so as to complicate the family misfortunes with his own. Polemical divinity in the neighbourhood was embittered by contests between the more zealous Presbyterianism of old time, and the softened latitudinarian doctrine of that day. The clerical adherents of the latter party, often of good family if not of learned pursuits, were characterized by liberal opinions and by social good-breeding, with still more social habits. They partook of contemporary taste, with its supposed philosophical views and elegant manners. In Ayrshire, however, this moderatism, as it has been called, was not content with negatives; it put forth a counter-zeal of its own, in favour of what became known as the "New Light," a milder form of orthodoxy, combined with subdued continental rationalism. To this, at least in the theological branch of it, old Burness, the father of the poet, had so far leant, through a natural kindness at heart, as to embody it in a private doctrinal manual for domestic use nor was it wonderful, otherwise, that Robert Burns, when beginning to gain reputation in argument as well as for a poetical turr, at once sided actively with the best-lettered party, thereby drawing prejudice against himself from the devouter one. this step, with the consequent attacks and retaliations, might be traced not merely the after dislike of sincere piety to his works as a whole, but much of the unhappiness in his own later life and lot, which deepened that evangelical odium. In reality, being afterwards left behind by profound national tendencies, the "Moderates" proved but a broken reed for his help, if not a positive injury to his self-development and final culture. A worldly light, shed in great measure from them and their dilettante circle, now obsolete, has too long deterred many readers, in all classes from acquaintance with his poems, or from assuming but a tacit and broken enjoyment of them.

To

One secret, personal reason there was, no doubt, additional to all else, why he came to favour the less rigid and easier party in religion; unless their looser system of ethics had already exercised a previous influence upon him. New Light indulgence, perhaps, may have led earlier still to his estrangement from those who professed the morals of the New Testament; so as to have directly inclined him to the conduct, which would afterwards, no doubt, still more identify him with the less pious school. While at Mossgiel, he had privately formed an irregular connection with a young woman named Jean Armour, daughter of a Mauchline mason; the marriage laws of Scotland having been, however, formally proceeded upon in writing between them. The consequences could no longer be concealed; yet the father's decision was, to have the acknowledged contract made void, apparently because of Burns's doubtful prospects. Yiolding to this stubborn resolution, he nevertheless felt the utmost distress; and in that mood, despairing of all other expectations, gave up his part in the farm to his brother Gilbert.

a coadjutor of steadier impulse and no ordinary practical intelli. gence. His intention was to leave his native country for the West Indies, where fortune might be kinder than at home. Destitute of money for the passage, he was now advised to raise it by having his stock of verses printed for subscribers, who came forward so far as to ensure a sale of about 350 copies; and the small volume of" Poems, chiefly Scottish," accordingly appeared at Kilmarnock in 1786, when the author was twenty-seven. Hie poverty had stood his friend for once. The success of the publication was so great as to prevent further thoughts of exile; and Burns remained to gain greater glory, and to err and suffer longer, till the close.

From this stage of a strange story must not be omitted one singular episode belonging to Mossgiel, which shows its complex woof of light and shade more curiously yet, nay, with still deeper significance. Before and along with his warm passion for Jean Armour, his future wife,-whose choice denotes the coarser grain in his composition,- he had carried on a gentler affection, evidently less intense at the time, for another young woman in even humbler rank, a maid-servant at a gentleman's house adja cent-Mary Campbell, from the Celtic shire of Argyle. "Highland Mary" may be regarded, from all that seems to have passed, as both the purer in her instincts and the truer in her love of the two; for Jean Armour gave him up, despite of all that had happened, and, until then, the other appears but a casual affair no further carried than his pledges to a rival might allow. When fixed on his voyage, he turned, in his desertion, to Mary Campbell who agreed to share his forsaken and solitary fortunes. Probably knowing the substance of Jean Armour's case, indeed, bnt trusting him for her own part, when he was clear from other obligations, she yet clung to Highland faith and superstition. She stood first apart from him, beyond a running stream, over which they pledged their troth together, a Bible clasped in the hands of each, before she went home across the water to Campbelton, to tell her friends and prepare her marriage things; but taking fever on the way, at Greenock, died unseen by him. In his monument at Brig of Doon, the two small volumes of that Bible are shownyet, in a glass case with her name in his faded hand-writing, the sacred text grown fainter, while a tress of her golden hair lies pale yet unchanged beside it. Jean Armour soon became his lawful wife, faithful to him, commemorated in more than one melodious lyric; tending his sad death-hours, and surviving him, the mother of his children. To her he continued the lower part of his regard, amidst many deviations but if Mary had lived to marry him, it is possible that her influence might have been better. At all events, she possessed his memory for ever, in a way more ethereal and like angelic pleading, than as a mere phantasm of sentiment. His purest sense of guileless love was in the song named from her: and one evening