162 BuRNS AND MOFFAT. 
bonny blue e’en had such a potent influence on the poet’s muse, 
that no less than thirty of his very best productions were inspired 
by her, the local song, “Sweet fa’s the even on Craigieburn,’’ 
being one of his sweetest, and is said to have been composed to 
aid a Mr Gillespie, a fellow-official in the excise, in his wooing of 
Miss Lorimer. 
Another association with Moffat was his friendship with Mr 
Clark, the parish schoolmaster. Mr Clark while here had a 
difference of opinion with the local patrons of the school, and in 
the interests of his friendship the poet, under date of 11th June, 
1791, wrote’a letter to Allan Cunningham, bespeaking his influ- 
ence among the Edinburgh magistrates and town councillors of 
his acquaintance, who were the patrons of the Moffat school, and 
before whom Mr Clark’s difference had to come for consideration. 
The letter closes recommending Mr Clark to his acquaintance 
and good offices, “his worth entitles him to the one, and his 
gratitude will merit the other.’’ Mr Clark subsequently was 
appointed to a school in Forfar, and it was to Mr Clark at 
Forfar that Burns, a little over three weeks before his death, 
penned that pathetic letter beginning “ Still, still the victim of 
affliction; were you to see the emaciated figure who now holds 
the pen to you, you would not know your old friend,’’ and re- 
questing him to forward by return of post another (guinea) note. 
The general correspondence between Burns and Clark has not 
been preserved. Mrs Clark, after her husband’s death, destroyed 
them owing to their rather free language. 
Then Moffat is the scene where occurred that “ handsome 
apology for scrimpt nature,’’ the noted epigram on Miss Davies— 
‘“ Ask why God made the gem so small, and why so huge the granite ? 
Because God meant mankind should set the higher value on it.’’ 
The occasion of this epigram was the poet and a friend observing 
Miss Davies, who was very small, riding past in company with 
a lady of very portly dimensions. The lines were afterwards 
inscribed on a pane of glass in the window of the room in the inn 
where he and his friend were sitting. 
The precise inn in Moffat which was thus honoured has 
hitherto been a matter of conjecture, and although I am unable 
at present to decide the matter definitely, I hope to be able to 
throw some light on it that will bring it nearer solution. Some 
