is revealed, both as regards his character as a man, and his reputation as a poet. It may be said, indeed, as Dr. Wallace remarks, that in his disclaiming letters the poet makes much ado about very little; "It should, however, be remembered," continues the same writer," that at the time he wrote them he was striving to obtain an excise appointment, and such an attack on the Duchess of Gordon as his name had been put to would injure him in quarters where he desired to stand well. Hence, no doubt, the emphasis of his disclaimers. If the Gordon skit was really written by the great dispenser of patronage' in Scotland, it must be regarded as indicating the reverse of respect for the character of Burns, who is represented as the 'ploughing poet,' fond of women and whisky, and capable of ridiculing a patroness in verse. In any case, the newspaper incident must have given Burns a strong impression that Henry Dundas was no warm friend or admirer of his, and would not facilitate his rapid promotion. Yet so long as the Earl of Glencairn lived, he could rely upon his influence and the loyal though not effusive friendship of Graham of Fintry." BESS BURNET IN Edinburgh, in the winter of 1786-7, too, Bess Burnet was a reigning belle, whom Burns had the honour and delight to meet on various occasions. In a letter addressed to a friend in the time, Mrs. Allison Cockburn, who composed the more popular of the two immortal versions of "The Flowers of the Forest," writes :-" The town is at present agog with the ploughman poet, who receives adulation with native dignity, and is the very figure of his profession. Strong and coarse, but has a most enthusiastic heart of love. He has seen the Duchess of Gordon, and all the gay world : his favourite for looks and manners is Bess Burnet-no bad judge, indeed. The man will be spoiled if he can spoil; but he keeps his simple manners, and is quite sober. No doubt he will be at the Hunters' Ball to-morrow, which has made all women and milliners mad. Not a gauze cap under two guineas-many ten." This Bess (or Eliza) Burnet was the daughter of the learned and ingenious Lord Monboddo, in philosophy an evolutionist (if we may say so, a Darwinian before Darwin), in learning a pedant, in society a wit. He gave elaborate dinners, to more than one of which Burns was invited. He Miss Eliza, who was his second daughter, drew her beauty from her mother," the heavenly Miss Burnet," Burns called her. Asked by Father Geddes, after his first visit to Monboddo's house, how he esteemed the young lady, "I admired God Almighty more than ever," he replied. “Miss Burnet is the most heavenly of all His works." And in a letter to William Chalmers, written in Ayr, he declares :"There has not been anything like her in all the combinations of beauty, grace, and goodness the Creator has formed since Milton's Eve on the first day of her existence." This fair and gracious creature, whose beauty did not strike Burns alone, fell a victim to consumption, and died in June, 1790, when she was only twenty-five years old. The poet by then had been a married man for two years, and was living happily with his wife and family at Ellisland. But the intelligence of the decay and death of one who had afforded so much delight to his admiring eye, touched his ever-sympathetic soul, and he started to write her elegy. Not, however, till January following did he complete it, when, enclosing a copy to his friend, Alexander Cunningham, he states that he had been "hammering at it for several months." The result had been better, perhaps, had less hammering been required. And we think, moreover, that if he had attempted a song in her praise, and a song in the homely doric, when the lady was in the full flush of health and beauty, the admirers of his lyric muse would have found a richer, more enduring, and more widely-moving treat. Burns never reveals his best form in English. ELEGY ON THE LATE MISS BURNET, OF MONBODDO. Life ne'er exulted in so rich a prize As Burnet, lovely from her native skies; Thy form and mind, sweet maid, can I forget? In richest ore the brightest jewel set! In thee, high Heaven above was truest shown, And by His noblest work the Godhead best is known. In vain ye flaunt in summer's pride, ye groves; Ye heathy wastes, immix'd with reedy fens ; To you I fly-ye with my soul accord. Princes, whose cumbrous pride was all their worth, We saw thee shine in youth and beauty's pride, But, like the sun eclips'd at morning tide, Thou left us, darkling in a world of tears. The parent's heart that nestled fond in thee, Minus the concluding stanza (perhaps the best of all), Currie printed the Elegy in small type, in his 1860 edition -giving, however, the missing verse on another page, from a letter to Mrs. Dunlop. JEAN AND PHILLIS M'MURDO It is not uncommon to find ordinary reciters at anniversary meetings of Burns Clubs referring to the poet's ballad of "Bonnie Jean" as if it were composed in celebration of his wife. They should know and remember, however, that the much admired words, beginning "There was a lass, and she was fair, were not written in praise of Jean Armour, but of Jean M.Murdo, the daughter of Burns's friend in his Dumfries days, John M'Murdo, who was chamberlain to the Duke of Queensberry, and resided at Drumlanrig. The entire family evidently held an exalted place in the poet's estimation. Regarding the parents he wrote: "Blest be M'Murdo to his latest day! No envious cloud o'ercast his evening ray; O, may no son the father's honour stain, Nor ever daughter give the mother pain!" As touching the song in praise of the daughter Jean, he says, in a letter accompanying it to Thomson :-" I have not painted Miss M'Murdo in the rank which she holds in life, but in the dress and character of a cottager; consequently the utmost simplicity of thought and expression Mr. Clarke, who wrote down the air was necessary. |