form unto the Lord thine oath.-St Matth. chap. v., v. 33." And, on a blank leaf of either," Robert Burns, Mossgiel." How lasting was the poet's remembrance of this pure love, and its tragic termination, will be seen hereafter.* Highland Mary, however, seems to have died ere her lover had made any of his more serious attempts in poetry. In the Epistle to Mr Sillar, (as we have already hinted,) the very earliest, according to Gilbert, of these attempts, the poet celebrates his Davie and his Jean." This was Jean Armour, a young woman, a step, if anything, above Burns's own rank in life, the daughter of a respectable man, a master-mason, in the village of Mauchline, where she was at the time the reigning toast, and who still survives, as the respected widow of our poet. There are numberless allusions to her maiden charms in the best pieces which he produced at Mossgiel. The time is not yet come, in which all the details of this story can be expected. Jean Armour found herself "as ladies wish to be that love their lords." And how slightly such a circumstance might affect the character and reputation of a young woman in her sphere of rural life at that period, every Scotsman will understand-to any but a * Cromek, p. 238. "In Mauchline there dwells six proper young belles, "Miss Miller is fine, Miss Markland's divine, Scotsman, it might, perhaps, be difficult to explain. The manly readiness with which the young rustics commonly come forward to avert by marriage the worst consequences of such indiscretions, cannot be denied; nor, perhaps, is there any class of society in any country, in which matrimonial infidelity is less known than among the female peasan→ try of Scotland. Burns's worldly circumstances were in a most miserable state when he was informed of Miss Armour's condition; and the first announcement of it staggered him like a blow. He saw nothing for it but to fly the country at once; and, in a note to James Smith of Mauchline, the confident of his amour, he thus wrote: " Against two things I am fixed as fate-staying at home, and owning her conjugally. The first, by Heaven, I will not do!-the last, by hell, I will never do!-A good God bless you, and make you happy, up to the warmest weeping wish of parting friendship. . . . . If you see Jean, tell her I will meet her, so help me God in my hour of need." ... The lovers met accordingly; and the result of the meeting was what was to be anticipated from the tenderness and the manliness of Burns's feelings. All dread of personal inconvenience yielded at once to the tears of the woman he loved, and, ere they parted, he gave into her keeping a written acknowledgment of marriage, which, when produced by a person in Miss Armour's condition, is, according to the Scots law, to be accepted as legal evidence of an irregular marriage having really taken place; it being of course understood that the marriage was to be formally avowed as soon as the consequences of their imprudence could no longer be concealed from her family. The disclosure was deferred to the last moment, and it was received by the father of Miss Armour with equal surprise and anger. Burns, confessing himself to be unequal to the maintenance of a family, proposed to go immediately to Jamaica, where he hoped to find better fortunes. He offered, if this were rejected, to abandon his farm, which was by this time a hopeless concern, and earn bread at least for his wife and children as a daily labourer at home; but nothing could appease the indignation of Armour, who, Professor Walker hints, had entertained previously a very bad opinion of Burns's whole character. By what arguments he prevailed on his daughter to take so strange and so painful a step we know not; but the fact is certain, that, at his urgent entreaty, she destroyed the document,* which must have been to *The comments of the Rev. Hamilton Paul, on this delicate part of the poet's story, are too meritorious to be omitted. "The scenery of the Ayr," says he, " from Sorn to the ancient burgh at its mouth, though it may be equalled in grandeur, is scarcely anywhere surpassed in beauty. To trace its meanders, to wander amid its green woods, to lean over its precipitous and rocky banks, to explore its coves, to survey its Gothic towers, and to admire its modern edifices, is not only highly delightful, but truly inspiring. If the poet, in his excursions along the banks of the river, or in penetrating into the deepest recesses of the grove, be accompanied by his favourite fair one, whose admiration of rural and sylvan beauty is akin to his own, however hazardous the experiment, the bliss is ecstatic. To warn the young and unsuspecting of their danger, is only to stimulate their curiosity. The well-meant dissuasive of Thomson is more seductive in its tendency than the admirers of that poet's morality are aware Ah! then, ye Fair, Be greatly cautious of your sliding hearts; her the most precious of her possessions-the only evidence of her marriage. It was under such extraordinary circumstances that Miss Armour became the mother of twins. Burns's love and pride, the two most powerful feelings of his mind, had been equally wounded. His anger and grief together drove him, according to every account, to the verge of absolute insanity; and some of his letters on this occasion, both published and unpublished, have certainly all the appearance of having been written in as deep a concentration of despair as ever preceded the most awful of human calamities. His first thought had been, as we have seen, to fly at once from the scene of his disgrace and misery; and this course seemed now to be absolutely necessary. He was summoned to find security for the maintenance of the Where woodbines flaunt, and roses shed a couch, We are decidedly of opinion, that the inexperienced fair will be equally disposed to disregard this sentimental prohibition, and to accept the invitation of another bard, whose libertinism is less disguised, Will you go to the bower I have shaded for you To dear deluding woman The joy of joys,'' continues this divine, "Burns was partial in the extreme. This was owing, as well to his constitutional temperament, as to the admiration which he drew from the female_world, and the facility with which they met his advances. But his aberrations must have been notorious, when a man in the rank of Miss Armour's father refused his consent to his permanent union with his unfortunate daughter. Among the lower classes of the community, subsequent marriage is reckoned an ample atonement for former indiscretion, and ante-nuptial incontinency is looked upon as scarcely a transgression." children whom he was prevented from legitimating, and such was his poverty that he could not satisfy the parish-officers. I suppose security for some four or five pounds a-year was the utmost that could have been demanded from a person of his rank; but the man who had in his desk the immortal poems to which we have been referring above, either disdained to ask, or tried in vain to find, pecuniary assistance in his hour of need; and the only alternative that presented itself to his view was America or a jail. Who can ever learn without grief and indignation, that it was the victim of such miseries who, at such a moment, could pour out such a strain as the Lament? "O thou pale orb, that silent shines, "No idly-feign'd poetic plaints, My sad, love-lorn lamentings claim; |