Masonic Poets Of Scotland—No. I.

pimg-ent as any recorded of the great talker Samuel Johnson . But he passed away , the " meteor of a season . " With the profits accruing from the sale of his poems he proposed to settle down upon the farm of Ellisland , which he was thereby able , to

stock , but generously lending part of the sum to his brother Gilbert , who was then struggling with adverse circumstances , and had , moreover , engaged to provide support for his surviving parent . Burns seems also to have paid a second visit to

Edinburgh , previous to settling at Ellisland . There Avould , however , appear to have been ground for the cooler manners of some in Edinburgh who had once thought better of Burns—a change Avhich , as afterwards at Dumfries , he felt keenly . Still

with prudence , he might have been happy . The farm was not , indeed , of the most promising description ; so , Avith the laudable desire of having something else to fall back upon , Burns applied for and obtained a situation as ganger , the duties

of which might not be very congenial to his taste , and which had also the effect , by taking him much from home , of interfering with the regular cultivation of the acres which he rented . He had made a poet ' s rather than a farmer ' s choice , and

had been allured to Ellisland , chiefly on account of the beauty of the neighbouring scenery . It Avas a wild sport , with fields unenclosed , and a steading having to be built , for the expense of Avhich last , hoAvever , allowance Avas made in the contract of lease .

At last , settled down at Ellisland , with his Jean beside him , this Avas probably the happiest period of Burns' life . But the enterprise did not prosper . u How coulcl he miss but fail / '' was said to Allan Cunningham by a sagacious neighbouring farmer ,

" when the servants ate the bread as fast as it was baked ? " Only by close economy could £ 20 a year have been cleared by Ellisland . But Burns neither ploughed , sowed , nor reaped like a hardworking farmer , and he had a bevy of Ayrshire

lasses under his roof-tree . " The lasses did nothing but bake bread , and the lads sat by the fireside and ate it warm , with ale . " In truth , the poet was too wayward to attend to the stated duties of a husbandman , and too impatient to wait

till the ground returned in grain the cultivation that was bestowed upon it . No wonder that he seemed to be dissatisfied . " Ever on the move , on foot or on horseback . In the course of a single day he might be seen holding the plough , angling in the river , sauntering , his hands behind his

back , on the banks of the stream , looking at the running water , Avalking round his buildings , or over his fields ; or , if you lost sight of him for an hour , returning perhaps from Friar's Carse , or spurring his horse through the Nith to 'spend the

evening in some distant place with such friends or acquaintances as fell in his way—procedure by no means conducive to worldly prosperity or ordinary comfort . "

We havo neither space nor wish to dwell on the latter incidents of Burns' career . After years of disappointment , and Avhen better times seemed approaching , his means expended on the farm with , poor or scarcely any return , he gave up that

struggle . The sun that had tipped the heavens with roseate hue , had not shed much light upon the poet's head , and was soon to set in gloom and storm . Imprudence of speech drew down censure , Avhen to speak freely was regarded by certain

authorities as a luxury not permitted to a Government official in the days of Pitt , port wine and red tapeism ( the latter not AA'holly clone away ) , Avhen supervisors might be Pecksniffs , " and "toadies" would gladly inform the greater "toadies" above them . That Burns ever was

unpatriotic we deny ; that he Avas rash and bitter in speech Avhen he conceived himself hardly treated , we may as readily admit . Did he praise actors in the first French Revolution ? He did so in common with many whom posterity has not , on that

account , blamed—who , no more than Burns , foresaw the storm of fire and blood by which the political atmosphere was to be clouded . His proud soul , accordingly , soured by what he considered as neglect ; the epithet of Jacobin affixed to him ; a

rising family around , for whose support the means were but scanty , even though he had possessed more prudence than has pertained to the most of

the tuneful race ; unhappily , too , the old sm recurring—his wife bringing \\ p , as a " neebor's bairn , " the fruit of that intimacy ; a prey to convivial habits— " asked out" that the mental " Samson " might make sport even among " Philistines , "

darker clouds yet gathered . In poverty , the dark eyes lit with fever ' s gleam , and the frame reduced , yet kind friends ministering to him , if friends of humbler grade ; his countrymen of every rank who knew and valued Burns' writings , more

especially the " people "—the cottar , the farmer , the shepherd boy upon the hills ; those whom his strains had roused , and in whose souls they had awakened a sympathetic thrill — strains most