These, their richly-gleaming waves, Spicy forests, ever gay, Wildly here, without control, She plants the forest, pours the flood; Life's poor day I'll musing rave, And find at night a sheltering cave, Where waters flow and wild woods wave, By bonnie Castle-Gordon.* Burns remained at Edinburgh during the greater part of the winter, 1787-8, and again entered into the society and dissipation of that metropolis. It appears, that on the 31st of December, he attended a meeting to celebrate the birth-day of the lineal descendant of the Scottish race of kings, the late unfortunate Prince Charles Edward. On this occasion our bard took upon himself the office of poet-laureate, and produced an ode, which, though deficient in the complicated rhythm and polished versification that such compositions require, might on a fair competition, where energy of feelings and of expression were alone in question, have won the butt of Malmsey from the real Laureate of that day.t In relating the incidents of our poet's life in Edinburgh, we ought to have mentioned the sentiments of respect and sympathy with which he traced out the grave of his predecessor Fergusson, over whose ashes, in the Canongate churchyard, he obtained leave to erect an humble monument, which will be viewed by reflecting minds with no common interest, and which will awake, in the bosom of kindred genius, many a high emotion. Neither should we pass over the continued friendship he experienced from the amiable and accomplished Blacklock. To his encouraging advice it These verses our poet composed to be sung to Morag, a Highland air, of which he was extremely fond. † See page 121. was owing (as has already appeared) that Burns, instead of emigrating to the West Indies, repaired to Edinburgh. He received him there with all the ardour of affectionate admiration; he eagerly introduced him to the respectable circle of his friends; he consulted his interest; he blazoned his fame; he lavished upon him all the kindness of a generous and feeling heart, into which nothing selfish or envious ever found admittance. Among the friends to whom he introduced Burns was Mr. Ramsay of Ochtertyre, to whom our poet paid a visit in the autumn of 1787, at his delightful retirement in the neighbourhood of Stirling, and on the banks of the Teith. On settling with his publisher Mr. Creech, in Feb ruary, 1788, Burns found himself master of nearly five hundred pounds, after discharging all his expenses. Two hundred pounds he immediately advanced to his brother Gilbert, who had taken upon himself the support of their aged mother, and was struggling with many difficulties in the farm of Mossgiel. With the remainder of this sum, and some farther eventual profits from his poems, he determined on settling himself for life in the occupation of agriculture, and took from Mr. Miller, of Dalswinton, the farm of Ellisland, on the banks of the river Nith, six miles above Dumfries, on which he entered at Whitsunday, 1788. Having been previously recommended to the Board of Excise, his name had been put on the list of candidates for the humble office of a gauger, or exciseman; and he immediately applied to acquiring the information necessary for filling that office, when the honourable Board might judge it proper to employ him. He expected to be called into service in the district in which his farm was situated, and vainly hoped to unite with success the labours of the farmer with the duties of the exciseman. When Burns had in this manner arranged his plans for futurity, his generous heart turned to the object of his most ardent attachment, and listening to no considerations but those of honour and affection, he joined with her in a public declaration of marriage, thus legalizing their union, and rendering it permanent for life. It was not convenient for Mrs. Burns to remove immediately from Ayrshire, and our poet therefore took up his residence alone at Ellisland, to prepare for the reception of his wife and children, who joined him towards the end of the year. The situation in which Burns now found himself was calculated to awaken reflection. The different steps he had of late taken were in their nature highly import. ant, and might be said to have, in some measure, fixed his destiny. He had become a husband and a father; he had engaged in the management of a considerable farm, a difficult and laborious undertaking; in his success the happiness of his family was involved; it was time, therefore, to abandon the gaiety and dissipation of which he had been too much enamoured: to ponder seriously on the past, and to form virtuous resolutions respecting the future. He commenced by immediately rebuilding the dwelling-house on his farm, which, in the state he found it, was inadequate to the accommodation of his family. On this occasion, he himself resumed at times the occupation of a labourer, and found neither his strength nor his skill impaired. Pleased with surveying the grounds he was about to cultivate, and with the rearing of a building that should give shelter to his wife and children, and, as he fondly hoped, to his own gray hairs, sentiments of independence buoyed up his mind, pictures of domestic content and peace rose on his imagination: and a few days passed away, as he himself informs us, the most tranquil, if not the happiest, which he had ever experienced. His fame naturally drew upon him the attention of his neighbours, and he soon formed a general acquaintance in the district in which he lived. The public voice had now pronounced on the subject of his talents; the reception he had met with in Edinburgh had given him the currency which fashion bestows; he had surmounted the prejudices arising from his humble birth, and he was received at the table of the gentlemen of Nithsdale with welcome, with kindness, and even with respect. Their social parties too often seduced him from his rustic labours, and it was not long, therefore, before Burns began to view his farm with dislike and despondence, if not with disgust. Unfortunately he had for several years looked to an office in the Excise as a certain means of livelihood, should his other expectations fail. As has already been mentioned, he had been recommended to the Board of Excise, and had received the instructions necessary for such a situation. He now applied to be employed; and by the interest of Mr. Graham, of Fintry, was appointed to be exciseman, or, as it is vulgarly called, gauger, of the district in which he lived. His farm was, after this, in a great measure, abandoned to servants, while he betook himself to the duties of his new appointment. He might indeed still be seen in the spring directing his plough, a labour in which he excelled; or with a white sheet containing his seed-corn, slung across his shoulders, striding with measured steps along his turned up furrows, and scattering the grain in the earth. But his farm no longer occupied the principal part of his care or his thoughts. It was not at Ellisland that be was now in general to 'be found. Mounted on horseback, this high-minded poet was pursuing the defaulters of the revenue among the hills and vales of Nithsdale, his roving eye wandering over the charms of nature, and muttering his wayward fancies as he moved along. Besides his duties in the Excise and his social pleasures, other circumstances interfered with the attention of Burns to his farm. He engaged in the formation of a society for purchasing and circulating books among the farmers of his neighbourhood, of which he undertook the management; and he occupied himself occasionally in composing songs for the musical work of Mr. Johnson, then in the course of publication. These engagements, useful and honourable in themselves, contributed, no doubt, to the abstraction of his thoughts from the business of agriculture. The consequences may be easily imagined. Notwithstanding the uniform prudence and good management of Mrs. Burns, and though his rent was moderate and reasonable, our poet found it convenient, if not necessary, to resign his farm to Mr. Miller, after having occupied it three years and a half. His office in the Excise had originally produced about fifty pounds per annum. Having acquitted himself to the satisfaction of the Board, he had been appointed to a new district, the emoluments of which rose to about seventy pounds per annum. Hoping to support himself and his family on his humble income till promotion should reach him, he disposed of his stock and of his crop on Ellisland by public auction, and removed to a small house which he had taken in Dumfries, about the end of the year 1791. Hitherto Burns, though addicted to excess in social parties, had abstained from the habitual use of strong liquors, and his constitution had not suffered any permanent injury from the irregularities of his conduct. In Dumfries, temptations to the sin that so easily beset him' continually presented themselves; and his irregularities grew by degrees into habits. These temptations unhappily occurred during his engagements in the business of his office, as well as during his hours of relaxation; and though he clearly foresaw the consequence of yielding to them, his appetites and sensations, which could not pervert the dictates of his judgment, finally triumphed over the powers of his will. Still, however, he cultivated the society of persons of taste and respectability, and in their company could impose upon himself the restraints of temperance and decoNor was his muse dormant. In the four years which he lived at Dumfries, he produced many of his beautiful lyrics, though it does not appear that he attempted any poem of considerable length. rum. Burns had entertained hopes of promotion in the Excise; but circumstances occurred which retarded their fulfilment, and which, in his own mind, destroyed all expectation of their being ever fulfilled. The extra ordinary events which ushered in the revolution of France interested the feelings, and excited the hopes, of men in every corner of Europe. Prejudice and tyranny seemed about to disappear from among men, and the day-star of reason to rise upon a benighted world. In the dawn of this beautiful morning, the genius of French freedom appeared on our southern horizon with the countenance of an angel, but speedily assumed the features of a demon, and vanished in a shower of blood. Though previously a Jacobite and a cavalier, Burns had shared in the original hopes entertained of this astonishing revolution by ardent and benevolent minds. The novelty and the hazard of the attempt meditated by the First, or Constituent Assembly, served rather, it is probable, to recommend it to his daring temper; and the unfettered scope proposed to be given to every kind of talents was doubtless gratifying to the feelings of conscious but indignant genius. Burns foresaw not the |