be said regarding Daddy Auld. That Burns satirised him, and that he rebuked Burns before the congregation for a certain moral lapse, is well known. He was a good man, but somewhat over zealous, and doubtless too severe on Gavin Hamilton for digging a few potatoes on the Sabbath; but what else could he be when hounded on by men like Holy Willie? Holding along the back of the church, I came to the burying-place of the Armour family. At its head there is a very handsome tombstone, and over the grave a common flag, much worn and scratched, which bears the following faded inscription:" ELIZABETH RIDDLE, DAUGHTER OF ROBERT BURNS AND JEAN ARMOUR, BORN AT DUMFRIES 21ST NOVEMBER, 1793, DIED AT MAUCHLINE IN THE AUTUMN OF 1795." A short distance from this burying-place there is a humble tombstone to the memory of an obscure Covenanter, which states that "HERE LIES INTERRED THE CORPSE OF JAMES SMITH, WHO WAS WOUNDED BY CAPTAIN INGLIS AND HIS DRAGOONS AT THE BURN OF ANN IN KYLE, AND THEREAFTER DIED OF HIS WOUNDS IN Mauchline PRISON, FOR HIS ADHERENCE TO THE WORD OF GOD AND SCOTLAND'S COVENANTED WORK OF REFORMATION.A.D. 1682."

Every reader is, or at least should be, aware that Mauchline Churchyard is the scene of The Holy Fair. On it the poet met Fun, his cronie dear, and in "fine remarkin'" put an effectual stop to practices which where a disgrace to Scotland. "Holy Fairs" have happily passed away, but Robert Burns, by his "priest-skelping turns," and the scathing, withering sarcasm of the poem referred to, caused their expulsion, and worked a much needed reformation in the ecclesiastical affairs of Mauchline parish. In his day, the time appointed for the dispensation of the Lord's Supper was looked forward to by the peasantry as a kind of festival, and farm servants, when taking a fee," were in the habit of making an agreement that they would be allowed to "gang to the preaching" on such an occasion during their period of service. All this wanted reforming, and it was only a satirist like cur poet who could apply the lash and make the victim writhe under every stroke. This he did; but, to the eternal honour of his name, he never ridicules the ordinance itself, nor utters a sneer at the "worship of God in spirit and in truth." No. Although often

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he had a sincere regard for religion, and believed-in fact, he states in a letter to Mrs Dunlop that

"Tis this that streaks our morning bright,

'Tis this that gilds the horror of our night.

When wealth forsakes us, and when friends are few,
When friends are faithless, or when foes pursue,

'Tis this that wards the blow or stills the smart,
Disarms affliction or repels his dart,

Within the breast bids purest raptures rise,

Bids smiling conscience spread her cloudless skies."

Mauchline Holy Fair was an event of no small importance in the district. People came long distances to be present at it, and while it lasted the public houses did a thriving business.

"Now but and ben the change-house fills
Wi' yill-caup commentators,

Here's crying out for bakes and gills,
And there the pint-stoup clatters;

While thick and thrang, and loud and lang,

Wi' logic and wi' Scripture,

They raise a din that in the end

Is like to breed a rupture
O' wrath that day."

The Communion was celebrated in the church, but the churchyard, in which there was a rostrum or moveable pulpit and "a shed to fend the showers and screen the country gentry," presented an animated appearance. The scene is graphically described by the Poet, but a still more racy picture is given in a pamphlet bearing date 1759, which purports to be A Letter from a Blacksmith to the Ministers and Elders of the Church of Scotland, in which the manner of public worship in that church is considered, its inconveniences and defects pointed out, and methods for removing them humbly proposed. "At the time of the administration of the Lord's Supper upon the Thursday, Saturday, and Monday," says the writer, we have preaching in the fields near the church. At first you find a great number of men and women lying together upon the grass; here they are sleeping and snoring, some with their faces towards heaven, others with faces turned downwards, or covered with their bonnets; there you find a knot of young fellows and girls making assignations to go home together in

the evening or meet in some alehouse; in another place you see a pious circle sitting round an ale-barrel, many of which stand ready upon carts for the refreshment of the saints. The heat of the summer season, the fatigue of travelling, and the greatness of the crowd naturally dispose them to drink, which inclines some of them to sleep, works up the enthuiasm of others, and contributes not a little to produce those miraculous conversions that sometimes happen at these occasions-in a word, in this sacred assembly there is an odd mixture of religion, sleep, drinking, courtship, and a confusion of sexes, ages, and characters. When you get a little nearer the speaker, so as to be within reach of the sound though not the sense of the words-for that can only reach a small circle -you will find some weeping and others laughing, some pressing to get nearer the tent or tub in which the parson is sweating, bawling, jumping, and beating the desk; others fainting with the stifling heat, or wrestling to extricate themselves from the crowd; one seems very devout and serious, and the next moment is scolding or cursing his neighbour for squeezing or treading on him; in an instant after his countenance is composed to the religious gloom, and he is groaning, sighing, and weeping for his sins-in a word, there is such an absurd mixture of the serious and comic that were we convened for any other purpose than that of worshipping the God and Governor of Nature the scene would exceed all power of face." How like the poet's description! From this we know he did not exaggerate, but drew his picturefrom the life, and poured out the phials of his indignation against the cant and hypocritical humbug of his time.

"Here sits a raw of tittling jades

Wi' heaving breasts and bare neck,
And there a batch o' wabster lads
Blackguarding frae Kilmarnock,
For fun this day.

"Here some are thinking on their sins,
And some upon their claes ;

Ane curses feet that fyl'd his shins,

Anither sighs and prays;

On this hand sits a chosen swatch
Wi' screwed-up, grace-proud faces;

On that a set o' chaps at watch,
Thrang winking on the lasses

To chairs that day.

"O happy is that man and blest!

(Nae wonder that it pride him!)
Wha's ain dear lass that he likes best
Comes clinkin' doun beside him!
Wi' arm repos'd on the chair back,
He sweetly does compose him;
Which, by degrees, slips round her neck,
An's loof upon her bosom,

Unkenned that day.

"Now a' the congregation o'er

Is silent expectation :

For Moodie speels the holy door

Wi' tidings o' d

tion.

Should Hornie, as in ancient days,
'Mang sons o' God present him,
The vera sight o' Moodie's face
To's ain het hame had sent him
Wi' fright that day.

"Hear how he clears the points o' faith
Wi' rattlin' an' wi' thumpin'!
Now meekly calm, now wild in wrath,
He's stampin' an' he's jumpin'!
His lengthen'd chin, his turn'd-up snout,
His eldritch squeal and gestures,

Oh, how they fire the heart devout,
Like cantharidian plasters,

On sic a day!"

Opposite the churchyard gate is the street along which "Common Sense took the road" on a certain minister making his appearance at The Holy Fair. At one corner is the house in which "Poosie Nansie" resided, and the entry at which "Racer Jess," and two or three ladies of questionable virtue, stood "blinking," while the people were gathering to celebrate "the Fair," and at the other a substantial building with the following inscribed on its front chimney :—

"This is the house, though built anew,
Where Burns came weary frae the plough,
To ha'e a crack wi' Johnny Doo

On nicht at e'en,

Or whiles to taste his mountain dew

Wi' bonnie Jean."

Why a house can be the same after being rebuilt is difficult to understand, but I suppose the poet must be awarded the usual license. The building, however, which occupied the

site when Burns walked the streets of Mauchline, was an inn, and if tradition is to be trusted, it was a favourite resort of his. On the back window of an upper room he scribbled the following amusing epitaph on John Dow, the landlord, which was doubtless more truthful than pleasing to that worthy :

"Here lies Johnny Pidgeon;
What was his religion?

Whae'er desires to ken,

To some ither warl'

Maun follow the carl,

For here Johnny Pidgeon had nane.

"Strong ale was ablution,

Small beer persecution,

A dram was mementi mori;

But a full flowing bowl

Was the joy of his soul,

And port was celestial glory."

The gable of Jean Armour's father's house adjoined the back of the premises, and Burns, it is said, often sat at the window referred to and conversed with her in the language of the eyes a language, by the by, which lovers aptly understand and appreciate.

The house in which Jean's parents resided is a lowly thatched cottage, but from the fact that it sheltered her and them, it possesses peculiar interest.

Observing that the house celebrated by the residence of "Poosie Nansie" is "licensed to retail spirits, porter, and ales," I entered for the double purpose of weetin' my whistle and seeing the relics in possession of the occupants. I was shown a caup supposed to have been used by the "randie gangrel bodies" who

"held the splore

To drink their orra duddies,'

and also an old engraving representing the merry crew in the midst of their festivities.

Poosie Nansie was a Mrs. Gibson, who lodged vagrants and other questionable characters. The halt, the blind, and the lame found shelter beneath her roof, and her kitchen was not unfrequently the scene of frantic mirth and bouts of drunkenness. Here Burns studied humanity in its lowest forms, and his "Jolly Beggars" is supposed to have been