had felt the sweetness of applause: he was now to experience the bitterness of the after-taste. He was a "lion" whose season had passed. His great friends seemed unwilling or unable to procure him a post. He had been torn from his old modes of life, and in the new order of things which surrounded him he could find nothing permanent, nothing that would cohere. Time was passing; his life was purposeless; he was doing nothing, effecting nothing; he was flapping in the wind like an unbraced sail. At this juncture he resolved to bring matters to a conclusion, after one fashion or another. In his letters, the old scheme of emigration to the West Indies turns up bitterly for a moment. Then he bethought himself of a post in the Excise, which had always been a dream of his, and the possibility of his obtaining which had been discussed by his Ayrshire friends before he became famous. If such a position could be secured it would be at least something, something in itself, something to fall back upon should his farming schemes prove abortive. He accordingly wrote the Earl of Glencairn, soliciting his patronage, but the application appears to have been followed by no result. Mr. Graham, of Fintry, whose acquaintance Burns had made at Blair, the seat of the Duke of Athole, having heard of his wish, through the kind offices of Mr. Alexander Wood, the surgeon who attended him, immediately placed his name on the list of expec tant officers. Having arranged his Excise business so far, he left Edinburgh to have another look at Mr. Miller's farms, and to come to an agreement, if possible. He took a friend with him on whose sagacity and business skill he could confide; and after a deliberate inspection of the lands, he was better satisfied than he had been on a former occasion, and at once made an offer to Mr. Miller for the farm at Ellisland, which was accepted. On his return to Edinburgh he announced his resolution to his friend Miss Chalmers:

"Yesternight I completed a bargain with Mr. Miller, of Dalswinton, for the farm of Ellisland, on the banks of the Nith, between five and six miles above Dumfries. I begin at Whitsunday to build a house, drive lime, &c., and Heaven be my help! for it will take a strong effort to bring my mind into the routine of business. I have discharged all the army of my former pursuits, fancies, and pleasures—a motley host! and have literally and strictly retained only the ideas of a few friends, which I have incorporated into a life-guard."

Burns's business at this time in Edinburgh related to his settlement with Creech, which, after many delays, was about to take place. In all, he appears to have received between 400/. and 500/., and out of this sum he advanced 180l. to his brother Gilbert, who was struggling manfully at Mossgiel. On the 24th March, with much business on hand, he left Edinburgh for Ayrshire, where he married Jean Armour-snapping thereby the chief link which bound him to the metropolis. This union, putting moral considerations out of the question altogether, was the most prudent course open to him, and it repaired the fabric of self-respect which had been, to some extent at least, broken down. For a time we hear nothing of

the "wandering stabs of remorse," and his letters breathe a quite unusual contentedness. He had made some little self-sacrifice, and he tasted the happiness which always arises from the consciousness of self-sacrifice. Besides, he had loved the girl, perhaps loved her all through, although the constant light of affection had, to himself as well as to others, been obscured by the glare of fiercer and more transitory fires; and if so-the sacrifice not so great as he supposed it to be--he was plainly a gainer both ways. Burns was placed at this time in difficult circumstances, and he simply made the best of them. He could build only with the materials within reach. There was nothing left but to begin life again as a farmer, and it behoved him to wear russet on heart as well as on limb. In the heyday of his Edinburgh success he foresaw the probability of his return to the rural shades, and to these shades he had now returned—but he returned with reputation, experience, an unreproving conscience, some little money in hand, and with solider prospects of happiness than had ever yet fallen to his lot. Happiness he did taste for a few months-and then out of the future came the long shadows of disaster, fated not to pass away, but to gather deeper and darker over a grave which was dug too early -and yet too late.

When Burns entered into possession of Ellisland, at Whitsunday, 1788, he left his wife at Mauchline till the new dwelling-house should be erected. In the meantime he was sufficiently busy; he had to superintend masons and carpenters, as well as look after more immediate farm matters. Besides, in order to qualify himself for holding his Excise Commission, he had to give attendance at Ayr for six weeks on the duties of his new profession. These occupations, together with occasional visits to his wife and family, kept him fully occupied. Hope had sprung up in his bosom like a Jonah's gourd, and while the greenness lasted he was happy enough. During his solitary life at Ellisland, he wrote two or three of his finest songs, each of them in praise of Jean, and each giving evidence that his heart was at rest. During this time, too, a somewhat extensive correspondence was kept up, and activity and hopefulness-only occasionally dashed by accesses of his constitutional melancholy-radiate through it all. As was natural, his letters relate, for the most part, to his marriage and his new prospects. As respects his marriage, he takes abundant care to make known that, acting as he had done, he had acted prudently; that he had secured an admirable wife, and that in his new relationship he was entirely satisfied. If any doubt should exist as to Burns's satisfaction, it can arise only from his somewhat too frequent protestation of it. He takes care to inform his correspondents that he has actually married Jean, that he would have been a scoundrel had he declined to marry her, and that she possessed the sweetest temper and the handsomest figure in the country. The truth is, that, in the matter of matrimony, he could not very well help himself. He was aware that the match was far from a brilliant one, and as he really loved his wife, he had to argue down that feeling in his own heart; he was aware that his correspondents did not con

sider it brilliant, and he had also to argue down that feeling in theirs. Meanwhile, the house at Ellisland was getting finished. In the first week of December he brought home his wife, and in the pride of his heart he threw off a saucy little song, "I hae a wife o' my ain,'

which quivers through every syllable of it with a homely and assured delight that laughs at all mischance. Mrs. Burns brought her children and a whole establishment of servants. The house was small, its accommodation was limited, and Burns sat at meals with his domestics, and on Sunday evenings, after the good old Scottish fashion, he duly catechised them. He has himself left on record that this was the happiest portion of his life. He had friends, with whom he maintained an intimate correspondence; he had a wife who loved him; his passionate and wayward heart was at rest in its own happiness; he could see the grain yellowing in his own fields; he had the Excise Commission in his pocket on which he could fall back if anything went wrong; and on the red scaur above the river, he could stride about, giving audience to incommunicable thought, while the Nith was hoarse with flood, and the moon was wading through clouds overhead. When should he have been happy, if not now?

Burns's farming operations during the second year of his occupancy of Ellisland were not successful, and in the more unrestrained letters of the period we find him complaining of his hard fate in being obliged to make one guinea do the work of five. As the expense of his family was now rapidly increasing, he requested to be allowed to enter at once on his duties as officer of Excise. That in his new mode of life he would encounter unpleasantnesses he knew, and was prepared for them; but he expected that Mrs. Burns would be able to manage the farm for the most part-in any case his salary as Exciseman would be a welcome addition to his means. He was appointed on application, he entered zealously on his duties, and as his district extended over ten parishes, he was forced to ride about two hundred miles per week. This work, taken in conjunction with labour at Ellisland, which, constantly getting into arrear, demanded fierce exertion at intervals, was too much for even his iron frame. He had attacks of illness, and his constitutional hypochondria ruled him with a darker sceptre than ever. It appears evident from his letters that he meant to make his fight at Ellisland, and that he considered the Excise as a second line of defence on which he could fall back in the event of defeat. At Ellisland he was defeated, and on his second line of defence he fell back grimly enough. An Excise officer is not a popular character in country districts where smugglers abound; and whatever degree of odium might attach to his new profession Burns was certain to feel more keenly than most. One can see that in his new relation his haughty spirit was ill at ease; that he suspected a sort of meanness in himself; and that the thought that he had in any way stooped or condescended was gall and wormwood. His bitterness on this matter escapes in

various and characteristic ways.

At one time he treats the matter with imperial disdain, declaring that he does not intend “to seek honour from his profession;" at another time in a set of impromptu verses he mocks at his occupation and himself, illuminating the whole business with a flame of spleenful mirth. But the step he had taken was unquestionably a prudent one, and if it miscarried, it miscarried from foreign causes. From every account which survives, he was an excellent and zealous officer, and into his work he carried eyes which were at once sharp and kindly. It was not in his nature to be harsh or tyrannical. A word revealed secrets to him, a glance let him into the bearings of a case; and while he saw that the interests of Government did not materially suffer, his good nature and kindheartedness were always at hand to make matters as pleasant as possible. One or two of these Excise anecdotes are amongst the pleasantest remembrances we have of Burns. His professional prospects were on the whole far from despicable. On his farm he was losing money, health, and hope; but in the Excise he looked forward to advancement-an Inspectorship or Supervisorship being regarded as within his reach.

If Ellisland had only been profitable, Burns might have been considered a fortunate man. For his own wants and for those of his family the cottage which he had built sufficed. The scenery around him was beautiful. He was on good terms with the neighbouring proprietors, and his reputation attracted visitors from many quarters. He procured books from Edinburgh and from the circulating library which with that regard for mental means and appliances which seems to have been a characteristic of his race-he had established in the vicinity. Every other day letters and newspapers were arriving at Ellisland, connecting him with distant places and events; and the stranger who dropped in upon him from London or Edinburgh, or even from places more remote, brought talk, ideas, observations on this thing and the other more or less valuable, stimulus, excitement-all tending to enrich intellectual life. And during this time he was no mental sluggard. He worked his brain as he worked his servants on the acres at Ellisland, or his horse as he rode on the scent of a smuggler through the Nithsdale moors. He carried on a multifarious correspondence, he wrote his letters carefully-only a little too carefully sometimes, for he is occasionally modish and over-dressed. Every other week he sent a packet of songs to Johnson for his Museum, which had now reached the third volume. He interested himself in local politics and scribbled electioneering ballads. One evening, when the past-heavy with unshed tears-lay near his heart, he composed the strain, To Mary in Heaven; and in the course of one summer day, in a perfect riot and whirlwind of ecstasy, every faculty and power in full blossom, he dashed off Tam O'Shanter—immortal, unapproachable! If Ellisland had but paid, Burns might have been happy as farmer and poet,—or as Exciseman, farmer and poet,-for the characters were by no means incompatible. As but for his Excise salary Burns must have succumbed under farming difficul

ties, he was now anxious to be quit of Ellisland, and to confine himself entirely to his official duties; and it so happened that Mr. Miller was willing to release him of the portion of the lease which was yet to run, preparatory to a final sale of that part of the lands. The Ellisland crops were sold, and the sale was made the occasion of a drunken orgie. On the 1st September, Burns writes to Mr. Thomas Sloan : "I sold my crop on this day se'en-night, and sold it very well. A guinea an acre on an average above value. But such a scene of drunkenness was hardly ever seen in this country. After the roup was over about thirty people engaged in a battle, every man for his own hand, and fought it out for three hours. Nor was the scene much better in the house. No fighting indeed, but folks lying drunk on the floor, and decanting, until both my dogs got so drunk by attending on them that they could not stand. You will easily guess how I enjoyed the scene, as I was no farther over than you used to see me."

In November Ellisland became the property of Mr. Morine, and Burns immediately sold his farm stock and implements-relinquishing for ever the plough-tail, at which he so often boasted that he had an independence—and removed with his wife and children to a small house in the Wee Vennel of Dumfries. On his removal he was appointed to an Excise division, which improved his salary. His income was now 70l. per annum.

It is at Dumfries that Burns's story first becomes really tragical. He had divorced himself from country scenery and the on-goings of rural life, which, up till now, formed an appropriate background for our ideas of him. Instead of the knowes and meadows of Mossgiel and Ellisland, with their lovely sunrises and twilights, we have to connect him with the streets, the gossip, and the dissipation of a third-rate Scottish town. He was no longer a farmer-he was a simple gauger, hoping to obtain a supervisorship. Proud as was his spirit, he was dependent on great friends; and he condescended, on various occasions, to write epistles in prose and verse which fawned on a patron's hand. Natural inspiration and picturesqueness were taken out of his life. He turned down no more daisies, the horned moon hung no longer in the window-pane of the ale-house in which he drank; the composition of theatrical prologues engaged his attention rather than the composition of poems of rustic life. He was never rich, but in Dumfries his poverty for the first time wears an aspect of painfulness. For the first time we hear of monetary difficulties, of obligations which he cannot conveniently meet, of debt. It was here, too, that certain weaknesses, which had lately grown upon him, attracted public notice. In Dumfries, as in Edinburgh at that time, there was a good deal of tavern-life, and much hard drinking at dinner and supper parties, and the like. Burns was famoushe had lived in dukes' houses, he corresponded with celebrated men, he could talk brilliantly, he had wit for every call as other men had spare silver, he could repeat his last poem or epigram-and as a consequence his society was in great request. It was something to have dined or supped in the company of Burns-if one was not