forty miles make a wide gap between husband and wife. Burns set himself with all speed to build a better dwelling, and the summer found him busy in the field. He brought Jean home in November, and for the first time in his life had the opportunity of realising his own picture :

To make a happy fire-side clime,

To weans and wife

That's the true pathos, and sublime
Of human life.

But low spirits dulled his joys. He calls himself such a coward in the world, and so tired of the service, that the desire of his heart was "to lie down in his mother's lap and be at peace." We hear him groaning under the miseries of a diseased nervous system, and of headaches three weeks in duration.

It was not always dark in Ellisland. His first winter glided happily by, and golden days of the heart and the fancy often shone, when the father rejoiced in the crown of the poet. In this farm, by the river side, he composed his noblest lyric, "To Mary in Heaven;" and there, too, the fat and festive Grose came to visit him, and heard of the wonderful jump of Cutty Sark and the magnificent terrors of Tam.

Burns had made a bad choice of a farm; but a momentary sunlight broke over it, and the crops rewarded his industry and care. An agricultural friend once warned him that however situation, soil, and custom might vary, Farmer Attention would be prosperous everywhere. And it is conceivable that even from Ellisland he might have come in joy, bringing sheaves. But Farmer Attention was a stranger under that roof-more familiar to the wedding feast and the harvest dance. The appointment of Burns to the Excise came, to complete the ruin of the husbandman. He owed it to the kindness of a surgeon (Mr. Wood), who got his name placed on the list of candidates.

Before the close of 1791, Burns relinquished his farm,

and being placed, with a salary of seventy pounds, in the Dumfries department of Excise, he removed his family to that town.

The biographers of Burns concur in putting his Dumfries life into shadow. "I am just risen," are his own sad words-from a two-hours' bout after supper, with silly, or sordid souls, who could relish nothing in common with me but the port." Among companions like these he had long been in the habit-to adopt his striking phrase-of dividing large slices of his constitution; but the biggest slices were given at Dumfries. Many families from the south of Scotland chose that town for their winter residence; and we are told that it abounded in "stately Toryism," which only served to embitter and aggravate the hostility of the Poet. The freedom of his manners was, at least, equalled by that of his tongue, and his epigrams fell thick and fast. One critic is sharp upon the "gentry," because they "cut" Burns. The "cutting" is certain. A friend informed Mr. Lockhart, that upon a fine summer evening he saw the poet walking alone on the shady side of the principal street, while the opposite part was gay with successive groups of gentlemen and ladies, all drawn together for the festivities of the night, not one of whom appeared willing to recognise him. Assuredly he gave ample opportunity to evil-speakers.

The glimpses which the poet gives of himself are in the highest degree mournful: Regret-Remorse--Shame, dog his steps and bay at his heels; he apologises to a lady for some festive ill-behaviour, by writing a letter "from the dead:" his helpless little folks drive sleep from his pillow; his old friends would not know him. With every month the nervous misery increases; and his feelings, at times, are only to be envied by "a reprobate spirit listening to the sentence that dooms it to perdition." Except in the letters of Cowper, I remember no selfupbraidings more dreadful or pathetic. The storm deepened. He had hardly buried his sweet little girl,

BURNS.

xxxi when a rheumatic fever of the severest kind bound him to his bed. All these things were against him. To James Johnson he wrote:-"This protracting, slow, consuming illness which hangs over me will, I doubt much, arrest my sun before he has well reached his middle career, and will turn over the poet to far more important concerns than studying the brilliancy of wit or the pathos of sentiment. However, hope is the cordial of the human heart, and I endeavour to cherish it as well as I can." The new year found him making feeble efforts to crawl across his room. But no suffering could teach prudence to Burns. The firstfruits of his strength were given to a tavern dinner, prolonged into the late morning. Returning home, he sunk on the snow and slept. The old enemy came in his sleep, and he awoke with the torments of rheumatism, renewed and sharpened. Pale, emaciated, and wanting a hand to help him from his chair, he complained of "spirits fled-fled!" One faint hope remained—it was the shadow of a shade: sea-bathing might restore him. In order to obtain it, he was removed to Brow, a village on the Solway Frith; and there his pains were slightly relieved. But the fire was still burning. He returned to Dumfries on the 18th of July, 1796, wasted in body and face, and hardly able to stand. Dr. Maxwell, who attended him, communicated the particulars of his closing hours to Currie:-A tremor pervaded his frame; his tongue was parched, and his mind sunk into delirium when not roused by conversation. On the second and third day the fever increased, and his strength diminished. Upon the fourth day the cord was loosed, and the spirit took its flight.

He was buried, July 26th, with military honours, as belonging to the Dumfries Volunteers, and a great multitude followed him. The sun shone brightly all the day, and while the earth " was heaped up, and the green sod was laid over him, the crowd stood gazing for some minutes' space, and then melted silently away."

THE

POEMS OF BURNS.

THE TWA DOGS.'

A TALE.

'Twas in that place o' Scotland's isle,
That bears the name o' Auld King Coil,'
Upon a bonnie day in June,

When wearing thro' the afternoon,
Twa dogs, that were na thrang3 at hame,
Forgather'd ance upon a time.

The first I'll name, they ca'd him Cæsar,
Was keepit for his Honor's pleasure:
His hair, his size, his mouth, his lugs,*
Shew'd he was nane o' Scotland's dogs;
But whalpit some place far abroad,
Whare sailors gang to fish for Cod.

His locked, letter'd, braw" brass collar,
Shew'd him the gentleman and scholar;
But though he was o' high degree,
The fient a pride, na pride had he;
But wad hae spent an hour caressin,
Ev'n wi' a tinkler-gipsey's messin.
At kirk or market, mill or smiddie,”
Nae tawted tyke, 10 tho' e'er sae duddie,
But he wad stan't, as glad to see him,

And stroan't on stanes and hillocks wi' him.

"The Tale of Twa Dogs" was composed after the resolution of publishing was nearly taken. Robert had a dog, which he called Luath, that was a great favourite. The dog had been killed by the wanton cruelty of some person the night before my father's death. Robert said to me that he should like to confer such immortality as he could bestow en his old friend Luath, and that he had a great mind to introduce something into the book under the title of "Stanzas to the Memory of a quadruped Friend;" but this plan was given up for the Tale as it now stands. Cæsar was merely the creature of the poet's imagination, created for the purpose of hold. ing chat with his favourite Luath. G. B. A Pictish king, said to have given a name to Kyle. 3 Busy. • Ears. Whelped. • Handsome. 7 Fiend. 8 A small dog. 10 Dog with matted hair.

• A smithy.