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, tooa 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 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,1 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 highly-gifted 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.

1 A Winter with Robert Burns. Edinburgh, 1846.

TO GAVIN HAMILTON, ESQ., MAUCHLINE.

EDINBURGH, Dec. 7, 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.1

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. My Lord Glencairn and the Dean of Faculty, Mr H. Erskine, have taken me under their 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 carlier poetic days, shewed for the poor unlucky devil of a poct.

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,3
Nor hunger but in plenty's lap!

Amen!

R. B.

Meanwhile, there was other enginery working in favour of the bard. Professor Stewart, on leaving the banks of the Ayr at

'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 Coffeehouse, Edinburgh, on the 5th of December. Burns seems to have been commissioned by Mr Gavin Hamilton to send him early intelligence of the result of the sale. The Earl of Loudon had died in the most melancholy manner, the victim of pressing embarrassments, in the preceding April.

2 What Burns said here, probably more than half, if not wholly in jest, has come to be

verified.

3 Upper-coat.

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 carly 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 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 GH, Esq., his Epistle to a Young Friend, and to WS, 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 purposes on you all at once, in making you a poet. I broke open the letter you sent me-hummed over the rhymes-and as I saw they were extempore, said to myself they were very well; but when I saw at the bottom a name that I shall ever value with grateful respect, I gapit wide, but nacthing spak.' I was nearly as much struck as the friends of Job, of affliction-bearing memory, when they sat down with him seven days and seven nights, and spake not a word.

I am naturally of a superstitious cast; and as soon as my wonderscared imagination regained its consciousness, and resumed its functions, I cast about what this mania of yours might portend. My foreboding ideas had the wide stretch of possibility; and several events, great in their magnitude, and important in their consequences, occurred to my fancy. The downfall of the conclave, or the crushing of the cork rumps-a ducal-coronet to Lord George Gordon, and the Protestant interest, or St Peter's keys to * * *

You want to know how I come on. I am just in statu quo, or, not to insult a gentleman with my Latin, in auld use and wont.'

The noble Earl of Glencairn took me by the hand to-day, and interested himself in my concerns, with a goodness like that benevolent being whose image he so richly bears. He is a stronger proof of the immortality of the soul than any that philosophy ever produced. A mind like his can never die. Let the worshipful squire H. L., or the reverend Mass J. M., go into their primitive nothing. At best, they are but ill-digested lumps of chaos-only, one of them strongly tinged with bituminous particles and sulphureous effluvia. But my noble patron, eternal as the heroic swell of magnanimity, and the generous throb of benevolence, shall look on with princely eye at 'the war of elements, the wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds.' R. B.

He gives us more of his own story in a letter

TO JOHN BALLANTYNE, ESQ., BANKER, AYR.

EDINBURGH, 13th December 1786. MY HONOURED FRIEND-I would not write you till I could have it in my power to give you some account of myself and my matters, which, by the by, is often no easy task. I arrived here on Tuesday was se'nnight, and have suffered ever since I came to town with a miserable headache and stomach-complaint, but am now a good deal better. I have found a worthy warm friend in Mr Dalrymple of Orangefield, who introduced me to Lord Glencairn, a man whose worth and brotherly kindness to me I shall remember when time shall be no more. By his interest it is passed in the 'Caledonian Hunt,' and entered in their books, that they are to take each a copy of the second edition, for which they are to pay one guinea. I have been introduced to a good many of the noblesse, but my avowed patrons and patronesses are, the Duchess of Gordon-the Countess of Glencairn, with my Lord and Lady Betty-the Dean of Faculty -Sir John Whitefoord. I have likewise warm friends among the literati Professors Stewart, Blair, and Mr Mackenzie, the 'Man of Feeling.' An unknown hand left ten guineas for the Ayrshire Bard with Mr Sibbald, which I got. I since have discovered my generous unknown friend to be Patrick Miller, Esq., brother to the JusticeClerk; and drank a glass of claret with him by invitation at his own house yesternight. I am nearly agreed with Creech to print my book, and I suppose I will begin on Monday. I will send a subscription-bill or two next post, when I intend writing my first kind patron, Mr Aiken. I saw his son to-day, and he is very well.

:

Dugald Stewart, and some of my learned friends, put me in the periodical paper called The Lounger, a copy of which I here enclose you. I was, sir, when I was first honoured with your notice, too obscure; now I tremble lest I should be ruined by being dragged too suddenly into the glare of polite and learned observation.