with which the Presbytery, not the Kirk-Session, had the sole power to deal; and he was also guilty of a double breach of Church order by contracting another irregular marriage. A second marriage would thus have made matters worse; but when the early marriage was proved, the indictment shrank to antenuptial misconduct and nuptial irregularity. Why the first of these was departed from by the Mauchline Session seems at first sight inexplicable. It is almost certain that the view taken by Mr Auld was that Burns and Jean had already (1786) been reproved on that score, and that the children subsequent to that date had been born in lawful wedlock. On all questions Gavin Hamilton was Burns's legal adviser, and he drew up all his legal documents. When Burns returned from Edinburgh in February, 1788, he reconciled Jean to her mother and rented a room for her accommodation. From the tenor of his letters in the months which followed, it is clear that he was cohabiting with her. It is unbelievable that Jean's mother was a consenting party to her daughter's living in open shame within a stone-throw of her father's house. She knew better. That Burns reconciled Jean to "her fate" (whatever that may mean)* and also to her mother by a dishonourable proposal of semi-veiled concubinage is just as unbelievable (See 21a). It must be kept in view that his conduct at this juncture was strongly influenced by the consciousness that he was still in the meshes of the Clarinda entanglement, from which it took him some time to cut himself clear. The spell was broken towards the end of March, 1788; thereafter the crooked was made straight and the rough places of the path of duty made plain. The obvious inference from the facts is, that Burns, probably acting on the advice of Gavin Hamilton, openly took up house with Jean in order to provide the element of coitus or cohabitation, which, in the eye of the law, was accounted the consummation of all irregular marriages. Be that as it may,

*See No. 19.

cohabitation proved a powerful plea with Mr Auld, and rendered the path of penance less onerous and irksome. In none of his letters does he state his case so succinctly and squarely as in that to Mrs Dunlop (No. 32)—the 1786 private marriage, leading up to the provision of a "shelter " for Jean in 1788, and the public declaration of said marriage which followed, by living together as man and wife.

By their wilful destruction of the marriage lines, the Armours had placed themselves in an anomalous position with regard to the claims of their daughter on Burns; and their solution of the problem by thrusting Jean out of doors was consequently harsh in the extreme. There was nothing to have prevented Gavin Hamilton officiating at the ceremony, as local tradition hath it; but, whether or not, we are decidedly of opinion that the unlucky paper was drawn out by him in proper form, his precautions rendering its destruction a matter of little or no moment. The report that the Armours consulted Robert Aiken on the consequences of their action may or may not have been true; all the same, it may be taken as a sign that they were left in an atmosphere of disquieting doubt. What poor Jean's attitude was we learn from the Brulie or scroll minutes of the Mauchline Session record. On 2nd December, 1787, "Jean Armour was reported to the Session as being under scandal," and on the 9th the following entry was made: "Jean Armour sent excuse that she cannot attend until next Sabbath." These items were not engrossed on the permanent record, and the case was thereafter allowed to drop, for no more is recorded regarding it either in the scroll or extended minutes. Jean, then, it seems, was summoned as a single woman without protest or objection on her part. We know what followed in the ensuing spring. On 30th July, 1788, Burns and Jean are entered on the roll of persons under scandal in the Brulie minutes, with a score drawn through their names-an intimation that the charge of scandal had been departed from. The explanation of this we have already given. Dr Edgar, who dismisses the idea of a

second marriage as an improbability, in concluding his valuable and exhaustive researches, writes as follows:

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Pending further information, I am inclined to think that on some consideration or other Mr Auld had, prior to July, 1788, been led to believe that the twins of March 3rd had been born in legal wedlock; or that a plea to that effect, if advanced by either Burns or Jean, would present difficulty to the Session."*

The information desired by Dr Edgar has now come to light in the newly-discovered letter (No. 31) which has just been added to the extensive collection of Mr Charles Cowie, Glasgow. The witness or witnesses of the 1786 marriage had laid their testimony before Mr Auld, who accepted it as satisfactory proof that Burns and Jean were married persons from that date onwards; though he, in ignorance of the fact, had reproved them in August, 1786, for the birth of twins born in lawful wedlock.† The reproof administered in 1788 on the single count of the irregular marriage, followed by the confirmation of the marriage in the Session minutes as requested, is of itself proof sufficient that there was no second marriage. If there had been, Mr Auld was bound by the law of the Church to censure them for antenuptial misconduct, and record the fact in the minute-book before any clearance certificate could have been granted. As we have already said, the case of Burns himself would have been passed on to the Presbytery, and a note to that effect recorded in the minutes. is still the law of the Church of Scotland.

This

It appears strange that the precise date of the marriage is not mentioned either in the Session minute or the Register of Marriages, which is now lodged in the Register House, Edinburgh. All that is said in the latter is, that they (Burns and Jean) " acknowledged they were irregularly

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* If the twins were born on March 3rd, Burns makes no reference to them in letters 20 and 21a. The more probable date is either the 8th or 9th of March.

† Mr Henley hazards the guess that Mr Auld had a strong objection to the marriage, followed by the statement that he was guilty of an illegal act in certifying Burns a bachelor.

married some time ago

-a vague expression, which would not have been used had the marriage taken place in the same year as it was registered. We have purposely refrained from founding anything on what is said by the biographers, for reasons which we have already indicated. Not all of them, however, procured their information as Robert Chambers did his, viz., by personal visit and interview on many doubtful points of which he gives full particulars, which renders his narrative all the more worthy of credence. He flatly contradicts Lockhart's statement regarding a second marriage in Gavin Hamilton's house, giving as his authority the eldest daughter of Gavin Hamilton (Mrs Adair), who informed him that she remembered Burns giving the first intimation of his marriage to her family at her father's breakfast table, in 1788, by casually referring to Jean as "Mrs Burns."

The conclusion from the evidence the only one possible, in our opinion-is, that there was one marriage ceremony, and one only; and the Mauchline Session and its Moderator assured themselves of that fact before proceeding to deal with the case in the tangled condition. in which it was brought under their notice on Burns's return from Edinburgh crowned with the laurels of fame.

It may be said that the space we have devoted to this question is out of proportion to its importance. We need not say we do not agree with that view. Burns's marriage with Jean Armour is so interwoven with the great turningpoint of his career that they cannot be separated. It was the immediate cause of the publication of the volume which brought him into fame, and sent him post-haste to take his natural place amongst the literati of Edinburgh; and it came very near being responsible for sending him into tropical exile. Had Jean remained faithful to her vows of 1786 and clung to her husband, her constancy would undoubtedly have influenced the years which immediately followed. This much we are justified in saying-it is a great deal in view of some recent biographies-there would have been no Highland Mary and no Clarinda to point

the barbs of unkindly and half-read critics. On the other hand, the world would have been deprived of the deathless lyrics which these experiences inspired.

In the two years of his life we have been examining, however opinion of his conduct during that trying period may differ, few will be inclined to deny that he was as much sinned against as sinning. As he says himself in his defence to Mrs M'Lehose,* it is the story "of an honest man struggling successfully with temptations the most powerful that ever beset humanity," while conscious that he was guilty "of high imprudence and egregious folly."

EDITOR

*Letter dated March 9th, 1789.