FIRST ARRIVAL IN EDINBURGH. 15 dictatorial. The men whose religion was based on intellect and high moral sentiment all thought well of him ; but the mere professors, with their "twa-mile prayers and half-mile graces," denounced him as "worse than an infidel." Burns reached Edinburgh on the 28th November, a day remarkable in the history of the city as that on which Mr Palmer's mail carriages were started, by which letters were to be conveyed between the two capitals of the island in the then surprisingly brief space of sixty hours! One can imagine that it would be with no tame feelings that the peasant bard would hail the romantic capital of his country, whose ancient history had poured a tide of enthusiasm through his heart. As the seat of her chivalrous kings, of her ancient and once independent legislature, of her long series of poets and philosophers, he would view it with a glowing mind, and, mixed with classic associations, there would doubtless be some reflections on the prospects with which it was charged for himself. He came, as he tells us, without a single letter of introduction, and, we cannot doubt, with very little money in his pocket. Besides Professor Stewart, whose rank and avocations placed him at an ideal distance, he had scarcely a single acquaintance among the ordinary inhabitants of Edinburgh. There was, however, one friend whom he could readily approach. This was John Richmond, not long ago the clerk of Gavin Hamilton, and the companion of Burns and Smith in many a merry'splore' at Mauchline. Richmond was now in a writer's office in the city. He occupied a humble room in Baxter's Close, Lawnmarket, for which he paid at the time three shillings a week. Into this lodging he willingly received the Ayrshire poet, giving him a share of his bed-of which Burns stood so much in need by reason of indisposition, that he kept possession of it all the succeeding day. Allan Cunningham relates, apparently from some well-informed source, the first proceedings of Burns in Edinburgh :-' Though he had taken a stride from the furrowed field into the land of poetry, and abandoned the plough for the harp, he seemed for some days to feel, as in earlier life, unfitted with an aim, and wandered about looking down from Arthur's Seat, surveying the Palace, gazing at the Castle, or contemplating the windows of the booksellers' shops, where he saw all works save the poems of the Ayrshire Ploughman. He found his way to the lowly grave of Fergusson, and kneeling down, kissed the sod; he sought out the house of Allan Ramsay, and on entering it, took off his hat; and when he was afterwards introduced to Creech, the bibliopole remembered that he had before heard him inquiring if this had been the shop of the author of the "Gentle Shepherd.”' As In the country, during the past summer, Burns had become acquainted with Mr Dalrymple of Orangefield, near Ayr. Mr Dalrymple was a warm-hearted, high-pulsed man, enthusiastically given to masonry, and an occasional scribbler of verses. he had been concerned with Provost Ballantyne in masonically laying the foundation-stone of the new brig, we may surmise that this kind patron of the bard was the channel through which Burns approached Mr Dalrymple's acquaintance. We may also reasonably believe, until contradicted, that this was the 'Mr Dalrymple near Ayr' who had furnished Burns with the pony on which he rode to Edinburgh. In the earlier half of the eighteenth century, there had flourished at Ayr a poor 'violer,' named Hugh M'Guire. A friendless lad named Macrae, to whom he had shewn some kindness, went abroad, rose in the world, and came home as the retired governor of Madras, with a large fortune. Having no family of his own, Governor Macrae, from a feeling of gratitude, adopted that of the violer M'Guire. To the son, who took his name, he gave a large estate. The eldest daughter, with a superb provision, was married by the Earl of Glencairn. The second became the wife of Lord Alva, a judge of the Court of Session. The third was wedded by Hugh Dalrymple of Orangefield. Thus it happened that the present Earl of Glencairn, Mr. Dalrymple of Orangefield, and a certain hot-headed Captain Macrae of Holmains, all of them distinguished members of society in Edinburgh, were cousins-german through a common descent from the Ayr violer Hugh M‘Guire. The daughter of the violer, as dowager Countess of Glencairn, resided at Coates House, near Edinburgh-a lady noted for her religious zeal in an age not much distinguished that way. A connection, again, had been established between this group of eminent persons and another of equal local eminence, by the recent union of a younger brother of Lord Glencairn to Lady Isabella Erskine, sister to the Earl of Buchan and to the Hon. Henry Erskine, Dean of the Faculty of Advocates, both of whom were leading members of Edinburgh society. Having, through Mr Dalrymple, the means of introduction to this 'set,' Burns could not be said to enter Edinburgh quite friendless. Lord Glencairn too—a man in whom singular personal beauty formed the index to one of the fairest of characters-had already been prepared to patronise the Ayrshire poet, in consequence of having had his attention drawn to the Kilmarnock volume by Mr Dalziel, factor on his Ayrshire estate. It so happened that William Creech, now the leading publisher in Edinburgh, had in early life acted as preceptor to the Earl of Glencairn. The earl was therefore well qualified to introduce Burns to his notice, and recommend to him the publication of the BURNS AT THE CANONGATE KILWINNING LODGE. 17 proposed second edition of the poems. Creech, who was a welleducated man, and himself not without literary talents, must have instantly appreciated the genius thus brought under his notice. Apparently, however, he did not at once resolve upon undertaking any risk that might be involved in the proposed edition. According to a curious record quoted below, Burns was present on the evening of the 7th of December at a meeting of the Canongate Kilwinning Lodge of free-masons, at its place of assemblage in St John's Street, and there Mr Dalrymple introduced the bard to the Past-Master, the Honourable Henry Erskine. Never was a man more universally beloved in his circle or place of residence than this eminent barrister and highlygifted man--the witty, genial, kind-hearted Harry Erskine. It is unnecessary to remark that he was also a man peculiarly disposed to befriend such an example of native genius as Burns. This single lodge-night seems to have been enough to make the poet feel as if Mr Erskine were already his ancient and assured friend. TO GAVIN HAMILTON, ESQ., MAUCHLINE. EDINBURGH, Dec. 7th, 1786. HONOURED SIR-I have paid every attention to your commands, but can only say, what perhaps you will have heard before this reach you, that Muirkirklands were bought by a John Gordon, W.S., but for whom I know not; Mauchlands, Haugh-Mill, &c. by a Frederick Fotheringham, supposed to be for Ballochmyle Laird; and Adam-Hill and Shawood were bought for Oswald's folks. This is so imperfect an account, and will be so late ere it reach you, that were it not to discharge my conscience, I would not trouble you with it; but after all my diligence, I could make it no sooner nor better.2 For my own affairs, I am in a fair way of becoming as eminent as Thomas à Kempis or John Bunyan; and you may expect henceforth to see my birthday inserted among the wonderful events in the Poor Robin's and Aberdeen Almanacs, along with the Black Monday and the battle of Bothwell-Bridge. 3 My Lord Glencairn and the Dean of Faculty, Mr H. Erskine, have taken me under their 1 A Winter with Robert Burns. Edinburgh, 1846. 2 The lands of Mauchline Mains, East, West, and South Mossgavil, Haugh-Mill, and some others in Ayrshire, which the Loudon family was at this time forced to part with, are advertised to be sold in the Exchange Coffee-house, Edinburgh, on the 5th of December. Burns seems to have been commissioned by Mr Gavin Hamilton to send him carly intelligence of the result of the sale. The Earl of Loudon had died in the most mielancholy manner, the victim of pressing embarrassments, in the preceding April. 3 What Burns said here, probably more than half, if not wholly in jest, has com to be verified. wing; and by all probability I shall soon be the tenth worthy, and the eighth wise man of the world. Through my lord's influence, it is inserted in the records of the Caledonian Hunt that they universally, one and all, subscribe for the second edition. My subscription bills come out to-morrow, and you shall have some of them next post. I have met in Mr Dalrymple of Orangefield what Solomon emphatically calls 'a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.' The warmth with which he interests himself in my affairs is of the same enthusiastic kind which you, Mr Aiken, and the few patrons that took notice of my earlier poetic days, shewed for the poor unlucky devil of a poet. I always remember Mrs Hamilton and Miss Kennedy in my poetic prayers, but you both in prose and verse. May cauld ne'er catch you but a hap,1 Meanwhile there was other enginery working in favour of the bard. Professor Stewart, on leaving the banks of the Ayr at the beginning of November to commence his winter session at the university, carried with him a copy of the Kilmarnock volume, which he brought under the notice of Mr Henry Mackenzie, the well-known author of The Man of Feeling, and who was now conducting a periodical work entitled The Lounger, published in Edinburgh by Mr Creech. Mr Mackenzie read the poems with the usual admiration, and lost no time in writing upon them a generous critique, which appeared in the Lounger for the 9th of December. By this alone the fame of Burns was at once perfected in Scotland, for, by the pronouncement of the greatest tribunal in the country, all lesser judges were set free to give their judgment in the direction which their feelings had already dictated. To Burns the approbation must have been extremely dear, coming as it did from one whose works had been bosom books to him in his early days, when he could never have indulged the hope of being known to their author. Mackenzie, with great boldness, threw aside all claim for notice to Burns on the score of his humble condition in society. He pronounced him ' a genius of no ordinary rank.' His birth and education might excite wonder at his productions; 'but his poetry, considered abstractedly, and without the apologies arising from his situation, seems to me fully entitled to command our feelings and obtain our applause.' After quoting some stanzas from the Vision, and the whole of the Mountain Daisy, as specimens of the moral and tender, the critic goes on to say-The power of genius is not less admirable in 1 Upper coat. MACKENZIE'S GENEROUS CRITIQUE. 19 tracing the manners, than in painting the passions, or in drawing the scenery of nature. That intuitive glance with which a writer like Shakspeare discerns the characters of men, with which he catches the many-changing hues of life, forms a sort of problem in the science of mind, of which it is easier to see the truth than to assign the cause. Though I am very far from meaning to compare our rustic bard to Shakspeare, yet whoever will read his lighter and more humorous poems, his Dialogue of the Dogs, his dedication to G-H, Esq., his Epistle to a Young Friend, and to W- S- will perceive with what uncommon penetration and sagacity this heaven-taught ploughman, from his humble and unlettered station, has looked upon men and manners.' This, it will be admitted, is no faint praise. But Mr Mackenzie is not satisfied with praising. He sees that a great poet has arisen, and he claims for him the generous support of his country. 'Burns,' he says, 'possesses the spirit as well as the fancy of a poet. That honest pride and independence of soul, which are sometimes the Muse's only dower, break forth on every occasion in his works. It may be, then, I shall wrong his feelings while I indulge my own, in calling the attention of the public to his situation and circumstances. That condition, humble as it was, in which he found content, and wooed the Muse, might not have been deemed uncomfortable; but grief and misfortune have reached him there; and one or two of his poems hint, what I have learned from some of his countrymen, that he has been obliged to form the resolution of leaving his native land, to seek, under a West Indian clime, that shelter and support which Scotland has denied him. But I trust that means may be found to prevent this resolution from taking place, and that I do my country no more than justice when I suppose her ready to stretch out her hand to cherish and retain this native poet, whose "wood-notes wild" possess so much excellence. To repair the wrongs of suffering or neglected merit; to call forth genius from the obscurity in which it had pined indignant, and place it where it may profit or delight the world-these are exertions which give to wealth an enviable superiority, to greatness and to patronage a laudable pride.' TO JAMES DALRYMPLE, ESQ., OF ORANGEFIELD. [December 10, 1786 ?] DEAR SIR-I suppose the devil is so elated with his success with you, that he is determined by a coup de main to complete his pur |