yet a poet, a clergyman, and a man of comprehensive intelligence -possessed, moreover, of the kindest and most benevolent nature, and beloved, accordingly, by all who approached him. Thirteen years before, Samuel Johnson had visited this amiable person, and relenting in the contemplation of so much gentle goodness, joined to a patient resignation under one of the severest of natural deprivations, had said with a humane complacency,' as Boswell expresses it: 'Dear Dr Blacklock, I am glad to see you.' Cruelly disappointed of a clerical charge, in consequence of his blindness, Blacklock had settled into a humble but respectable mode of living, as the keeper of a boarding establishment for young men attending school and college. He was himself of course not richer than befitted a son of the Muses; but this neither chilled his benevolent heart nor dulled his poetical sensibilities. Dr Walker says: 'If the young men were enumerated whom he drew from obscurity, and enabled, by education, to advance themselves in life, the catalogue would naturally excite surprise.' On reading the volume of Poems sent to him by his friend Lawrie, he experienced sensations which he must be allowed to describe for himself. The following is the letter he addressed on the occasion to his correspondent at St Margaret's Hill:'

TO MR GEORGE LAWRIE, V. D. M.2

ST MARGARET'S HILL, KILMARNOCK.

EDIN. Sept. 4, 1786.

'REV. AND DEAR SIR-I ought to have acknowledged your favour long ago, not only as a testimony of your kind remembrance, but as it gave me an opportunity of sharing one of the finest and perhaps one of the most genuine entertainments of which the human mind is susceptible. A number of avocations retarded my progress in reading the Poems; at last, however, I have finished that pleasing perusal. Many instances have I seen of nature's force or beneficence exerted under numerous and formidable disadvantages; but none equal to that with which you have been kind enough to present me. There is a pathos and delicacy in his serious poems, a vein of wit and humour in those of a more festive turn, which cannot be too much admired, nor too warmly approved; and I think I shall never open the book without feeling my astonishment renewed and

This letter, certainly one of the most interesting documents connected with Scottish literary history, is now in the possession of the Rev. Balfour Graham, minister of North Berwick, son-in-law of the late Rev. Archibald Lawrie, the son of Blacklock's correspondent. 2 V. D. M.-i. e. Verbi Dei Minister.

increased. It was my wish to have expressed my approbation in verse; but whether from declining life, or a temporary depression of spirits, it is at present out of my power to accomplish that intention.

'Mr Stewart, Professor of Morals in this University, had formerly read me three of the poems, and I had desired him to get my name inserted among the subscribers; but whether this was done or not I never could learn. I have little intercourse with Dr Blair, but will take care to have the Poems communicated to him by the intervention of some mutual friend. It has been told me by a gentleman, to whom I shewed the performances, and who sought a copy with diligence and ardour, that the whole impression is already exhausted. It were therefore much to be wished, for the sake of the young man, that a second edition, more numerous than the former, could immediately be printed; as it appears certain that its intrinsic merit, and the exertion of the author's friends, might give it a more universal circulation than anything of the kind which has been published in my memory. *

*

T. BLACKLOCK.'

Mr Lawrie-whose gratification in receiving such a confirmation of his own opinion, and one so calculated to inspire better hopes of the future fortunes of Burns, must have been extreme-lost no time in communicating the letter to Mr Gavin Hamilton, that it might be placed in the hands of the poet. The receipt of it at Mossgiel was as a burst of sunshine on a wintry day. Burns says truly, 'The doctor belonged to a set of critics for whose applause I had not dared to hope.' New prospects were, as he says, opened to his poetic ambition. With persons of reflection, however, hopes that come after long experience of depression and suffering are usually succeeded by new fears. Burns says: 'His [Blacklock's] opinion that I would meet with encouragement in Edinburgh for a second edition fired me so much, that away I posted for that city, without a single acquaintance or a single letter of introduction.' In this there is only a general truth. Blacklock said nothing of Edinburgh, and Burns did not proceed to that city till upwards of two months after. No doubt the letter had acted as an invitation to try his fortune in the capital; but it had not the immediate effect of attracting him thither. For weeks after its receipt, we find him continuing to contemplate the West Indies as his most likely destiny, although disposed to stay at home if possible. Indeed it can scarcely be doubted that, but for the accidental delay of the vessel in which his passage was taken out, the Ayrshire poet would have been on his way

across the Atlantic long before any decided temptation arose to induce him to try his fortune in Edinburgh.'

It was on the day before Blacklock wrote his letter that the birth of his twin children was announced to the poet; and this event was not without its influence in shaping his career. He felt the claim of these infants upon his care, and desired to remain at home for their protection. At the same time, he beheld in his cruel fortunes, and felt in his late mortifications, powerful reasons for holding by his original plan. In these circumstances, his generous friends Aiken and Hamilton took some trouble to ascertain if there was not a chance of securing an appointment in the Excise, as a means of providing for him at home. But even of this change of fortune, if realised, he feared that he might not be able to take advantage. While thus in suspense, he took his usual share in the labours of the harvest, occasionally visited his friends at Ayr and elsewhere, and did not allow the Muse to remain uncultivated. When not engaged in company or in composition, the wells of bitter recollection would flow out, and steep his soul in wretchedness.

It seems to have been at the close of autumn that he composed his amusing poem, The Brigs of Ayr, the model of which he found in Fergusson's Dialogue between the Plainstanes and Causeway, though, as usual, he made an immense advance upon his predecessor. A new bridge was now building across the river at Ayr, in order to supersede an ancient structure which had long been inconvenient, and was now infirm, and as this work was proceeding under the chief magistracy of his kind patron, Mr Ballantyne,

1 What is here presented regarding the connection of Burns with the minister of Loudon, is arranged, according to the best of the editor's judgment, from the statements of Professor Walker (Life of Burns), Gilbert Burns (Currie, vol. iii., Appendix), and manuscript notices supplied by Mr Lawrie's family, which have already been made use of in The Land of Burns. I must candidly apprise the reader that the materials are not self-consistent, and that I can only pretend, out of several difficulties, to have chosen what appeared to me the least. The date assigned by Walker for Burns's visit is the end of autumn;' but this neither comports with the date of Dr Blacklock's letter, afterwards received, nor with the accounts we have of Burns's intentions in other quarters. That degree of determination for the West Indies which alone could have prompted The Gloomy Night is Gathering Fast, had certainly ceased before September was far advanced, though the plan was not wholly abandoned till October had expired. The song itself describes autumn objects and circumstances, though under an intrusion of wintry weather. Severe cold blasts are certainly not uncommon at any period of a Scottish autumn, but it did happen that there was a violent storm, accompanied by rain and lightning, in the west of Scotland on the two last days of August and first of September this year, being the time which we have in view for the incident.

Burns seized the occasion to make a return of gratitude by inscribing the poem to him :

THE BRIGS OF AYR.

INSCRIBED TO JOHN BALLANTYNE, ESQ., AYR.

The simple Bard, rough at the rustic plough,
Learning his tuneful trade from every bough;
The chanting linnet, or the mellow thrush,

Hailing the setting sun, sweet, in the green thorn-bush;
The soaring lark, the perching redbreast shrill,

Or deep-toned plovers, gray, wild-whistling o'er the hill;
Shall he, nurst in the peasant's lowly shed,

To hardy independence bravely bred,

By early poverty to hardship steeled,

And trained to arms in stern misfortune's field

Shall he be guilty of their hireling crimes,

The servile, mercenary Swiss of rhymes?
Or labour hard the panegyric close,

With all the venal soul of dedicating prose?
No! though his artless strains he rudely sings,
And throws his hand uncouthly o'er the strings,
He glows with all the spirit of the Bard,
Fame, honest Fame, his great, his dear reward!
Still, if some patron's generous care he trace,
Skilled in the secret to bestow with grace;
When Ballantyne befriends his humble name,
And hands the rustic stranger up to Fame,
With heartfelt throes his grateful bosom swells,
The godlike bliss, to give, alone excels.

thatch

heaps-danger

"Twas when the stacks get on their winter hap, covering
And thack and rape secure the toil-won crap;
Potato bings are snuggèd up frae skaith
Of coming Winter's biting, frosty breath;
The bees, rejoicing o'er their summer toils,
Unnumbered buds and flowers' delicious spoils,
Sealed up with frugal care in massive waxen piles,
Are doomed by man, that tyrant o'er the weak,

The death o' devils smoored wi' brimstone reek: smothered
The thundering guns are heard on every side,

The wounded coveys, reeling, scatter wide;

The feathered field-mates, bound by Nature's tie,
Sires, mothers, children, in one carnage lie:
(What warm, poetic heart, but inly bleeds,
And execrates man's savage, ruthless deeds!)

3

Nae mair the flower in field or meadow springs;
Nae mair the grove with airy concert rings,
Except, perhaps, the robin's whistling glee,
Proud o' the height o' some bit half-lang tree :
The hoary morns precede the sunny days,

Mild, calm, serene, wide spreads the noontide blaze,
While thick the gossamour waves wanton in the rays.

"Twas in that season, when a simple Bard,
Unknown and poor, Simplicity's reward,
Ae night, within the ancient brugh of Ayr,
By whim inspired, or haply prest wi' care,
He left his bed, and took his wayward route,
And down by Simpson's' wheeled the left-about:
(Whether impelled by all-directing Fate,
To witness what I after shall narrate;"
Or whether, rapt in meditation high,

3

He wandered out he knew not where or why)
The drowsy Dungeon-clock had numbered two,
And Wallace Tower had sworn the fact was true:
The tide-swoln Firth, with sullen sounding roar,
Through the still night dashed hoarse along the shore.
All else was hushed as Nature's closed e'e:

The silent moon shone high o'er tower and tree :
The chilly frost, beneath the silver beam,
Crept, gently-crusting, o'er the glittering stream.
When lo! on either hand the listening Bard,
The clanging sugh of whistling wings is heard; rustle
Two dusky forms dart through the midnight air,
Swift as the gos drives on the wheeling hare:

5

Ane on the Auld Brig his airy shape uprears,
The ither flutters o'er the rising piers:
Our warlock Rhymer instantly descried
The Sprites that owre the Brigs of Ayr preside.
(That Bards are second-sighted is nae joke,
And ken the lingo of the sp'ritual folk;

1 A noted tavern at the Auld Brig end.-B.

2 In a MS. copy, here occur two lines omitted in print:

'Or penitential pangs for former sins

Led him to rove by quondam Merran Din's.'

A clock in a steeple connected with the old jail of Ayr. This steeple and its clock were removed some years ago.

The clock in the Wallace Tower-an anomalous piece of antique masonry, surmounted by a spire, which stood in the High Street of Ayr. It was removed some years ago, and replaced by a more elegant tower, which bears its name.

* The gos-hawk, or falcon.—B.