192 SCOTTISH POETRY. 



went away ; nor were the titled part of the community without their share 

 in this rejoicing." p. 202. 



The nobility of the land had done nothing for him, " they had 

 proved that they had the carcase of greatness, but wanted the soul." 



" He turned his back on Edinburgh, and from that time forward scarcely 

 counted that man his friend who spoke of titled persons in his presence. 

 Whilst sailing on pleasure's sea in a gilded barge, with perfumed and 

 lordly company, he was, in the midst of his enjoyment, thrown roughly 

 overboard, and had to swim to a barren shore, or sink for ever." 



In April 1789, he reached Mauchline, and married his Mauchline 

 Jean. "Never man loved," he observes "or ratheradored a woman more 

 than I did her, and I do still love her to distraction." Professor Walker 

 had been led into a belief that Burns married Jean Armour from a sen- 

 timent of duty rather than affection. This imaginary belief Mr. C. 

 has successfully upset. Burns was wearied of the gay splendour of 

 the Edinburgh dames, and married his Jean from pure, ardent love : 

 indeed, he would have married her before his " Edinburgh expedi- 

 tion" had she not declared her intention of never seeing him again, 

 and had he been sufficiently rich in this world's golden coin to have 

 maintained her. 



In the month of May 1788, Burns made his appearance as a farmer 

 in Nithsdale ; the farm, amounting to one hundred acres, is 



"part holm and part croft-land; the former, a deep rich loam, bears fine 

 tall crops of wheat ; the latter, though two-thirds loam and one-third stones 

 on a bottom of gravel, yields, when carefully cultivated, good crops, both 

 of potatoes and corn; yet to a stranger the soil must have looked un- 

 promising or barren ; and Burns declared, after a shower had fallen on a 

 field of new-sown and new-rolled barley, that it looked like a paved street." 



Poetry was still cultivated by Burns in the productions of ff Tarn 

 O'Shanter," " The Whistle," and many of his best lyrics ; his Excise 

 business went on smoothly through the continued kindness of Gra- 

 hame, and the attention of Mitchell and Findlater ; but the farming 

 went off sadly, and, in December 1791, it was generally known that 

 he would relinquish Ellisland, and his merits as a farmer were 

 eagerly canvassed by the husbandmen around 



(: One imputed his failure to the duties of the Excise ; to his being con- 

 demned to gallop two hundred miles per week to inspect yeasty barrels, 

 when his farm required his presence ; another said that Mrs. Burns was 

 intimate with a town life, but ignorant of the labours of barn and byre ; a 

 third observed that Ellisland was out of heart, and, in short, was the 

 dearest farm on Nithsdale; while James Currie, a sagacious farmer, 

 whose land lay contiguous, remarked, when I inquired the cause of the 

 Poet's failure : ( Fail ! how could he miss but fail, when his servants ate 

 the bread as fast as it was baked, and drank the ale as fast as it was 

 brewed ? Consider a little : at that time close economy was necessary to 

 enable a farmer to clear twenty pounds a year by Ellisland. Now, Burns' 

 handy- work was out of the question: he neither ploughed, nor sowed, nor 

 reaped like a hard-working farmer; and then he had a bevy of idle ser- 

 vants from Ayrshire. The lasses were ay baking bread, and the lads ay 

 lying about the fireside eating it warm with ale. Waste of time and con- 

 sumption of food would soon reach to twenty pounds a year." 



