claims rhymes to fate and daring.

How, after correcting Chambers's alterations upon the fragment, an editor so careful as Mr. Wallace committed a mistake in the finished Ode, which entails the mutilation of the poem, is a mystery. This is set down with a regret too profound to be here dwelt upon. For as no other Life of Burns is to be spoken of in the same breath with Mr. Wallace's, so, marred as it is, his edition of Burns's prose and verse remains incomparably the best.

In another matter connected with the Ode, Mr. Wallace has adopted a view which, if not wholly untenable, has very little to recommend it. In 1796, "The Minstrel at Lincluden" was published in Johnson's "Museum." It begins "As I stood by yon roofless tower," and has the chorus—

66

"A lassie all alone was making her moan,

Lamenting our lads beyond the sea;

In the bluidy wars they fa', and our honor's gane and a',
And broken-hearted we maun die."

The last verse is :

"He

sang wi' joy his former day,
He weeping wail'd his latter times;
But what he said it was nae play-

I winna venture't in my rhymes."

In a note to "The Minstrel at Lincluden Scott Douglas

says:

"The above is the poet's first version of a sublime lyric, which he ultimately left on record under the title, A Vision, in which some changes are made in the text, and the chorus is excluded. Our country was at that period at war with the French Republic-a war which Burns bitterly deplored, although circumstances compelled him to set a seal on his lips as to those unlucky politics."

"A Vision" was published by Currie in 1800. It is unnecessary to give in detail the several points of difference between it and "The Minstrel." Aside from the abandonment of the chorus, it may, however, be mentioned that the name of "Libertie" is given to the ghostly minstrel, that the opening verses are identical, and special emphasis must be laid upon the retention in "A Vision" of the closing verse of "The Minstrel," quoted above, "He sang wi' joy," &c. Currie says in a note

"This poem, an imperfect copy of which was printed in Johnson's 'Museum,' is here given from the poet's MS. with his latest corrections.

The scenery so finely described is taken from nature. The poet is supposed to be musing by night on the banks of the river Cluden, and by the ruins of Lincluden Abbey." . . "Though this poem has a political bias, yet it may be presumed that no reader of taste, whatever his opinions may be, would forgive it's being omitted. Our poet's prudence suppressed the song of 'Libertie,' perhaps fortunately for his reputation. It may be questioned whether, even in the resources of his genius, a strain of poetry could have been found worthy of the grandeur and solemnity of this preparation."

From these sentences it becomes virtually certain that (pace Scott Douglas) if Dr. Currie had seen the letter to Mrs. Dunlop, he did not associate "A Vision" with the fragment of the Ode contained in the letter. The Centenary editors only print "The Minstrel," under the title of "As I stood by yon roofless tower," reserving for a Note the variations in “A Vision"; and it may further be interpolated that the idea of any connection between "A Vision" and the Ode does not appear to have presented itself to them.

Mr.

The three poems, in fact, or the two versions of the Lincluden lyric and the Ode, were printed separately down to the Philadelphia Self-interpreting edition of 1886. Wallace may be allowed to explain the view of the American editors, Messrs. Hunter and Gebbie, and its influence upon himself. They claimed "to be able to announce that we for the first time present to the world the perfect poem."

A more absurdly bumptious claim was probably never formulated. "The Minstrel at Lincluden" was published in 1796; "A Vision" was published in 1800, and the finished Ode in 1873, and yet upon the strength of an assumed, and demonstrably fictitious, connection between them, the Philadelphians take to themselves the credit of first publishing "the perfect poem." They are entitled to the honour of mooting a preposterous theory, and the pity is that Mr. Wallace should have been misled by it. Here is the passage from the new Chambers (IV., 124):

"They (the American editors) conjecture that the 'Ode to Liberty' (or 'Ode for General Washington's birthday') was the song the minstrel sang. A very careful study' led them to conclude that Burns produced the two pieces as a connected whole and nearly at a sitting; but that he must have immediately afterwards seen that it would be unsafe to publish them in that form, and therefore added a verse to the 'Vision' or prelude :-' He sang wi' joy his former day,' &c. This he did to give an air of completeness to what would otherwise have appeared a fragment."

Mr. Wallace is not satisfied with the "air of completeness," but adds

"This theory is, owing to its intrinsic reasonableness, adopted here. 'The Vision' shows in itself [in spite of its 'air of completeness,'] that it was intended as prelude to another poem. Besides, the two pieces are in perfect harmony."

:

The objections to the theory may now be summarised :— First. The three poems are all ascribed to the year 1794. The American war lasted from 1775 to 1783, when Great Britain acknowledged the independence of the United States. It is not, therefore, to be gratuitously supposed that the lassie all alone was "Lamenting our lads beyond the sea" in America, eleven years after the war in America was over, provided we can find an explanation of her moaning nearer home, and more nearly contemporaneous. At this point, we revert to Scott Douglas's reference to the war with France quoted supra. "In the bluidy wars they fa'" would, upon that suggestion, be applicable to the waste of British blood in the struggle with the Republicans of France, and not at all to the long-past campaign in America. In such fashion, an absolute divorce is arrived at between "A Vision" and the Washington Ode.

Second. "A Vision" is invariably attributed to musings by Lincluden ruin. Burns says he meditated the Ode as he paced along the road to Castle-Douglas. The discrepancies between the fragment sent Mrs. Dunlop and the passage as it appears in the finished poem are such as to add weight to the credibility of Burns's statement. This is said although his perfect accuracy in similar cases is occasionally open to question. We must, accordingly, get rid of either the Lincluden fancy, or of Burns's assertion, or of the Philadelphian theory. If we allow the ruin and the road to remain, and continue to read the poems separately, it is impossible to avoid the humorous aspect of the American hypothesis, that they form a connected whole, done "nearly at a sitting."

Third. The theory compels the dissipation of the "air of completeness" investing "A Vision." It becomes necessary to follow Mr. Wallace in lopping off the verse which brought "A Vision" to a suitable conclusion as an independent poem. Otherwise the poet would contradict himself. He would, that is, declare "I winna venture't in my rhymes," and straightway

proceed with "No Spartan tube, no Attic shell," &c., the first line of the Ode proper. Currie speaks of the judicious suppression of "Libertie's "-the Minstrel's-song; the American editors prune the text of Currie to fit it to their theory of a connection between "A Vision" and the Ode. It is, once more, amusing to imagine the Minstrel singing the prelude to the tune of "Cumnock Psalms," as in Johnson, and falling into recitative on reaching the Ode.

Fourth. Let us read over again the description of the MS. in Mr. Adam's possession, and then consider this question— If Burns intended "A Vision" to be an essential part of the Ode, why did he not include it in that MS.? It cannot be pled that he omitted it, lest the authorship of the Ode should be discovered by a reference to "The Minstrel at Lincluden" in Johnson. The latter was not published until 1796; the Ode is ascribed to 1794, and upon the Scott Douglas hypothesis was offered for publication through Mr. Miller almost immediately upon completion. To that year there are at least two reasons for thinking that it belongs. One is that, otherwise, Burns did not finish the Ode while the spirit that was on him at the time of his writing Mrs. Dunlop still lingered near, ready to spring into activity upon the slightest inciting cause. The second is that if the Washington Ode be in very truth that mentioned in the November letter to Mr Miller, it must have been finished in the earlier part of that month. The crux of the argument, however, is that Burns did not include "A Vision" in the MS. of the finished Ode.

To sum up, none of the leading editions of Burns contains an accurate rendering of the text of the Washington Ode; none traces it to its first publication; Burns left no material for forging a bond between "A Vision" and the Ode; the Philadelphian theory adopted by Mr. Wallace is both absolutely baseless and intrinsically unreasonable.

EDWARD PINNINGTON.

BURNS IN DUMFRIESSHIRE.

A

BURNS pilgrimage in Dumfriesshire can have but one starting point-the unpretentious little farm house of Ellisland, where the Poet first had a home and "wife o' his ain." The house is there still as the Poet lived in it (in spite of the statement taken on trust by Dr. Wallace), although the original front door has been built up, and a new one

opened entering into a kitchen, tacked on behind. Small as it was a kitchen, room, and bedroom, all no doubt fitted with box beds, and in addition a small garret above reached by a ladder-it must have been bien and snug, and fit to compare with his neighbours, while the pleasant situation on a bend of the winding Nith, with charming views all round, and the then friendly houses of Dalswinton and Friars' Carse but a short distance away, would all tend to make the early days bright and hopeful. Yet, within a month, in writing to Dr. Moore, he