vivors, the loved ones its touch has taken !-then his soul, swelling with the passion that throbs in the strains of "To Mary in Heaven," would not own to itself that its love had ever been less.

Mary remained at Campbeltown during the summer of 1786. Coming to Greenock in the autumn, she found her brother sick of a malignant fever at the house of her aunt; bravely disregarding danger of contagion, she devoted herself to nursing him, and brought him to a safe convalescence only to be herself stricken by his malady and to rapidly sink and die, a sacrifice to her sisterly affection.

By this time the success of his poems had determined Burns to remain in Scotland, and he returned to Mossgiel, where tidings of Mary's death reached him. His brother relates that, when the letter was handed to him, he went to the window to read it, then his face was observed to change suddenly, and he quickly went out without speaking. In June of the next year he made a solitary journey to the Highlands, apparently drawn by memory of Mary. If, indeed, he dropped a tear upon her neglected grave, and visited her humble Highland home, we may almost forgive him the excesses of that tour-if not the renewed liaison with Jean which immediately preceded, and the amorous correspondence with "Clarinda" (Mrs. M'Lehose) which followed it.

Whatever the quality or degree of his passion for Mary living, his grief for her dead was deep and tender, and expired only with his life. Cherished in his heart, it manifested itself now in some passage of a letter-like that to Mrs. Dunlop-now in some pathetic burst of song-like "The Lament" and "Highland Mary”—and again in some emotional act. Of many such acts, narrated to the writer

by Burns's niece, the following is, perhaps, most striking : The poet attended the wedding of Kirstie Kirkpatrick, a favourite of his, who often sang his songs for him, and, after the wedded pair had retired, a lass of the companybeing asked to sing-began "Highland Mary." Its effect upon Burns " was painful to witness, he started to his feet, prayed her in God's name to forbear, then hastened to the door of the marriage chamber and entreated the bride to come and quiet his mind with a verse or two of 'Bonnie Doon.'"

But the lines of "To Mary in Heaven" aad the pathetic incidents of their composition show most touchingly how he mourned his "fair-haired lassie" years after she ceased to be. It was at Ellisland, October 20, 1789, the anniversary of Mary's death, an occasion which brought afresh to his heart memories of the tender past: Jean has told us of his increasing silence and unrest as the day declined, of his aimless wandering by Nithside at nightfall, of his rapt abstraction as he lay pillowed by the sheaves of his stack-yard, gazing entranced at the "lingering star" above him till the immortal song was born.

Poor Mary is laid in the burial plot of her uncle in the west kirkyard of Greenock, near Crawford Street; our pilgrimage in Burns-land may fitly end at her grave. A pathway, beaten by feet of many reverend visitors, leads us to the spot.

It is so pathetically different from the scenes she loved in life—the heather-clad slopes of her Highland home, the seclusion of the wooded braes where she loitered with her poet-lover. Scant foliage is about her; few birds may sing above her here. She lies by the wall, narrow streets hem in the enclosure, the air is sullied by smoke from factories

and from steamers passing within a stone's-throw on the busy Clyde, the clanging of many hammers and the discordant din of machinery and traffic invade the place and sound in our ears as we muse above the ashes of the gentle lassie.

For half a century her grave was unmarked and neglected, then, by subscription, a monument of marble, twelve feet in height, and of graceful proportions, was raised. It bears a sculptural medallion representing Burns and Mary, with clasped hands, plighting their troth. Beneath is the simple inscription, read oft by eyes dim with tears:

66

ERECTED OVER THE GRAVE OF

HIGHLAND MARY

1842.

My Mary, dear departed shade,
Where is thy place of blissful rest?"

REMINISCENCE OF "HIGHLAND MARY."

THE SCENE OF HER DEATH.

FROM "THE GLASGOW HERALD," JANUARY 30TH, 1877.

VERY little appears to be known of the circumstances connected with the death of Burns's Highland Mary, or of the house in Greenock in which she died. This is accounted for by the fact of Mary Campbell's humble position in life, by that of her relatives, and by the circumstance that the passionate attachment which existed between her and the poet was known only at the time to a few of her immediate relatives. Of course, there is no one living now in Greenock who was contemporary with her uncle or his wife, and the monument erected over her grave in the old West Kirkyard is silent as to the locality of her death. From careful inquiries, however, we are satisfied that the dwelling of her uncle, James Macpherson, was situated at the head of Minch Collop Close, now one of the narrowest and most disreputable parts of Greenock; but being in the immediate neighbourhood of the house in which James Watt, the improver of the steam engine, was born, the locality, at the time of Mary's death, must have been moderately respectable. The dwelling is reached by a dilapidated outside stair, and consists of two small apartments. In connection with Highland Mary's death, the following extract is taken from a letter said to have been written many years ago to a friend by an old shipwright who resided in Greenock. The

letter takes the form of an anecdote told him by another shipwright, named John Blair, who was a boon companion of James Macpherson, the uncle of Mary. The writer states that Blair, one evening in the month of August, 1786, was taking a walk up the road leading from Greenock to Kilmalcolm, and on reaching the top of Knock-an-air Hill met Highland Mary. The meeting and subsequent circumstances attending her death are thus described;

While I was lookin' at the country, the river, and Greenock down to the water's edge, and hearkenin' to the whirr o' the moor fowl as they settled in a black flock on the farmer's stooks, I sees a braw buxom lass comin' down the Kilmalcolm-road. She was a weelfaur'd dame, wi' cheeks like roses. She had on a tartan shawl, an' was carrying some things wi' her. I offered to help her to carry them, which she gladly assented to, for she was tired wi' a lang journey. She had come frae Ayrshire, and had got a drive to Kilmalcolm, and was gaun first to Jamie Macpherson, the shipwright's, wha's wife was her cousin, and syne to Argyle, where her folk belang'd. I kent Jamie as weel's I ken you, Davie; we were gude cronies and gude neebours. Twa or three days after this I chanced to foregather wi' Jamie. “Man, John,” says he to me, “ye're aye speaking about books an' poetry; ye'll come doun by the nicht an' I'll let you see some richt poems." I gaed doun by accordingly, an' got a sicht o' the book he spak o'. It was a volume of poems by Robert Burns, printed at Kilmarnock. "It was Mary Campbell, Jean's cousin," Jamie explained, "wha brought the book wi' her frae Ayr; it's jist new out, you see. She's awa to Argyle to see her friends, an' she's comin' back in a week or twa to be married. you think till?" I said I couldna guess.

And wha do

"Weel, it's jist