COILSFIELD. RATHER more than fifty years ago, at Coilsfield, the mansion of Colonel Hugh Montgomery, near Tarbolton, there resided a simple Highland girl, by name Mary Campbell, who acted in the humble capacity of a dairywoman. She was beloved and occasionally visited by a young man of her own rank from a neighbouring parish; and the lovers would sometimes meet under a thorn not far from the house. At length these young people agreed to be married, and the girl resolved, in anticipation of that event, to pay a parting visit to her relations in Argyleshire. She met her lover one Sunday of May in a sequestered spot by the banks of the Ayr, where they spent the whole day in leave-taking, and in making professions of mutual attachment. At their parting, standing one on each side of a small brook, they laved their hands in the stream, and holding a bible between them, pronounced a vow of eternal constancy. The bible, the property of the youth, was transferred to the maiden, as a keepsake, with two pointed texts against false vows inscribed on the blank paper. But this tender meeting was the last these fond lovers were ever to enjoy. At Greenock, in returning from her visit of filial duty, Mary Campbell caught an inflammatory distemper, and died. Hundreds of such things have chanced before and since, and it may be asked why the particular tale of Mary Campbell is so well recorded?—why does an artist go to Coilsfield on her account to take a careful draught of its scenery?—why is that draught here published?—why are we now writing a minute narrative of the loves and fate of one who was only a poor serving girl at a country gentleman's mansion? The answer to all these questions is, that her lover was the most remarkable man of his age, the peasant poet BURNS! These, reader, it may be added, are the objects he apostrophised in the following verses, now as familiar to most British ears as the finest passages in Shakspeare: "Ye banks, and braes, and streams around, The castle o' Montgomery, Green be your woods, and fair your flowers, Your waters never drumlie! There simmer first unfaulds her robes, And there they langest tarry; For there I took the last fareweel "How sweetly bloom'd the gay green birk, As underneath their fragrant shade, I clasp'd her to my bosom ! The golden hours on angel wings, Flew o'er me and my dearie; "Wi' mony a vow and lock'd embrace, We tore oursels asunder; But Oh! fell death's untimely frost, That nipt my flower sae early! Now green's the sod, and cauld's the clay, That wraps my Highland Mary. "O pale, pale now, those rosy lips, And closed for ay, the sparkling glance, The remainder of the tale of Mary Campbell and Burns is thus narrated in Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 91: "What turn might have been given to the fate of Burns, if he had been united to this amiable though humble person, and thus redeemed in all probability from many subsequent follies, it were vain to speculate. It is to be supposed, however, that he often had occasion afterwards, when 'musing on wasted time,' and perhaps writhing under a consciousness that the tenor of his life was neither innocent nor profitable, to say with Serjeant Bothwell, in his most touching record of early and unfortunate passion, Both heaven and earth might now approve me If thou hadst lived, and lived to love me.' Other attachments, including many less pure as well as less impassioned, afterwards possessed his breast; but the recollection of Mary seems to have ever remained with him, and even to have recurred more particularly when the consequences of those less worthy attachments were pressing upon him At the time when one of those was about to drive him into a degraded exile, he composed the following verses, which powerfully express the bitterness of his feelings on the occasion:-- "O'er the mist-shrouded cliffs of the lone mountain straying, Where the wild winds of winter incessantly rave, "Ye foam-crested billows, allow me to wail, Ere ye toss me afar from my loved native shore; "No more by the banks of the streamlet we'll wander, "No more shall the soft thrill of love warm my breast; To pursue this affecting tale in the words of Mr Lockhart:-"That noblest of all his ballads, To Mary in Heaven, was, it is on all hands admitted, composed by Burns in September 1789 [at Ellisland], on the anniversary of the day on which he heard of the death of his early love. But Mr Cromek has thought fit to dress up the story with circumstances which did not occur. Mrs Burns, the only person who could appeal to personal recollection on this occasion, and whose recollections of all the circumstances connected with the history of her husband's poems are represented as being remarkably distinct and vivid, gives what may at first appear a more prosaic edition of the history. According to her, Burns spent that day, though labouring under a cold, in the usual work of his harvest, and apparently in excellent spirits. But as the twilight deepened, he appeared to grow 'very sad about something,' and at length wandered out into the barn yard, to which his wife, in her anxiety for his health, followed him, entreating him in vain to observe that frost had set in, and return to the fireside. On being again and again requested to do so, he always promised compliance, but still remained where he was, striding up and down slowly, and contemplating the sky, which was singularly clear and starry. At last Mrs Burns found him stretched on a mass of straw, with his eyes fixed on a beautiful planet, 'that shone like another moon,' and prevailed on him to come in. He immediately, on entering the house, called for his desk, and wrote, exactly as they now stand, with all the ease of one copying from memory, the sublime and pathetic verses : "Thou lingering star, with lessening ray, That lovest to greet the early morn, Again thou usher'st in the day My Mary from my soul was torn. O Mary! dear departed shade! Where is thy blissful place of rest? Seest thou thy lover lowly laid? Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast? "That sacred hour can I forget, Can I forget the hallow'd grove, Eternity will not efface Those records dear of transports past; Ah! little thought we 'twas our last! Coilsfield house is about six miles from Ayr, on the road to Mauchline, and is considered one of the finest and most beautifully. situated mansions in the county. The sketch involves the finest part of the domain, on the immediate banks of the rivulet Faile, where, in all probability, the last farewell of Burns and his Argyleshire mistress took place. The house and estate belong to the Earl of Eglinton, grandson of the gentleman who possessed them in Burns's time. Some antiquarian interest attaches to the name of Coilsfield. Unvarying tradition points to the place as called after that same King Coil, who is supposed to have left his name to this whole district of Ayrshire, as well as to the rivulet of Coyl, and the parish of Coylton. The early unscrupulous historians of Scotland speak of Coil, or Coilus, as a king of the Britons, who, three hundred and twenty-five years before the Christian era, here fought a bloody battle with Fergus I. king of Scots, by whom he was overthrown and slain. In Bleau's Atlas, published in the middle of the seventeenth century, where the event is gravely related, it is mentioned that the plain on which the encounter took place retains the name of the unfortunate king, while Loch Fergus, in the neighbourhood, commemorates the site of the Scottish camp. This writer also adverts to the names of the rivulet and parish as monuments of the death of Coilus. On the other hand, George Chalmers scouts the whole story, and professes not to believe that such a monarch as Coilus ever lived. It is very certain that the date assigned to his existence, being so long antecedent to the dawn of genuine history in our island, must be fabulous; but we are disposed to pause before dismissing him altogether from the page of history. Some local circumstances appear to militate strongly against any such conclusion. A little rill which joins the Faile within the Coilsfield ground, still bears the name of the Bloody Burn, while a flat alluvial field, opposite its junction with the larger stream, is called the Dead-men's Holm. At a little distance to the north of the house, near the farm-offices, there is a circular mound, enclosed by a hedge, and planted with oak and other trees: on the top of this eminence, in its centre, are two large stones, masses of basalt, which, according to tradition, mark the spot where the remains of "old king Coil" were deposited. With the “Ayr gurgling kiss'd his pebbled shore, O'erhung with wild woods thick'ning green : "Still o'er these scenes my mem'ry wakes My Mary, dear departed shade! Where is thy blissful place of rest? Seest thou thy lover lowly laid? Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast?" To wander through these woods of Coilsfield, and reflect that, as the residence of rank and affluence, they are as nothing, but derive immortal glory from the attachment of a ploughman to a menial servant, both of whom lived fifty years ago, fills the mind with reflections which we would vainly attempt to describe." M name of the man thus so fixed on the locality, and so many traces of the sanguinary battle in which he is said to have fallen,—with topography thus giving her voice so loudly in support of history,-it could never have appeared to us reasonable altogether to disbelieve the traditionary tale of Coil. It is less so now than before, in consequence of a discovery recently made respecting the supposed grave of the British king, of which the following account appeared in the Ayr Observer newspaper:-"On the evening of the 29th May, 1837, in presence of several gentlemen, the two large stones were removed. The centre of the mound was found to be occupied by boulder stones, some of them of considerable size. When the excavators had reached the depth of about four feet, they came on a flag-stone of a circular form, about three feet in diameter. "The light had now failed, and rain began to fall in torrents; but the interest excited was too intense to admit of any delay; candles were procured, all earth and rubbish cleared away, and the circular stone carefully lifted up. “The seclusion of the spot, the beauty of the surrounding lawn and trees, the eager countenances of the spectators, and above all, the light and voices rising from the grave, in which there had been darkness and silence [as supposed] for upwards of two thousand years, rendered the scene which at this time presented itself at Coil's tomb, a very remarkable one. "Under the circular stone was first a quantity of dry yellow coloured sandy clay-then a small flag-stone laid horizontally, covering the mouth of an urn filled with white-coloured burnt bones. In removing the dry clay by which this urn was surrounded, it was discovered that a second urn less indurated in its texture, so frail as to fall to pieces when touched, had been placed close to the principal urn. "Next day the examination of the mound was resumed, and two more urns filled with bones were found. Of these urns, one crumbled into dust so soon as the air was admitted; the other was raised in a fractured state. Under flat stones several small heaps of bones were observed, not contained in urns, but carefully surrounded by the yellow coloured clay mentioned above. "The urns in shape resemble flower-pots; they are composed of clay, and have been hardened by fire. The principal urn is 73 inches in height, 7 inches in diameter, §ths of an inch in thickness. It has none of those markings supposed to have been made by the thumb nail, so often to be observed on sepulchral urns, and it has nothing of ornament except an edging or projecting part, about half an inch from the top. "No coins, or armour, or implements of any description could be found. "The discovery of these urns renders evident, that at a very remote period, and while the practice of burning the dead still prevailed-that is to say, before the introduction of Christianity-some person or persons of distinction had been deposited there." We agree with the writer in his concluding remark-"The fact of sepulchral urns having been found in the very spot where, according to an uninterrupted tradition, and the statements of several historians, king Coil had been laid, appears to give to the traditionary |