a letter to Mr. J. Smith—a fair specimen of his more familiar epistolary style - dated 30th June, we have some slight information respecting his doings, and a description of certain "high jinks" in the North, in which he was an actor. Although the letter is dated as above, it does not state at what place it was written Burns, perhaps, wish

ing to keep his secret.

"On our return, at a Highland gentleman's hospitable mansion we fell in with a merry party, and danced till the ladies left us, at three in the morning. Our dancing was none of the French or English insipid formal movements; the ladies sung Scotch songs like angels, at intervals; then we flew at 'Bab at the Bowster,'' Tullochgorum,' 'Loch Erroch Side,' etc., like midges sporting in the mottie sun, or crows prognosti cating a storm on a hairst day. When the dear lassies left us, we ranged round the bowl to the good-fellow hour of six; except a few minutes that we went out to pay our devotions to the glorious lamp of day peering over the towering top of Ben Lomond. We all kneeled; our worthy landlord's son held the bowl, each man a full glass in his hand; and I, as priest, repeated some rhyming nonsense, like Thomas-a-Rhymer's prophecies, I suppose. After a small refreshment of the gifts of Somnus, we proceeded to spend the day on Loch Lomond, and reached Dumbarton in the evening. We dined at another good fellow's house, and consequently pushed the bottle; when we went out to mount our horses, we found ourselves 'No vera fou, but gaylie yet.' My two friends and I rode soberly down the Loch side, till by came a Highlandman at the gallop, on a tolerably good horse, but which had never known the ornaments of iron or leather. We scorned to be out-galloped by a Highlandman, so off we started, whip and spur. My companions, though seemingly gayly mounted, fell sadly astern; but my old mare, Jenny Geddes, one of the Rosinante family, strained past the Highlandman, in spite of all his efforts with the hair-halter. Just as I was passing him, Donald wheeled his horse as if to cross before me to mar my progress, when down came his horse, and threw his breekless rider in a clipt hedge; and down came Jenny Geddes over all, and my bardship between her and the Highlandman's horse. Jenny Geddes trode over me with such cautious reverence that matters were not so bad as might have been expected; so came off with a few cuts and bruises, and a thorough resolution to be a pattern of sobriety for the future.

"I have yet fixed on nothing with respect to the serious business of life. I am, just as usual, a rhyming, mason-making, raking, aimless, idle fellow. However, I shall somewhere have a farm soon."

Whatever motive may have induced Burns to visit the West Highlands, he returned to Mossgiel somewhat shaken by the escapade related above. During the ensuing month he wrote his autobiographical sketch to Dr. Moore, and on the 7th August he returned to Edinburgh to settle business matters with his publisher, and to arrange other excursions through districts of the country in which he had a poetic interest.

Near the close of August, Burns and Nicol started on a Northern tour. They went by Falkirk and Stirling, visited the field of Bannockburn, and on their return to Stirling, Burns, with a diamond which he had recently purchased-the most unfortunate of all his investments, as it turned out - scribbled certain perilous verses on a windowpane of the inn. They then struck into Perthshire, admired the Falls of Moness, where Burns wrote The Birks of Aberfeldy; visited Blair, the seat of the Duke of Athole, where they were hospitably entertained, and where Burns met his future patron, Mr. Graham of Fintry, and narrowly missed meeting Mr. Dundas -a piece of ill-fortune which his biographers agree in lamenting. The travellers then proceeded to Inverness, went to Culloden, spent some time at the ruined cathedral at Elgin; crossed the Spey, and visited the Duke of Gordon — which visit was cut short by an ebullition of wounded pride on the part of Nicol. From Castle Gordon they came by Banff to Aberdeen; Burns then crossed into Kincardineshire - of which county his father was a nativeand spent some time in hunting up his relations there. He then went to Montrose, where he met his cousin, Mr. James Burness, and returned to Edinburgh by Perth and Dundee.

In the beginning of October, according to Mr. Chambers,

for there seems to be a

little obscurity as to date - Burns, accompanied by Dr. Adair, set out on a visit to Sir William Murray of Ochtertyre, and passing through Stirling, he broke the pane in the inn on which he had inscribed the treasonable lines. Unhappily, however, he could not by this means put them out of existence, as they had been widely copied and circulated, and were alive in many memories. At Ochtertyre he spent one or two pleasant days; and while in the neighborhood, he took the opportunity of visiting Mrs. Bruce of Clackmannan, who was in possession of the helmet and sword of the Bruce, and with the latter she conferred on the poet and his guide the honor of knighthood, remarking as she did so, that she had a better right to give the title than some people. He returned to Edinburgh by Kinross and Queensferry, and while at Dunfermline some circumstances took place, trivial in themselves, but important as exhibiting what rapid changes took place in the weather of the poet's mind.

"At Dunfermline," says Dr. Adair, "we visited the ruined abbey and the abbey church, now consecrated to Presbyterian worship. Here I mounted the cutty-stool, or stool of repentance, assuming the character of a penitent for fornication, while Burns from the pulpit addressed to me a ludicrous reproof and exhortation, parodied from that which had been delivered to himself in Ayrshire, where he had, as he assured me, once been one of seven who mounted the seat of shame together.

"In the churchyard two broad flagstones marked the grave of Robert Bruce, for whose memory Burns had more than common veneration. He knelt and kissed the stone with sacred fervor, and heartily execrated the worse than Gothic neglect of the first of Scottish heroes."

Burns was now resident in St. James's Square, in the house of William Cruickshank, who was, like Nicol, connected with the Edinburgh High School. His chief business was the arrangement of publishing matters with Creech, and he was anxious to come to some definite conclusion with Mr. Miller regarding a farm at Dalswinton. On his return from Ochtertyre he wrote that gentleman in practical terms enough: "I want to be a farmer in a small farm, about a plough-gang, in a pleasant country, under the auspices of a good landlord. I have no foolish notion of being a tenant on easier terms than another. To find a farm where one can live at all is not easy. I only mean living soberly, like an old-style farmer, and joining personal industry. The banks of the Nith are as sweet poetic ground as any I ever saw; and besides, sir, 'tis but justice to the feelings of my own heart, and the opinion of my best friends, to say that I would wish to call you landlord sooner than any landed gentleman I know. These are my views and wishes; and in whatever way you think best to lay out your farms, I shall be happy to rent one of them. I shall certainly be able to ride to Dalswinton about the middle of next week." Burns, however, did not go to Dumfriesshire so early as he expected. There was dilatoriness on Creech's part regarding settlements as to the poems; there was perhaps dilatoriness on Burns's part regarding the farm; at all events, autumn had glided into winter, and he remained at Edinburgh without having come to a conclusion with either. The winter, however, was destined to open one of the strangest chapters in his strange story. At this time he made the acquaintance of Mrs. M'Lehose, the Clarinda of so many impassioned letters. This lady, who was possessed of no common beauty and intelligence, had been deserted by her husband, and was bringing up her children in somewhat narrow circumstances. They met at tea in the house of a common friend, and were pleased with each other's conversation. The second night after, Burns was to have drank tea by invitation at the house of Mrs. M'Lehose, but having been upset the previous evening by a drunken coachman, and brought home with a knee severely bruised, he was obliged to forego that pleasure. He wrote the lady, giving the details of the accident, and expressing regret that he was unable to leave his room. The lady, who was of a temperament generous and impulsive, replied at once, giving utterance to her regret, and making Burns a formal proffer of her sympathy and friendship. Burns was enraptured, and returned an answer after the following fashion:

"I stretch a point, indeed, my dearest madam, when I answer your card on the rack of my present agony. Your friendship, madam! By heavens! I was never proud

before. . . . I swear solemnly (in all the terror of my former oath) to remember you in all the pride and warmth of friendship until - I cease to be!

"To-morrow, and every day till I see you, you shall hear from me.

"Farewell! May you enjoy a better night's repose than I am likely to have." The correspondence, so rapturously opened, proceeded quite as rapturously. It was arranged that in future Burns should sign himself Sylvander, and the lady Clarinda. Each day gave birth to its epistle. Poems were interchanged. Sighs were wafted from St. James's Square to the Potterow. Clarinda was a "gloriously amiable fine woman," and Sylvander was her "devoted slave." Clarinda chid Sylvander tenderly for the warmth of his expressions. Sylvander was thrown into despair by the rebuke, but protested that he was not to blame. Who could behold her superior charms, her fine intelligence, and not love? who could love and be silent? Clarinda had strong Calvinistic leanings, and Sylvander, who could not pardon these things in Ayrshire clergymen, and was accustomed to call them by quite other names, was "delighted by her honest enthusiasm for religion." Clarinda was to be passing on a certain day through the square in which Sylvander lived, and promised to favor him with a nod, should she be so fortunate as to see him at his window; and wrote sorrowing, the day after, that she had been unable to discover his window. Sylvander was inconsolable. Not able to discover his window! He could almost throw himself over it for very vexation. His peace is spoiled for the day. He is sure the soul is capable of discase, for his has convulsed itself into an inflammatory fever, and so on. During this period of. letter-writing, Burns and Mrs. M'Lehose had met several times in her own house, and on these occasions he had opportunities of making her aware of his dismal prospects. The results of his renewed intercourse with Jean on his return to Ayrshire were now becoming apparent; this was communicated to her along with other matters, and Mrs. M'Lehose was all forgiveness-tempered with rebuke, and a desire for a more Calvinistic way of thinking on his part on religious subjects. That the affection of Burns for the lady was rooted in any thing deeper than fancy, and a natural delight in intelligence and a pleasing manner, may be doubted. His Clarinda letters are artificial, and one suspects the rhetorician in the swelling sentences and the exaggerated sentiment. With regard to Mrs. M'Lehose there can be no mistake. Her letters are far superior to Burns's, being simple, natural, and with a pathetic cadence in some portions, which has not yet lost the power to affect. She loved Burns, and hoped, if he would but wait till existing ties were broken, to be united to him. But Burns could not wait, the correspondence drooped, and a year saw all his passion

the common day of Jean Armour, Ellisland, and the Excise.

When Burns at this period, confined to his room by an angry limb, in the middle of his Clarinda correspondence, and tortured with suspicions of Creech's insolvency of which some ugly rumors had reached him was made aware that Jean was about to become again a mother, and that her father had thrust her from his house in anger, he was perhaps more purely wretched than at any other period of his life. In his own breast there was passionate tumult and remorse. Look where he would, no blue spot was to be discovered in the entire sky of his prospects. He had felt the sweetness of applause: he was now to experience the bitterness of the after-taste. He was a "lion" whose season had passed. His great friends seemed unwilling or unable to procure him a post. He had been torn from his old modes of life, and in the new order of things which surrounded him he could find nothing permanent, nothing that would cohere. Time was passing; his life was purposeless; he was doing nothing, effecting nothing; he was flapping in the wind like an unbraced sail. At this juncture he resolved to bring matters to a conclusion, after one fashion or another. In his letters, the old scheme of emigration to the West Indies turns up bitterly for a moment. Then he bethought himself of a post in the Excise, which had always been a dream of his, and

the possibility of his obtaining which had been discussed by his Ayrshire friends before he became famous. If such a position could be secured it would be at least something, something in itself, something to fall back upon should his farming schemes prove abortive. He accordingly wrote the Earl of Glencairn, soliciting his patronage, but the application appears to have been followed by no result. Mr. Graham of Fintry, whose acquaintance Burns had made at Blair, the seat of the Duke of Athole, having heard of his wish, through the kind offices of Mr. Alexander Wood, the surgeon who attended him, immediately placed his name on the list of expectant officers. Having arranged his Excise business so far, he left Edinburgh to have another look at Mr. Miller's farms, and to come to an agreement, if possible. He took a friend with him on whose sagacity and business skill he could confide; and after a deliberate inspection of the lands, he was better satisfied than he had been on a former occasion, and at once made an offer to Mr. Miller for the farm at Ellisland, which was accepted. On his return to Edinburgh, he announced his resolution to his friend Miss Chalmers:

"Yesternight I completed a bargain with Mr. Miller of Dalswinton, for the farm of Ellisland, on the banks of the Nith, between five and six miles above Dumfries. I begin at Whitsunday to build a house, drive lime, etc., and Heaven be my help! for it will take a strong effort to bring my mind into the routine of business. I have discharged all the army of my former pursuits, fancies, and pleasures-a motley host! and have literally and strictly retained only the ideas of a few friends, which I have incorporated into a life-guard."

Burns's business at this time in Edinburgh related to his settlement with Creech, which, after many delays, was about to take place. In all, he appears to have received between 400l. and 500l., and out of this sum he advanced 200l. to his brother Gilbert, who was struggling manfully at Mossgiel. On the 24th March, with much business on hand, he left Edinburgh for Ayrshire, where he married Jean Armour-snapping thereby the chief link which bound him to the metropolis. This union, putting moral considerations out of the question altogether, was the most prudent course open to him, and it repaired the fabric of self-respect which had been, to some extent at least, broken down. For a time we hear nothing of the "wandering stabs of remorse," and his letters breathe a quite unusual contentedness. He had made some little self-sacrifice, and he tasted the happiness which always arises from the consciousness of self-sacrifice. Besides, he had loved the girl, perhaps loved her all through, although the constant light of affection had, to himself as well as to others, been obscured by the glare of fiercer and more transitory fires; and if so- the sacrifice not so great as he supposed it to be he was plainly a gainer both ways. Burns was placed at this time in difficult circumstances, and he simply made the best of them. He could build only with the materials within reach. There was nothing left but to begin life again as a farmer, and it behooved him to wear russet on heart as well as on limb. In the heyday of his Edinburgh success, he foresaw the probability of his return to the rural shades, and to these shades he had now returned. -but he returned with reputation, experience, an unreproving conscience, some little money in hand, and with solider prospects of happiness than had ever yet fallen to his lot. Happiness he did taste for a few months and then out of the future came the long shadows of disaster, fated not to pass away, but to gather deeper and darker over a grave which was dug too early and yet too late. When Burns entered into possession of Ellisland, at Whitsunday, 1788, he left his wife at Mauchline till the new dwelling-house should be erected. In the mean time he was sufficiently busy; he had to superintend masons and carpenters, as well as look after more immediate farm matters. Besides, in order to qualify himself for holding his Excise Commission, he had to give attendance at Ayr for six weeks on the duties of his new profession. These occupations, together with occasional visits to his wife and family, kept him fully occupied. Hope had sprung up in his bosom like a Jonah's gourd, and while the greenness lasted he was happy enough. During his solitary life at Ellisland, he wrote two or three of his finest songs, each of them in praise of Jean, and each giving evidence that his heart was at rest. During this time, too, a somewhat

extensive correspondence was kept up, and activity and hopefulness-only occasionally dashed by accesses of his constitutional melancholy- radiate through it all. As was natural, his letters relate, for the most part, to his marriage and his new prospects. As respects his marriage, he takes abundant care to make known that, acting as he had done, he had acted prudently; that he had secured an admirable wife, and that in his new relationship he was entirely satisfied. If any doubt should exist as to Burns's satisfaction, it can arise only from his somewhat too frequent protestation of it. He takes care to inform his correspondents that he has actually married Jean, that he would have been a scoundrel had he declined to marry her, and that she possessed the sweetest temper and the handsomest figure in the country. The truth is, that in the matter of matrimony, he could not very well help himself. He was aware that the match was far from a brilliant one, and as he really loved his wife, he had to argue down that feeling in his own heart; he was aware that his correspondents did not consider it brilliant, and he had also to argue down that feeling in theirs. Meanwhile, the house at Ellisland was getting finished. In the first week of December he brought home his wife, and in the pride of his heart he threw off a saucy little song,

"I hae a wife o' my ain,"

which quivers through every syllable of it with a homely and assured delight that laughs at all mischance. Mrs. Burns brought her children and a whole establishment of servants. The house was small, its accommodation was limited, and Burns sat at meals with his domestics, and on Sunday evenings, after the good old Scottish fashion, he duly catechised them. He has himself left on record that this was the happiest portion of his life. He had friends, with whom he maintained an intimate correspondence; he had a wife who loved him; his passionate and wayward heart was at rest in its own happiness; he could see the grain yellowing in his own fields; he had the Excise Commission in his pocket on which he could fall back if any thing went wrong; and on the red scaur above the river he could stride about, giving audience to incommunicable thought, while the Nith was hoarse with flood, and the moon was wading through clouds overhead. When should he have been happy, if not now?

It

Burns's farming operations during the second year of his occupancy of Ellisland were not successful, and in the more unrestrained letters of the period we find him complaining of his hard fate in being obliged to make one guinea do the work of five. As the expense of his family was now rapidly increasing, he requested to be allowed to enter at once on his duties as officer of Excise. That in his new mode of life he would encounter unpleasantnesses he knew, and was prepared for them; but he expected that Mrs. Burns would be able to manage the farm for the most part-in any case his salary as Exciseman would be a welcome addition to his means. He was appointed on application, he entered zealously on his duties, and as his district extended over ten parishes he was forced to ride about two hundred miles per week. This work, taken in conjunction with labor at Ellisland, which, constantly getting into arrear, demanded fierce exertion at intervals, was too much for even his iron frame. He had attacks of illness, and his constitutional hypochondria ruled him with a darker sceptre than ever. appears evident from his letters that he meant to make his fight at Ellisland, and that he considered the Excise as a second line of defence on which he could fall back in the event of defeat. At Ellisland he was defeated, and on this second line of defence he fell back grimly enough. An Excise officer is not a popular character in country districts where smugglers abound; and whatever degree of odium might attach to his new profession Burns was certain to feel more keenly than most. One can see that in his new relation his haughty spirit was ill at ease; that he suspected a sort of meanness in himself; and that the thought that he had in any way stooped or condescended was gall and wormwood. His bitterness on this matter escapes in various and characteristic ways. At one time he treats the matter with imperial disdain, declaring that he does not intend "to seek honor from his profession;" at another time in a set of impromptu verses he mocks at his occupation and himself, illuminating the whole business with a