think that there was in store for him some fate more gentle than that of an exile to the West Indies. It must not be supposed, however, that their feelings met with fluent expression, and that the poet received great re-assurance from them. In Scottish humble life, it is no uncommon thing for men and women of the strongest feelings to keep them locked up from all external show, or only to reveal them under great and casual excitement. A certain habitual soberness of manner, or, it may be, a kind of false shame, often prevents the interchange of all expression of even the most forcible affections, so that life may pass and love be only shewn in its appropriate actions and sacrifices. This was the case with all the Burnses, excepting Robert only, who never attempted to conceal any of his stronger feelings. Gilbert was of a particularly reserved nature; and yet even he kindled up at the prospect of his brother's rescue from the house of bondage. He took a leading part in urging him to try his fortune in Edinburgh, and did all he could to smooth the way for the journey.

APPENDIX.

No. 1 (p. 8).-BURNS'S ANCESTRY.

THE paternal genealogy of the poet has been ascertained for several generations by Dr James Burnes, late physician-general of the Bombay Army. The first of the family who can be spoken of with confidence is

(I.) Walter Burness, who died in depressed circumstances in the parish of Glenbervie, in Kincardineshire. His son,

(II.) Walter Burness, being left in indigent circumstances, learned a trade, and living industriously and frugally, saved a little money, by which he was enabled to take the farm of Bogjorgan, in Glenbervie parish, where he lived till his death. He had a son, William, who succeeded him in his farm, and who died in 1715. Walter had three other sons, two of whom settled in the parish of Benholm.

Connected with William's tenantcy of Bogjorgan, a document has lately been discovered, which gives a very exact description of the accommodations required for a Scottish farmer at the beginning of the eighteenth century:

'Ane note of the biging off Bogjorgine Belonging to William Stuart heritor thereoff given up be William Burnasse present tenent of the sd. Rowm and James Burnesse late possessore of the halff theroff upon the seventainth day of Jully 1705 years

Imp [a ffyr] houss consisting off thrie couples ffour horses two taill postes ane midle wall with ane post ffrom the ground with ane rooff two pares in the syd with ane door bandet locked and bared and with ane window off two lightes bradet bandet and snecked with ane loume all to be sufficient

Item ane barne consisting of ffyve couplles four horses two taill postes ane Rooff thrie pares in the syd with ffor door locked and bandet and back door bared and steepled all to be sufficient

Item ane byre consisting of four couplles two in the syd ane rooff with door and door cheikes bandet all to be sufficient

It is declared be both parties that if ther be no other inventur ffound betwixt this and Whytsonday nixt 1706 yeares that this shall be ane tr[ue] inventur off the said William Burness at his removell from the said Roum In witness

beffor these witnesses Robt. Middletoun in Broombank and David

(III.) James Burnes (so his name is spelt on his headstone in the church-yard of Glenbervie), another son of Walter, became tenant of the farm of Bralinmuir, which his descendants continued to occupy till after the beginning of the present century. He died in 1743, at the age of eighty-seven. In the time when James Burnes lived, the Highlanders still kept up their old habit of making predatory incursions into the Mearns. On one occasion, when some catterans, as they were called, made an approach to Bralinmuir, the goodman adopted the expedient of hiding his loose cash in the nave of an old cart-wheel, which usually lay in the jaw-hole before the door, to perform duty as a sort of stepping-stone. Both ends of the aperture being plugged up, and the wheel laid down, as usual, in the puddle, the catterans stepped upon it in entering the house, without the faintest suspicion of what they were treading upon. James Burnes had five sons, four of whom he set up in farms. One of them, named James, his successor in the farm, is well remembered in the country. In advanced life, he married for his second wife a girl so young and inexperienced, that she could not spin or reel, and her husband had to teach her. As he had a hesitation in his speech, the words he used on this occasion appeared the more ridiculous to his neighbours, and they are accordingly still cited occasionally by old people.' Another of the sons of the first James,

The

(IV.) Robert Burnes rented the farm of Clockenhill, of a very poor soil, on the lands of Dunnottar, the estate of the Earl Marischal, who was attainted in 1716 for his concern in the Rebellion. It is about six miles west of Stonehaven, on the Lawrencekirk road. He reared three sons and four daughters on very insufficient means, and found himself at length involved in poverty. eldest son, James, born in 1717, went to Montrose, and attained a respectable position in society. His son James, writer in Montrose, corresponded with his cousin the poet, and acted towards him the part of a kind and generous friend. A third James, the son of the above, and at one time provost of Montrose, but who latterly lived in retirement in Edinburgh, was the father of the late Sir Alexander Burnes, author of Travels in Bokhara, 3 vols. (1833), and whose melancholy death at Cabul in November 1841 was the presage of so dire an event to the arms of England; likewise of Dr James Burnes, above mentioned. Another son of Robert Burnes in Clockenhill was Robert, who left the paternal home at the same time with his brother William, and served for some time as a gardener in England, but returned to Scotland, where he died in the house of his nephew, the Scottish bard, in 1789. The third son of Robert Burnes,

(V.) William Burness, born about 1721, migrated to Ayrshire, where he died in 1784. He was the father of

(VI.) ROBERT BURNS, the SCOTTISH POET.

1 These particulars are communicated by James Smith, Esq., accountant, Aberdeen.

It is an interesting circumstance regarding the poet's grandfather, that, notwithstanding his poverty, he had a liberal sense of the value of education for his children. He, in conjunction with some of the neighbouring farmers, built a school-house on the farm of Clockenhill, and engaged a teacher. It was the first school built in that part of the country. It will be observed that this was precisely the conduct afterwards pursued by his son William Burnes at Alloway; so that two generations of our poet's family had distinguished themselves by what was even for Scotland an extraordinary as well as most honourable sacrifice in behalf of education. The lease of Clockenhill expired about 1740; two of the farmer's sons, including William, then a mere youth, intended to renew the tack, but it was taken over their heads. They were thus put out of their little possessions; their stock was sold to pay their debts; the old man retired with his three unmarried daughters to a small farm called Denside, in the same parish, while the sons went off to push their fortunes with empty pockets.

There is a story which would seem to throw the date of the family sufferings for the Stuarts back into the seventeenth century. The first Walter Burness is represented as having been in reality named Walter Campbell. He is described as having been originally proprietor of a small domain in Argyleshire, called Burnhouse. It is stated that, having offended his chief, the Duke (Earl) of Argyle, by siding with the cause of the Stuarts at the Revolution, he was, much about the time of the noted massacre of Glencoe, obliged to abandon his native country, and wander to the Lowlands as a fugitive, accompanied by his only son, Walter, then a boy.' He dropped the name of Campbell, and was known by that of Burness -a corruption of Burnhouse, the place of his birth. He settled in the parish of Glenbervie, and there died. Dr James Burnes was so well convinced of the truth of this story, as to deem himself entitled to apply to the Lord Lyon's College for a patent of arms, which was granted to him, founded partly upon those of the family of Campbell.

From a privately printed brochure, prepared by Dr Burnes, it appears that this family tradition was reported in 1824 by John Burness of Stonehaven, a curious original, who had some share of his cousin's gift of verse, and was the author of a comic production, called Thrummie Cap. John Burness had heard the recital from the Rev. Alexander Greig, Episcopal minister in Stonehaven, whose mother's sister was the wife of William Burness, the grandson of the second Walter, and who died in 1793 at the age of eighty-six. Mr Greig had his chapel converted into a stable, and himself suffered six months' imprisonment, during the dark days of the Scottish Episcopal Church succeeding the insurrection of 1745. The story, however we are to receive it, requires at least some correction in point of date, for it is inadmissible that the grandfather of a person born in 1656, which was the case of James Burnes