to some his friendship had great results, for to that alone their memory owes its present freshness. But in spite of its experiences and, possibly, opportunities Burns's Edinburgh visit-or visits-certainly had no influence on his poetry, for he never surpassed, never equalled again, the memorable year of 1786. Nor did his extended tours yield the direct poetic return his admirers, and possibly himself, anticipated. Burns could not write to order, or essay a task in rhyme. But the inspiration of the lovely and historic scenes through which he passed in these excursions went with him, and in various ways asserted itself in its own time and place. Had Burns never stood on Bannockburn, it is likely he would never have rolled out the glorious stanzas of" Scots Wha Hae "-the best song of war and independence ever conceived, and next to "Auld Lang Syne" the most cherished anthem of the land whose every rood was dear to him.

VII.

THE LYRIC POET.-THE DARK DAYS OF DUMFRIES.

WITH the passing away, in all its various phases, "noise and nonsense of Edinburgh," as he graphically summed up that period in his career, we follow Robert Burns back to Ayrshire, and after a brief period of rest varied by lovemaking incidents and holiday touring, interspersed with thoughts about business and the consideration of leases and the like, we see him, really for the first time, the head of his household and comfortably settled, surrounded by his wife and bairns, at Ellisland. There we find him again essaying the rôle of the "wise man," entering anew upon life, as it were, with a sturdy determination to make a 66 happy fireside clime" for wife and weans, and to win independence by steadily plodding after the plough. We hear him singing "Of a the airts," or " Auld Lang Syne," or "I hae a wife o' my ain," and find him roaming through other departments of verse in such lines as those inspired by Friars-Carse Hermitage. In a letter to Mrs. Dunlop he wrote of his happiness, and avowed himself to be a sincere believer in the Bible. Indeed he tried at this juncture,

honestly, to reproduce the daily routine of the old life at Lochlea when the father daily exhorted his children, taught them their letters, and gathered the household around him at nights for worship and prayer. But he still fell foul of the religious squabbles in such productions as "The Kirk's Alarm," (a very inferior effort, by the way) and his "Address to the Toothache " had all the old charm of the meridian of his life, a meridian that had now passed. We detect here and there in his poems a weakening of expression, a slight halting in the flow of thought, but in the songs, as time went on, and troubles multiplied, the notes seemed to grow in sweetness, purity, range and power. Of his poems of this period" Tam o' Shanter" alone shows that his muse was still capable of a prolonged effort, and many believe this weird story of the farmer's ride to be the best piece he ever wrote. We express no opinion here beyond saying that the varied assortment of "best" poems according to the views of critics and readers is one of the grandest tributes that could be paid to the universality of this man's genius.

"Tam o' Shanter may be said to close the Ellisland period. As might be expected, the soil on that now famous farm proved barren. The poet's means gradually dwindled, he sold off his belongings, gave up his lease, and fell back as a means of maintenance on his position as an exciseman -a position he had secured some time before in the hope, for the time at least, of supplementing the revenue from the farm. So after a time he whose "wood notes wild" had found their inspiration in the country had to take up his abode in the Wee Vennel of Dumfries, and life in a town— especially in a clattering" county town like the Dumfries of that time-was the worst fate that could have overtaken a man like Robert Burns. But all during the time of transition, and after he had got settled in his new abode, he never ceased to sing. The gentry of Dumfries could pass him by and frown on him because of his escapades, he might be in continual hot water with his superiors-poor forgotten nobodies now-because of his words for liberty, his sympathy in many respects with the revolution in France, but the lyric impulse within him never faltered or ceased. Harassed by poverty; feeling deeply the snubs of the Dumfries bodies and of the little men clothed in their brief authority; sometimes seeking, as was then the cus

tom, to drown his sorrows in the flowing bowl, he was day after day sending off to Edinburgh treasures in the shape of song which all the money in the world could not command or produce. Poor himself, he was daily enriching his country's literature without thought of fee or reward, without, in fact, dreaming of either. "Gala Water," 996 Duncan Gray," "The Deil's Awa wi' the Exciseman," "Logan Braes," ," "The Soldier's Return," "Contented wi' Little," My Nannie's Awa," "Last May a Braw Wooer," are a few, a very few, of the characteristic pieces, although possibly the most characteristic, the most deeply cherished, of them all was the wonderful strains of "A Man's a Man for a' That," the anthem, the glorification it may be said, of honest poverty, the song that has done more to soften the condition of the toiling masses in Scotland and elsewhere than all the laws and dictums of political economy.

But with Dumfries came the end. It is the custom, as well it might be, to lament the untimely death of the poet; a man is so young at thirty-seven, has apparently so many more years of life in him that to be cut off at that age seems pitiful. In Burns's circumstances, in the helpless condition of his wife and family, it was especially pitiful. There was no sign of mental weakening as the light of life neared the socket. The light the life gave out was as clear and pure, purer even, than it had ever been, yet the signs of doom were evident to many from the beginning of the Dumfries period, some four years before the end. Burns's early death had been foretold from his boyhood, and had he been merely a wise man he would have prepared for it. He never had himself any hope of length of days, but it was only for a year before he passed away and particularly after the death, in the autumn of 1795, of his little daughter, Elizabeth, who seems to have been his especial pet, that he himself had an admonition that the end was rapidly coming, that his constitution was shattered beyond hope. Rheumatic fever and irregular hours fostered by remorse, despondency and, it must be confessed, a desire

to the future, made up a combination that even the strongest frame would not be proof against, and when hope fled from his breast the end advanced with rapid strides. Like his father his last hours were embittered by the importunities of creditors, and amid it all his once independent spirit broke down. Nine days before he died he penned his last