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the house of Captain Hamilton has given place to a handsome modern building.

After lingering by this song-hallowed building, I passed up Bank Street, and entered the main artery of the town. Notwithstanding its irregular construction it is spacious, and contains buildings and places of business equal to any in the principal streets of large cities. One distinctive feature in the scene is a church-like erection termed "The Mid Steeple," which appears to stand most inconveniently in the centre of the street. So far as I could learn, its history is void of interest, and to all appearance, it is of no great antiquity. While viewing this populous thoroughfare my eye caught the signboard of the King's Arms Hotel, a house that Burns occasionally frequented, and in which he scrawled the following verselet on a pane of glass while irritated by some sneering remarks which a company of gentlemen made in his presence about officers of the excise :

"Ye men of wit and wealth, why all this sneering

'Gainst poor excisemen? Give the cause a hearing.
What are your landlords' rent-rolls? Taxing ledgers.
What premiers, what? even monarchs' mighty gaugers.
Nay, what are priests, those seeming godly wisemen?
What are they, pray, but spiritual excisemen ?"

A short walk along High Street brought me to a quaint looking building in which there is a narrow, dark, uninviting passage surmounted by a gilded globe and a portrait of the poet bearing the superscription-" Burns's Howff." It was the celebrated Globe, a tavern fatally familiar to him, whose name is by far too often made use of to stimulate trade. Venturing up the subterranean-like retreat I beheld a long strip of a dimly lighted causewayed path, in which two men might with difficulty walk abreast. On either side rose lofty, black-looking buildings, but one close to the entrance, with a flight of stone steps leading to its open door, rivetted my attention. Mounting the steps-steps often pressed by the poet's feet-I found myself in a gloomy, kitchen-like apartment, partly lighted by the gleam of a fire burning in a cosy corner; but had scarce time to look round when a smart, neatly-dressed lady made her appearance, and ushered me into a room on the left, in which two young men were complacently chatting over their beer. Refreshments being placed

before me, I began to look round. The apartment appeared to be some eighteen feet by twelve, and the ceiling and paintfaded pannelled walls dingy and dim. In the centre of the floor stood a table, surrounded with common chairs, but the most interesting feature was an old-fashioned armed chair by the fireside, directly beneath an inscription informing visitors that it stands in what was, and still is, "Burns's corner.' Often has the wainscoating of this apartment rung with his laughter and echoed the melody of his midnight song when seated in his favourite corner-the life, the soul, the alpha, and the omega of the company. Thousands

visit the tavern annually, and few leave the premises without sitting down in the poet's chair. Many do so with levity, but for my part, I did it with reverence and sorrow for him who

"Was quick to learn and wise to know,
And keenly felt the friendly glow
And softer flame"

of love and universal brotherhood.

I have a peculiar habit of making myself at home wherever I go, and some how or other I found my way into the kitchen and the good grace of the worthy landlady-indeed, like Tam o' Shanter and the browster wife in Ayr, we 66 grew gracious," and the result was that she conducted me up stairs and showed me everything in her possession associated with the poet's name, and for her courtesy I tender thanks. On a pane of glass in the window of a bedroom on the second floor, the following verse is inscribed in the unmistakeable handwriting of the poet :

"O lovely Polly Stewart,

O charming Polly Stewart,

There's not a flower that blooms in May
That's half so fair as thou art."

And on an adjoining one in the same manner :

"Gin a body meet a body,

Coming through the grain;
Gin a body kiss a body,
The thing's a bodie's ain."

The inscriptions quoted are believed genuine, but one on

another pane, as being of a doubtful character, I decline to

give. The Globe Tavern has undergone very little change since the days of Burns; indeed, the doors, windows, floors, and panelling are unaltered, and it may be stated that the present hostess-who is in her way an enthusiastic admirer of the poet-has collected several relics of him and his family which she exhibits with pardonable pride; but as an enumeration of them is unnecessary, it will be sufficient to state that they chiefly consist of two jugs and a basin bought at the sale of the poet's household effects, and a punchbowl recently purchased by her for the sum of ten guineas. Like the before-mentioned vessels, it is common earthenware, but so much shattered that it is held together by ten clasps-a number, as I jocularly remarked, symbolically representing the price paid for it.

When Burns frequented the Globe it was kept by a John Hyslop and his wife Meg. Their frail niece, whom the poet has celebrated in the song "Yestreen I had a pint o' wine," acted as barmaid, and in that capacity became familiar with him. This familiarity, however, it is to be deplored, exceeded the bounds of chastity during a temporary residence of Mrs Burns in Mauchline, and resulted in the birth of a child. No event in the whole course of Mrs Burns' life displayed the noble qualities of her mind to greater advantage than this trying incident, for she not only forgave her repentant husband, but took the helpless babe home and brought it up as one of her own children. In fact, when her father glanced at the cradle and asked in surprise if she had again had twins, she screened her husband by the statement that the second baby was that of a sick friend.*

To redeem this sad association of the Globe, another of a humorous cast may be narrated. "Nicol and Masterton had come to spend a week of their vacations at Dumfries, for the purpose of enjoying the society of their friend Burns. The scene of the Peck o' Maut was renewed every evening in the Globe Tavern. Excepting, indeed, that Burns attended to his duty in the forenoon, and that Willie and Allan took a rattling walk before dinner, to give themselves an appetite, it might be said that the week was one entire chrysolite of

*This child was named Elizabeth, and resided with Mrs Burns until her marriage. She became a Mrs Thomson, and lived to see the celebration of her father's Centenary.

merry-making. One day, when they were to dine at the Globe, they found on coming in at three that no dinner had been ordered. As Burns had taken on himself this duty, the fault was his, and the other two gentlemen were wroth with him accordingly. 'Just like him,' quoth Mrs Hyslop; 'ye might hae kent that he's ne'er to lippen to.' 'Weel, but can we have anything to eat? You know that we must dine somehow.' Mrs Hyslop, or as Burns called her, Meg, proved propitious. There was a tup's head in the pot for John and herself; and, if they pleased, they might have the first of it. Now a good tup's head with the accompanying trottersseeing that, in the Scottish cuisine, nothing is taken off but the wool-is a dish which will amply satisfy six or even eight persons, so it was no contemptible resource for the hungry trio. When it had been disposed on the board, Burns,' said Nicol, we fine you for neglect of arrangements: you give us something new as a grace.' Our poet instantly, with appropriate gesture and tone, said :

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'O Lord, when hunger pinches sore,

Do thou stand us in stead;

And send us from thy bounteous store,

A tup or wether head! Amen.'

They fell to and enjoyed the fare prodigiously, leaving, however, a miraculously ample sufficiency for the host and hostess. 'Now, Burns, we are not done with you. We fine you again. Return thanks.' He as promptly said :

O Lord, since we have feasted thus,

Which we so little merit,

Let Meg now take away the flesh,

And Jock bring in the spirit! Amen.'"*

Upon taking leave of the inmates of the Globe Inn, I held along the gloomy, unsavoury passage, and in a short time emerged into a commonplace thoroughfare named Shakespere Street. Pausing, I accosted a young man and asked in what part of the street Burns was found lying on the fatal morning he quitted the Globe Inn. "There," said he, as he pointed to a portion of the roughly-causewayed footway at the mouth of the passage, "that is said to be the place." He spoke in a careless, matter-of-fact manner; but to me the spot was invested with a very painful interest, and I gazed upon it

*Chambers.

with feelings of the deepest regret for this humiliating incident in the Poet's life.

It appears that early in the month of January, 1796, when barely recovered from a severe illness, Burns illadvisedly joined a jovial party in the Globe Inn, and tarried till about three in the morning. "Before returning home," says the writer quoted above, "he unluckily remained for some time in the open air, and, overpowered by the effects of the liquor he had drunk, fell asleep. In these circumstances, and in the peculiar condition to which a severe medicine had reduced his constitution, a fatal chill penetrated to his bones. He reached home with the seeds of a rheumatic fever already in possession of his weakened frame. In this little accident, and not to the pressure of poverty or disrepute, or wounded feelings or a broken heart, truly lay the determining cause of the sadly shortened days of our great National Poet."

Nearly opposite the entrance of the Globe Inn passage in Shakespere Street is a crooked, common-looking narrow thoroughfare named Burns's Street. Entering it I rounded an abrupt turn, and having paced a few yards of a steep roadway, stopped in front of a respectable two-storied house on the left, which I at once recognised as that in which Burns died. In the wall of the building next to it there is a bust of the poet and a stone bearing this inscription :—

"IN THE ADJOINING HOUSE, TO THE NORTH,

LIVED AND DIED

THE POET OF HIS COUNTRY AND OF MANKIND,
ROBERT BURNS."

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