mature. But to have executed either of these plans, steadiness and abstraction from company were wanting, not talents. When I asked him whether the Edinburgh Literati had mended his poems by their criticisms. Sir,' said he, these gentlemen remind me of some spinsters in my country, who spin their thread so fine that it is neither fit for weft nor woof.' He said he had not changed a word except one, to please Dr Blair.*” Having settled with his publisher, Mr Creech, in February, 1788, Burns found himself master of nearly five hundred pounds, after discharging all his expences. 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 *Extract of a letter from Mr Ramsay to the Editor." This incorrigibility of Burns extended, however, only to his poems printed before he arrived in Edinburgh; for, in regard to his unpublished poems, he was amenable to criticism, of which many proofs might be given. See some remarks on this subject, vol. iii Appendix. 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 Before Burns was known in Edinburgh, a specimen of his poetry had recommended him to Mr Miller of Dalswinton. Understanding that he intended to resume the life of a farmer, Mr Miller had invited him, in the spring of 1787, to view his estate in Nithsdale, offering him at the same time the choice of any of his farms out of lease, at such a rent as Burns and his friends might judge proper. was not in the nature of Burns to take an undue advantage of the liberality of Mr Miller. He proceeded in this business, however, with more than usual deliberation. Having made choice of the farm of Ellisland, he employed two of his friends, skilled in the value of land, to examine it, and with their approbation offered a rent to Mr Miller, which was immediately accepted. It was not convenient for Mrs Burns to remove immediately from Ayrshire, and our poet therefore took up his residence alone See p. 61, 62, 63. of this volume. 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 important, 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 fuThat such was actually the state of his mind, the following extract from his common-place book may bear witness: ture. Ellisland, Sunday, 14th June, 1788. "This is now the third day that I have been in this country. Lord, what is man!' What a bustling little bundle of passions, appetites, ideas, and fancies! And what a capricious kind of existence he has here! * * * There is indeed an elsewhere, where, as Thomson says, virtue sole survives, Will none of you in pity disclose the secret, Will make us wise as you are, and as close." "I am such a coward in life, so tired of the seryice, that I would almost at any time, with Milton's Adam, gladly lay me in my mother's lap, and be at peace." "But a wife and children bind me to struggle with the stream, till some sudden squall shall overset the silly vessel; or in the listless return of years, its own craziness reduce it to a wreck. Farewell now to those giddy follies, those varnished vices, which, though half-sanctified by the bewitching levity of wit and humour, are at best but thriftless idling with the precious current of existence; nay, often poisoning the whole, that, like the plains of Jericho, the water is naught and the ground barren, and nothing short of a supernaturally-gifted Elisha can ever after heal the evils. "Wedlock, the circumstance that buckles me hardest to care, if virtue and religion were to be any thing with me but names, was what in a few seasons. I must have resolved on; in my present situation it was absolutely necessary. Humanity, generosity, honest pride of character, justice to my own happiness for after-life, so far as it could depend (which it surely will a great deal) on internal peace; all these joined their warmest suffrages, their most powerful solicitations, with a rooted attachment, to urge the step I have taken. Nor have I any reason on her part to repent it. I can fancy how, but have never seen where, I could have made a better choice. Come, then, let me act up to my favourite motto, that glorious passage in Young On reason build resolve, That column of true majesty in man! Under the impulse of these reflections, Burns im mediately engaged in 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 grey 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.* * Animated sentiments of any kind, almost always gave rise in our poet to some production of his muse. His sentiments on this occasion were in part expressed by the following vigorous and characteristic, though not very delicate verses: they are in Imitation of an old ballad. I hae a wife o' my ain, I'll partake wi' nae-body; I'll tak cuckold frae nane, I hae a penny to spend, There-thanks to nae-body; I hae naething to lend, I'll borrow frae nae-body. I am nae body's lord, I'll be slave to nae-body; I hae a guid braid sword, I'll tak dunts frae nae-body. |