covered country, from whose bourne no traveller returns,'-and could not acknowledge it.

Having stated Burns's unremitting attention to business, which certainly was not compatible with perpetual intoxication; it follows, of course, that this latter charge must fall to the ground and I will further avow, that I never saw him, which was very frequently while he lived at Ellisland, and still more so, almost every day, after he removed to Dumfries, but in hours of business he was quite himself, and capable of discharging the duties of his office: nor was he ever known to drink by himself, or seen to indulge in the use of liquor in a forenoon, as the statement, that he was perpetually under its stimulus, unequivocally implies.

To attempt the refutation of the various other calumnies with which his memory has been assailed, some of which are so absurd as hardly to merit any attention, does not fall in my way, though I hope they will be suitably taken notice of; but permit me to add, that I have seen Burns in all his various phases, in his convivial moments, in his sober moods, and in the bosom of his family : indeed, I believe I saw more of him than any other individual had occasion to see, after he became an Excise officer, and I never beheld any thing like the gross enormities with which he is now charged: That when set down in an evening with a few friends whom he liked, he was apt to prolong the social hour beyond the bounds which prudence would dictate, is unquestionable; but in his family, I will venture to say, he was never seen otherwise than attentive and affectionate to a high degree. Upon the whole, it is much to be lamented that there has been so much broad, unqualified assertion as has been displayed in Burns's history; the virulence indeed with which his memory has been treated, is hardly to be paralleled in the annals of literature. Wishing every success to the laudable attempt of rescuing it from the indiscriminate abuse which has been heaped upon it, I remain, Sir, Your most obedient servant,

To Mr Alex. Peterkin, Edinburgh.

A. FINDLATER.

No. IV. THE BURNS FAMILY.

The children of the marriage of Robert Burns and Jean Armour who survived mere infancy were :

ROBERT, born 3d September 1786, died 14th May 1857.

FRANCIS WALLACE, born 18th August 1789, died 9th July 1803. WILLIAM NICOL, born 9th April 1791, died 21st February 1872. ELIZABETH RIDDEL, born 21st November 1792, died September 1795. JAMES GLENCAIRN, born 12th August 1794, died 18th November 1865. MAXWELL, born 25th July 1796, died 23d November 1799. Robert's twin-sister Jean died in infancy, as did the twin-daughters born on 3d March 1788; these are all buried in Mauchline churchyard.

Robert, born at Mauchline, educated at Glasgow and Edinburgh Universities, got in 1804 a post in the Stamp Office, London, from which he retired on a pension in 1833. Married in 1808 Anne Sherwood, and had issue a daughter Eliza, who married Dr Everitt of the Madras Civil Service, and died in 1878. Her only child, Martha, married. Matthew Thomas, and lives at Martinstown, Killinick, County Wexford, Ireland. She has no child.

Francis Wallace, born at Ellisland, was barely fourteen at his death. William Nicol, born at Ellisland, went to the East Indies as a midshipman at the age of fifteen; got a cadetship in 1811; served more than thirty years in the 7th Madras Infantry, and retired Lieutenant-Colonel in 1843; 1855 brevet Colonel; married, 1822, Catherine A. Crone (died 1841), and died at Cheltenham, where he lived in retirement with his brother James.

Elizabeth Riddel, born at Dumfries; died at Mauchline, and was buried in the Armour lair in Mauchline churchyard.

James Glencairn went from Dumfries Grammar School, where he and all his brothers commenced their education, to Christ's Hospital, London, where a foundation had been procured for him; got, like William Nicol, a cadetship in the H.E.I.C.'s Service in 1811, and rose to be Major and ultimately in 1855 brevet Lieutenant-Colonel. Part of his time in India he passed in the Civil Service. Married (1) Sarah Robinson (died 1821) and had issue a daughter and a son, who died in early infancy, and Sarah Burns, born 1821, and still living in Cheltenham; (2) Mary Beckett, by whom he had one daughter, Annie Beckett Burns, also living and resi dent with her half-sister. Saralı Burns married Dr B. W. Hutchinson, and has issue one son and three daughters-Annie Vincent Burns Hutchinson, married James Scott, Brookside, near Adelaide, and has no issue; Robert Burns Hutchinson, at present a clerk in Chicago; married, and has one daughter, born 1894; Violet Burns Hutchinson, married George H. Gowring, and has no issue; and Margaret Conalgine Burns Hutchinson, unmarried, living with her mother in Cheltenham. Robert Burns Hutchinson is the only male representative of the direct line now living.

*

Gilbert Burns (born 28th September 1760) left Mossgiel in 1798, having taken a lease of the farm of Dinning in Nithsdale from Mr Monteith of Closeburn. In 1800 he removed to East Lothian to manage the farm of Morham West Mains (now Morham Muir) for Captain Dunlop (son and heir of Mrs Dunlop of Dunlop). In 1804 Katharine, Lady Blantyre, appointed him factor of her East Lothian estates, and gave him a free house (Grant's Braes, about a mile west of Haddington), and a salary of £100, afterwards raised to £140. He married in 1791 Miss Jean Breckenridge of Kilmarnock, who was connected by marriage with Sir James Shaw, already mentioned, and had eleven children. He died at Grant's Braes on 8th April 1827, and was buried in Bolton churchyard.

* The mother of Robert and Gilbert Burns lived with the latter till her death in 1820, at the age of eighty-eight. She was buried in the churchyard of Bolton, East Lothian.

The other children of William Burnes and Agnes Brown were-Agnes (born 30th September 1762) married, at the age of forty-two, William Galt, a servant of Gilbert's, who was afterwards a land-steward in the north of Ireland. She died without issue in 1834. Annabella (born 14th November 1764) lived unmarried with Gilbert till her death in 1832. She was buried in Bolton churchyard. William (born 30th July 1767). See Vol. III. passim. He died in London, 24th July 1790. John (born 10th July 1769, died 1783). And

Isabella (born 27th July 1771) married, at the age of twenty-two, John Begg, whom Gilbert employed to manage the farm of Dinning when he left it, with his lease unfinished, to go to Morham. Mr Begg was afterwards land-steward on Mr Hope Vere's estate of Blackwood, Lanarkshire, and was accidentally killed there in 1813. His widow died in 1858 at Bridge House, near Ayr. They had nine children. Mrs Begg supported herself in her widowhood by teaching. Through the exertions of Thomas Carlyle, Lord Houghton, and Robert Chambers, she secured in 1842 a government pension of £20 a year, with reversion to her daughters. Messrs W. & R. Chambers gave her the first profits of their 1851-52 edition of this book, and at the time of the centenary celebration in 1859, a sum of £1000 was raised for her daughters, Carlyle again taking a lively interest in the subscription. £50 of the money collected was voted to Mrs Thomson (Betty Burns) of Crossmyloof.

The Burns Beggs of Kinross are descended from Mrs Begg's third son, Robert.

No. V. MONUMENTS AND STATUES.

The principal Burns monuments are:

The MAUSOLEUM at DUMFRIES, in which lie the remains of the poet, his wife and children. General Dunlop, son of Burns's friend, presided at the meeting in 1813 at which it was resolved to build a mausoleum,

* Carlyle, announcing to Mrs Begg the grant of the pension on 7th June 1842, wrote: 'Properly, however, you do not owe this to anybody, but to your own illustrious brother, whose noble life-wasted tragically away-pleads now aloud to men of every rank and place for some humanity to his last surviving sister. May God give you all good of this gift, and make it really useful to you. You need not answer this letter; it is a mere luxury that I give myself in writing it.'

Again, when the subscription for the Misses Begg was mooted, Carlyle wrote to the editor of the Ayr Advertiser:- Dear Sir-I very much approve your and Mr Milnes's notion about the Misses Begg, and I hope you will not fail to get your plan executed with all the energy and skill that are possible, and with corresponding success. Could all the eloquence that will be uttered over the world on the 25th inst., or even all the tavern bills that will be incurred, but convert themselves into solid cash for these two interesting persons, what a sum were there of benefit received, and of loss avoided to all parties concerned !— Serving indigent merit on the one hand, and saving on the other hand, what is too truly a frightful (though eloquent) expenditure of pavement to a certain locality we have all heard of!-In much haste, I remain, yours truly, T. CARLYLE.'

and as has been stated, the poet's body and those of his two sons, Maxwell and Francis, were transferred to it on 12th September 1815. A Latin inscription was composed for it, but never cut.

The MONUMENT on ALLOWAY CROFT, close to the auld brig of Doon. The foundation stone was laid on the 25th January 1820, by Sir Alexander Boswell of Auchinleck, who presided over the public meeting in Ayr at which the erection of a monument was agreed to, the Rev. Hamilton Paul constituting the audience. £3300 was subscribed for the purpose.

The EDINBURGH MONUMENT was an after-thought. A subscription was commenced in 1812, by John Forbes Mitchell, of Bombay, for the purpose of setting up a colossal statue of Burns on a conspicuous site in the capital. Flaxman agreed to furnish a life-size marble statue for £1400, and ultimately offered to execute it, either in bronze or in marble, for nothing. He did not live to finish his work-marble was chosen as the material-and it was finished by his brother-in-law and pupil, Mr Denman. Then, the surplus being large, it was resolved to erect a building wherein to house the statue. More money was needed, and at length more than £3300 was got. The foundation stone was laid in 1831. In 1861 the statue was removed to the Scottish National Gallery, and in 1889 to the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.

On the 25th January 1842, a monument to the memory of Mary Campbell was erected in the West Churchyard, Greenock; and a bronze statue of her by D. W. Stevenson, R.S.A., was unveiled at Dunoon, on 1st August 1896, by Lady Kelvin.

The principal Statues of Burns are :

EDINBURGH, Flaxman, described above.

GLASGOW, bronze, by George Edwin Ewing, unveiled in George Square, on 25th January 1877, by Lord Houghton.

KILMARNOCK, marble, by W. G. Stevenson, R.S. A., originated 1872, by James M'Kie, unveiled 9th August 1879, by Colonel (afterwards General) Sir Claud Alexander of Ballochmyle, M.P.

NEW YORK, bronze, by Sir John Steell, R.S. A., unveiled 2d October 1880, an oration being delivered by George William Curtis.

DUNDEE, replica of the New York statue, unveiled 16th October 1880. DUMFRIES, marble, by Mrs D. O. Hill (sister of Sir Noel Paton), unveiled 6th April 1882, by the Earl of Rosebery.

LONDON, replica of New York and Dundee statues, altered in some particulars, unveiled, on the Thames Embankment, in 1884, by the Earl of Rosebery.

ALBANY (U.S.), by Charles Calverley, unveiled 30th September 1888. Erected out of funds (some 40,000 dols.) left by an eccentric old Scotchwoman, Mary M'Pherson, resident in Albany.

AYR, bronze, by G. A. Lawson, H. R.S. A. unveiled in 1891.

ABERDEEN, bronze, by Henry Bainsmith, a native of Aberdeen, unveiled 15th September 1892, by Professor Masson.

IRVINE, bronze, by G. Pittendrigh Macgillivray, A.R.S.A., unveiled 18th July 1896, by Alfred Austin, poet laureate.

PAISLEY, bronze, by Fred. W. Pomeroy, London; unveiled by the Earl of Rosebery on 26th September 1896.

On 7th March 1885 a bust of Burns was unveiled by Lord Rosebery in the Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey. The sculptor was Sir John Steell, R.S.A.

There are statues also in Chicago (by W. G. Stevenson), Brisbane, and Adelaide; and Denver has selected a design by W. G. Stevenson.

No. VI.-BURNS CELEBRATIONS.

On Tuesday, 6th August 1844, a Festival was held in honour of the sons of Burns on the banks of Doon. A banquet was held in a pavilion which was built to hold two thousand people. The Earl of Eglinton ('princely Eglinton ') presided, and the three eldest sons of the poet were present, as well as Mrs Begg and three of her children, Robert, Agnes, and Isabella, Mrs Thomson, Dumfries (Jessy Lewars), and a distinguished company, the Croupier, Professor Wilson ('Christopher North'), being supported by Sir Archibald Alison.

The Centenary of the Poet's birth was celebrated on 25th January 1859. There were ten gatherings in Edinburgh, and Lord Ardmillan presided at the principal banquet in the Music Hall. Of some twenty meetings held in Glasgow, the chief was held in the City Hall. Sir Archibald Alison presided, and was supported by Colonel James Glencairn Burns, Samuel Lover, Monckton Milnes (Lord Houghton), Sir David Brewster, Judge Haliburton, Blanchard Jerrold, Dr Norman Macleod, and Dr Charles Rogers. marnock, Dumfries, and elsewhere. the guest at the Dumfries banquet.

Meetings were held in Ayr, Kil-
Colonel William Nicol Burns was

The Death Centenary was celebrated in 1896 by public meetings in many towns, of which the most important was that in Glasgow, on 21st July, and by a procession the same day to the Mausoleum in Dumfries, in which were laid wreaths sent from all parts of the world. The Earl of Rosebery delivered two very notable orations-one in Dumfries and the other at the Glasgow public meeting. A Burns Exhibition, comprising portraits, paintings, and engravings, books, manuscripts and relics, was opened in Glasgow on 15th July and closed in the beginning of November.

At a meeting held in London in February 1885, a federation of Burns Clubs was formed under the title of the Burns Federation. It has issued yearly, since 1892, the Burns Chronicle. Seventy-four clubs are affiliated, and its register contained in 1896 the names of ninety-one unaffiliated clubs.