One of Burns's letters, written not long after this, contains a passage strongly marked with his haughtiness of character. "I have escaped," says he, "the fantastic caprice, the apish affectation, with all the other blessed boarding-school acquirements which are sometimes to be found among males of the upper ranks, but almost universally pervade the misses of the would-be gentry."* fe "A discerning reader," says Mr. Walker, "will perceive that the letters in which he announces his marriage to some of his most respected correspondents, are written in that state when the mind is pained by reflecting on an unwelcome step, and finds relief to itself in seeking arguments to justify the deed, and lessen its disadvantages in the opinion of others." † I confess I am not able to discern any traces of this kind of feeling in any of Burns's letters on this interesting and important occasion. The Rev. Hamilton Paul takes an original view of this business :-" Much praise," says he," has been lavished on Burns for renewing his engagement with Jean when in the blaze of his fame. . . The praise is misplaced. We do not think a man entitled to credit or commendation for doing what the law could compel him to perform. Burns was in reality a married man, and it is truly ludicrous to hear him, aware as he must have been, of the indissoluble power of the obligation, though every document was destroyed, talking of himself as a bachelor." There is no justice in these remarks. It is very true, that, by a merciful fiction of the law of Scotland, the female, in Miss Armour's condition, who produces a written promise of marriage, is considered as having furnished evidence of an irregular marriage having taken place between her and her lover; but in this case the female herself had destroyed the document, and lived for many months not only not assuming, but rejecting the character of Burns's wife; and had she, under such circumstances, attempted to establish a marriage, with no document in her hand, and with no parole evidence to show that any such document had ever existed, to say nothing of proving its exact tenor, but that of her own father, it is clear that no ecclesiastical court in the world could have failed to decide against her. So far from Burns's having all along regarded her as his wife, it is extremely doubtful whether she had ever for one moment considered him as actually her husband, until he declared the marriage of 1788. Burns did no more than justice as well as honour demanded; but the act was one which no human tribunal could have compelled him to perform. To return to our story. Burns complains sadly of his solitary condition, when living in the only hovel that he found extant on his farm. "I am," says he, (September 9th) "busy with my harvest, but for all that most pleasurable part of life called social intercourse, I am here at the very elbow of existence. The only things that are to be found in this country in any degree of perfection, are stupidity and canting. Prose they only know in graces, &c., and the value of these they estimate as they do their plaiding webs, by the ell. As for the muses, they have as much idea of a rhinoceros as of a poet." And in another letter (September 16th) he says, "This hovel that I shelter in while occasionally here, is pervious to every blast that blows, and every shower that falls, and I am only preserved from being chilled to death by being suffocated by smoke. You will be pleased to hear that I have laid aside idle eclat, and bind every day after Morrison, vol. i. p. lxxxvii. • General Correspondence, No. 53. Paul's Life of Burns, p. 45. my reapers." His house, however, did not take much time in building nor had he reason to complain of want of society long. He brought his wife home to Elliesland about the end of November; and few housekeepers start with a larger provision of young mouths to feed than this couple. Mrs. Burns had lain in this autumn, for the second time, of twins, and I suppose "sonsy, smirking, dear-bought Bess," accompanied her younger brothers and sisters from Mossgiel. From that quarter also Burns brought a whole establishment of servants, male and female, who, of course, as was then the universal custom amongst the small farmers, both of the west and of the south of Scotland, partook, at the same table, of the same fare with their master and mistress. Elliesland is beautifully situated on the banks of the Nith, about six miles above Dumfries, exactly opposite to the house of Dalswinton, of those noble woods and gardens amidst which Burns's landlord, the ingenious Mr. Patrick Miller, found relaxation from the scientific studies and researches in which he so greatly excelled. On the Dalswinton side, the river washes lawns and groves; but over against these the bank rises into a long red scaur, of considerable height, along the verge of which, where the bare shingle of the precipice all but overhangs the stream, Burns had his favourite walk, and might now be seen striding alone, early and late, especially when the winds were loud, and the waters below him swollen and turbulent. For he was one of those that enjoy nature most in the more serious and severe of her aspects; and throughout his poetry, for one allusion to the liveliness of spring, or the splendour of summer, it would be easy to point out twenty in which he records the solemn delight with which he contemplated the melancholy grandeur of autumn, or the savage gloom of winter; and he has himself told us, that it was his custom "to take a gloamin' shot at the muses." The poet was accustomed to say, that the most happy period of his life was the first winter he spent at Elliesland,-for the first time under a roof of his own with his wife and children about him-and in spite of occasional lapses into the melancholy which had haunted his youth, looking forward to a life of well-regulated, and not ill-rewarded, industry. It is known that he welcomed his wife to her rooftree at Elliesland in the song, "I hae a wife o' mine ain, I'll partake wi' naebody; In commenting on this "little lively lucky song," as he well calls it, Mr. A. Cunningham says, " Burns had built his house, he had committed his seed-corn to the ground, he was in the prime, nay the morning of lifehealth, and strength, and agricultural skill were on his side his genius had been acknowledged by his country, and rewarded by a subscription, more extensive than any Scottish poet ever received before; no wonder, therefore, that he broke out into voluntary song, expressive of his sense of importance and independence." Burns, in his letters of the year 1789, makes many apologies for doing but little in his poetical vocation; his farm, without doubt, occupied much of his attention, but the want of social intercourse, of which he complained on his first arrival in Nithsdale, had by this time totally disappeared. On * POETICAL INVENTORY to Mr. Aiken, February 1786, the contrary, his company was courted eagerly, not only by his brotherfarmers, but by the neighbouring gentry of all classes; and now, too, for the first time, he began to be visited continually in his own house by curious travellers of all sorts, who did not consider, any more than the generous poet himself, that an extensive practice of hospitality must cost more time than he ought to have had, and far more money than he ever had, at his disposal. Meantime, he was not wholly regardless of the muses; for in addition to some pieces which we have already had occasion to notice, he contributed to this year's MUSEUM, The Thames flows proudly to the Sea; The lazy mist hangs, &c.; The day returns, my bosom burns; Tam Glen, (one of the best of his humorous songs); the splendid lyric, Go fetch to me a pint of wine, and My heart's in the Hielands, (in both of which, however, he adopted some lines of ancient songs to the same tunes); John Anderson, in part also a rifacciamento; the best of all his Bacchanalian pieces, Willie brewed a peck o' maut, written in celebration of a festive meeting at the country residence, in Dumfriesshire, of his friend Mr. Nicoll of the High School; and lastly, that noblest of all his ballads, To Mary in Heaven. This celebrated poem was, it is on all hands admitted, composed by Burns in September 1789, on the anniversary of the day on which he heard of the death of his early love, Mary Campbell; but Mr. Cromek has thought fit to dress up the story with circumstances which did not occur. Mrs. Burns, the only person who could appeal to personal recollection on this occasion, and whose recollections of all circumstances conneeted with the history of her husband's poems, are represented as being remarkably distinct and vivid, gives what may at first appear a more prosaic edition of the history. According to her, Burns spent that day, though labouring under cold, in the usual work of his harvest, and apparently in excellent spirits. But as the twilight deepened, he appeared to grow "very sad about something," and at length wandered out into the barn-yard, to which his wife, in her anxiety for his health, followed him, entreating him in vain to observe that frost had set in, and to return to the fireside. On being again and again requested to do so, he always promised compliance-but still remained where he was, striding up and down slowly, and contemplating the sky, which was singularly clear and starry. At last Mrs. Burns found him stretched on a mass of straw, with his eyes fixed on a beautiful planet" that shone like another moon ;" and prevailed on him to come in. He immediately on entering the house, called for his desk, and wrote exactly as they now stand, with all the ease of one copying from memory, the sublime and pathetic verses * "Thou lingering star with lessening ray, That lovest to greet the early morn, Again thou usher'st in the day My Mary from my soul was torn. O Mary, dear departed shade, Where is thy place of blissful rest ; See'st thou thy lover lowly laid, Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast?" &c. The Mother's Lament for her Son, and Inscription in an Hermitage in Nithsdale, were also written this year. From the time when Burns settled himself in Dumfriesshire, he appears to have conducted with much care the extensive correspondence in which his celebrity had engaged him. The I owe these particulars to Mr. M'Diarmid, the able editor of the Dumfries Courier, and brother of the laniented author of "Lives of British Statesmen.' letters that passed between him and his brother Gilbert, are among the most precious of the collection. That the brothers had entire knowledge of and confidence in each other, no one can doubt; and the plain manly affectionate language in which they both write, is truly honourable to them, and to the parents that reared them. "Dear Brother," writes Gilbert, January 1st, 1789, "I have just finished my new-year's-day breakfast in the usual form, which naturally makes me call to mind the days of former years, and the society in which we used to begin them; and when I look at our family vicissitudes, through the dark postern of time long elapsed,' I cannot help remarking to you, my dear brother, how good the God of seasons is to us; and that, however some clouds may seem to lour over the portion of time before us, we have great reason to hope that all will turn out well." It was on the same new-year's-day that Burns himself addressed to Mrs. Dunlop a letter, part of which is here transcribed. It is dated Elliesland, New-year-day morning, 1789, and certainly cannot be read too often:"This, dear Madam, is a morning of wishes, and would to God that I came under the apostle James's description!-the prayer of a righteous man availeth much. In that case, madam, you should welcome in a year full of blessings; every thing that obstructs or disturbs tranquillity and self-enjoyment, should be removed, and every pleasure that frail humanity can taste, should be yours. I own myself so little a Presbyterian, that I approve of set times and seasons of more than ordinary acts of devotion, for breaking in on that habituated routine of life and thought, which is so apt to reduce our existence to a kind of instinct, or even sometimes, and with some minds, to a state very little superior to mere machinery. This day, the first Sunday of May,-a breezy, blue-skyed moon sometime about the beginning, and a hoary morning and calm sunny day about the end of autumn; these, time out of mind, have been with me a kind of holiday. "I believe I owe this to that glorious paper in the Spectator, The Vision of Mirza ;' a piece that struck my young fancy before I was capable of fixing an idea to a word of three syllables: On the 5th day of the moon, which, according to the custom of my forefathers, I always keep holy, after having washed myself, and offered up my morning devotions, I ascended the high hill of Bagdat, in order to pass the rest of the day in meditation and prayer.' We know nothing, or next to nothing, of the substance or structure of our souls, so cannot account for those seeming caprices in them, that one should be particularly pleased with this thing, or struck with that, which, on minds of a different cast, makes no extraordinary impression. I have some favourite flowers in spring, among which are the mountain-daisy, the hare-bell, the fox-glove, the wild brier-rose, the budding-birch, and the hoary hawthorn, that I view and hang over with particular delight. I never hear the loud, solitary whistle of the curlew in a summer noon, or the wild mixing cadence of a troop of grey plover, in an autumnal morning, without feeling an elevation of soul like the enthusiasm of devotion or poetry. Tell me, my dear friend, to what can this be owing? Are we a piece of machinery, which, like the Eolian harp, passive, takes the impression of the passing accident? Or do these workings argue something within us above the trodden clod? I own myself partial to such proofs of those awful and important realities—a God that made all things -man's immaterial and immortal nature-and a world of weal or woe beyond death and the grave." Few, it is to be hoped, can read such things as these without delight; none, surely, that taste the elevated pleasure they are calculated to inspire, can turn from them to the well-known issue of Burns's history, without being afflicted. The "golden days" of Elliesland, as Dr. Currie justly calls them, were not destined to be many. Burns's farming speculations once more failed; and he himself seems to have been aware that such was likely to be the case ere he had given the business many months' trial; for, ere the autumn of 1788 was over, he applied to his patron, Mr. Graham of Fintray, for actual employment as an exciseman, and was accordingly appointed to do duty, in that capacity, in the district where his lands were situated. His income, as a revenue officer, was at first only £35; it by and by rose to £50; and sometimes was £70. These pounds were hardly earned, since the duties of his new calling necessarily withdrew him very often from the farm, which needed his utmost attention, and exposed him, which was still worse, to innumerable temptations of the kind he was least likely to resist. I have now the satisfaction of presenting the reader with some particulars of this part of Burns's history, derived from a source which every lover of Scotland and Scottish poetry must be prepared to hear mentioned with respect. It happened that at the time when our poet went to Nithsdale, the father of Mr. Allan Cunningham was steward on the estate of Dalswinton: he was, as all who have read the writings of his sons will readily believe, a man of remarkable talents and attainments: he was a wise and good man; a devout admirer of Burns's genius; and one of those sober neighbours who in vain strove, by advice and warning, to arrest the poet in the downhill path, towards which a thousand seductions were perpetually drawing him. Mr. Allan Cunningham was, of course, almost a child when he first saw Burns; but, in what he has to say on this subject, we may be sure we are hearing the substance of his benevolent and sagacious father's observations and reflections. His own boyish recollections of the poet's personal appearance and demeanour will, however, be read with interest. "I was very young," says Allan Cunningham, "when I first saw Burns. He came to see my father; and their conversation turned partly on farming, partly on poetry, in both of which my father had taste and skill. Burns had just come to Nithsdale; and I think he appeared a shade more swarthy than he does in Nasmyth's picture, and at least ten years older than he really was at the time. His face was deeply marked by thought, and the habitual expression intensely melancholy. His frame was very muscular and well proportioned, though he had a short neck, and something of a ploughman's stoop: he was strong, and proud of his strength. I saw him one evening match himself with a number of masons; and out of five-and-twenty practised hands, the most vigorous young men in the parish, there was only one that could lift the same weight as Burns. He had a very manly face, and a very melancholy look; but on the coming of those he esteemed, his looks brightened up, and his whole face beamed with affection and genius. His voice was very musical. I once heard him read Tam o Shanter. I think I hear him now. His fine manly voice followed all the undulations of the sense, and expressed as well as his genius had done, the pathos and humour, the horrible and the awful, of that wonderful performance. As a man feels, so will he write; and in proportion as he sympathizes with his author, so will he read him with grace and effect. |