Life is a fairy scene: almost all that deserves the name of enjoyment or pleasure is only a charming delusion; and in comes repining age, in all the gravity of hoary wisdom, and wretchedly chases away the bewitching phantom. When I think of life, I resolve to keep a strict look-out in the course of economy, for the sake of worldly convenience and independence of mind; to cultivate intimacy with a few of the companions of youth, that they may be the friends of age; never to refuse my liquorish humour a handful of the sweetmeats of life, when they come not too dear; and, for futurity— The present moment is our ain, The neist we never saw!

How like you my philosophy? Give my best compliments to Mrs B., and believe me to be, my dear sir, yours most truly,

R. B.

From the same place he wrote to Clarinda, whose letters to him express the most eager solicitude for his communications. The letter has not been preserved. It was probably on Monday the 25th that he proceeded to Dumfriesshire, with a sagacious friend, Mr James Tennant, farmer, Glenconner, designing with his aid to view and judge of Mr Miller's farms on the banks of the Nith. He had not a very confident hope of being able to pitch on one which it would be prudent to take on lease; but the result was otherwise than he had looked for.

TO CLARINDA.

CUMNOCK [Sunday], 2d March 1788.

I hope, and am certain, that my generous Clarinda will not think my silence, for now a long week, has been in any degree owing to my forgetfulness. I have been tossed about through the country ever since I wrote you; and am here, returning from Dumfriesshire, at an inn, the post office of the place, with just so long time as my horse eats his corn, to write you. I have been hurried with business and dissipation almost equal to the insidious decree of the Persian monarch's mandate, when he forbade asking petition of God or man for forty days. Had the venerable prophet been as throng [busy] as I, he had not broken the decree, at least not thrice a-day. I am thinking my farming scheme will yet hold. A worthy, intelligent farmer, my father's friend and my own, has been with me on the spot: he thinks the bargain practicable. I am myself, on a more serious review of the lands, much better pleased with them. I wont mention this in writing to anybody but you and [Ainslie.] Don't accuse me of being fickle: I have the two plans of life before me, and I wish to adopt the one most likely to procure me independence. I shall be in Edinburgh next week. I long to see you: your image

INCLINED TO SETTLE AT ELLISLAND.

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is omnipresent to me; nay, I am convinced I would soon idolatrize it most seriously-so much do absence and memory improve the medium through which one sees the much-loved object. To-night, at the sacred hour of eight, I expect to meet you-at the Throne of Grace. I hope, as I go home to-night, to find a letter from you at the post-office in Mauchline. I have just once seen that dear hand since I left Edinburgh-a letter indeed which much affected me. Tell me, first of womankind! will my warmest attachment, my sincerest friendship, my correspondence-will they be any compensation for the sacrifices you make for my sake? If they will, they are yours. If I settle on the farm I propose, I am just a day and a half's ride from Edinburgh. We will meet-don't you say 'perhaps too often!'

Farewell, my fair, my charming poetess! May all good things ever attend you! I am ever, my dearest madam, yours,

SYLVANDER.

TO MR WILLIAM CRUIKSHANK.

MAUCHLINE, 3d March 1788.

MY DEAR SIR-Apologies for not writing are frequently like apologies for not singing the apology better than the song. I have fought my way severely through the savage hospitality of this country, [the object of all hosts being] to send every guest drunk to bed if they can. . . . .

I should return my thanks for your hospitality (I leave a blank for the epithet, as I know none can do it justice) to a poor wayfaring bard, who was spent and almost overpowered fighting with prosaic wickednesses in high places; but I am afraid lest you should burn the letter whenever you come to the passage, so I pass over it in silence. I am just returned from visiting Mr Miller's farm. The friend whom I told you I would take with me was highly pleased with the farm; and as he is, without exception, the most intelligent farmer in the country, he has staggered me a good deal. I have the two plans of life before me: I shall balance them to the best of my judgment, and fix on the most eligible. I have written Mr Miller, and shall wait on him when I come to town, which shall be the beginning or middle of next week: I would be in sooner, but my unlucky knee is rather worse, and I fear for some time will scarcely stand the fatigue of my Excise instructions. I only mention these ideas to you; and, indeed, except Mr Ainslie, whom I intend writing to to-morrow, I will not write at all to Edinburgh till I return to it. I would send my compliments to Mr Nicol, but he would be hurt if he knew I wrote to anybody, and not to him; so I shall only

1 The distance is a little over seventy miles. At this time, I presume, there was no public coach on even so important a line of communication as the road between Edinburgh and Dumfries. A mail-coach commenced running upon it on the 1st of September 1790.-Newspapers of the day.

beg my best, kindest, kindest compliments to my worthy hostess and the sweet little Rosebud.

So soon as I am settled in the routine of life, either as an exciseofficer or as a farmer, I propose myself great pleasure from a regular correspondence with the only man almost I ever saw who joined the most attentive prudence with the warmest generosity.

I am much interested for that best of men, Mr Wood. I hope he is in better health and spirits than when I saw him last. I am ever, my dearest friend, your obliged, humble servant, R. B.

TO MR ROBERT AINSLIE.

MAUCHLINE, 3d March 1788.1

MY DEAR FRIEND-I am just returned from Mr Miller's farm. My old friend whom I took with me was highly pleased with the bargain, and advised me to accept of it. He is the most intelligent, sensible farmer in the county, and his advice has staggered me a good deal. I have the two plans before me: I shall endeavour to balance them to the best of my judgment, and fix on the most eligible. On the whole, if I find Mr Miller in the same favourable disposition as when I saw him last, I shall in all probability turn farmer.

I have been through sore tribulation, and under much buffetting of the Wicked One, since I came to this country. Jean I found banished like a martyr-forlorn, destitute, and friendless. I have reconciled her to her mother. * * *

I shall be in Edinburgh the middle of next week. My farming ideas I shall keep private till I see. I got a letter from Clarinda yesterday, and she tells me she has got no letter of mine but one. Tell her that I wrote to her from Glasgow, from Kilmarnock, from Mauchline, and yesterday from Cumnock, as I returned from Dumfries. Indeed, she is the only person in Edinburgh I have written to till this day. How are your soul and body putting up?-a little like man and wife, I suppose. Your faithful friend, R. B.

Allan Cunningham publishes a letter as addressed to Mr Robert Ainslie, under date Mauchline, July 1787, which only could have been written at this crisis of Burns's life, seeing that it alludes to his offer for Mr Miller's farm. Since we have already an undoubted letter of this time to Mr Robert Ainslie, I am compelled to surmise that the superscription has been given upon conjecture as well as the date, and is equally erroneous.

[MAUCHLINE, Between 3d and 8th March 1788.] MY DEAR SIR-My life, since I saw you last, has been one con

1 The letter had no date, but has been so indorsed by Mr Ainslie.

SITUATION OF JEAN ARMOUR, MARCH 1788.

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tinued hurry; that savage hospitality which knocks a man down with strong liquors is the devil. I have a sore warfare in this world— the devil, the world, and the flesh are three formidable foes. The first I generally try to fly from; the second, alas! generally flies from me; but the third is my plague, worse than the ten plagues of Egpyt.

I have been looking over several farms in this country; one, in particular, in Nithsdale, pleased me so well, that if my offer to the proprietor is accepted, I shall commence farmer at Whitsunday. If farming do not appear eligible, I shall have recourse to my other shift; but this to a friend.

I set out for Edinburgh on Monday morning; how long I stay there is uncertain, but you will know so soon as I can inform you myself. However, I determine poesy must be laid aside for some time; my mind has been vitiated with idleness, and it will take a good deal of effort to habituate it to the routine of business. I am, my dear sir, yours sincerely, R. B.

The poet's Ayrshire mistress was at this time about to give him a second pledge of fatal love. Mrs M'Lehose had been made aware of the fact, and alludes to it in a letter of March 5th. 'I hope you have not forgotten to kiss the little cherub for me' [the infant Robert Burns, living at Mossgiel.] 'Give him fifty, and think Clarinda blessing him all the while. I pity his mother sincerely, and wish a certain affair happily over.' In the same letter she betrays the deep-seated wish of her heart-that Burns should wait till it should be possible for her to marry him. 'You know I count all things (Heaven excepted) but loss, that I may win and keep you.' From his letter to Robert Ainslie, March 3d, it fully appears that Burns had no design at that time of ever renewing his matrimonial relation with Jean. On the contrary, anxious apparently to keep himself free for the chance of obtaining Clarinda, and not without some apprehension that the marriage certificate of March 1786, though destroyed, might prove an impediment to that consummation, he tells that he had taken a solemn promise from Jean-'never to attempt any claim upon me as a husband, even though any one should persuade her she had such a claim, which she had not, neither during my life nor after my death.' Jean was, in short, set aside as one towards whom he was under no moral tie, though he held himself under an obligation of humanity to protect her in her present circumstances. The grounds which appear for Burns coming to act in such a manner were the divorce (for so it was in intent) which she and her father had instituted against him in his days of poverty, an act which had nearly driven him to exile and madness-and

1 The Excise.

his only having been welcomed back to her and her family on his suddenly appearing before them with a little of the tinsel of Fortune upon his jacket. And it must be admitted that, had Burns never renewed his acquaintance with Jean, but allowed matters to stand simply as she and her family had settled them in 1786, there could have been no moral claim on their part towards him, however the legal question might have ultimately been ruled. The circumstance creating a difference was the renewed intercoursea difference, the force of which will probably be estimated variously. I feel, for my own part, that this is one of the points of the poet's story in which he appears to least advantage; and I cannot but rejoice on his account that he finally, and in no long time, adopted better views regarding Jean. While feeling some surprise that two persons so generous and upright in the ordinary relations of life as Burns and Mrs M'Lehose should have been able to reconcile themselves to the sacrifice of this poor village girl, even under all the temptations of a fondness which had risen to somewhat extravagant altitudes, we ought to remember that they are themselves unable to enter defences. We do not know the whole range of considerations which weighed with Burns. Without that knowledge we cannot judge confidently. When the poet had afterwards to excuse himself to Mrs M'Lehose for having engaged himself to her, so soon before he gave himself to another, he said: 'I did not, nor could I then know, all the powerful circumstances that Omnipotent Necessity was busy laying in wait for me. When you call over the scenes that have passed between us, you will survey the conduct of an honest man struggling successfully with temptations the most powerful that ever beset humanity, and preserving untainted honour in situations where the austerest virtue would have forgiven a fall.' This looks like a happy conscience respecting the present crisis of his life. Yet it may be doubted if he felt really quite at ease in contemplating Jean as no more than a subject of vagrant passion. His letters, after acknowledging her as his wife, all speak of that fact with a kind of selfcongratulation, as if it had relieved his mind of some reflections on which he could not dwell with perfect peace.

When Jean was driven in the middle of winter from her parents' dwelling, she was at Burns's request taken in and sheltered by his friend Mrs Muir, the wife of the honest miller of Torbolton alluded to in Hornbook. The poet now established her in a lodging in Mauchline, and succeeded in reconciling her mother to her so far, that she had the benefit of that relative's attendance in her present

1 Previously to this time, death had relieved Jean of the charge of her daughter, born in September 1786. The infant lived only fourteen months. The other child, Robert, remained under the kind care of his grandmother and uncle at Mossgiel.