The great Creator to revere Must sure become the creature; An Atheist laugh's a poor exchange When ranting round in Pleasure's ring, Or if she gie a random sting, It may be little minded; But when on life we're tempest-driven, A correspondence fixed wi' Heaven, Adieu, dear amiable youth! Your heart can ne'er be wanting! In ploughman phrase, 'God send you speed,' Still daily to grow wiser; And may you better reck the rede Than ever did th' adviser! warning In a copy of this poem in Burns's own hand, and bearing date 'Mossgiel, May 15th, 1786,' there occurs an additional stanza which the admirable taste of the poet had doubtless observed to be below the rest in terseness and point, and which he had therefore seen fit to omit. It throws so valuable a light on the state of his own mind at this crisis, that it certainly ought not to be suppressed, though we should not desire to see it replaced in the poem. It occurs immediately after the line, 'And petrifies the feeling.' If ye hae made a step aside, Some hap mistake o'erta'en you, Time comes wi' kind oblivous shade, And if nae mair mistakes are made, 1 The copy of the poem above alluded to is in the possession of Mr George Johnston, broker, Liverpool. This month, however, appears to have witnessed a much more wonderful aberration from the forlorn state indicated in the Lament. The heart of man is full of mystery. Sometimes when it appears most keenly set upon one passion, it is at the nearest point to turning into some wholly different channel. Its reactions from wounded affection are amongst its most surprising transitions. Burns had been cast off by the Armours in what he felt as a most shameful way-divorced on account of poverty! In this moment of wounded pride he recalled the image of an amiable girl in the service of his friend Hamilton, a sweet, sprightly, blue-eyed creature, of a firmer modesty and self-respect than too many of the other maidens he had addressed. Mary Campbell was of Highland parentage, from the neighbourhood of Dunoon, on the Firth of Clyde. Her father was a sailor in a revenue-cutter, the station of which being at Campbelton, in Kintyre, his family now resided there. We may presume that the young woman was somewhat superior in cast of mind, manners, and intelligence to her situation, as it is ascertained that she had spent some of her youthful years in the family of the Rev. David Campbell of Loch Ranza, in Arran, a relation of her mother. She had afterwards been induced by another relative, a Mrs Isabella Campbell, who was housekeeper to a family in Ayrshire, to come to that county and take a situation as a servant. There is some obscurity about the situations and movements of Mary: it is quite certain that she was at one time dairy-maid at Coilsfield, and the surviving children of Mr Hamilton are probably right in thinking that she was nursemaid to their deceased brother Alexander, who was born in July 1785, and that she saw him through some of the early stages of infancy before leaving their house. As a stranger serving only for a short time in the village, she has been little remembered there. Mrs Begg recollects no sort of reference to her at Mossgiel, except from the poet himself, when he told John Blane one day that 'Mary had refused to meet him in the old castle'-the dismantled tower of the priory near Mr Hamilton's house. A song of Burns, in persons, scenery, and circumstances most sweetly pastoral, and breathing of luxurious love unsmirched by disappointment actual or anticipated, must here be introduced, because it undoubtedly relates to his passion for Mary. It may be remarked, that the locality, Glen Afton, which is at a considerable distance, in the head of Nithsdale, has led to some misapprehensions regarding the history of the lyric; but all doubt is set at rest by a daughter of Mrs Dunlop, who affirms that she remembers hearing Burns say it was written upon the Coilsfield dairy-maid. We must consequently infer, that the name Afton was adopted by our poet pro euphonie gratiá-suggested to him, probably, by the name of Afton Lodge, in the neighbourhood of Coilsfield, the residence of his friend and patroness Mrs Stewart of Stair.' FLOW GENTLY, SWEET AFTON. TUNE-The Yellow-haired Laddie. Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes, Thou stock-dove whose echo resounds through the glen, How lofty, sweet Afton, thy neighbouring hills, How pleasant thy banks and green valleys below, As gathering sweet flowerets she stems thy clear wave. Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green bracs, Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream. Thrown off and heart-wrung as he was by Jean, it was natural enough that he should revert to Mary Campbell. On the eve of a voyage to the West Indies in a humble capacity, it was not 1 Dr Currie stated that this song was composed in honour of Mrs Stewart herself, whose paternal property was situated on the banks of the Afton in Nithsdale. In a paper by Mr Gilbert Burns, communicating to Mr George Thomson memoranda of the subjects of his brother's songs, Flow gently, sweet Afton, is thus noticed: "The poet's Highland Mary.' Dr Currie had undoubtedly been misinformed. desirable that he should unite himself with any woman, however dear; but his soul rushed to a compensation for the desertion of Armour-prudential considerations, as usual with him where affairs of the heart were concerned, formed little or no impediment-he betook himself to Mary, and found her willing to be his for life, notwithstanding all that had passed with Jean. Such at least is the view we take of the circumstances, from all that has transpired. It was agreed that Mary should give up her place, and go home for a short time to her friends in the Highlands, in order to arrange matters for her union with the poet. But before going -on the second Sunday of May, the 14th of the month-Mary and Burns had a farewell meeting in a sequestered spot on the banks of the Ayr. The day and the place are indicated by himself. It is probable that the lovers did not confine themselves to the banks of the Ayr, but digressed into the minor valley of the Faile, where the woods of Coilsfield compose many beautiful scenes. However this may be, Mr Cromek tells that their adieu was performed with all those simple and striking ceremonials which rustic sentiment has devised to prolong tender emotions and to impose awe. The lovers stood on each side of a small purling brook— they laved their hands in the limpid stream-and holding a Bible between them, pronounced their vows to be faithful to each other.' Mary presented to her lover a plain small Bible in one volume. Burns returned the compliment with a more elegant one in two volumes. The whole ceremony speaks of such an extreme anxiety for the constancy of his new mistress, as might be expected of one who had just suffered from the perjury of another. The volumes given to Mary have chanced to be preserved. On a blank-leaf in one of them is inscribed, in Burns's handwriting, 'And ye shall not swear by my name falsely-I am the Lord.'-Levit. xix. 12. On the second volume: 'Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shall perform unto the Lord thine oaths.'-Matth. v. 33. And on a blank-leaf his name had been inscribed, together with his mason-mark. The lovers parted never to meet again. The date of Burns's attachment to Highland Mary, and several of the circumstances connected with it, have been matter of doubt and obscurity till lately. In January 1850, Mr William Douglas brought before the Society of Scottish Antiquaries an elaborate paper, making it all but perfectly certain that the affair was, what had never been hitherto suspected, an episode in the attachment to Jean Armour. He shewed that it could not have been, as several biographers had surmised, a strictly early or juvenile attachment, as the Bible is dated in 1782, and the name of the poet is followed by the word 'Mossgiel '-a place with which he had no connection till Martinmas 1783, when he was nearly twenty-five years of age, and where he did not reside till March of the ensuing year. Mr Douglas also traced the connection between this attachment and the design of going to the West Indies, a design of which we hear at no earlier period of his life than spring 1786. This connection appears strongly in a song which Burns afterwards published in Johnson's Scots Musical Museum : THE HIGHLAND LASSIE. Nae gentle dames, though e'er sae fair,1 Within the glen sae bushy, O, But fickle Fortune frowns on me, Although through foreign climes I range, For her I'll dare the billows' roar, She has my heart, she has my hand, I'm thine, my Highland lassie, O. 1 'Gentle is here used in opposition to simple, in the Scottish and old English sense of the word. Nae gentle dames-no high-blooded.'-CURRIE. |