a Mary Campbell resident in the vicinity of Irvine within the period covered by the Sessional dates, the family to which she belonged being still represented in the same locality. Dr Wallace has given the Dundonald minutes in extenso in the Appendix to Vol. I. of his Chambers' Burns, but it was scarcely worth while elaborating an argument to refute the "strong presumption" method of enquiry. The minutes contain their own refutation. It is certain that Burns's Mary Campbell resided for some time in the parish of Mauchline, but neither tradition nor village gossip gives the slightest hint of her ever residing in the parish of Stair. The tradition that she was dairymaid at Coilsfield House (its modern successor is Montgomerie Castle)-persistent though it be-rests solely on oral testimony half a century removed from Burns's time, and even though it be received as credible, the fact remains that Coilsfield is not within the boundaries of Stair, and it is not at all likely that the Dundonald Session would err so glaringly in their administration as to refer the case to the wrong parish. There is no mention of such a case in the Mauchline Record. That Mary Campbell, while in Mauchline, was a nursemaid in esse and a dairymaid or byrewoman in posse has always appeared to us as assuming a rather exceptional combination of accomplishments in a servant-woman of her class. Moreover, the case was finally disposed of on 17th December, 1787. Burns's Mary Campbell died in the autumn of 1786; thus the "strong presumption" presumes that she was a litigant in the Church Courts more than a twelvemonth after she was laid in the grave. In a Kirk-Session minute of Mauchline, of date January 20th, 1785, we find that Agnes Cameron, New Street; Mary Vallance, Cumnock; Flora Weir, Woodend; and Janet Caldwell, Maybole; were "late servants to Mr Hamilton;" Helen Herris and Jean Rennie being named as "present servants." The engagements being half-yearly, it is highly probable that Highland Mary succeeded one or other of the last-named, and entered Mr Hamilton's service just at the time when "Farmer Hay's" prosecution in the Justice of Peace Court was approaching the crucial stage. If she were the prosecutrix, she ought to have been in the

parish of Stair on February 26th, 1786, with her two-year-old child, unless, indeed, she had boarded it out on the "four pound sterling yearly" allowance wrung by the strong hand of the law from "Farmer Hay," for its maintenance. All this in the eyes and ears of the gossips of Mauchline, who, mirabile dictu, never once opened their mouths! We need proceed no further with this superlatively preposterous "strong assumption."

never

With regard to the notes which form the Histoires Scandaleuses contained in the manuscripts lying in the Edinburgh University Library-variously styled the Richmond, Grierson, Train, and Laing papers, and the substance of which is likewise given by Dr Wallace in the volume already indicated-but for the covert use made of them by certain prejudiced writers, we would have preferred to have treated them with the contempt they merit. John Richmond, though latterly estranged from Burns, was known, according to local tradition, to say a word in disparagement of the friend of his youth, nor would he tolerate it from others. Grierson we take to be Mr Grierson, of Baitford, jointsecretary of the Dumfries Mausoleum Committee, in 1813, and father of the Burns collector, Dr Grierson, of Thornhill. Train is well known as the correspondent of Sir Walter Scott. How such respectable names. came to be connected with the Mauchline gutter gossip-improbable and unbelievable-concerning Highland Mary and Colonel Montgomerie, of Coilsfield, is inexplicable. The Clarinda story condemns itself as an utter impossibility of date and circumstance. No credence can therefore attach to the remaining tales for all originated from the same source-unless we are prepared to believe that Gavin Hamilton knowingly harboured a woman whose character was the talk of both town and country. If Mrs Begg is to be honoured with the Tarbolton degree of "B. B. " because she honestly told the conscientious and sympathetic Robert Chambers all she knew, it must be prefixed with a strong adjective to do full justice to the Mauchline Jamie Humphreys who whispered such rubbish in the ear of Grierson, Train, or anybody else.

The questions so triumphantly put by "Hand H" at the

end of their article can now be answered. There is no nameless

Highland lassie." Mary Campbell and the Highland Mary of the lyrics are one and the same person; the supposition that there were two Mary Campbells, joint inspirers of the lyrics, is untenable; to say there was never "no sich a person" is farcical. We select no year; we reject no tradition; we leave the Bibles at Alloway as they are; we simply refuse to allow documentary evidence to be led till the documents themselves are produced. We are content to take the Highland Mary portrait as it is limned to us on the accredited record; to accept the "dead sweetheart" of Burns as he presents her to us; and, having done so, to advise all whom it may concern, as "H and H" advise under the same conditions "that there is nothing, or almost nothing, to comment upon." Subsequent events recoil upon Cromek, not upon Burns. Mary Campbell made no preparations for any 66 projected change of life;" she crossed from Campbeltown to Greenock to enter upon a situation in Glasgow, but death intervened and arrested developments. The record of Burns contains nothing that even remotely savours of meanness or deceit, especially where women are concerned, but rather the opposite. The revised record of his Highland Mary transgressions now shrinks to his justifiable resentment against the parents of Jean Armour for their attempted dissolution by force of his private marriage to their daughter; his giving vent, in hasty and perhaps ill considered words to the "maddening passions" begot of outraged feelings and wounded pride; his writing of “hypochondriacal fustian" to Mrs Dunlop; and some lyrics of perhaps somewhat better texture in honour of the maiden herself. The unsympathetic make no allowance for the supersensitiveness and emotional exaggeration of the poetic temperament. Burns cannot be measured with the ordinary tape nor weighed in the ordinary balance. If the "jugglings of the male human heart" are unaccountable in ordinary beings, how much more inexplicable must they be in such an extraordinary man as Robert Burns! That he turned to a former love in the hour of his distress and disappointment was only natural; she was near him, had no reproach for him, and

mayhap pitied him. What the "long tract of the most ardent reciprocal attachment" may mean, we know not. That it began in the March and ended in the May of 1786 is improbable. Mrs Begg testifies that he knew her before she entered Mr Hamilton's service. It is vain to speculate on what might have happened had Mary Campbell lived, and his rupture with the Armour family remained unhealed, as R. L. Stevenson vainly attempts. He was at the time in reality a married man but not conscious of the fact. He had undergone church discipline in the usual way, and had received from the parish minister (also ignorant of the fact), a certificate of bachelorhood. In the end he was reproved for his "irregular marriage" (vide Mauchline Session Record) and taken bound to adhere to his lawfully wedded wife, Jean Armour. Such a chapter of compromising incidents sufficiently accounts for his desire to shroud in mystery the impulsive outcome of the "maddening passions" roused into action in 1786 by the apparent perfidy of Jean. If wrong were done either woman, it was unintentional. Mary Campbell died without explanation or expression of contrition on his part, and this mayhap weighed heavily upon the Poet's soul. The grave of buried love is ever sacred, and if to that sanctity is superadded a sense of wrong or unkindness done to the dead one, our sorrow and repentance are all the more poignant because so unavailing The mother's darling, too early called to rest, lives for ever in undying youth amongst the cherubim; the lost Lenore dwells for aye in the "distant Aiden "-white-robed, radiant, seraphic in beauty which never fades. Surely Burns commits no sin when he tells us this in the melodious numbers of which he was such a master. The finer emotions have their seat in virtue, not in vice; and the scenes which are most indelibly photographed on our memories are those which are bathed in the rays of purity and innocence, not lit with the lurid light of sensuality and evil passions.

EDITOR.

CHAIR OF SCOTTISH HISTORY.

MEETING OF SUBSCRIBERS.

A

MEETING of subscribers to, and other gentlemen interested

in, the proposed Chair of Scottish History and Literature in Glasgow University was held in the Library of the City Chambers, Glasgow, on November 10th, 1909. The Hon. A. M'Innes Shaw, Lord Provost, presided, and there were present :— Sir John Ure Primrose, Bart.; Sir William Bilsland, Bart.; Sir Nathaniel Dunlop, Sir Donald MacAlister, Sir Thomas Mason, Dr William Wallace, ex-Treasurer D. M. Stevenson, Messrs A. H. Pettigrew, Thomas M'Arly, C. J. Spencer, George Eyre-Todd, the Rev. James Forrest, J. T. T. Brown, John S. Samuel, Joseph Martin, J. L. Eskdale, A. R. Ormiston, and others.

Mr John S. Samuel acted as clerk to the meeting, and submitted a memorandum narrating the steps that had already been taken to raise the necessary funds for the proposed Chair.

It, inter alia, stated that "in February, 1908, during the Lord Provostship of Sir William Bilsland, Bart., a circular was issued by him, in conjunction with ex-Lord Provost Sir John Ure Primrose, Bart., Principal Sir Donald MacAlister, and Dr William Wallace, to a number of gentlemen likely to be interested in the subject of a Chair of Scottish History and Literature, and inviting subscriptions towards its endowment. In response to that circular a sum of £2031 155 was subscribed and promised. At the request of Sir William Bilsland and the other gentlemen associated with him a committee was established in New York for the purpose of raising funds in the United States of America among sympathisers with the movement there. The chairman of this American committee is Mr Samuel Elliott, who has himself given a substantial contribution, and the honorary secretary is Mr James