loved to recline. The family accommodations of the farmer are contained in a building of the appearance of a cottage, containing only a kitchen and room-Scottice, a butt and a ben-besides perhaps some garrets. The room, or spence, though in all respects very humble, and partly occupied by fixed beds, does not appear uncomfortable. All observation, however, is absorbed in the visiter's reflections, that, within these four walls, warmed at this little fire-place, and lighted by this single little window, lived one of the most extraordinary men ever born in a rustic situation; and here, perhaps, wrote some of the mostcelebrated poems of modern times. The place has one touching recollection above all others that it is the scene described in the opening of The Vision. whan the day had clos'd his e'e, Ben i' the spence, right pensivelie, "There, lanely, by the ingle-cheek, I sat and ey'd the spewing reek, An' heard the restless rattons squeak About the riggin. "All in this mottie, misty clime, I backward mus'd on wasted time, How I had spent my youthfu' prime, An' done nae-thing, But stringin blethers up in rhyme, For fools to sing. "When click! the string the sneck did draw ; This spence, however, must have been splendour itself to the apartment in which Burns usually slept during his residence at Mossgiel. It can never be learned without sensations of pity and wonder inexpressible, that this great and ill-requited genius wrote many of those admirable poems which constituted his first publication in the stable-loft or garret of this humble Ayrshire farm. This loft-probably a narrow angular space in which it was impossible to stand upright-constituted the bed-room of Robert Burns. He occupied it in conjunction with the driver of his plough-horses, a stripling named John Blane, who survived in 1837 to detail these circumstances to the present writer. It contained one bed, and the only other piece of furniture was a small deal-table, in which there was a drawer. On this table, during the hours of night, Burns committed to paper, and corrected, the verses he had composed during his day's labours. They were stored in the little drawer the poems that have since gone over the whole earth, and entered all hearts. The critical anxiety of the author of these stable-born strains to have them brought into the highest degree of verbal and musical polish was extreme. Blane, being a good reader, and, any how, having a different mind and voice, was often kept awake or roused from slumber by Burns, that he might con over the poems, verse by verse, and line by line, so as to enable the poet to detect weaknesses of expression, or defects in euphony. These particulars may well give P some surprise to those who have been accustomed to regard Burns as only a clever peasant, writing almost at random, and have not yet opened their eyes to the fact that he was an intellectual phenomenon, such as do not perhaps occur once in a hundred years, but, when they do occur, go resistlessly on to their bright destiny, whether their bodies at first reside in elegant halls, or in a wool-stapler's shop, or in a stable-loft like that of Mossgiel. There is a particular passage of the poet's subsequent life, which gives no small additional interest to this homely farm-steading. When he left it in November 1786, to proceed to Edinburgh, he was known to a certain extent as a poet, but was steeped in poverty to the lips, and the doom of a degrading exile was not yet removed from him. His talents, though acknowledged by a few educated persons in his native province, were as yet unstamped with the approbation of the great dispensers of fame in the capital. The journey which he was undertaking, a far and toilsome one, though cheered by some rays of hope, was, in consequence of sheer poverty, to be performed on foot. But, on the 8th of June, in the ensuing year, he returned to Mossgiel, the admired of all his countrymen, enriched, comparatively speaking, by their patronage, and habited and mounted in a style befitting his new condition and prospects. The delight which his re-appearance on this occasion gave to a family who had never ceased to love him, notwithstanding all his follies,—the image, in particular of his mother, receiving him at the door, as we are told by Mr Cunningham, with the laconic language of the full heart, "Oh, Robert!"-are certainly among the most pleasing things in the poet's history—and these belong to Mossgiel. THE CROSS OF KILMARNOCK. IN former times, every royal burgh and burgh of barony, was distinguished by what was called a market-cross-usually an ornamented pillar raised on a small pedestal-and this was always pitched in the most conspicuous and important part of the town. Of late years, most such structures have been removed; but the place where any one stood invariably continues, nevertheless, to be recognised by the appellation of "The Cross." The present view represents the Cross of Kilmarnock in this sense-namely a central spot where the market-cross formerly stood. The spectator looks southward, along a handsome street through which proceeds the road to Ayr. By an uncommon good fortune, most of the places which a stranger would be apt to enquire for in Kilmarnock, on account of their connection with Burns, come within this view. A conspicuous shop, facing the spectator, on the left-hand side of the opening of the street above mentioned, and now occupied by Mr Crawford, bookseller, was formerly in the possession of Mr John Wilson, bookseller and printer; and there did Mr Wilson, in July, 1786, publish the first edition of the immortal works of the Ayrshire poet. The office in which the poems were printed, is in a lane to the left; and it is said that Burns corrected his proofs in the uppermost floor of the house next adjacent to Wilson's shop in the same direction-probably the residence of some friend. It is scarcely necessary to remind the reader that he waggishly lampooned his printer in the epitaph on Wee Johnny, which the little man printed without knowing that he was the person meant. In a narrow street to the right, a church and steeple are conspicuous. This is the Laigh Kirk, the local subject of the poem entitled the Ordination : "Swith to the Laigh Kirk, ane and a', To the right of the opening of this street, we have the shop of Mr Thomas Samson, nursery and seeds-man, the subject of another of the early poems of Burns. The reader may be surprised to trace the name on a sign-board expressed in the engraving. This, he must be informed, is no anachronism, as the renowned "Tam" left a son, who carries on business in the same place. It is not unworthy of notice, that the epitaph jocularly suggested by Burns at the end of his mock-elegy on Mr Samson, is actually engraved on his tombstone, in the church-yard of Kilmarnock. VIGNETTE. LINCLUDEN, THE POET'S DREAM. A PERUSAL of the separate article on Lincluden Church, and of the following extract from a letter furnished by our draughtsman, will sufficiently explain the meaning of this somewhat bold capriccio: 66 Perhaps you will say the picture should describe itself; but the subject is a dream, and the best dreams on record have after all required interpretations, and these were sometimes supplied by the dreamers themselves; under which high examples, as well as that memorable one afforded by the learned author of the Spanish Armada, a historical tragedy, when he found it necessary to interpret what Lord Burleigh meant by shaking his head, I take shelter, while I attempt to describe and interpret, the Poet's Dream at Lincluden. "The architecture which forms the back ground of the subject, is the ruined and beautiful door-way and western window of the chapel at Lincluden abbey, near Dumfries, which I need not remind a devotee of Burns was one of his most favourite haunts. Its flattened arch, of extreme rarity in Gothic architecture, its beautifully designed sculptures, and its royal tomb, are well described by a recent tourist, however heretical in his appreciation of its general effect; which certainly is of a character different from * Dr Dibdin. |