66 Transactions. 
in it when a servant there. She describes it as a “ wee, black, 
oak bed; so low in the top that you could scarcely stand on your 
knees in it,” and adds that her father got many a shilling for 
showing his bed to travellers who came to the inn. She also 
states that Gilbert Burns when at Dinning was the first farmer 
in Nithsdale who had a dairy of Ayrshire cows. She tells the 
following story :—One evening when Burns and Bacon were 
sitting in a room of the inn a man from Leadhills entered. In a 
little Burns rose and went out, and the man inquired who he was, 
Bacon answered that he was the poet, and the man remarked 
that he was but a clown, which doubtless Burns overheard. 
Thereupon Bacon bet a bottle of wine with him that Burns 
would make a poem on him when he came in. Accordingly 
on Burns’ return he was asked to make a poem. Burns asked 
his name, and was answered Andrew Horner, and also when he 
was born, and was told 1739.. Then said Burns :— 
In the year seventeen hundred and thirty-nine, 
The deil got stuff to make a swine, 
And threw it into a corner, 
And called it Andrew Horner. 
Mr Wilson discovered several other letters bearing upon the 
erection of the mausoleum. The first is from Robert Ainslie, 
W.S., who accompanied Burns on his Border tour, and to whom 
he addressed many of his best epistles. It runs :— 
William Grierson, Ksq. 
Sir, —The letter addressed by you and Mr Henry Duncan to me, dated 
16th December, having been sent to Edingham, where I have not been 
since the middle of November, and the roads having been blocked up by 
the snow, these two circumstances have combined to prevent me from 
receiving it until within these two days. I am much gratified by the 
gentlemen at your very respectable meeting relative to the mausoleum to the 
memory of Burns having thought of me as a member of their Committee, 
and I willingly accept of their nomination. I am only afraid that being 
so much resident in Edinburgh, where I am following my profession of a 
Writer to the Signet, I may be but an inefficient member. When I am in 
the county, however, you and your friends may rely on my always attending 
every meeting which takes place during that time.—I am, sir, your most 
obedient servant, RosertT AINSLIE. 
Hill’s Street, Edinburgh, 
3d Feb., 1814. 
There were two letters to the Secretary, Mr Grierson, from K. 
W. Burnett, Edinburgh, who, along with Sir Walter Scott, took 
D «at Ooo 
