relinquish his work at Irvine; neither did he forego the lands of Spittalside. The guidwife managed the farm while he continued the nautical tuition, though spending the close of the week at the old homestead where he was wont to whistle at the plough. His brothers, Robert and John, in trading between Liverpool and Africa, had, by this time, amassed colossal fortunes. They were perhaps more befitted for membership of the Bachelors' Club than either Burns or Sillar, for neither ever entered into the married state. Upon the occurrence of the comparatively early decease of these merchantmen, their last surviving brother-the man who had to endure imprisonment for lack of a five pound note -now found himself enriched beyond his most golden dreams. But alas! wealth came all too late. The happy youthful days passed with rantin,' rovin' Robin were gone for ever, and with them his ambitions had disappeared. The early buoyant disposition lay dead, and the enterprise of manhood was eaten out of him with the approach of the dread season when the sound of the grinders is low. Sorrow, disappointment and age had soured Dainty Davie the most rankling wound being received in the house of his friends. The flowing in of money upon him now, was like pouring oil and wine into an open sore after the sore has become a cancer. Amidst it all he, time and again, declared that, had his brothers, when he made his request, acquiesced in his wish, it would have done him far more good than the many thousands that were his when the sands of his years were sinking. From the reader, if he has a heart at all, this man will receive ready sympathy. When his back was at the wall, to be denied a few pounds by comfortably circumstanced brothers-those who in childhood had occupied the same pillow, and with whom he ran aboot the braes "-was, to a man of his temperament, a lasting and cankering sorrow. Towards the wealthy beneficiary, the world now wore its broadest smile, and many who formerly looked askance essayed the rôle of the genial familiar. David Sillar, however, knew what was what perfectly, and only those who were his friends in the old days of poverty were his associates still. No encouragement was given the sycophant, for when he approached with beaming face and effusive greeting, the hands of the quondam instructor in seamanship, were firmly clasped behind his back. Perhaps his tendency to parsimony was unduly evinced; but, somehow or other, it is invariably the happiest disposition that most readily yields to misfortune's slings and arrows, and the old order is rarely, if ever, restored by the turn of the tide. This sharer in the exploits of the youthful days of Burns was elected a member of the Irvine municipality, and eventually became a magistrate. Various anecdotes are recounted concerning him, but his acts of liberalitythose of the advertisement description—are few and far between, though he was by no means devoid of practical kindness. Ferhaps we may notify here that, on two occasions, he granted the Irvine Academy a donation of fifty pounds, thus constituting himself a life Director of that Institution. At this point, also, we may add that the early cronie of Burns was twice married, and survived all his family with the exception of one son, Dr Sillar of Liverpool. His poems, though sensibly composed, are ponderous in diction, while one or two of them are inclined to border on the coarse in style, without the saving grace of happy wit. During the time the movement was set on foot to erect, on the banks of the Doon, a monument to the honour and memory of his early companion, our friend was invited to subscribe. To the request he replied: "No, no; ye starved the man when he was living among ye, and I refuse to join in useless expenditure now that he is dead.” The answer was characteristic of the man. He, nevertheless, was punctilious in his attendances at the Burns Anniversary celebrations; and, in the times when it was customary for the ignorant to wag their heads over the greatest Scotsman the world has ever seen, Burns's early comrade upheld his memory, and his name, strenuously to the end. Associated as he was with the illustrious Lyrist in the youthful days when he discovered the Bard's real nature, David Sillar possessed the advantage over the blind traducer, his attitude being a fine illustration of the French proverb, “To know all is to excuse all.” To the one friend, as to the other, this adage equally applies. For had the Poet Burns survived to see the latter-day, soured David Sillar, he would have no cause whatever to revise his opinion of the bashful, jovial lover of Spittalside whom he once knew and fondly addressed as Dainty Davie "; neither would he find occasion to cancel the old happy description he bestowed upon the companion of his far-off roving days as The Ace o' Hearts." 66 66 H. MAKINSON. ROBERT BURNS TO ROBERT BRIDGES. AN EPISTLE EXPOSTULATORY. (ABRIDGED.) Thou are a Poet, Robbie Burns, There's much in all thy small concerns, -(Robert Bridges to Robert Burns: Thou art a poet, Robert Bridges, Well, I am no' the ane begrudges But I had never thought that when Ye'd chosen me; Ane quite so far below thy ken Yet from thy lofty Laureate throne, Thy letter's tenor and its tone I scan thy unimpassioned pages; Like roaring flood; The red sangs writ for a' the ages Wi' my heart's blood, Thy careful, cultured epigram !— When my mad Muse rade forth wi' Tam, And sometimes soared, and sometimes swam Bethink ye that we gi'e a damn Academician, anchorite! Well it befits thee thus to write Of one whose fate it was to fight 'Gainst fearful odds, Whose "small concerns through mony a night Were his-and God's ! Not mine the prayer of Pharisee, "I thank Thee I am not as he ! Like him, I kenned mysel' to be Well, still abides the kindly plan Pass sternest strictures that we can There, I am done, I only trust I havena used ower keen a thrust, A century dead in the dust Blame JOSEPH LEE. |