Oliphant, he says: "To the buffetings of misfortune, we could only oppose hard labour and the most rigid economy. We lived very sparingly... The anguish of mind we felt, at our tender years, under these straits and difficulties, was very great. To think of our father growing old (for he was now above fifty), broken down with the long-continued fatigues of his life, with a wife and five other children, and in a declining state of circumstances —these reflections produced in my brother's mind and mine sensations of the deepest distress. I doubt not but the hard labour and sorrow of this period of his life was in a great measure the cause of that depression of spirits with which Robert was so often afflicted through his whole life afterwards." The very simplicity and manifest sincerity of this confession is pathetic beyond ordinary; but the value of it to us, in our present study, is the fact that there is divulged a set of circumstances fatal to a constitution pensive by birth. Even if Burns had prospered afterwards in the worldly sense of fortune, it is beyond question that these thwarting penalties would have left him with a very drab memory; but his after-life was so often cast in the same catalogue, that not even an angel could have escaped their malign power, much less a nervous, supersensitive poet.

It is not meant that this general analysis should form any apology for the ultimate colour of Burns's character and history. No sane student of his life seeks to deny the mournful augmentation of his moral frailties on his despondent tendencies-and certainly he does not condone them himself; but the fact to be held clear is, that but for his saddening history in early life, the heart-weakness which handicapped his vigour, and the desertion attending his later career, we might have had a different Burns— a Burns, at least, whose lengthened days would have sanctified his repute, given fuller glory to Scotland, and added to the masterpieces of the world's literature.

JOHN HORNE.

BURNS'S MARRIAGE

IN THE LIGHT OF UP-TO-DATE EVIDENCE.

THE

HE recent discovery of a letter, dated 23rd June, 1788, addressed by Burns to James Smith, his Mauchline friend, then resident in Linlithgow, has raised anew the discussion of Burns's irregular marriage—when it took place, the nature of the ceremony, and what steps were taken when Burns proceeded to make public acknowledgment of its existence.* To refer to this biographer or that as a papal authority on the disputed points is entirely fatuous as a solution, their conclusions being founded on their own interpretation of the recorded facts, supplemented in some cases by oral tradition—an indeterminate basis of judgment which accounts in great measure for the diversity of their findings. In point of fact, most of the biographers write so hazily or carelessly on the subject that confusion is made worse confounded. Professor Nichol, for instance, gives the date of the birth of the second twins three days after one of them was buried ; he also trips in the date of the Session meeting; and he further states, without the slightest indication of his authority, that a second irregular marriage took place on some date or other previous to 28th April, 1788, which 66 was solemnized in the house of Gavin Hamilton on 2nd May following," thereby giving us to understand that Burns went through a marriage ceremony with Jean Armour on three separate occasions.† This slipshod way of dealing with one of the most important events in the Poet's life has done grievous harm to his memory by putting

the "

* See Glasgow Herald, Correspondence Columns, March, 1917. † A second ceremony apparently was necessary to bridge over concubinage" interval; the third, we opine, was in deference to Lockhart. But why did Burns ride post-haste to Mauchline on 18th February to marry Jean on 2nd May following "?

it in the power of his detractors to seize upon a series of disjointed or distorted facts as a convenient text upon which to found their fulminations, and throw obloquy upon certain personages whose names Fate linked with his in the earlier period of his career.

As the average individual is quite as well qualified to sit on the jury as the most accomplished author who ever wrote about Burns, we beg to submit a full catalogue of the facts bearing on the irregular marriage, accompanied by some extraneous information which may help to a better understanding of their import. These consist mainly of extracts from authentic letters written by the Poet to his friends or by them to him, and are set down in chronological order so far as the accuracy of the dates has been ascertained.

THE EVIDENCE.

1. Burns to John Richmond, 17th February, 1786.

"I have no news to acquaint you with about Mauchline; they are just going on in the old way. I have some very important news with respect to myself, not the most agreeable-news I am sure you cannot guess, but I shall give you the particulars another time.' "" *

2. Letter to Gavin Hamilton, dated "Mossgiel, Saturday morn" (early in April, 1786).

A garbled version of this letter, copied by successive editors, was published by Cunningham, in 1834, who set it down as addressed to John Ballantine, about 14th April, 1786." We have perused the original, presently in the possession of Mrs Finch, daughter of Mrs Adair, and grand-daughter of Gavin Hamilton, who states that the letter has always been in the possession of the Hamilton family. The following is the correct version :—

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'My proposals came to hand last night, and... I knew that you would wish to have it in your power to do me a service as early

*The extracts are confined to the relevant passages in the letters, and are referred to by their numbers.

as anybody. I enclose you a sheet of them. I must consult you, first opportunity, on the propriety of sending my quondam friend, Mr Aiken, a copy. If he is now reconciled to my character as an honest man, I would do it with all my soul; but I would not be beholden to the noblest being ever God created, if he imagined me to be a rascal. Apropos, old Armour prevailed with him to mutilate that unlucky paper yesterday. Would you believe it? though I had not a hope, not even a wish to make her mine after her damnable conduct; yet when he told me the names were cut out of the papers my heart died within me, and he cut my very veins with the news. Perdition seize her falsehood, and perjurious perfidy, but God bless her and forgive her-poor, once dear, misguided girl. She is ill advised. Do not despise me, Sir. I am indeed a fool; but a knave is an infinitely worse character than anybody, I hope, will dare to give the unfortunate

ROBERT BURNS."

3. Letter to James Smith, date unknown, but certainly early in April, 1786.

'Against two things I am fixed as fate-staying at home, and owning her conjugally. The first, by Heaven, I will not do !the last, by Hell, I will never do!... If you see Jean, tell her I will meet her, so help me God, in my hour of need."

4. Poetical Compositions in March and April, 1786.--"Again rejoicing Nature sees "; "To a Mountain Daisy"; "To Ruin " ";

spondency--An Ode."

"The Lament"; "De

5. Letter to John Arnot of Dalquatswood, April, 1786.

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... I have lost, Sir, that dearest earthly treasure, that greatest blessing here below, that last, best gift which completed Adam's happiness in the garden of bliss; I have lost-I have lost-my trembling hand refuses its office, the frighted ink recoils up the quill-Tell it not in Gath-I have lost-a-a-a wife!

Fairest of God's creatures, last and best !
Now art thou lost.

You have doubtless, Sir, heard my story, heard it with all its exaggerations; but as my actions, and my motives for action, are peculiarly like myself, and that is peculiarly like nobody else, I shall just beg a leisure moment and a spare tear of you, until I tell my own story my own way.. My spent passions gradually sank into

a lurid calm; and by degrees I have subsided into the time-settled sorrow of the sable widower, who, wiping away the decent tear, lifts up his grief-worn eye to look-for another wife. . . . Such, Sir, has been this fatal era of my life."

6. Burns transcribed this letter in the Glenriddel MSS., and added this note, in 1791:

"The story of the letter was this: I had got deeply in love with a young fair one, of which proofs were every day arising more and more to view. I would gladly have covered my inamorata from the darts of calumny with the conjugal shield-nay, I had actually made up some sort of wedlock; but I was at that time deep in the guilt of being unfortunate, for which good and lawful objection the lady's friends broke all our measures and drove me au desespoir."

7. Letter to David Brice, 12th June, 1786.

"Poor ill-advised, ungrateful Armour came home on Friday last. You have heard all the particulars of that affair, and a black affair it is. What she thinks of her conduct now, I don't know; one thing I do know she has made me completely miserable. Never man loved, or rather adored, a woman more than I did her; and, to confess a truth between you and me, I do still love her to distraction after all, though I won't tell her so if I were to see her, which I don't want to do. My poor dear unfortunate Jean! how happy have I been in thy arms! It is not the losing her that makes me so unhappy, but for her sake I feel most severely; I foresee she is on the road to-I am afraid-eternal ruin.

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'May Almighty God forgive her ingratitude and perjury to me, as I from my very soul forgive her; and may His grace be with

her, and bless her in all her future life.

I can have no nearer idea

of the place of eternal punishment than what I have felt in my own breast on her account. I have tried often to forget her; I have run into all kinds of dissipation and riots, mason-meetings, drinkingmatches, and other mischief, to drive her out of my head, but all in vain.

8. Letter to John Richmond, 9th July, 1786.

"I have waited on Armour since her return home; not from the least view of reconciliation, but merely to ask for her health, and to you I will confess it, from a foolish hankering fondness, very ill-placed indeed. The mother forbade me the house, nor did Jean show that penitence that might have been expected. However,