LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS. The following, among others, have promised contributions to the CHRONICLE: ALEXANDER ANDERSON ("Surfaceman.") JOHN P. ANDERSON, British Museum. THOMAS BAYNE ("Dictionary of National Biography.") DR. WM. FINDLAY, President, Kilmarnock Burns Club. J. C. HADDEN ("Dictionary of National Biography.") JOHN INGRAM, Mitchell Library, Glasgow. JOHN H. INGRAM, Editor, "Lochart's Life of Burns,” etc. WM. MARTIN, ex-Editor, "Quiz." D. MACNAUGHT, Kilmarnock Burns Club. REV. DAVID MACRAE, Author of "Robert Burns," etc. J. B. MORRISON, Greenock Burns Club. J. B. REID, M.A., Author of "Burns Concordance." J. L. ROBERTSON, M.A., Editor, "Select Poems of Burns. ANDREW JAMES SYMINGTON, F.R.N.S.A. A. B. TODD, Author of "Poems, Lectures, etc., etc." EDITORIAL PREFACE. IN issuing the first number of THE ANNUAL BURNS CHRONICLE AND CLUB DIRECTORY, the Editor takes the opportunity of addressing a few words to the reader. As stated in the circular, the CHRONICLE was instituted on the 4th of September, 1891, so that we had hardly three months to prepare the Directory. This explanation, it is hoped, will account for the incompleteness of that part of the volume, as the Clubs located in the Colonies had not time to send in the necessary information; and some of the home Clubs have been most unaccountably reticent in the matter. Most of the Clubs, however, returned the forms properly filled up, accompanied, in many cases, by letters commending the proposal, and handsomely subscribing for the CHRONICLE. To the Secretaries of these Clubs, and numerous individual admirers of the poet, the Editor tenders his best thanks, and trusts that, with a year to prepare the second number, and more available space for the valuable contributions promised, and an extension of the Directory, the CHRONICLE Will meet with a corresponding increase of patronage and substantial support from all Burns Clubs and Scottish Societies. Regarding next year's issue: besides narrating the Burnsiana events of the year, and bringing the Directory up to date, the CHRONICLE Will contain important articles on Burns Clubs, Portraits, Monuments, Bibliography, Notes on the Poet's Family, and many other interesting contributions from Burnessian scholars of prominence and recognized ability. A list of contributors is given elsewhere. While the Editor is determined to spare neither labour nor expense in producing a respectable volume, it must not be forgotten, that unless the Clubs not only support us financially, but facilitate the work by filling up the forms correctly, and returning them in good time for publication, we cannot reasonably be expected to produce a perfect work. The Editor would like to be informed regarding the practical work done by the various Societies. Under the heading, "Sociographical Notes," he intends publishing a series of articles on notable Clubs. Secretaries are invited to furnish him with full particulars respecting the origin, history, and, above all, the nature of the work done by, and the local influence of, their Clubs. He would also take it as a favour to have sent him newspapers containing reports of the meetings, and any other information that may be thought worthy of preservation in the pages of the CHRONICLE. The publication of the work having been delayed, we owe our readers an apology and explanation. As the first edition of the CHRONICLE was all subscribed for before going to press, arrangements were made to increase the number of copies; and this encouragement warranted the Editor enlarging the size of the volume, and also introducing a few illustrations. These changes, unfortunately, together with the many unforeseen difficulties incidental to a first issue, retarded the progress of the work, which is now sent out with many imperfections, which the indulgent reader will perhaps look over. The future numbers of the CHRONICLE Will he issued early in January, without fail. 2 KING STREET, KILMARNOCK, 25th January, 1892. JOHN MUIR. Owing to pressure of space, Reviews of New Publications had to be omitted. BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE LIFE OF BURNS. HE fascinating life-story (more romantic almost than romance itself) of Robert Burns, the Scottish Poet, is already so widely known and familiar to the reading world, that it would seem an impertinence to obtrude it in any serious biographical shape into the forefront of this CHRONICLE, whose chief business, and we might say, justification, is to present in historical sequence the main facts and incidents in the posthumous history of Burns, which, of course, only properly begins after the Poet's death. Nevertheless, in order to give a certain amount of continuity and completeness to this historical narrative, it might, perhaps, be well to precede it with a very brief summary of the more conspicious events in the Poet's life, from his birth at Alloway down to his death at Dumfries, where the record naturally merges into the narrative of Burns-worship, the subject-matter proper of this CHRONICLE. One hundred and thirty-three years ago, then, this very month, on January 25th, 1759, Robert Burns, Scotland's dearly beloved, National Poet, first beheld the light of day at Alloway, parish of Ayr, in a clay-built cottage which had been erected by the hands of his own father, William Burnes, a native of Kincardineshire, who was at this period following the occupation of a gardener and farm over-seer in the neighbourhood of Alloway. His mother, Agnes Brown, was, like her husband, a child of the "mailen," being the daughter of a farmer in Carrick, Ayrshire; and the Poet was their first born. When Burns was six years of age, he was sent to a school at Alloway Mill where he had the good luck to be under a young teacher, Mr. John Murdoch, a gentleman of uncommon merit. C This was a year before his father, wishing to try his fortune on a small farm, removed to Mount Oliphant, some two miles distant from Alloway. His children, however, continued to attend Mr. Murdoch's school for other two years, until indeed that gentleman left Alloway; then the father took his place, instructing them at his own fireside by candle light after his day's labour in such abstruse subjects as Arithmetic, Geography, Astronomy, and Natural History; besides building up their youthful characters by selected reading and conversation on religious and other high moral topics. His mother, who was a sweet singer, contributed her share towards her son's education from her excellent store of song and ballad; as did also an old woman, Betty Davidson, living in the family, from her well-filled wallet of tales, songs, ghost-stories, and legendary lore. During the latter part, at least, of this most interesting period of domestic night-schooling at Mount Oliphant, Burns may be said to have been doing the larger half of a man's work on the farm. When he was thirteen, his father ever anxious about the progress of his children's education, sent his sons, Robert and Gilbert, week about, during the summer quarter, to the parish school of Dalrymple, two or three miles distant, to improve their penmanship. About this time, too, their old teacher and friend, Mr. Murdoch, was appointed English Master in Ayr; and Burns boarded with him for three weeks to revise his studies in that tongue. Mr. Murdoch, who was a frequent guest at the Mount Oliphant fireside, already noted for its high and serious talk, "Such as grave livers do in Scotland use." also lent the family books, and introduced them to several new names in literature, both in poetry and prose. It was in his fifteenth year that love and poetry, in a twin-birth, dawned on the young bard, and he wrote his first song on his partner in the harvest field, Nelly Kilpatrick, the blacksmith's daughter, O, once I loved a bonnie lass. In his seventeenth year he went to Kirkoswald, a little place on the smuggling coast of Ayrshire, for the purpose of learning mensuration, surveying, etc. Here he was making good progress with these subjects, and likewise seeing a good deal of another subject, even more congenial to his tastes, viz., glimpses into life and character of the rough and free and easy sort, when the charms of a certain Peggy Thomson, "overset his trigonometry and set him off at a tangent from the |