unless he had disclaimed writing the lines on the inn window.' This shews how seriously that escapade of sentiment was taken up in some quarters, and leads us to imagine that the Stirling lines exercised some influence on their author's fate. One cannot but feel that a reflection on this particular of Burns's history came ill from a Drummond-one sitting in the halls of a century-long line of sufferers for the House of Stuart. More strangely still, Sir William Murray, who had been so friendly towards Burns, represented a family of opposite antecedents. His father had, indeed, attempted in the interest of the government to seize the person of the last Duke of Perth, when he was about to join the fatal standard of the Chevalier. A letter of Mr Ramsay to Dr Currie, and two letters which he addressed to Burns (October 22), and which Currie has published, give some idea of what passed at the Menteith Ochtertyre, on Burns's way back to Harvieston :-'I have been in the company of many men of genius,' says Mr Ramsay, 'some of them poets, but never witnessed such flashes of intellectual brightness as from him-the impulse of the moment, sparks of celestial fire! I never was more delighted, therefore, than with his company for two days, tête-à-tête. In a mixed company, I should have made little of him; for, in the gamester's phrase, he did not always know when to play off and when to play on. I not only proposed to him the writing of a play similar to the Gentle Shepherd, qualem decet esse sororem, but Scottish Georgics, a subject which Thomson has by no means exhausted in his Seasons. What beautiful landscapes of rural life and manners might not have been expected from a pencil so faithful and forcible as his, which could have exhibited scenes as familiar and interesting as those in the Gentle Shepherd, which every one who knows our swains in their unadulterated state, instantly recognises as true to nature! But to have executed either of these plans, steadiness and abstraction from company were wanting, not talents. When I asked him whether the Edinburgh literati had mended his poems by their criticisms—“Sir," said he, "these gentlemen remind me of some spinsters in my country, who spin their thread so fine that it is neither fit for weft nor woof." He said he had not changed a word except one, to please Dr Blair.'1 Mr Ramsay had put up a Latin inscription over his door, expressing his wish to live in peace and die in joyful hope in the small but pleasant inheritance of his fathers. With another he graced a Salictum, or plantation of willows 1 This incorrigibility of Burns extended, however, only to his poems printed before he arrived in Edinburgh; for, in regard to his unpublished poems, he was amenable to criticism, of which many proofs might be given.--CURRIE. MR RAMSAY OF OCHTERTYRE. Hic, procul negotiis strepituque, Silvulas inter nascentes reptandi, Hic, si faxit Deus opt. max. Contentus modicis, meoque lætus! &c. 153 Burns admired the general meaning of these inscriptions, and requested copies of them, and with this request Mr Ramsay complied. The poet made his host aware of his having lately heard some Highland airs, with which he was much charmed, and for which he was writing verses. He had also told Mr Ramsay of the solicitude he felt to gather airs for Johnson's Museum. Mr Ramsay therefore furnished him with a letter of introduction to the Rev. W. Young, minister of Erskine, on the Clyde, as a person qualified to introduce him more extensively to Highland music. The sage of the Teith added a transcript of a Highland traditionary story which had made an impression on the poet's mind when narrated in the course of conversation. Its hero was a Highlander named Omeron Cameron, who generously entertained the Earl of Mar in his humble cottage, when that noble had to skulk from his enemies. Being himself forced into exile on this account by his own clan, he went to Kildrummie Castle with his wife and children, to claim a requital from the earl, who had told him to do so if ever misfortune should befall him. Upon hearing who it was, the earl started from his seat with a joyful exclamation, and caused Omeron to be conducted with all possible respect into the hall. He afterwards conferred on him a four-merk land near the castle. Out of these simple elements Mr Ramsay thought that Burns might compose a play; but it was not for Burns, but the noteless youth whom he had lately met at Dr Adam Ferguson's, to accomplish such feats. There was, however, good sense in a portion of Mr Ramsay's letter. 'I approve of your plan,' said he, 'of retiring from din and dissipation to a farm of very moderate size, sufficient to find exercise for mind and body, but not so great as to absorb better things. And if some. intellectual pursuit be well chosen and steadily pursued, it will be more lucrative than most farms in this age of rapid improvement. Upon this subject, as your well-wisher and admirer, permit me to go a step farther. Let those bright talents which the Almighty has bestowed upon you, be henceforth employed to the noble purpose of supporting the cause of truth and virtue. An imagination so varied and forcible as yours may do this in many different modes; nor is it necessary to be always serious, which you have been to good purpose; good morals may be recommended in a comedy, or even in a song,' &c.1 Burns had conversed with Mr Ramsay regarding an ancient Jacobite lady, a relic of a former generation, and representative of an extinct order of manners, who dwelt at no great distance from Harvieston, and whom it was therefore possible for the bard to visit on this occasion. Mrs Bruce of Clackmannan, or (to use the Scotch title of courtesy) Lady Clackmannan, lived in the ancient and now ruined tower of that name, overlooking the Firth of Forth at Alloa. Allied in blood to the Bruce, and in sentiments to the Stuarts, tall and dignified in her figure even on the borders of ninety, carrying a ballast of vigorous common sense, along with all the sails and colours of a lively imagination—this admirable old woman, with her tartan scarf and the white rose in her breast-for so her portrait represents her-must have been a fascinating study for Burns. Mr Ramsay seems to have been curious to learn afterwards how the bard regarded her. 'Well,' says he, 'what do you think of good Lady Clackmannan? It is a pity she is so deaf, and speaks so indistinctly. Her house is a specimen of the mansions of our gentry of the last age, when hospitality and elevation of mind were conspicuous amidst plain fare and plain furniture.' Dr Adair, adverting to the little impression which the Glendevon scenery seemed to make on Burns, says 'A visit to Mrs Bruce of Clackmannan, a lady above ninety, the lineal descendant of that race which gave the Scottish throne its brightest ornament, interested his feelings more powerfully. This venerable dame, with characteristical dignity, informed me, on my observing that I believed she was descended from the family of Robert Bruce, that Robert Bruce was sprung from her family. Though almost deprived of speech by a paralytic affection, she preserved her hospitality and urbanity. She was in possession of the hero's helmet and two-handed sword, with which she conferred on Burns and myself the honour of knighthood, remarking, that she had a better right to confer that title than some people. You will of course conclude that the old lady's political tenets were as Jacobitical as the poet's-a conformity which contributed not a little to the cordiality of our reception and entertainment. She gave, as her first toast after dinner, Awa' Uncos, or Away with the Strangers. Who these strangers were, you will readily understand. Mrs Adair corrects me by saying it should be Hooi or 1 See note on Summer Tours of 1787, Appendix, No. 11. VISIT TO LADY CLACKMANNAN. 155 Hooi Uncos; a sound used by shepherds to direct their dogs to drive away the sheep. It is barely necessary to remark, that Lady Clackmannan scarcely had authentic grounds for concluding that Robert Bruce was sprung from her family; for all that the Bruces of Stirling and Clackmannanshires know of their earliest recorded ancestor is, that David II., the son of Bruce, addresses him in a charter as our relative.' The old lady probably grounded upon some family legend. She died in 1791, when the sword and helmet of the hero of Bannockburn fell appropriately into the hands of her kinsman, the Earl of Elgin, in whose mansion of Broomhall they are still preserved. Most Scotsmen will feel that the sword of Robert Bruce has not lost any portion of historical interest from its having given the accolade to Robert Burns. Dr Adair states that he and Burns returned to Edinburgh by Kinross and Queensferry. The reason for their circuit by Kinross would of course be Burns's interest in the melancholy tale of Queen Mary. He would doubtless view with emotion the little islet fortress of Lochleven, in which she first learned to endure the fate of a prisoner, and where, under the compulsion of armed and ferocious barons, she signed a surrender of the kingdom to her son. 'At Dunfermline,' says Dr Adair, 'we visited the ruined abbey, and the abbey-church, now consecrated to Presbyterian worship. Here I mounted the cutty stool, or stool of repentance, assuming the character of a penitent for fornication; while Burns from the pulpit addressed to me a ludicrous reproof and exhortation, parodied from that which had been delivered to himself in Ayrshire, where he had, as he assured me, once been one of seven1 who mounted the seat of shame together. 'In the churchyard two broad flagstones marked the grave of Robert Bruce, for whose memory Burns had more than common veneration. He knelt and kissed the stone with sacred fervour, and heartily (suus ut mos erat) execrated the worse than Gothic neglect of the first of Scottish heroes.' 12 The surprise,' says Dr Currie,' expressed by Dr Adair in his excellent letter, that the romantic scenery of the Devon should have failed to call forth any exertion of the poet's muse, is not in its nature singular; and the disappointment felt at his not express 1 The session book of Mauchline says five only. 2 Dr Adair married Charlotte Hamilton two years after, and, settling as a physician in Harrowgate, he died there in 1802. The beautiful Charlotte fell into bad health, and went to a premature grave in 1806. She had previously, in an evil hour, as Cromek justly calls it, burned a considerable number of letters which Burns had addressed to Miss Chalmers. I am happy to acknowledge the benefits conferred on this work by Dr Adair's son, Major Adair, secretary of the Scottish Hospital, London. ing in more glowing language his emotions on the sight of the famous cataract of that river, is similar to what was felt by the friends of Burns on other occasions of the same nature. Yet the inference which Dr Adair seems inclined to draw from it-that he had little taste for the picturesque-might be questioned, even if it stood uncontroverted by other evidence. [Josiah Walker reports very differently of Burns's feelings on his being introduced to the fine Highland scenery of Blair.] The muse of Burns was in a high degree capricious; she came uncalled, and often refused to attend at his bidding. Of all the numerous subjects suggested to him by his friends and correspondents, there is scarcely one that he adopted. The very expectation that a particular occasion would excite the energies of fancy, if communicated to Burns, seemed, in him, as in other poets, destructive of the effect expected. Hence perhaps may be explained why the banks of the Devon and of the Tweed form no part of the subjects of his song.' In these remarks, and others in which he follows out the same train of reasoning, Dr Currie seems to speak truly as far as he goes. Burns was undoubtedly susceptible of all those pleasures from the sight of fine scenery which Mr Walker ascribes to him; but it is easy to imagine that he was not certain to be always in a mood for expressing these feelings before company, especially if all were voluble in their admiration; neither was it to be expected that he should be ready to pen metrical raptures about every fine cascade to which he was introduced, however much he might in his heart admire it. He did, on various occasions, throughout his late tours, pour forth eloquent stanzas on natural objects which met his eyes; but his muse was the more apt to take wing in a Glen Turit, where the scaring of the wild-fowl touched his profound and beautiful sympathies with the lower animals, or when the 'meek loveliness' of a Phemie Murray awakened his adoration of female charms. Even the association of some old song about a particular place affected him more than the utmost amount of physical beauty which might belong to it. His genius was more for humanity and its belongings than for the insensitive part of creation. 1'He disliked to be tutored in matters of taste, and could not endure that one should run shouting before him whenever any fine object appeared. On one occasion of this kind, a lady at the poet's side said-"Burns, have you nothing to say of this?" "Nothing, madam," he replied, glancing at the leader of the party, "for an ass is braying over it." When he visited Creehopelinn in Dumfriesshire, at every turn of the stream and bend of the wood he was loudly called upon to admire the shelving sinuosities of the burn, and the caverned splendour of its all but inaccessible banks. It was thought by those with him that he did not shew rapture enough. "I could not admire it more, sir," said the poet, "if He who made it were to ask me to do it.”—Cunningham's Life of Burns. |