an unlucky affair. My [here he charges his Irvine partner in trade with having defrauded him] and to finish the whole, as we were giving a welcome carousal to the New Year, the shop took fire and was burnt to ashes, and I was left, like a true poet, not worth a sixpence. I was obliged to give up this scheme: the clouds of misfortune were gathering thick round my father's head; and, what was worst of all, he was visibly far gone in consumption; and to crown my distresses, a belle fille whom I adored, and who had pledged her soul to meet me in the field of matrimony, jilted me, with peculiar circumstances of mortification. The finishing evil which brought up the rear of this infernal file was my constitutional melancholy being increased to such a degree, that for three months I was in a state of mind scarcely to be envied by the helpless wretches who have got their mittimus-"Depart from me, ye accursed." From this adventure I learned something of a town life; but the principal thing which gave my mind a turn was a friendship I formed with a young fellow, a very noble character, but a hapless son of misfortune.1 His mind was fraught with independence, magnanimity, and every manly virtue. I loved and admired him to a degree of enthusiasm, and of course strove to imitate him. In some measure I succeeded. I had pride before, but he taught it to flow in proper channels. His knowledge of the world was vastly superior to mine, and I was all attention to learn. He was the only man I ever saw who was a greater fool than myself where woman was the presiding star; but he spoke of illicit love with the levity of a sailor, which hitherto I had regarded with horror. Here his friendship did me a mischief, and the consequence was, that soon after I resumed the plough, I wrote the "Poet's Welcome." Bitter truth to tell, the Poet's Irvine experiences seem to have had, in more ways than one, a baneful influence over his mind and conduct. Thither he repaired, cast down because of disappointment in his ardent courtship of Ellison Begbie. Hitherto his habits were frugal and temperate, his mind reverent and pure. But in Irvine he was assailed by temptations on every hand; and in his dull, 1 Richard Brown, afterwards captain of a large West Indiaman. This Irvine friendship was kept up for many years. In one of his letters to Captain Brown, dated at Edinburgh, December 13th, 1787, Burns says:"My will-o'-wisp fate you know: do you recollect a Sunday we spent together in Eglinton Woods? You told me, on my repeating some verses to you, that you wondered I could resist the temptation of sending verses of such merit to a magazine. It was from this remark I derived that idea of my own pieces, which encouraged me to endeavour at the character of a Poet." dejected state of mind, his principles became weakened by the taint of evil surroundings. Indeed, his situation was hapless in the extreme. Rejected by the idol of his love; swindled by his partner, Peacock; driven by his own passionate melancholy, and lured by boon companions, into excitement and unwonted excesses; unsuccessful in his occupation; worn down with ill health; finding no satisfaction in the present, and seeing only darkness in the future-little wonder that among the older people in Irvine, whose grandfathers had seen and known the Poet, there lingered the tradition of him as a deeply-melancholy, strangely-gifted, erratic youth. The account of Burns' stay in Irvine would be very incomplete without the following beautiful and touchingly suggestive letter which he, when but twenty-two years of age, penned to his father four days prior to that New Year's Day carousal in which the heckling-shop was burnt to the ground :— IRVINE, December 27, 1781. HONOURED SIR,—I have purposely delayed writing, in the hope that I should have the pleasure of seeing you on New Year's Day; but work comes so hard upon us, that I do not choose to be absent on that account, as well as for some other little reasons, which I shall tell you at meeting. My health is nearly the same as when you were here, only my sleep is a little sounder; and, on the whole, I am rather better than otherwise, though I mend by very slow degrees. The weakness of my nerves has so debilitated my mind, that I dare neither review past events nor look forward into futurity; for the least anxiety or perturbation in my breast produces most unhappy effects on my whole frame. Sometimes, indeed, when for an hour or two my spirits are a little lightened, I glimmer a little into futurity; but my principal, and indeed my only pleasurable employment, is looking backwards and forwards in a moral and religious way. I am quite transported at the thought that ere long, perhaps very soon, I shall bid an eternal adieu to all the pains and uneasinesses and disquietudes of this weary life, for I assure you I am heartily tired of it; and, if I do not very much deceive myself, I could contentedly and gladly resign it. "The soul, uneasy and confined at home, It is for this reason I am more pleased with the 15th, 16th, and 17th verses of the 7th chapter of Revelation1 than with any ten times as many verses in the whole Bible, and would not exchange the noble enthusiasm with which they inspire me for all that this world has to offer. As for this world, I despair of ever making a figure in it. I am not formed for the bustle of the busy, nor the flutter of the gay. I shall never again be capable of entering into such scenes. Indeed I am altogether unconcerned at the thoughts of this life. I foresee that poverty and obscurity probably await me: I am in some measure prepared, and daily preparing to meet them. I have but just time and paper to return you my grateful thanks for the lessons of virtue and piety you have given me, which were too much neglected at the time of giving them; but which, I hope, have been remembered ere it is yet too late. Present my dutiful respects to my mother, and my compliments to Mr. and Mrs. Muir; and with wishing you a merry New Year's Day, I shall conclude. I am, honoured sir, your dutiful son, ROBERT BURNS. P.S.-My meal is nearly out; but I am going to borrow, till I get more. The wild carousal and the blazing factory stand in strange, sad contrast with the almost simultaneous writing of such a letter as this. Only, the marvel is lessened, and the pity is deepened, when we remember that the contrast occurs in the life of Robert Burns. Returning from Irvine in March 1782, the Poet manfully resumed his farm-work and his wonted steady and temperate manner of living. His brother states that at no period was Robert more kindly and attractive in the home circle or among his humble associates in daily toil. Rhyme-he says-except some religious pieces that are in print, I had given up; but meeting with Fergusson's Scottish Poems, I strung anew my wildly-sounding lyre with emulating vigour. The addition of two more authors to my library gave me great pleasure; Sterne and MackenzieTristram Shandy and The Man of Feeling-were my bosom favourites. . . 115. Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. 16. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. 17. For the Lamb, which is in the midst of the throne, shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters; and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. I had usually half-a-dozen or more pieces on hand; taking up one or other, as it suited the momentary tone of my mind, and dismissing the work as it bordered on fatigue. My passions, when once lighted up, raged like very devils, till they got vent in rhyme; and then the conning over my verses, like a spell, soothed all into quiet. Student's of the Poet's Life should mark well the closing sentence of this quotation. The religious pieces referred to are "Winter-a Dirge," "A Prayer in the Prospect of Death," "A Prayer written under the Pressure of Violent Anguish," and paraphrases of the First Psalm and the Nineteenth. These seem to have been for the most part written amid his gloom and misfortunes in Irvine. We cannot refrain from quoting some of those serious verses, as showing, in religious light, how deeply Burns at this time abased himself because of his aberrations, and with what sterling piety his penitent spirit trembled back to the God of mercy, yearned for the peace of holiness, and prayed for the strength of manly faith. He was then but twenty-two years old. A PRAYER IN THE PROSPECT OF DEATH. O Thou unknown, Almighty Cause Of all my hope and fear, In whose dread Presence, ere an hour, If I have wandered in those paths As something, loudly, in my breast, Thou know'st that Thou hast formed me And list ning to their witching voice Where human weakness has come short, Or frailty stepped aside, Do Thou, ALL-GOOD-for such Thou art— Where with intention I have erred, No other plea I have, But, Thou art good; and Goodness still Delighteth to forgive. A PRAYER, WRITTEN UNDER THE PRESSURE OF O Thou great Being! what Thou art Yet sure I am, that known to Thee Thy creature here before Thee stands, Yet sure those ills that wring my soul Sure Thou, Almighty, canst not act O, free my weary eyes from tears, But if I must afflicted be To suit some wise design; Then man my soul with firm resolves, To bear, and not repine! It is notorious that several of these stanzas (particularly the third stanza of the former Prayer) have been by some people loudly objected to as presumptuous in conception and unsound in doctrine. Now, in that third stanza we do not find a "presumptuous excuse for sin" on the ground of overmastering passions; but we do find a sincere acknowledgement of sin, and the calm statement of a tremendous fact of the Poet's own great keen consciousness. It is perhaps uncharitable to characterise such objections as mere narrow-viewed, sanctimonious cavilling. Rather, remembering that Burns did not in these verses write as a cold-blooded, systematic theologian, but as a man of bounding passions writhing in wretchedness and remorse on account of his faults and misfortunes, the question may confidently be appealed to the opinion of the more generous and enlightened of the author's fellowmen, and judgment humbly left to the All-pitiful Tribunal, to which these prayers were, we venture to think, devoutly and trustfully addressed. Moved by the fresh inspiration of which the Poet speaks, he produced various pieces, the most noteworthy |