that he took up his abode at Ellisland.

He was here placed in a very lonesome and uncomfortable condition. The houses on the farm had fallen into ruin, and required to be instantly rebuilt, and he was thus forced to reside in a wretched erection, to which he was unable to bring his wife, and in which he was annoyed with cold and smoke, and the cares consequent on the new circumstances in which he was placed. He states, in his letters at the time, and particularly in a poetical epistle which he sent to his Masonic friend, Mr Hugh Parker, of Kilmarnock, that he was very unhappy, and that he had not the pleasure of looking on a single "kenn'd face," except that of his old mare "Jenny Geddes," and he describes her as being also in a very melancholy state

"Dowie she saunters down Nithside,

And aye a westlin' look she throws,
While tears hap o'er her auld brown nose."

Amid all his griefs and cares, he found some consolation in anticipating the pleasures which he would enjoy at meeting with his Masonic brethren, at Tarbolton, on Summer St. John's Day.

"Tarbolton, twenty-fourth o' June,

Ye'll find me in a better tune."

Burns, after his settlement at Ellisland, and particularly after his appointment to an office in connection with the Excise, the duties of which often led him from home, no doubt, found occasional opportunities to attend some of the Mason Lodges in that part of the country. We know that he was present at the annual meeting of the Lodge St. Andrew, Dumfries, on the 27th December, 1788. The minute of that meeting states, that "the brethren having celebrated the anniversary of St. John, in the usual manner, and brother Robert Burns, in Alliesland, of St. David's Strabolton Lodge, No. 178, being present, the Lodge unanimously assumed him a member of the Lodge, being a Master Mason, and he subscribed the regulations as a member." This minute is signed by Simon Mackenzie ;

but the writer of it had evidently an imperfect knowledge of the antecedents of Burns as a Masón. He certainly was initiated in the Lodge St. David, but the number of this Lodge is 174. He had, as I have already stated, along with a number of the members, broken off from that Lodge, and formed the Lodge St. James, the number of which was 178, and to this Lodge he properly belonged at the time of his affiliation into the Lodge St. Andrew, Dumfries. It is not unlikely that he stated on this occasion that he was made in the Lodge St. David, and this, of course, might lead to the mistake of the Dumfries secretary.

Burns left Ellisland in the end of 1791, and took up his residence in Dumfries. No record exists, so far as I am aware, of his Masonic career during the last five years of his life, which were spent in that town. From his preeminently social character, and his warm attachment to Masonry, we may rationally infer that he was no unfrequent visitor in the Lodges of the " Queen of the South." At that period, Dumfries did not contain more than 8000 inhabitants, and yet it had no fewer than five Mason Lodges, viz., Dumfries Kilwinning, No. 53; Thistle, No. 62; St. Michael, No. 63; Operative, No. 140; and St. Andrew, No. 179. It is obvious that Masonry, in Dumfries, at that time, was cultivated to no inconsiderable extent, and that a large portion of the adult male inhabitants was enrolled in its ranks. Surrounded, as Burns was, by so many Masonic brethren, and appreciated and welcomed as he must have been, he could hardly avoid being drawn to the Dumfries Lodges, to assist in the work of initiation, or to participate in the festive cheer that at times would prevail.

Besides the Masonic incidents in the life of Burns to which I have already referred, there are many passages in his works which were evidently inspired by his acquaintance with Masonry. I do not think that any man, except a Mason, would have written the song :-" A man's a man for a' that," which breathes the spirit of Freemasonry in every line. After depreciating the mere tinsel trappings

of worldly rank, and exalting the sense and worth of the poor but honest man, he winds up this noble lyric with an anticipation of a coming time, when

In his first epistle to Lapraik, dated 1st April, 1785, we find the following truly Masonic lines, viz. :

"But ye whom social pleasure charms,

Whose hearts the tide of kindness warms;

Who hold your being on the terms-
'Each aid the others':

Come to my bowl, come to my arms,
My friends, my brothers!"

I may mention that the above stanza was engraved, many year ago, by a Freemason, still well known in Edinburgh, Mr Hector Gavin, on the silver rim of the punch bowl, of Inverary marble, which Burns received from his father-inlaw, Mr Armour, as a nuptial gift. At the time at which the stanza was engraved, the bowl was in possession of one of Burns's Edinburgh acquaintance, viz., Mr Alexander Cunningham, jeweller, who received it from Gilbert, the Poet's brother. After the death of Mr Cunningham, the bowl passed through various hands, and, at length, became the property of the late Mr Alexander Hastie, M.P. for Paisley, who bequeathed it to the British Museum, where it is, no doubt, in a great measure, lost among the endless multiplicity of objects with which that great repository is stored. It would have been more appropriately placed, and certainly would have attracted more attention, had it been deposited in the monument on the banks of the Doon, which is annually visited by thousands of the admirers of the Poet.

In the conclusion of his dedication to his patron and brother Mason, Gavin Hamilton, he gives expression to some noble Masonic sentiments. He declares his determination to remain stedfast in his friendship, whatever

calamities may befall his patron, and however much he might be reduced in circumstances

"If, in the vale of humble life,

The victim sad of Fortune's strife,

I, thro' the tender gushing tear,
Should recognise my master dear :

If friendless, low, we meet together,

Then, sir, your hand,-my friend and brother."

:

Burns having some acquaintance with mathematics, was no doubt led, in his study of Masonry, to pay special attention to the mathematical emblem in the Master's degree, generally known as the famous proposition of Pythagoras, and forming the 47th of the first book of Euclid, viz. "In any right-angled triangle, the square which is described upon the side substending the right angle, is equal to the squares described on the sides which contain the right angle." The truths contained in this theorem, we would naturally suppose, were very unlikely to furnish apt matter for an illustration in a poetical composition, and yet Burns introduces them with happy effect, in his poem, entitled "Caledonia." After referring to the successful contendings of Caledonia with the Romans, the Saxons, the Danes, and the English, he winds up with this patriotic stanza :—

"Thus bold, independent, unconquer'd, and free,

Her bright course of glory for ever shall run;
For brave Caledonia immortal must be-

I'll prove it from Euclid as clear as the sun :

Rectangle-triangle, the figure we'll choose,

The upright is Chance, and Old Time is the base;

But brave Caledonia's the hypotenuse;

Then, ergo, she'll match them, and match them always."

A notion, engendered in the times of ignorance and superstition, long prevailed that Masons were in the habit, at their meetings, of raising up his Satanic Majesty, in order to prove the fortitude of aspirants to the light and privileges of the Masonic Order. Burns, therefore, in his "Address to the Deil," when narrating the various terrific and mis

chievous manifestations of that dread personage, is naturally led to contemplate the prevalent idea of his appearing in bodily shape among the Masonic brethren, and there playing off some of his most frightful and malicious cantrips; and consequently, with affected seriousness, he penned the following amusing stanza, viz. :

"When Masons' mystic word and grip,
In storms and tempests raise you up,
Some cock or cat, your rage maun stop,
Or, strange to tell!

The youngest brother ye wad whip
Aff straught to hell

One of Burns's acquaintance, at Kilmarnock, was Mr Thomas Samson, nursery and seedsman, a keen Freemason, curler, and sportsman. Burns states that Samson, on going out one season to enjoy the sport of fowling, entertained the idea that it would be "the last of his fields," and expressed a wish that he would die and be buried in the muirs. The Poet, therefore, on this hint, composed his elegy; and, at the very commencement, refers, of course, by anticipation, to the heavy loss which the brethren of the Kilmarnock Lodge had sustained by the death of this very worthy member, and the grief which so sad an event would occasion :

“Tam Samson's Elegy," seems to have been composed in 1786; but Samson did not die till 1795, that is, nine years afterwards, so that it is likely he paid not a few visits to the Lodge after the time that Burns had contemplated the idea of his leaving the Masonic brethren and joining the general assembly of the glorified spirits in the celestial mansions. A plain slab, at the west end of the church of