36 Transactions. 
said to have been used as a baptismal font. In another corner 
is an interesting relic of the old church, a stone bearing the 
words, ‘“‘ How amiable are Thy Tabernacles, O Lord of Hosts !” 
and the date 1649, 
Of the chapel and churchyard at Glenesslin no authentic 
traces remain except in the name of the farm called ‘‘ Chapel.” 
Tt was at Ellisland—himself being umpire—that Burns wrote 
the best of his poetry, and there he spent the happiest period of 
his short life. Those three years and a half were full of promise. 
The wild oats seemed to have been sown, and unsettled youth 
developed into full, strong manhood. There was fierce physical 
energy displayed in the building of the new house and the 
reclaiming of the untilled fields; and the teeming brain was no 
less active. Memories of the past in Ayrshire were often with 
him, causing bis heart to sing of the “‘ Banks of Doon” and “ Auld 
Langsyne.”  Affectionate sadness over friendships interrupted 
by death inspired the “‘ Lament for the Earl of Glencairn” and 
the ode “To Mary in Heaven.” Then the keen, irrepressible 
Scottish humour broke out again in “Tam o’ Shanter,” “The 
Jolly Beggars,” “The Whistle,” and many a song in praise of 
that good fellowship, which brought about his ruin in the end. 
Visitors to Ellisland are told that the house is that which the 
poet built, but this is doubtful. Mr Taylor, into whose hands 
the property passed in 1805, dismantled and remodelled the 
whole steading. The site is a beautiful one on the western 
bank of the Nith. From the river the ground slopes gently 
back to a lofty ridge more than a mile away, on one of the 
highest points of which Springfield Hill Camp is perched. A 
mile to the south of Ellisland stands the ivied tower of Isle, side 
by side with the modern mansion house. It was to one of the 
cottages at the Isle that Burns brought Jean Armour from her 
home in Mauchline, and there they lived tili the house at — 
Ellisland was ready, and they went forth with much ceremony 
to take possession. Scarcely as far up the stream is Friars’ 
Carse, so named from its former possessors, the Monks of 
Melrose. In Burns’s time it was the residence of Riddel of 
Glenriddel, who took a great interest in the farmer poet. Here 
Burns met Captain Grose, at whose suggestion he wrote “Tam 
0’ Shanter,” to be printed in the famous antiquary’s book 
opposite an engraving of Alloway Kirk. Here, too, was the 
Hermitage, in a secluded corner of the woods, with memorials of 
