ful whether she had ever for one moment considered him as actually her husband, until he declared the marriage of 1788. Burns did no more than justice as well as honour demanded; but the act was one which no human tribunal could have compelled him to perform.

To return to our story. Burns complains sadly of his solitary condition, when living in the only hovel that he found extant on his farm. "I am,' says he (September 9th) "busy with my harvest, but for all that most pleasurable part of life called social intercourse, I am here at the very elbow of existence. The only things that are to be found in this country in any degree of perfection, are stupidity, and canting. Prose they only know in graces, &c., and the value of these they estimate as they do their plaiding webs, by the 'ell. As for the muses, they have as much idea of a rhinoceros as of a poet." And in another letter (September 16) says, "This hovel that I shelter in while occasionally here, is pervious to every blast that blows, and every shower that falls, and I am only preserved from being chilled to death by being suffocated by smoke. You will be pleased to hear that I have laid aside idle eclat, and bind every day after my reapers."t

he

His house, however, did not take much time in building; nor had he reason to complain of want of society long; nor, it must be added, did Burns bind every day after his reapers.

He brought his wife home to Elliesland about the end of November; and few housekeepers start with a larger provision of young mouths to feed than this couple. Mrs Burns had lain in this autumn, for the second time, of twins, and I suppose + Ib. p. 79.

Reliques, p. 75.

"sonsy, smirking, dear-bought Bess,"* accompanied her younger brothers and sisters from Mossgiel, From that quarter also Burns brought a whole establishment of servants, male and female, who, of course, as was then the universal custom amongst the small farmers, both of the west and of the south of Scotland, partook, at the same table, of the same fare with their master and mistress.

Elliesland is beautifully situated on the banks of the Nith, about six miles above Dumfries, exactly opposite to the house of Dalswinton, of those noble woods and gardens amidst which Burns's landlord, the ingenious Mr Patrick Miller, found relaxation from the scientific studies and researches in which he so greatly excelled. On the Dalswinton side, the river washes lawns and groves; but over against these the bank rises into a long red scaur, of considerable height, along the verge of which, where the bare shingle of the precipice all but overhangs the stream, Burns had his favourite walk, and might now be seen striding alone, early and late, especially when the winds were loud, and the waters below him swollen and turbulent. For he was one of those that enjoy nature most in the more serious and severe of her aspects; and throughout his poetry, for one allusion to the liveliness of spring, or the splendour of summer, it would be easy to point out twenty in which he records the solemn delight with which he contemplated the melancholy grandeur of autumn, or the savage gloom of winter. Indeed, I cannot but think that the result of an exact inquiry into the composition of Burns's poems, would be, that “his vein,” like that of Milton, " flowed most happily, from the autumnal equinox to the vernal."

• Poetical Inventory to Mr Aiken, February, 1786.

Of Lord Byron, we know that his vein flowed best at midnight; and Burns has himself told us that it was his custom "to take a gloamin' shot at the muses."

The poet was accustomed to say, that the most happy period of his life was the first winter he spent at Elliesland, for the first time under a roof of his own with his wife and children about him -and in spite of occasional lapses into the melancholy which had haunted his youth, looking forward to a life of well-regulated, and not ill-rewarded, industry. It is known that he welcomed his wife to her rooftree at Elliesland in the song,

"I hae a wife o' mine ain, l'll partake wi' naebody;
I'll tak cuckold frae nane, I'll gie cuckold to naebody;
I hae a penny to spend-there-thanks to naebody;
I hae naething to lend-I'll borrow frae naebody."

In commenting on this "little lively lucky song,' as he well calls it, Mr Allan Cunningham says, "Burns had built his house, he had committed his seed-corn to the ground, he was in the prime, nay the morning of life-health, and strength, and agricultural skill (?) were on his side-his genius had been acknowledged by his country, and rewarded by a subscription, more extensive than any Scottish poet ever received before; no wonder, therefore, that he broke out into voluntary song, expressive of his sense of importance and independence.' Another song was composed in honour of Mrs Burns, during the happy weeks that followed her arrival at Elliesland:

爽

"O, were I on Parnassus hill,

Or had of Helicon my fill,

That I might catch poetic skill,

To sing how dear I love thee

Cunningham's Scottish Songs, vol. iv, p. 86.

But Nith maun be my muse's well,
My muse maun be thy bonny sell,
On Corsincon I'll glower and spell,

And write how dear I love thee."

In the second stanza, the poet rather transgresses the limits of connubial decorum ; but, on the whole, these tributes to domestic affection are among the last of his performances that one would wish to lose.

Burns, in his letters of the year 1789, makes many apologies for doing but little in his poetical vocation; his farm, without doubt, occupied much of his attention, but the want of social intercourse, of which he complained on his first arrival in Nithsdale, had by this time totally disappeared. On the contrary, his company was courted eagerly, not only by his brother-farmers, but by the neighbouring gentry of all classes; and now, too, for the first time, he began to be visited continually in his own house by curious travellers of all sorts, who did not consider, any more than the generous poet himself, that an extensive practice of hospitality must cost more time than he ought to have had, and far more money than he ever had, at his disposal. Meantime, he was not wholly regardless of the muses; for in addition to some pieces which we have already had occasion to notice, he contributed to this year's Museum, The Thames flows proudly to the Sea; The lazy mist hangs, &c.; The day returns, my bosom burns; Tam Glen, (one of the best of his humorous songs;) the splendid lyric, Go fetch to me a pint of wine, and My heart's in the Hielands, (in both of which, however, he adopted some lines of ancient songs to the same tunes;) John Anderson, in part also a rifacciamento; the best of all his Bacchanalian

pieces, Willie brewed a peck o' maut, written in celebration of a festive meeting at the country residence, in Dumfries-shire, of his friend Mr Nicoll of the High-school; and lastly, that noblest of all his ballads, To Mary in Heaven.

This celebrated poem was, it is on all hands admitted, composed by Burns in September, 1789, on the anniversary of the day on which he heard of the death of his early love, Mary Campbell; 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 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 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

I owe these particulars to Mr M'Diarmid, the able editor of the Dumfries Courier, and brother of the lamented author of "Lives of British Statesmen."