And aye a westlin leuk she throws,

Sad

267

While tears hap o'er her auld brown nose !
Was it for this, wi' canny care,

Thou bure the Bard through many a shire?

At howes or hillocks never stumbled,
And late or early never grumbled?
Oh, had I power like inclination,
I'd heeze thee up a constellation,
To canter with the Sagitarre,
Or loup the ecliptic like a bar;
Or turn the pole like any arrow;

Or, when auld Phoebus bids good-morrow,
Down the zodiac urge the race,
And cast dirt on his godship's face;
For I could lay my bread and kail
He'd ne'er cast saut upo' thy tail.
Wi' a' this care and a' this grief,
And sma', sma' prospect of relief,
And nought but peat-reek i' my head,
How can I write what ye can read?
Torbolton, twenty-fourth o' June,
Ye'll find me in a better tune;
But till we meet and weet our whistle,
Tak this excuse for nae epistle.

ROBERT BURNS.

gentle

raise

Wandering a solitary being on the banks of the Nith, his heart reverted to the damsel on the banks of the Ayr, whom he had lately taken by the hand as his wife, and who would have now been sharing his household cares if he had had a house into which

1 Ellisland is near the borders of the stewartry of Kirkcudbright, a portion of the district popularly called Galloway.

2 His mare.

to put her. The peace of conscience secured by his acceptance of Jean as his wife must have added not a little to the pleasure he felt in musing on her image, and sending his thoughts towards the place which her presence brightened. We have an invaluable memorial of the feeling of the moment in his charming canzonet—

I LOVE MY JEAN.

TUNE-Miss Admiral Gordon's Strathspey.

Of a' the airts the wind can blaw,
I dearly like the west,

For there the bonnie lassie lives,
The lassie I loe best :

There wild woods grow, and rivers row,

And mony a hill between ;1

But day and night my fancy's flight
Is ever wi' my Jean.

I see her in the dewy flowers,
I see her sweet and fair:

I hear her in the tunefu' birds,

I hear her charm the air:

There's not a bonnie flower that springs
By fountain, shaw, or green;

There's not a bonnie bird that sings,

But minds me o' my Jean.2

1 These two lines are so printed in Johnson's Museum, which must be considered as authoritative regarding readings in Burns's compositions, seeing that he was in a manner editor of the work. So also have they usually been printed since. Wood's Songs of Scotland they are given thus:

In

'Though wild woods grow and rivers row,

Wi' mony a hill between,

Baith day and night,' &c.

Though this seems to convey a more just and logical idea, it is undoubtedly a vitiation of the text. I have been reminded that the idea is not new in verse:

2 The first of these stanzas appeared in the third volume of Johnson's Museum. Burns's note upon it afterwards was-This song I composed out of compliment to Mrs Burns. N. B.-It was in the honey-moon.' Two additional stanzas were some years afterwards produced by John Hamilton, musicseller in Edinburgh: they are not unworthy of appearing on the same page with those by Burns.

Oh blaw ye westlin winds, blaw saft
Amang the leafy trees,

Wi' balmy gale, frae hill and dale
Bring hame the laden bees;
And bring the lassie back to me
That's aye sae neat and clean;
Ae smile o' her wad banish care,
Sae charming is my Jean.

JEAN IN ABSENCE.

269 Nor was this all; for the same period produced, in honour of Mrs Burns, perhaps the most luxuriantly rich of all his amatory lyrics. We have to suppose the poet in his solitary life at Ellisland, gazing towards the hill of Corsincon at the head of Nithsdale, beyond which, though at many miles' distance, was the valley in which his heart's idol lived. He ideally beholds his 'blithesome, dancing, sweet young queen, of guileless heart,' in her most characteristic situation, and he bursts out with these glowing

Alas, Clarinda! where was now your image? It is but four or five months since he said to you: 'I admire you, I love you as a woman beyond any one in all the circle of creation. am yours, Clarinda, for life!'

'Even as one heat another heat expels,

Or as one nail by strength drives out another;
So the remembrance of my former love
Is by a newer object quite forgotten.'

I

TO MR ROBERT AINSLIE.

MAUCHLINE, 23d June 1788.
Mr Miers, pro-

This letter, my dear sir, is only a business scrap. file painter in your town, has executed a profile of Dr Blacklock for me: do me the favour to call for it, and sit to him yourself for me, which put in the same size as the doctor's. The account of both profiles will be fifteen shillings, which I have given to James Connel, our Mauchline carrier, to pay you when you give him the parcel. You must not, my friend, refuse to sit. The time is short. When I sat to Mr Miers, I am sure he did not exceed two minutes. I propose hanging Lord Glencairn, the doctor, and you in trio over my new chimney-piece that is to be. Adieu! R. B.

One piece of special good fortune in Burns's situation at Ellisland was his having for his next neighbour, at less than a mile's distance along the bank of the Nith, Captain Riddell of Glenriddell, a man of literary and antiquarian spirit, and of kindly, social nature. Riddell possessed a beautiful small estate, with a pleasant mansion romantically situated on a rocky promontory which here produces a bend in the river, and was formerly the site of a small monastic establishment: a long carse (alluvial plain) extends to the eastward, bounded by beautiful shrubberies, which nearly reach to Ellisland. The worthy proprietor of Friars' Carse had given Burns a key admitting him to the grounds, and it seems to have been among the agréments of the poet's life at this happy summer period, when hope was green in his bosom, to wander in these grounds, and muse in a decorated cot or hermitage which their master had raised. On the 28th of June he composed, under the character of a bedesman, or alms-fed recluse

VERSES IN FRIARS' CARSE HERMITAGE.

Thou whom chance may hither lead,

Be thou clad in russet weed,

Be thou decked in silken stole,

Grave these maxims on thy soul

VERSES IN FRIARS' CARSE HERMITAGE.

271

Life is but a day at most,

Sprung from night, in darkness lost;
Day, how rapid in its flight-
Day, how few must see the night;
Hope not sunshine every hour,
Fear not clouds will always lower.
Happiness is but a name,

Make content and ease thy aim.
Ambition is a meteor gleam;

Fame a restless, idle dream:
Pleasures, insects on the wing

Round Peace, the tenderest flower of Spring;

Those that sip the dew alone,

Make the butterflies thy own;

Those that would the bloom devour,

Crush the locusts-save the flower.

For the future be prepared,

Guard wherever thou canst guard;
But, thy utmost duly done,

Welcome what thou canst not shun.
Follies past, give thou to air,

Make their consequence thy care:

Keep the name of man in mind,
And dishonour not thy kind.
Reverence with lowly heart,

Him whose wondrous work thou art;
Keep his goodness still in view,
Thy trust-and thy example too.

Stranger, go! Heaven be thy guide!
Quod the Bedesman on Nithside.

TO MR ROBERT AINSLIE.

ELLISLAND, 30th June 1788.

MY DEAR SIR-I just now received your brief epistle; and, to take vengeance on your laziness, I have, you see, taken a long sheet of writing-paper, and have begun at the top of the page, intending to scribble on to the very last corner.

I am vexed at that affair of the ***, but dare not enlarge on the subject until you send me your direction, as I suppose that will be altered on your late master and friend's death. I am concerned for the old fellow's exit only as I fear it may be to your disadvantage in any respect; for an old man's dying, except he have been a very benevolent character, or in some particular situation of life that the

1 Mr Samuel Mitchelson, W. S., had been Mr Ainslie's master: he died June 21,