98 EFFECT OF SOCIAL CHANGES ON POETRY. progressive changes in the habits and the manners of the people. "Halloween" is a vivid picture of superstitious observances, practised at the time he wrote the poem, but they have nearly all ceased, together with the simple credulity which formerly made them attractive to the Scottish peasantry.* The grave abuses which he censured in "The Holy Fair" have happily disappeared, so that its merited satire is no longer necessary. Habits of sobriety and temperance being universal among gentlemen, while the discouragement of drunkenness in the working classes is the wish and endeavour of all who desire their welfare; bacchanalian songs are now out of place. Love, and the fair and gentle sex, inspired some of his most esteemed poetry; but his tenderest lyrics on that theme would scarcely be appropriate to some ladies, who compete with men in the professions, in politics, in field sports, and other masculine occupations and amusements. I say nothing with regard to the propriety and utility of such arrangements, but only that they were not characteristic of the admired models of Burns. The highways are overrun with bicycles, a modern and doubtless useful substitute for horses, which men have hitherto had all to themselves. The ladies are more pleasantly, safely, and gracefully mounted on their welltrained palfreys; and, it is to be hoped, they will never change them for any modification of the bicycle, even if it should be constructed with side saddles and pedals. Don Quixote on Rosinante, however grotesque and grim, had something chivalrous about him. But the knights errant we so often meet on their rotatory engines suggest, nothing knightly but rather by the peculiar motion of their limbs, and the solemn gravity of the performance, the remainder of a penal sentence, to be completed in the open air, under ticket of leave. * "Halloween a descriptive poem, perhaps even more exquisitely wrought than the " Holy Fair" and containing nothing that could offend the feelings of anybody."—Lockhart. BEST POETRY WILL ENDURE. 99 Manifold changes, discoveries, and improvements, during the last century, have added to our knowledge, power, and prosperity, our advancement in science, arts, and manufactures, and, it is to be hoped, have tended to make us wiser and better. For these great national benefits we must be content to surrender some of the pleasing illusions of fiction. But it may be safely predicted that Burns, in virtue of the intrinsic excellence of his best compositions, founded in nature and in truth, will long retain his high rank among British Poets. CHAPTER IV. Loss of valuable letters of Burns to Robert Aiken. -Mistaken inference and misrepresentation of Mr. Allan Cunningham.Letter to him of Miss Aiken, confirmed by letters from Burns and other proofs.-His exile to the West Indies averted by the publication of his poems. HAVE lately read the “Life and Works of. Burns," by the lamented Robert Chambers, who spoke at the Centenary Meeting in Edinburgh, in January, 1859, and died in March, 1871. With his accustomed care and diligent research, he collected from every quarter whatever could elucidate the subject of his complete biography. I feel truly grateful for the just and pleasing light in which he placed the character of my beloved and revered grandfather. His arrangement of the poems, according to their proper dates, enables me, with other evidence, to prove that Robert Aiken's friendly relations with the poet were never interrupted, and that Mr. Cunningham's allegation to the contrary, was erroneous. I shall not here allude to the marriage of Burns with Miss Armour, further than is necessary to refute Mr. Cunningham's misstatement, that Burns having given to her a written declaration, which, under the circumstances, constituted a legal marriage, and her father having taken possession of the document, my grandfather was acces ALLAN CUNNINGHAM'S MISREPRESENTATION. ΙΟΙ sory to its destruction, which gave such offence to Burns, as to put an end to their former friendship. Allan Cunningham asserted this on no better authority than the following letter, without date or address, which he published as having been written and sent to my grandfather's friend, Mr. Ballantine, banker, in Ayr:— "HONOURED SIR, 66 "My proposals came to hand last night, and "knowing that you would wish to have it in your power to do me a service as early as anybody, I enclose you "half a sheet of them. I must consult you, on the first opportunity, on the propriety of sending my quondam "friend, Mr. Aiken, a copy. If he is now reconciled to my character as an honest man, I would do it with "all my soul; but I would not be beholden to the "noblest being ever God created, if he imagined me to "be a rascal. Apropos, old Mr. Armour prevailed with "him to mutilate that unlucky paper yesterday. Would "you believe it?" 66 Probably this letter was written hastily in anger on hearing some false report of what had happened, but was never sent. Robert Chambers was misled by Cunningham's assertion, and, guided by its allusion to the proposals for publishing, fixed the date of the document as between the 3rd and 17th of April, 1786. After its publication by Cunningham, Miss Aiken wrote to him as follows: 66 "To ALLAN CUNNINGHAM, ESQ. "I beg to introduce myself to you as the only "surviving child (save a brother, long in India) of Mr. "Aiken, the early and unchanging friend of Burns. On reading your first volume, there seemed nothing regard"ing my venerated father or brother Andrew of consequence to correct, though the latter was not a military 'man, as you state, but a merchant, and latterly British "Consul at Riga, at which place he died in 1832. But 66 66 102 MISS AIKEN'S LETTER TO CUNNINGHAM. "I was much distressed by the impression left on the "public mind by the eighteenth letter in the sixth "volume, without date, and believed to have been "addressed to my relative, Mr. Ballantine, and would "immediately have written to you on the subject, had not the last volume of your work been published "before I saw it. 66 66 66 66 66 66 It was only yesterday that I learned from my cousins, "the Misses Stewart, of Afton, that a second edition is now in the press, and I hope to anticipate the re"publication of your sixth volume by stating that I am sure no such letter as the above was ever received by "Mr. Ballantine, and unless I saw the autograph I cannot believe that it was ever written by the poet. Because, however grieved my father was on his account "for his irregularities, Mr. Aiken had no knowledge of, "or interest in, the Armours, even if his principles would have allowed him to be a party in any such transaction, "which was impossible. Besides, as there never was any "interruption in their friendship or correspondence, "Burns could not have applied the phrase quondam "friend to my father, and your idea, in the note, eighty"seventh page, that they were no longer correspondents "is quite a mistake, as they never ceased to be so, till Burns had been long in Dumfriesshire; but his beautiful, pure, and interesting letters, during a period of ten years, were, unhappily for his friend and our com"fort, lost, as I shall now state. Having heard, in the spring of 1796, that our friend was in very bad health, we felt how doubly valuable his letters would be in the “event of his death, and I collected them all, and tied "them up according to their dates, laying them away "safely, as I then thought, before setting out for Dum"fries and Liverpool, where my brother Andrew was "settled as a merchant, and recently married. At the "former place, I stayed some days with my uncle, Dr. Copland, and one of those days my emaciated, but still animated friend, Burns, spent delightfully with "me there our last meeting! He, alas! sunk rapidly "after, and before winter, I had much communication 66 66 66 66 |