Antiquaries an elaborate paper, making it appear that the affair was, what had never been hitherto suspected, but an interlude in Burns's attachment to Jean Armour. He argued that it could not have been, as several biographers had surmised, a strictly early or juvenile attachment, as the Bible was published in 1782,* and the imperfect signature of the poet is followed by a word which appears to have been originally Mossgavill' the name of a place with which he had no connection till Martinmas 1783, when he was nearly twenty-five years of age, and where he did not reside till March of the ensuing year. Mr Douglas also endeavoured to trace the connection between this attachment and the design of going to the West Indies, a design of which we hear definitely at no earlier period of his life than the spring of 1786. This connection appears strongly in a song which afterwards appeared in Johnson's Scots Musical Museum (vol. ii.): THE HIGHLAND LASSIE, O. Nae gentle dames, tho' ne'er sae fair,† Their titles a' are empty show; Chorus-Within the glen sae bushy, O, O were yon hills and vallies mine, But fickle fortune frowns on me, And I maun cross the raging sea; full of rushes sat down must * The Bible was printed by the Assigns of Alexander Kincaid, His Majesty's printer.' Gentle' is here used in opposition to simple.' Gentle dames' means ladies of aris tocratic birth. But while my crimson currents flow, Altho' thro' foreign climes I range, For her I'll dare the billow's roar; She has my heart, she has my hand, Farewel the glen sae bushy, O! The poet, in the notes in Johnson's Museum which he made for Captain Riddel of Glenriddel,* says of this song, it was a composition of mine in very early life, before I was at all known. in the world. My Highland lassie was a warm-hearted, charming young creature as ever blessed a man with generous love.' And then he relates his story of their parting. All the circumstances detailed in this ballad-its author's love, his desire of fortune for the sake of the loved one, and especially his being compelled by the frowns of fortune to cross the raging sea-entirely answer to the crisis with which Burns was now confronted, and they do not quite answer to any other period of his life of which we have any knowledge. Burns further told George Thomson in 1792, 'In my very early years, when I was thinking of going to the West-Indies, I took the following farewell of a dear girl :' Cromek's Reliques. WILL YE GO TO THE INDIES, MY MARY? TUNE-Will ye go to the Ewe-buchts, Marion? Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary, And leave auld Scotia's shore? O sweet grows the lime and the orange, But a' the charms o' the Indies I hae sworn by the Heavens to my Mary, O plight me your faith, my Mary, We hae plighted our troth, my Mary, In mutual affection to join, And curst be the cause that shall part us! The hour, and the moment o' time! But for the phrases, 'very early life,' and 'my very early years,' there could be no difficulty in assigning 'The Highland Lassie' and Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary?' which is evidently another expression of the same passion, to the year 1786; but Mr Douglas contended that either Burns felt as if the lapse of six years had brought him out of youth into middle life, or he wished to maintain a mystery regarding the story of Mary. For his desire to keep the matter in obscurity various reasons may be assigned. It may well be believed in particular that he disliked to bring to his wife's knowledge an attachment which all but separated them for life. * The first verse is not to be read as expressing a desire of the poet that Mary should accompany him to the West Indies: the rest of the poem makes the idea of a parting and farewell quite clear. The verse may be accepted simply as a variation of the song whose air was adopted. It has already been observed that there were amatory underplots in the drama of Burns's life, and it is not very surprising that he should be found at this time taking leave of a third girl in terms resembling those employed in the 'Highland Lassie,' and which involve the same allusions to his approaching exile from his native country: FAREWELL TO ELIZA. From thee, Eliza, I must go, And from my native shore: They never, never can divide Farewell, farewell, Eliza dear, But the latest throb that leaves my heart, While Death stands victor by, That throb, Eliza, is thy part, And thine that latest sigh! This song appeared in the first edition of his poems, and the identity of the girl seems to be fairly well attested by his saying in a letter, written on his return to Mauchline in June 1787, that he had called for his 'quondam Eliza.' It is generally believed that she was Betty Miller, one of the Mauchline belles, who, as has been seen (p. 138), married a Mr Templeton, and died shortly after her marriage. She appears to have been an amiable girl, and it is not improbable that she had sympathised with Burns during his various distresses. Gratitude may have inspired a kind of affection, which, as usual, he expressed in the language of adoring love.* Another 'Betty' figures in the list of the loves. that Ayrshire legend has assigned to Burns. It is still believed in the parish of Stair that he courted and was accepted by Betty Campbell, a servant in Stair House, that he gave her 'lines,' and that these were destroyed by the girl after a quarrel with the poet. The idea of taking Mary along with him into exile was soon given up by Burns, if it were ever seriously entertained. Within a very few weeks after his parting from her, we find him, in a letter to a friend, speaking of Jean as still holding sway over his affections. He tells how he had been vainly endeavouring, by 'dissipation and riot,' to drive her out of his head, notwithstanding that he now regarded her as even more unfaithful than ever. At the end of March, and, probably, to escape from her father's displeasure, Jean went to Paisley, to stay for some time with an uncle, Andrew Purdie, a carpenter; and here she found a friendly shelter. She knew no other person in Paisley except a young weaver named Robert Wilson, who was a native of Mauchline, and who had often danced with her at balls there. Finding herself in want of money, she applied for assistance to Wilson, whose trade was in those days so prosperous as to ensure him a fair income. The young man visited her, and advanced the sum she required. He repeated the visit several times, and in consequence a report reached Mauchline that Jean and he were likely to be married. In reality, all that Wilson said to Jean was that, if she did not marry Burns, he would never take a wife while she remained disengaged. The story, however, reached the ears of Burns in its most exaggerated form. † *The following extracts from Mauchline kirk-session records are curious as indicating a desire on the part of Jean's mother to conceal her daughter's disgrace even at this time: 'April 2d, 1786.-The session being informed that Jean Armour, an unmarried woman, is said to be with child, and that she has gone off from the place of late, to reside elsewhere, the session think it their duty to enquire. . . But appoint James Lamie and William Fisher to speak to the parents.' 'April 9th, 1786.-James Lamie reports that he spoke to Mary Smith, mother to Jean Armour, who told him that she did not suspect her daughter to be with child, that she was gone to Paisley to see her friends, and would return soon.' 'June 18th, 1786.-Jean Armour, called, compeared not, but sent a letter directed to the minister: "I am heartily sorry that I have given and must give your session trouble on my account. I acknowledge that I am with child, and Robert Burns in Mossgiel is the father. I am, with great respect, your most humble servant, (Signed) "JEAN ARMOUR. "MACHLIN, 13th June 1786." In Some Aspects of Robert Burns,' an essay which Robert Louis Stevenson contributed to the Cornhill Magazine (October 1879), and subsequently included in his Familiar Studies of Men and Books (1882), the statement is made in connection with Burns's first meeting with Jean Armour: This facile and empty-headed girl had nothing more in view than a flirtation; and her heart, from the first and on to the end of her story, was engaged by another man.' In support of this statement no evidence whatever is offered. It is highly probable that Mr Stevenson was misled by the story as to the Paisley weaver having offered to marry Jean after her quarrel with Burns. |