stumbles on what may be called a strong thing rather TO THE than a good thing. Mrs. Scott all the sense, taste, GUIDWIFE intrepidity of face, and bold critical decision which OF usually distinguish female authors.' She died 19th WAUCHOPE February 1789. After her death a selection from her verses was published (1801), under the title Alonzo and Cora, in which Burns's Epistle was included.

The first three stanzas were published in Currie (1800) under the title, On my Early Days; but, the piece appearing in Alonzo and Cora, this fragment was omitted from later Editions. The complete Epistle appeared in Duncan (1801) and in Stewart (1802), but not again until 1831 (Clark). For the first three stanzas of our text we have accepted Currie.

For the stave, see Vol. i. p. 366, Prefatory Note to the Epistle to Davie.

STANZA I. LINE 5. 'An' tho' fu' foughten sair eneugh,' Alonzo and Cora. 14. 'Wearing the time awa,' Alonzo and Cora. STANZA II. LINE 9. 'I turn'd my weeding heuk aside,' Alonzo and Cora.

STANZA III. LINE 5. My partner in the merry core' :-See the song, Handsome Nell, Vol. iii. 9-12 in Alonzo and Cora read thus:

Her pawky smile, her kittle een

That garr'd my heart-strings tingle!

So tiched, bewitched,

I rav'd aye to mysel.

14. 'I kenn'd na how to tell,' Alonzo and Cora.

STANZA IV. LINE I. 'Heal to the set (ilk guid chiel says),' Alonzo and Cora.

Stanza v. Line 4. 'The marl'd plaid':—The 'Guidwife had offered to send Burns a party-coloured plaid.

TO WILLIAM TYTLER, ESQ. OF
WOODHOUSELEE

Son of Alexander Tytler, an Edinburgh solicitor, William
Tytler was born 12th October 1711; was educated at the

ΤΟ High School and University; was admitted Writer to the WILLIAM Signet in 1744; and died 12th September 1792. He beTYTLER stowed his leisure upon historical and antiquarian studies,

and is known (to those who care to know) as author of an Inquiry, Historical and Critical, into the Evidence against Mary Queen of Scots, 1759 (hence the terms of the poet's address); a Poetical Remains of James I. of Scotland, 1783; a Dissertation on Scottish Music, 1774; and certain papers in the Transactions of the Society of Antiquaries. He assisted Johnson with Vol. i. of the Musical Museum, whereon his place was presently taken by Burns.

The Epistle (as awkward a piece of writing as Burns ever did in English) was accompanied by a copy of the Beugo engraving. A few lines of prose were added (those in brackets were omitted from the copy of the мs.-MS. (A)—now at Aldourie, sent to Currie for the Edition of 1800, and have not hitherto been printed):-'My Muse jilted me here, and turned a corner on me, and I have not got again into her good graces. [I have two requests to make. Burn the above verses when you have read them, as any little sense that is in them is rather heretical, and] do me the justice to believe me sincere in my grateful remembrance of the many civilities you have honoured me with since I came to Edinburgh, and in assuring you that I have the honour to be, revered sir, your obliged and very humble servant,

'LAWN MARKET, Friday noon.'

'ROBERT BURNS.

Scott Douglas surmises that the expunged lines contained 'some ultra-Jacobite sally'; but it is now manifest that Tytler would not have it known that he had disregarded Burns's request. The complete letter is given in an interleaved copy of Cunningham's Edition in the British Museum. Burns also sent a copy (less the last two stanzas) of the piece-мs. (B)—to Lady Winifred Constable for her ladyship's eye alone.'

STANZA I. LINE 3. A name which to love was the mark

TO

of a true heart,' Currie and alternative reading in Ms. (A);
' once mark,' as in the text, is also the reading in мs. (B).
STANZA II. LINE 2. Let no man misdeem me disloyal,' TYTLER

MS. (B).
STANZA III. LINE 2. My fathers have died to right it,'
alternative reading in Ms. (A).

STANZA V. LINE 2. 'That gave us the Electoral stem,' alternative reading in Ms. (A).

STANZA VI. LINE I. But politics truce! we're on dangerous ground,' Ms. (B). 3. 'The doctrines, to-day that are loyalty sound,' Ms. (B).

NOTE TO MR. RENTON OF LAMERTON

SENT to Mr. Renton, Mordington House, Berwickshire,
probably during the poet's Border tour-though Renton
is not mentioned in his Journal.
Published in Chambers (1851).

TO MISS ISABELLA MACLEOD

PUBLISHED in a Dumfries newspaper, and again in The
Burns Chronicle (1895), from the manuscript in the posses-
sion of Mrs. Vincent Burns Scott, Adelaide. For Isabella
Macleod, see Vol. i. p. 448.

STANZA II. LINE 1. Her portrait strong upon my mind,' deleted reading.

TO SYMON GRAY

SYMON GRAY lived near Duns, and while Burns was on his Border tour sent him some verses for his opinion. For a complete copy of this reply we are indebted to a gentleman, whose statement satisfies us that it is authentic.

TO MISS FERRIER

PUBLISHED in Chambers (1852).

Jane Ferrier, eldest daughter of James Ferrier, Writer to the Signet-who resided in George Street, Edinburgh

WILLIAM

TO MISS

and sister to Miss Ferrier the novelist. She was born FERRIER in 1767; married General Samuel Graham, for some time deputy-governor of Stirling Castle; with Edward Blore, the architect, published drawings of the carved work in the state-rooms of that fortress under the title, Lacunar Strevelinense, 1817; and died in 1846.

STANZA V. LINE I. The mournfu' sang':-The Elegy on Sir John Hunter Blair, p. 218.

SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA

CLARINDA was Mrs. Agnes Maclehose, née Craig, daughter
of Andrew Craig, surgeon, Glasgow. She was born in
April 1759-the same year as her Poet; and when he met
her in Edinburgh (7th December 1787) she had for some
time been separated from her husband. The Bard, who
was (as ever) by way of being a buck, accepted an invita-
tion to take tea with her on the 9th; but an accident
obliging him to keep his room, he wrote to express his
regret, and at the same time intimated his resolve to
cherish her 'friendship with the enthusiasm of religion.'
Mrs. Maclehose responding in the same key, the 'friend-
ship' proceeded apace. On Christmas Eve she sent him
certain verses, signed 'Clarinda,' On Burns saying He had
nothing else to Do, three of which he quoted in the Glen-
riddell Book:-

'When first you saw Clarinda's charms,
What rapture in your bosom grew!
Her heart was shut to Love's alarms,
But then-you'd nothing else to do.

'Apollo oft had lent his harp,

But now 'twas strung from Cupid's bow;
You sung-it reached Clarinda's heart-
She wish'd you'd nothing else to do.
'Fair Venus smil'd, Minerva frown'd,
Cupid observed, the arrow flew :
Indifference (ere a week went round)
Show'd you had nothing else to do.'

Thus challenged, Sylvander-(he became Sylvander there SYLVANDER and then) replied as in the text; and the romantic terms ΤΟ in which the two went on to conduct their correspondence CLARINDA soon served the ardent youth as a pretext for the expression of fiercer sentiments than Clarinda's 'principles of reason and religion' should have allowed. She sent her Arcadian poems, which he amended for Johnson's Museum; and he fell so deeply enamoured that, on leaving Edinburgh (24th March) he must write thus to a friend :'During these last eight days I have been positively crazy.' Clarinda (like Maman Vauquer) avait des idées -as what lady in the circumstances would not? And when Clarinda learned, in August, that Burns had married Armour, Clarinda resented her Sylvander's defection as an unpardonable wrong. They were partly reconciled in the autumn of 1791; and ere she rejoined her husband in Jamaica, they had an interview on 6th December, which the gallant and romantic little song, O May, Thy Morn Was Ne'er sae Sweet, is held to commemorate. On the 27th he sent her Ae Fond Kiss and Then We Sever, with the finest lines he ever wrote:

'Had we never loved sae kindly,
Had we never loved sae blindly,
Never met or never parted,

We had ne'er been broken-hearted':

Behold the Hour, the Boat Arrive, and part of Gloomy December, with the remark:-'The remainder of this song is on the wheels-Adieu ! Adieu!' Mrs. Maclehose, still unreconciled to her husband, returned to Scotland in August 1792. Burns and she corresponded occasionally, but never met again. She died 22nd October 1841. His letters to her were pirated in Stewart's Edition (1802). The greater part of the Correspondence appeared in 1843 (see ante, Bibliographical, p. 287).

The refrain of the twin pieces is borrowed from a song

VOL. II.

2 A