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LIFE AND WORKS

OF

ROBERT BURNS.

EDINBURGH.

NOVEMBER 1786-FEBRUARY 1788.

BURNS was ready on the day fixed upon to set out for Edinburgh -a journey of about sixty miles. Dr Currie states that he travelled on foot; but it appears from a note of correction which had been sent by Gilbert Burns to the biographer, but never made use of, that the poet was in reality carried by a pony which he had borrowed from a friend. This statement comports with an anecdote respecting the poet's journey which has been given to the world by Mr Archibald Prentice, lately editor of the Manchester Times. It appears that, through an Ayrshire friend, George Reid of Barquharry, Burns had been made acquainted with Mr Prentice's father, the farmer of Covington - Mains in Lanarkshire-a zealous admirer of his poetry, as is amply testified by his name being set down in the list of subscribers for the second edition for twenty copies. According to Mr Prentice 2'It was arranged by Mr Reid that Burns should, on his journey to Edinburgh, make the farm-house at Covington-Mains his restingplace on the first night. All the farmers in the parish had read with delight the poet's then published works, and were anxious to see him. They were all asked to meet him at a late

1 Life of Dr Currie, by his son, 2 vols.

2 Letter of Mr Prentice to Professor Wilson, dated March 8, 1841, and published in the Edinburgh Intelligencer newspaper.

dinner, and the signal of his arrival was to be a white sheet attached to a pitchfork, and put on the top of a corn-stack in the barn-yard. The parish is a beautiful amphitheatre, with the Clyde winding through it, with Wellbrae Hill to the west, Tinto and the Culter Fells to the south, and the pretty, green, conical hill, Quothquan Law, to the east. My father's stackyard lying in the centre, was seen from every house in the parish. At length Burns arrived, mounted on a pownie borrowed of Mr Dalrymple, near Ayr. Instantly was the white flag hoisted, and as instantly were seen the farmers issuing from their houses, and converging to the point of meeting. A glorious evening, or rather night, which borrowed something from the morning, followed, and the conversation of the poet confirmed and increased the admiration created by his writings. On the following morning he breakfasted with a large party at the next farm-house, tenanted by James Stodart, brother to the Stodarts, the pianoforte-makers of London; took lunch also with a large party at the Bank, in the parish of Carnwath, with John Stodart, my mother's father, and rode into Edinburgh that evening on the pownie, which he returned to the owner in a few days afterwards by John Samson, the brother of the immortalised "TAM." Mr Samson took with him a letter to Mr Reid, in which the poet expressed the great pleasure he had experienced in meeting his friends at Covington.

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'My father,' adds Mr Prentice, was exactly the sort of man to draw forth all the higher powers of Burns's mind. He combined physical and moral strength in an extraordinary degree; had a great deal of practical knowledge; had read and thought much; had a high relish for manly poetry; much benevolence; much indignation at oppression, which nobody dared to exercise within his reach; and no mean conversational powers. Such was the person to appreciate Burns-ay, and to reverence the man who penned The Cotter's Saturday Night; and accordingly, though a strictly moral and religious man himself, he always maintained that the virtues of the poet greatly predominated over his faults. I once heard him exclaim with hot wrath, when somebody was quoting from an Apologist! "What! do they apologise for him! One-half of his good, and all his bad, divided amang a score o' them, would make them a' better men!"

'When a lad of seventeen, in the year 1809, I resided for a short time in Ayrshire, in the hospitable house of my father's friend Reid, and surveyed with a strong interest such visitors as had known Burns. I soon learned how to anticipate their representations of his character. The men of strong minds and strong feelings were invariable in their expressions of admiration; but the prosy consequential bodies all disliked him as exceeding

FIRST ARRIVAL IN EDINBURGH.

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dictatorial. The men whose religion was based on intellect and high moral sentiment all thought well of him; but the mere professors, with their "twa-mile prayers and half-mile graces," denounced him as 66 worse than an infidel."

Burns reached Edinburgh on the 28th November, a day remarkable in the history of the city as that on which Mr Palmer's mail carriages were started, by which letters were to be conveyed between the two capitals of the island in the then surprisingly brief space of sixty hours! One can imagine that it would be with no tame feelings that the peasant bard would hail the romantic capital of his country, whose ancient history had poured a tide of enthusiasm through his heart. As the seat of her chivalrous kings, of her ancient and once independent legislature, of her long series of poets and philosophers, he would view it with a glowing mind, and, mixed with classic associations, there would doubtless be some reflections on the prospects with which it was charged for himself. He came, as he tells us, without a single letter of introduction, and, we cannot doubt, with very little money in his pocket. Besides Professor Stewart, whose rank and avocations placed him at an ideal distance, he had scarcely a single acquaintance among the ordinary inhabitants of Edinburgh. There was, however, one friend whom he could readily approach. This was John Richmond, not long ago the clerk of Gavin Hamilton, and the companion of Burns and Smith in many a merry'splore' at Mauchline. Richmond was now in a writer's office in the city. He occupied a humble room in Baxter's Close, Lawnmarket, for which he paid at the time three shillings a week. Into this lodging he willingly received the Ayrshire poet, giving him a share of his bed—of which Burns stood so much in need by reason of indisposition, that he kept possession of it all the succeeding day.

Allan Cunningham relates, apparently from some well-informed source, the first proceedings of Burns in Edinburgh :-' Though he had taken a stride from the furrowed field into the land of poetry, and abandoned the plough for the harp, he seemed for some days to feel, as in earlier life, unfitted with an aim, and wandered about looking down from Arthur's Seat, surveying the Palace, gazing at the Castle, or contemplating the windows of the booksellers' shops, where he saw all works save the poems of the Ayrshire Ploughman. He found his way to the lowly grave of Fergusson, and kneeling down, kissed the sod; he sought out the house of Allan Ramsay, and on entering it, took off his hat; and when he was afterwards introduced to Creech, the bibliopole remembered that he had before heard him inquiring if this had been the shop of the author of the "Gentle Shepherd.""

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In the country, during the past summer, Burns had become acquainted with Mr Dalrymple of Orangefield, near Ayr. Mr Dalrymple was a warm-hearted, high-pulsed man, enthusiastically given to masonry, and an occasional scribbler of verses. he had been concerned with Provost Ballantyne in masonically laying the foundation- stone of the new brig, we may surmise that this kind patron of the bard was the channel through which Burns approached Mr Dalrymple's acquaintance. We may also reasonably believe, until contradicted, that this was the 'Mr Dalrymple near Ayr' who had furnished Burns with the pony on which he rode to Edinburgh. In the earlier half of the eighteenth century, there had flourished at Ayr a poor 'violer,' named Hugh M'Guire. A friendless lad named Macrae, to whom he had shewn some kindness, went abroad, rose in the world, and came home as the retired governor of Madras, with a large fortune. Having no family of his own, Governor Macrae, from a feeling of gratitude, adopted that of the violer M'Guire. To the son, who took his name, he gave a large estate. The eldest daughter, with a superb provision, was married by the Earl of Glencairn. The second became the wife of Lord Alva, a judge of the Court of Session. The third was wedded by Hugh Dalrymple of Orangefield. Thus it happened that the present Earl of Glencairn, Mr Dalrymple of Orangefield, 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 too-a 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

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