This event induced Burns and his brother Gilbert to take a lease of the farm of Mossgiel, in the parish of Mauchline, from Mr Gavin Hamilton; and accordingly they took possession of this place in the month of March following. By this means, the residence of the Poet was removed several miles from Tarbolton; but this did not slacken his zeal in the cause of Masonry, or prevent his attendance at the meetings of the Lodge. He was elected DeputyMaster in July, 1784, and held this office for several years. In this capacity, he frequently appended his name to the minutes. For instance, in 1785, his signature appears at the minutes on the 29th June, the 20th July, the 2nd and 18th August, the 15th September, the 26th October, the 10th November, and the 1st and 7th December, thus shewing that he attended nine meetings in the course of half a year. He was present, and most likely officiated, on the first of March, 1786, when his brother Gilbert was entered, past, and raised.

It was about this time that he got into difficulties, arising from his imprudent connection with Jean Armour -an era in his history well known to all the readers of his works. Her father refused to sanction the clandestine marriage which they had contracted, and had uncoupled, as the Bard himself expresses it, the merciless pack of the law at his heels. The farming speculation into which he had entered after his father's death, along with his brother Gilbert, had, besides, from bad harvests, and perhaps from bad management, proved unprofitable, and he had incurred the warm resentment of the Old Light, or Evangelical, party in his neighbourhood, by the severe castigations which he had given several of their leaders on their peculiarities and improprieties. He was forced, as he tells us, to skulk from place to place to avoid being thrown into a jail; and it may easily be conceived that his condition was most wretched; and, indeed, several poems, composed at this time, such as "The Lament," the odes to "Despondency and " Ruin," furnish the

most conclusive evidence that this was the case. His

attendance at the Lodge during the summer was therefore very irregular. He was present, however, at meetings on the 7th and 15th of June. A somewhat curious proposition was laid before the Lodge on the latter occasion, which is thus stated in the minutes :-"It was proposed by the Lodge, that, as they much wanted a lodge-room, a proposal be laid before the heritors, who are intending to build a steeple here, that the Lodge will contribute to the building of a lodge-room, as the basis of that steeple; and that, from the funds of the Lodge, they offer fifteen pounds, besides what will be advanced from the particular friends of the Lodge. In order that this proposal be properly laid before the heritors, five persons, namely, the Right Worshipful Master, Brother M'Math, Brother Burns, Brother Wodrow, and Brother William Andrew, are appointed to meet on Saturday, at one o'clock, to draw up a proposal to lay before the heritors on Friday first." If the proposed steeple was to form part of the parish church, the idea of converting the base of it into a Mason's Lodge was certainly somewhat singular. The Lodge St. James, Tarbolton, was, at that time, held in a back apartment of a small inn called the Cross Keys, kept by a person of the name of Manson. It was a small, inconvenient, and stifling tenement, quite unsuited for the purposes of a Mason's Lodge. It is not surprising, then, that the brethren should wish to leave it, and to procure a room possessing more comfort and convenience, and removed altogether from a public house, in which the country brethren have always been averse to assemble, and hence it is that, for the most part, they have built halls for their own accommodation. But certainly it was a rare design to join the Lodge so closely to the church, as, I presume, in this case it was intended to be, though there was nothing incongruous in it, provided the Lodge was properly conducted. A Mason's Lodge, whatever may be said to the contrary, is fitted to be a valuable auxiliary to the Church; and it is only when the Lodge has degenerated into a mere convivial assembly, that its inconsistency with the Church

is, in any respects, well founded.

Whether the steeple

was not built, or whether the application of the brethren of the Lodge was unsuccessful, I have not been able to ascertain; but, at all events, it does not appear that the Lodge ever assembled in such a place.

It is not apparent that Burns, during the four or five years that he attended the Lodge St. James, Tarbolton, was ever raised to the dignified office of R.W. Master. It cannot be doubted that from his wit, his intelligence, his zeal, and his capability of expressing his ideas with elegance and propriety, he would have made an admirable Master of a Lodge. We are far from supposing that his brethren failed to appreciate his merits; but the likelihood is that some one of the local gentry was preferred as the ostensible head of the Lodge, while its principal duties were performed by Burns, or some other office-bearer. It is evident from the minutes that he frequently presided at the meetings of the brethren, and he himself says that he

The following anecdote is told of his occupation of the Master's chair:-"A gentleman, an acquaintance of Dr John Mackenzie, of Mauchline, was very anxious to be introduced to Burns. One day these two gentlemen, taking a walk along the road, chanced to meet with the Poet, who, in the course of conversation, stated that he intended to be in the Lodge that same evening. Mackenzie and his friend resolved to be present also-so they set out, but did not arrive till after the Lodge had been opened. After sitting for some time, the stranger whispered in the doctor's ear:-'What has become of Burns? ?' 'Become of him,' said Mackenzie; don't you see him in the chair?' 'No,' said his friend; 'that is certainly not the man we saw in the forenoon.' It was the Poet, nevertheless, under new circumstances." We have also the testimony of Professor Dugald Stewart in favour of the excellent manner in which he discharged the duties of the chair.

6

The professor says, "In the course of the same season (1787), I was led by curiosity to attend for an hour or two a Mason Lodge in Mauchline, where Burns presided. He had occasion to make some short unpremeditated compliments to different individuals, from whom he had no reason to expect a visit, and everything he said was happily conceived, and forcibly as well as fluently expressed." The professor says that his visit was to a Lodge in Mauchline; but this, perhaps, should rather be Tarbolton, as it does not appear that the present lodge St. Mungo, Mauchline, No. 179, was formed; at least it was not recognised by the Grand Lodge till 1791-that is, four years after the above event is said to have taken place.

Burns seems early to have qualified himself to discharge the duties incumbent on a Mason. Not only was he able to preside over the brethren, and in this capacity call forth the approbation of such qualified and fastidious critics as Dugald Stewart, but he took the chief part in the initiation of candidates, and the instruction of the brethren in the principles of Masonry. For this purpose, he was not content with the meetings of the brethren in the Lodge room of Tarbolton, but he held meetings for Masonic instruction at Mossgiel; and there many of the more zealous and enlightened brethren repaired to hold converse with the Bard on the sublime mysteries and noble virtues of our ancient Order. The first person that Burns initiated as a Mason was Matthew Hall, a musician, who was wont to accompany James M'Lauchlan, "thairm inspiring sage," in his excursions over the county of Ayr, to play at gentlemen's houses, and who was lately living, in extreme old age, at Newton-on-Ayr. This person was no doubt proud, in after times, to state that he was the brother on whom Robert Burns first tried his "prentice han' as an instructor in the art and mystery of Freemasonry.

The annual meeting and procession of the St. James's Lodge, Tarbolton, took place on the 24th of June, the anniversary of St. John the Baptist.

desire to get a full attendance of the

Burns felt a strong

members on these

occasions, and he was in the habit of making personal exertions to draw out the brethren. We have an instance of this in the rhyming epistle which he sent to his friend. Dr Mackenzie, of Mauchline. It is as follows:

'Friday first's the day appointed
By the Right Worshipful anointed,
To hold our grand procession;
To get a blad o' Johnie's morals,
And taste a swatch o' Manson's barrels,
I' the way of our profession.
The Master and the brotherhood
Would a' be glad to see you;

For me, I would be mair than prood
To share the mercies wi' you.

If death, then, wi' skaith, then,
Some mortal heart is hechtin';
Inform him, and storm him,

That Saturday you'll fecht him.
ROBERT BURNS.
Mossgiel, An. M. 5790."

It is to a circumstance that took place in the St. James's Lodge, Tarbolton, that we are indebted for the excellent and most amusing poem called "Death and Dr Hornbook." One of the members, who attended a meeting of the Lodge in the spring of 1785, was Mr John Wilson, schoolmaster of the parish, a worthy but somewhat vain-glorious individual. In order to eke out the scanty income which he derived from his office of schoolmaster, he had opened a grocery shop in the village, and among other commodities which he sold were a few of the commonest kinds of medicine. Having perused Buchan's Domestic Medicine, and other books of the same sort, he fancied that he had acquired no inconsiderable amount of medical knowledge. This fanned his self-conceit, and induced him to set forth in an advertisement, that "advice would be given in common disorders, at the shop, gratis." On the occasion referred to, and after the Lodge had been closed, Burns and Wilson had a dispute on some subject or another, in the course of which the "sovereign knight of the ferula" made a rather ostentatious display of his medical attainments.