This was long before the time when those fields of Scottish romance were to be made accessible to the curiosity of citizens by stage-coaches; and Burns and his friend performed their tour on horseback; the former being mounted on a favourite mare, whom he had named Jenny Geddes, in honour of the zealous virago who threw her stool at the Dean of Edinburgh's head on the 23d of July 1637, when the attempt was made to introduce a Scottish Liturgy into the service of St Giles's; the same trusty animal, whose merits have been recorded by Burns, in a letter, which must have been puzzling to most modern Scotsmen, before the days of Dr Jamieson.* Burns passed from Edinburgh to Berrywell, the residence of Mr Ainslie's family, and visited successively Dunse, Coldstream, Kelso, Fleurs, and the ruins of Roxburgh Castle, where a holly bush still marks the spot on which James II. of Scotland was killed by the bursting of a cannon. Jedburgh where he admired the "charming romantic situation of the town, with gardens and orchards intermingled among the houses of a once magnificent cathedral (abbey);" and was struck, (as in the other towns of the same district,) with the appearance of " old rude grandeur," and the idleness of decay; Melrose," that far-famed glorious ruin," "My auld ga'd gleyde o' a meere has huchyalled up hill and down brae, as teuch and birnie as a vera devil, wi' me. It's true she's as poor's a sangmaker, and as hard's a kirk, and lipper-laipers when she takes the gate, like a lady's gentlewoman in a minuwae, or a hen on a het girdle; but she's a yauld poutherin girran for a' that. When ance her ringbanes and spavies, her cruiks and cramps, are fairly soupled, she beets to, beets to, and aye the hindmost hour the lightest," &c. &c.—Letter to Mr Nicoll, Reliques, P. 28. Selkirk, Ettrick, and the Braes of Yarrow. Having spent three weeks in this district, of which it has been justly said, "that every field has its battle, and every rivulet its song," Burns passed the Border, and visited Alnwick, Warkworth, Morpeth, Newcastle, Hexham, Wardrue, and Carlisle. He then turned northwards, and rode by Annan and Dumfries to Dalswinton, where he examined Mr Millar's property, and was so much pleased with the soil, and the terms on which the landlord was willing to grant him a lease, that he resolved to return again in the course of the sum mer. ; Dr Currie has published some extracts from the journal which Burns kept during this excursion but they are mostly very trivial. He was struck with the superiority of soil, climate, and cultivation, in Berwick and Roxburghshires, as compared with his native county; and not a little surprised, when he dined at a Farmer's Club at Kelso, with the apparent wealth of that order of men.- "All gentlemen, talking of high matters-each of them keeps a hunter from L.30 to L.50 value, and attends the Fox-hunting Club in the county.". The farms in the west of Scotland are, to this day, very small for the most part, and the farmers little distinguished from their labourers in their modes of life: the contrast was doubtless stronger, forty years ago, between them and their brethren of the Lothians and the Merse. The Magistrates of Jedburgh presented Burns with the freedom of their town: he was unprepared for the compliment, and, jealous of obliga tions, stept out of the room, and paid beforehand the landlord's bill for the "riddle of claret," which is usually presented on such occasions in a Scotch burgh.* The poet visited, in the course of his tour, Sir James Hall of Dunglas, author of the well-known Essay on Gothic Architecture, &c.; Sir Alexander and Lady Harriet Don, (sister to his patron, Lord Glencairn,) at Newton-Don; Mr Brydone, the author of Travels in Sicily; the amiable and learned Dr Somerville of Jedburgh, the historian of Queen Anne, &c.: and, as usual, recorded in his journal his impressions as to their manners and characters. His reception was everywhere most flattering. He wrote no verses, as far as is known, during this tour, except a humorous Epistle to his bookseller Creech, dated Selkirk, 13th May. In this he makes complimentary allusions to some of the men of letters who were used to meet at breakfast in Creech's apartments in those days whence the name of Creech's levee; and touches, too briefly, on some of the scenery he had visited. "Up wimpling stately Tweed I've sped, And Ettrick banks now roaring red, While tempests blaw" Burns returned to Mauchline on the 8th of July. It is pleasing to imagine the delight with which he must have been received by his family after the absence of six months, in which his fortunes and prospects had undergone so wonderful a change. He left them comparatively unknown, his tenderest feelings torn and wounded by the behaviour of the Armours, and so miserably poor, that he had Mr R. Chambers's notes. I been for some weeks obliged to skulk from the Sheriff's officers, to avoid the payment of a paltry debt. He returned, his poetical fame established, the whole country ringing with his praises, from a capital in which he was known to have formed the wonder and delight of the polite and the learned; if not rich, yet with more money already than any of his kindred had ever hoped to see him possess, and with prospects of future patronage and permanent elevation in the scale of society which might have dazzled steadier eyes than those of maternal and fraternal affection. The prophet had at last honour in his own country: but the haughty spirit that had preserved its balance in Edinburgh, was not likely to lose it at Mauchline; and we have him writing from the auld clay biggin on the 18th of June, in terms as strongly expressive as any that ever came from his pen, of that jealous pride which formed the groundwork of his character; that dark suspiciousness of fortune, which the subsequent course of his history too well justified; that nervous intolerance of condescension, and consummate scorn of meanness, which attended him through life, and made the study of his species, for which nature had given him such extraordinary qualifications, the source of more pain than was ever counterbalanced by the exquisite capacity for enjoyment with which he was also endowed. There are few of his letters in which more of the dark places of his spirit come to light" I never, my friend, thought mankind capable of anything very generous; but the stateliness of the patricians of Edinburgh, and the servility of my plebeian brethren, (who, perhaps, formerly eyed me askance,) since I returned home, have nearly put me out of conceit altogether with my species. I have bought a pocket-Milton, which I carry perpetually about me, in order to study the sentiments, the dauntless magnanimity, the intrepid unyielding independence, the desperate daring, and noble defiance of hardship, in that great personage-Satan. . . . The many ties of acquaintance and friendship I have, or think I have, in life -I have felt along the lines, and, d―n them, they are almost all of them of such frail texture, that I am sure they would not stand the breath of the least adverse breeze of fortune." Among those who, having formerly ❝ eyed him askance," now appeared sufficiently ready to court his society, were the family of Jean Armour. Burns's affection for this beautiful young woman had outlived his resentment of her compliance with ⚫ her father's commands in the preceding summer; and from the time of this reconciliation, it is probable he always looked forward to a permanent union with the mother of his children. Burns at least fancied himself to be busy with serious plans for his future establishment; and was very naturally disposed to avail himself, as far as he could, of the opportunities of travel and observation, which an interval of leisure, destined probably to be a short one, might present. Moreover, in spite of his gloomy language, a specimen of which has just been quoted, we are not to doubt that he derived much pleasure from witnessing the extensive popularity of his writings, and from the flattering homage he was sure to receive in his own person in the various districts of his native country; nor can any one wonder, that after the state of high excitement in which he had spent the winter and spring, he, fond as he was of his family, and eager to make them partakers in all his good fortune, should have, just at this time, found him N |