lasting impression of his regard for her-in view of the fact that she would very soon learn of his decision in favour of the "poor girl" whom she pitied." By virtue of his sympathetic genius, he could almost make Clarinda's cruel disappointment his own; and, indeed, it is rather the realisation of her condition, than any absorbing passion for her, that probably inspires the best of the lyrics in her honour, and more particularly the exquisitely expressed quatrain of the song written after the reconciling interview, before she was about to set out to Jamaica to rejoin, as she supposed, for good and all, her husband "Had we never loved sae kindly, We had ne'er been broken-hearted." CHAPTER VI ELLISLAND—1788–1791. Future Plans-Ellisland taken-Promised Commission as Exciseman-Shelters Jean Armour-Recognises her as his Wife-His Reasons for this-Last Appearance before the Kirk-session-Life at Ellisland-Friendship with Mrs. Dunlop - Captain Riddell - Burns and Farming Poetic Aims - Johnson's Scots Musical Museum- - As Lyrist His English Verse - -"Tam o' Shanter," etc. - Untoward Circumstances - Becomes Exciseman Farm a Failure-Poetic Studies-Prepares to leave Ellisland-Farm Sales. IT T was always with much misgiving Burns contemplated the resumption of his old life. Had he been able to discover a more feasible way of living, he would gladly have ceased to be a farmer. That he was willing even to become exciseman shows how little he was enamoured of his old calling, and how slight was his hope of success in it. "Searching auld wives' barrels, Och, hon, the day! That clarty barm should stain my laurels ". so he wrote when some sixteen months afterwards he did become exciseman. The Clarinda hallucination also exercised a disturbing influence, and rendered a decisive choice more difficult. Then he may not unnaturally have hoped, and even expected, that his influential friends would succeed in obtaining for him some kind of pleasant sinecure, which would enable him to cultivate the Muses at his leisure without danger of starvation. That no such attempt was made may be attributed partly to their inadequate appreciation of his genius-highly though they may have esteemed his verse; and partly to the fact that he was of too strong and independent personality to win the unmingled approbation of dispensers of patronage. But a nomination to the excise he might, without unduly straining the generosity of his friends, very well aspire to, although even this, we learn from a letter to Clarinda, was not quite to be had for the asking. "I have," he writes, "almost given up the excise idea. I have been just now to wait on a great person, Miss -'s friend. Why will great people not only deafen us with the din of their equipage, and dazzle us with their fastidious pomp, but they must also be so very dictatorially wise? I have been questioned like a child about my matters, and blamed and schooled for my inscription on the Stirling window. Come, |