Page 92, line 39. Alexander Munro, Professor of Anatomy in the University of Edinburgh.

Page 92, line 46.

Var. The hapless Poet flounces on through life. Page 93, line 16. Var. Conscious their great success they well deserve. Page 93, line 20. Var. When disappointment snaps the thread of hope. Page 93, line 25. Var. Strong on the sign-post hangs the seeming ox. Page 93, line 29. All the rest of this Poem is yet without form and void in the pericranium of the poet. MS.

Page 93, line 33. James, Earl of Glencairn. See succeeding poem.

Page 93, col. 1, line 4 fr. bottom. This nobleman, for whom the poet had a deep respect, died at Falmouth, in his forty-second year. Burns wore mourning for the Earl, and designed to attend his funeral in Ayrshire. He enclosed the poem to Lady Elizabeth Cunningham, sister of the deceased nobleman.

Page 95, line 5. When my father,' writes Gilbert Burns, feued his little property near Alloway Kirk, the wall of the church-yard had gone to ruin, and cattle had free liberty of pasture in it. My father, with two or three other neighbours, joined in an application to the town council of Ayr, who were superiors of the adjoining land, for liberty to rebuild it, and raised by subscription a sum for enclosing this ancient cemetery with a wall; hence he came to consider it as his burial-place, and we learned that reverence for it people generally have for the burial-place of their ancestors. My brother was living at Ellisland, when Captain Grose, on his peregrinations through Scotland, stayed some time at Carse House, in the neighbourhood, with Captain Robert Riddel of Glenriddel, a particular friend of my brother's. The Antiquarian and the Poet were "unco pack and thick thegither." Robert requested of Captain Grose, when he should come to Ayrshire, that he would make a drawing of Alloway Kirk, as it was the burial-place of his father, and where he himself had a sort of claim to lay down his bones when they should be no longer serviceable to him; and added, by way of encouragement, that it was the scene of many a good story of witches and apparitions, of which he knew the Captain was very fond. The Captain agreed to the request, provided the poet would furnish a witch story, to be printed along with it. "Tam-o-Shanter" was produced on this occasion, and was first published in Grose's "Antiquities of Scotland." The following letter, sent by Burns to Captain Grose, deals with the witch stories that clustered round Alloway Kirk.

'Among the many witch-stories I have heard relating to Alloway Kirk, I distinctly remember only two or three.

"Upon a stormy night, amid whistling squalls

| of wind and bitter blasts of hail-in short, on such a night as the devil would choose to take the air in-a farmer, or a farmer's servant, was plodding and plashing homeward with his plough-irons on his shoulder, having been getting some repairs on them at a neighbouring smithy. His way lay by the Kirk of Alloway, and being rather on the anxious look-out in approaching a place so well known to be a favourite haunt of the devil, and the devil's friends and emissaries, he was struck aghast by discovering, through the horrors of the storm and stormy night, a light, which, on his nearer approach, plainly showed itself to proceed from the haunted edifice. Whether he had been fortiñed from above on his devout supplication, as is customary with people when they suspect the immediate presence of Satan, or whether, according to another custom, he had got courageously drunk at the smithy, I will not pretend to determine; but so it was, that he ventured to go up to, nay, into the very Kirk. As luck would have it, his temerity came off unpunished.

'The members of the infernal junto were all out on some midnight business or other, and he saw nothing but a kind of kettle or caldron, depending from the roof, over the fire, simmer. ing some heads of unchristened children, limbs of executed malefactors, &c., for the business of the night. It was in for a penny, in for a pound, with the honest ploughman; so, without ceremony, he unhooked the caldron from off the fire, and pouring out its damnable ingredients, inverted it on his head, and carried it fairly home, where it remained long in the family, a living evidence of the truth of the story.'

Another story, which I can prove to be equally authentic, was as follows:

'On a market-day, in the town of Ayr, a farm. er from Carrick, and consequently whose way lay by the very gate of Alloway Kirk-yard, in order to cross the river Doon at the old bridge, which is about two or three hundred yards farther on than the said gate, had been detained by his business, till by the time he reached Alloway it was the wizard hour, between night and morning.

"Though he was terrified with a blaze streaming from the Kirk, yet as it is a well-known fact, that to turn back on these occasions is running by far the greatest risk of mischief, he prudently advanced on his road. When he had reached the gate of the Kirk-yard, he was surprised and entertained, through the ribs and arches of an old Gothic window, which still faces the highway, to see a dance of witches merrily footing it round their old sooty blackguard master, who was keeping them all alive with the power of his bagpipe. The farmer, stopping his horse to observe them a little, could plainly descry the faces of many of his acquaintance and neighbourhood. How the gentleman was dressed, tradition does not say, but that the ladies were all in their smocks; and one of them happening unluckily

I

ship hints at an ode for the occasion; but who would write after Collins? I read over his verses to the memory of Thomson and despaired. got indeed the length of three or four stanzas, in the way of address to the shade of the bard, on crowning his bust. I shall trouble your lordship with the subjoined copy of them, which, I am afraid, will be but too convincing a proof how unequal I am to the task.' The first MS. copy of the Address began as follows;

While cold-eyed Spring, a virgin coy,
Unfolds her verdant mantle sweet,
Or pranks the sod in frolic joy,
A carpet for her youthful feet.
While Summer, with a matron's grace,
Walks stately in the cooling shade,
And oft delighted loves to trace

The progress of the spiky blade.

While Autumn, benefactor kind,
With Age's hoary honours clad,
Surveys, with self-approving mind,

Each creature on his bounty fed. &c. Page 101, col. 1, line 13. This poem was addressed to the daughter of Mr. William Cruickshank, one of the masters of the High School of Edinburgh.

Page 102, col. I, line 1. Brother to Miss Isabella McLeod, a particular acquaintance of the author. R. B. John McLeod was the youngest son of McLeod of Ramsay.

Page 102, col. 2, line 4.

Var.

And so her heart was wrung. MS. copy.
Page 102, col. 2, line 7. Var.

Can point the grief-worn, brimful eyes. MS.

copy.

the company, and with which he has very felicitously closed his poem.'

Page 103, line 8 fr. bottom. Var. Brother Scots, brother Scots, wha believe in John Knox.

The occasion of the satire was as follows. In 1786, Dr. Wm. McGill, one of the ministers of Ayr, published an essay on 'The Death of Jesus Christ,' which was denounced as heterodox by Dr. Wm. Peebles, of Newton-upon-Ayr, in a sermon preached by him November 5th, 1788. Dr. McGill published a defence, and the case came before the Ayr presbytery, and finally before the synod of Glasgow and Ayr. In August, 1789, Burns wrote to Mr. Logan: 'I have, as you will shortly see, finished the 'Kirk's Alarm,' but now that it is done, and that I have laughed once or twice at the conceits of some of the stanzas, I am determined not to let it get into the public; so I send you this copy, the first I have sent to Ayrshire, except some few of the stanzas which I wrote off in embryo for Gavin Hamilton, under the express provision and request that you will only read it to a few of us, and do not on any account give, or permit to be taken, any copy of the ballad.' With reference to the ballad he wrote to Mr. Graham of Fintry: 'I laughed myself at some conceits in it, though I am convinced in my conscience that there are a good many heavy

stanzas in it too.'

Page 103, line 4 fr. bottom. Dr. McGill. Page 103, line 3 fr. bottom. Var.

To strike wicked writers wi' terror.

Page 104, line 3. John Ballantyne, Esq. Provost of Ayr.

Page 104, line 4. Page 104, line 5. Page 104, line 9.

The bairdie, music's youngest child. Page 103, col. 2, line 27. Mr. Walker in his letter to Dr. Currie, describing the impression Burns made at Blair, says, The Duke's fine family attracted much of his admiration; he drank their health as honest men and bonie lassies, an idea which was much applauded by

Mr. Robert Aitken.
Rev. Dr. Wm. Dalrymple.
Rev. John Russell, see

Rev. James Mackinlay, Rev. Alexander Moodie,

Rev. Mr. Auld.

Page 104, line 13. see Ordination.' Page 104, line 17. see "The Twa Herds.' Page 104, line 21. Page 104, line 22. Mr. Gavin Hamilton. Page 104, line 25. Mr. Grant, Ochiltree. Page 104, line 29. Mr. Young, Cumnock. Page 104, line 33. Rev. Dr. Wm. Peebles. He had written a poem which contained a ridiculous line:

And bound in Liberty's endearing chain. Page 104, line 37. Dr. Andrew Mitchell, Monkton. Page 105, line 1. Rev. Stephen Young, Barr.

Page 105, line 5. ston, see 'Holy Fair.' Page 105, line 9. Muirkirk.

Rev. George Smith, Gal

Rev. John Shepherd,

Page 105, line 13. Mr. William Fisher, the 'Holy Willie' of the famous satire.

Page 105, col. 1, line 1. In writing from Ellisland to Mr. Creech, May, 1789, and enclos

ing a few of his recent productions, Burns says, | 'I had intended to have troubled you with a long letter; but at present the delightful sensations of an omnipotent toothache so engross all my inner man as to put it out of my power even to write nonsense.' Referring to the poems he goes on, I do not pretend that there is much merit in these morceaux, but I have two reasons for sending them: primo, they are mostly ill-natured, so are in unison with my present feelings, while fifty troops of infernal spirits are driving past from ear to ear along my jawbones; and secondly,' &c.

Page 106, line 19 fr. bottom.

Var.

The eye with pleasure and amazement fills. Page 107, col. 1, line 1. Miss Susan Dunlop, daughter of Mr. Dunlop, married a French gentleman named Henri. The young couple were living at Loudon Castle when M. Henri died, leaving his wife pregnant. The verses were written on the birth of a son and heir. Mrs. Dunlop communicated the intelligence to Burns, and received the following letter in return; ""As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country!" Fate has long owed me a letter of good news from you, in return for the many tidings of sorrow which I have received. In this instance I most cordially obey the Apostle-"Rejoice with them that do rejoice" for me to sing for joy is no new thing; but to preach for joy, as I have done in the commencement of this epistle, is a pitch of extravagant rapture to which I never rose before. I read your letter - I literally jumped for joy. How could such a mercurial creature as a poet lumpishly keep his seat on the receipt of the best news from his best friend? I seized my gilt-headed Wangee rod, an instrument indispensably necessary, in my left hand, in the moment of inspiration and rapture; and stride, stride quick and quicker- -out skipped I among the blooming banks of Nith, to muse over my joy by retail. To keep within the bounds of prose was impossible.' Mr. Chambers traces the future history of Mrs. Henri and her son: In a subsequent letter Burns deplores her (Mrs. Henri's) dangerous and distressing situation in France, exposed to the tumults of the Revolution; and he has soon after occasion to condole with his venerable friend on the death of her daughter in a foreign land. When this sad event took place, the orphan child fell under the immediate care of his paternal grandfather, who, however, was soon obliged to take refuge in Switzerland, leaving the infant behind him. Years passed, he and the Scotch friends of the child heard nothing of it, and concluded that it was lost. At length, when the elder Henri was enabled to return to his ancestral domains, he had the unspeakable satisfaction of finding that his grandson and heir was alive and well, having never been removed from the place. The child had been protected and reared with the greatest care by a worthy female named Mademoiselle

-

Susette, formerly a domestic in the family. This excellent person had even contrived, through all the levelling violence of the intervening period, to preserve in her young charge the feeling appropriate to his rank. Though absolutely indebted to her industry for his bread, she had caused him always to be seated by himself at table and regularly waited on, so that the otherwise plebeian circumstances in which he lived did not greatly affect him. The subject of Burns' stanzas was, a very few years ago, proprietor of the family estates: and it is agreeable to add that Mademoiselle Susette then lived in his paternal mansion, in the enjoyment of that grateful respect to which her fidelity and discretion so eminently entitled her.'

Page 107, col. 1, line 6 fr. bottom. This epistle was prefixed to the edition of Sillars' poems, published in Kilmarnock in 1789.

Page 108, col. 1, line 19. The 'Inventory' was addressed to Mr. Aitken of Ayr, surveyor of taxes for the district. It was first printed in the Liverpool edition of the poems.

Page 109, line 20 fr. bottom. 'As the authentic prose history of the Whistle is curious,' writes Burns, I shall here give it: - In the train of Anne of Denmark, when she came to Scotland with our James the Sixth, there came over also a Danish gentleman of gigantic stature and great prowess, and a matchless champion of Bacchus. He had a little ebony whistle, which at the commencement of the orgies he laid on the table; and whoever was last able to blow it, everybody else being disabled by the potency of the bottle, was to carry off the whistle as a trophy of victory. The Dane produced credentials of his victories, without a single defeat, at the courts of Copenhagen, Stockholm, Moscow, Warsaw, and several of the petty courts in Germany: and challenged the Scots Bacchanalians to the alternative of trying his prowess, or else acknowledging their inferiority. After many overthrows on the part of the Scots, the Dane was encountered by Sir Robert Lawrie of Maxwelton, ancestor of the present worthy baronet of that name, who after three days' and three nights' hard contest, left the Scandinavian under the table,

"And blew on the whistle his requiem shrill." Sir Walter, son to Sir Robert before mentioned, afterwards lost the whistle to Walter Riddel of Glenriddel, who had married a sister of Sir Walter's. On Friday the 16th October, 1790, at Friar's Carse, the whistle was once more contended for, as related in the ballad, by the present Sir Robert Lawrie of Maxwelton; Robert Riddel, Esq. of Glenriddel, lineal descendant and representative of Walter Riddel, who won the whistle, and in whose family it had continued; and Alexander Ferguson, Esq. of Craigdarroch, likewise descended of the great Sir Robert; which last gentleman carried off the hard-won honours of the field. R. B.'

Oddly enough, on the 16th October, 1789, we

'The elements, however, seem to take the matter very quietly: they did not even usher in the morning with triple suns and a shower of blood, symbolical of the three potent heroes and the mighty claret-shed of the day. For me, as Thomson in his Winter says of the storm, I shall "Hear astonished, and astonished sing:

"The whistle and the man I sing,

The man that won the whistle. And he concludes by wishing that the captain's head 'may be crowned by laurels to-night, and free from aches to-morrow.' Burns in his note is supposed to have made a mistake of a year. He says the whistle was contended for on Friday the 16th October, 1790, but in 1789 the 16th October fell on a Friday, and in 1790 it fell on a Saturday.

It is not quite clear what share the poet took in the fray. Allan Cunningham states that the whistle was contended for in the dining-room of Friar's Carse in Burns' presence, who drank bottle after bottle with the competitors, and seemed disposed to take up the conqueror.' On the other hand, Mr. Hunter of Cockrune, in the parish of Closeburn, reports that he has a perfect recollection of the whole affair. He states that Burns was present the whole evening. He was invited to join the party to see that the gentlemen drank fair, and to commemorate the day by writing a song. I recollect well, that when the dinner was over, Burns quitted the table, and went to a table in the same room, that was placed in a window that looked south-east; and there he sat down for the night. I placed before him a bottle of rum, and another of brandy, which he did not finish, but left a good deal of each when he rose from the table after the gentlemen had gone to bed.

When the gentlemen were put to bed, Burns walked home without any assistance, not being the worse of drink. When Burns was sitting at the table in the window, he had pen, ink, and paper, which I brought him at his own request. He now and then wrote on the paper, and while the gentlemen were sober, he turned round often, and chatted with them, but drank none of the claret which they were drinking.

I heard him read aloud several parts of the poem, much to the amusement of the three gentlemen." It is just possible that Burns is after all correct enough in his dates. His letter

although clear enough as to the impending 'Claret-shed,' hardly suggests that the writer expected to be present. The theory that the revel had been originally arranged for that date, and, unknown to Burns, suddenly postponed for a year, would explain the matter. Page 109, line 16 fr. bottom. See Ossian's Caric-thura. R. B. Page 110, line 11. See Johnson's 'Tour to the Hebrides.' R. B. Page 111, line 13. Concerning this ' 'sketch,' Burns wrote to Mrs. Dunlop, April, 1789.

'I have a poetic whim in my head, which I at present dedicate, or rather inscribe, to the Right Hon. C. J. Fox; but how long that fancy may hold, I cannot say. A few of the first lines I have just rough-sketched as follows.' Page 112, line 10. Var.

Possessing the one, must imply you've the other.

The verses following this line were first printed from a manuscript of Burns' in Pickering's edition.

Page 112, col. 1, line 1. Burns had sent a letter to Dr. Blacklock, under charge of Robert Heron, detailing certain recent changes in his circumstances. The letter miscarried, and Blacklock addressed Burns in the following epistle.

'Edinburgh, 24th August, 1789. 'Dear Burns, thou brother of my heart, Both for thy virtues and thy art: If art it may be called in thee, Which Nature's bounty large and free With pleasure on thy heart diffuses, And warms thy soul with all the Muses: Whether to laugh with easy grace, Thy numbers move the sage's face, Or bid the softer passions rise, And ruthless souls with grief surprise, 'Tis Nature's voice distinctly felt, Thro' thee, her organ, thus to melt.

Most anxiously I wish to know With thee, of late, how matters go; How keeps thy much-loved Jean her health? What promises thy farm of wealth? Whether the Muse persists to smile, And all thy anxious cares beguile? Whether bright fancy keeps alive? And how thy darling infants thrive?

For me, with grief and sickness spent, Since I my journey homeward bent, Spirits depressed no more I mourn, But vigour, life, and health return. No more to gloomy thoughts a prey, I sleep all night, and live all day; By turns my book and friend enjoy, And thus my circling hours employ; Happy while yet these hours remain, If Burns could join the cheerful train, With wonted zeal, sincere and fervent, Salute once more his humble servant,

'THOS. BLACKLOCK.