M'Minn and Miss Hay, Mauchline. Later on, different parties partook of high tea in hotels and other places (the Committee being in Poosie Nancie's), but there were no further formal proceedings, and no toasts were proposed except that of “The King." The whole day's proceedings passed off in a successful and satisfactory manner.

The two Burns rooms will be open in future every day at an admission price of 2d; catalogue 1d.

A considerable sum has already been subscribed towards the maintenance of the house and the endowment of the beneficiaries. Owing to the war no formal appeal is being made, but subscriptions will be gladly received by the Treasurer, Mr William Reid, F.S.A.A., 157 West George Street, Glasgow.