Graphic sketches of the family life at Lochlea are to be found scattered over the pages of the various editions of the poet's Life and Works; and not the least interesting of these is furnished. by the following characteristic letter, written by William Burness himself within three years of his death, and addressed to his nephew, James Burness, Montrose. The letter forms part of the interesting collection of Burns's relics, now preserved within the Burns's Monument in Edinburgh :

"DEAR NEPHEW,-I received your affectionate letter by the bearer, who came five miles with it to my house. I received it with the same warmth you wrote it, and I am extremely glad you express yourself with so warm regard for your parents and friends. I wish you much

joy in your wife and child. I would have been glad had you sent me their names, with the name of your brother-in-law.

"I have a family of four sons and three daughters; two of my sons and two of my daughters are men and women, and all with me in the farm way. I have the happiness to hope they are virtuously inclined. My youngest daughter is ten years of age. My eldest son is named Robert; my second, Gilbert; the third, John; the fourth, William. My eldest daughter is named Agnes; the second, Annabella; the third, Isobel.

"My brother lives at Stewarton, by Kilmarnock. He has two sons and one daughternamed John, William, and Fanny. Their circumstances are very indifferent.

"I shall be happy to hear from you when it is convenient, when I shall write to you from time to time. Please give my respects to your brother and sister in the kindest manner, and to your wife, which will greatly oblige your affectionate uncle,

"WILLIAM BURNESS.

"LOCHLEA, 14th April, 1781."

Dr. Chambers, in his interesting biography of the poet, affords us a still more realistic view of the family life at Lochlea. He says:

"It was a time of comparative comfort for the Burness family, although marked not less than any other by extreme application to labour. The family was a remarkable one in the district. They kept more by themselves than is common in their class. Their superior intelligence and refinement, and a certain air of self-respect which they bore amidst all the common drudgeries of their situation, caused them to be looked upon as people of a superior sort. Country neighbours who happened to enter their family room at the dinner hour were surprised to find them allfather, brothers, and sisters-sitting with a book in one hand, while they used their spoons with the other."

Of the sterling merits, the head of the household, William Burness, alike

as a man and as a husband and father, little need here be said. These have been so often and so forcibly depicted by the poet's numerous biographers, that his character has already become almost typical in its sturdy rigidity of principle and conscientious devotion to duty. Isobel's reverence for and devotion to the memory of her father formed a prominent and striking characteristic of her "mental tone." Proud as she was of her illustrious brother, and fondly as she clung to her every recollection of him, she was still prouder of, and clung still more fondly and tenderly to her memories of her father. Him she regarded as a far higher object of admiration, and her favourite

delineation of him was to point to him as the veritable original of "the saint, the father, and the husband," so reverently depicted by her brother in his "Cottar's Saturday Night."

Nor can it be doubted that William Burness was a man of rare and exceptional merit. The Manual of Religious Belief, which he compiled for the instruction of his children, and which occupies a prominent place in the more

recent biographies of his gifted son, clearly shows that he was not only deeply imbued with strong religious feelings, but that he was possessed also of considerable intellectual power, accompanied by a remarkable faculty for logical philosophic reasoning. He ap