trying to the temper than a serious calamity. We were going to Saint Mary's Isle, the seat of the Earl of Selkirk, and the forlorn Burns was discomfited at the thought of his ruined boots. A sick stomach, and a head-ache, lent their aid, and the man of verse was quite accablé. I attempted to reason with him. Mercy on us how he did fume and rage! Nothing could re-instate him in temper. I tried various expedients, and at last hit on one that succeeded. I shewed him the house of ***: across the bay of Wigton. with whom he was offended, he Against expectorated his spleen, and regained a most agreeable temper. He was in a most epigrammatic humour indeed! He afterwards fell on humgame. There is one ** *** whom he does not love. He had a passing blow at him. bler When *** ***, deceased, to the devil went down, 'Twas nothing would serve him but Satan's own crown: Thy fool's head, quoth Satan, that crown shall wear never, I grant thou'rt as wicked, but not quite so clever. "Well, I am to bring you to Kirkudbright along with our poet without boots. I carried the torn ruins across my saddle in spite of his fulminations, and in contempt of appearances; and what is more, Lord Selkirk carried them in his coach coach to Dumfries. He insisted they were worth mending. 66 We reached Kirkudbright about one o'clock. I had promised that we should dine with one of the first men in our country, J. Dalzell. But Burns was in a wild and obstreperous humour, and swore he would not dine where he should be under the smallest restraint. We prevailed therefore on Mr. Dalzell to dine with us in the inn, and had a very agreeable party. In the evening we set out for St. Mary's Isle. Robert had not absolutely regained the milkiness of good temper, and it occurred once or twice to him, as he rode along, that St. Mary's Isle was the seat of a Lord; yet that lord was not an aristocrate, at least in his sense of the word. We arrived about eight o'clock, as the family were at tea and coffee. St. Mary's Isle is one of the most delightful places that can in my opinion be formed by the assemblage of every soft, but not tame object, which constitutes natural and cultivated beauty. But not to dwell on its external graces, let me tell you that we found all the ladies of the family (all beautiful) at home, and some strangers; and among others who but Urbani. The Italian sung us many Scottish songs, accompanied with instrumental music. The two young ladies of Selkirk, sung also. We had the song of Lord P 2 Lord Gregory, which I asked for, to have an opportunity of calling on Burns to recite his ballad to that tune. He did recite it; and such was the effect, that a dead silence ensued. It was such a silence as a mind of feeling naturally preserves when it is touched with that enthusiasm which banishes every other thought but the contemplation and indulgence of the sympathy produced. Burns' Lord Gregory is, in my opinion, a most beautiful and affecting ballad.* The fastidious critic may perhaps say some of the sentiments and imagery are of too elevated a kind for such a stile of composition; for instance, "thou bolt of heaven that passes by;" and "Ye mustering thunders," &c. but this is a cold-blooded objection, which will be said rather than felt. "We enjoyed a most happy evening at Lord Selkirk's. We had in every sense of the word a feast, in which our minds and our senses were equally gratified. The poet was delighted with his company, and acquitted himself to admiration. The lion that had raged so violently in the morning was now as mild and gentle as a lamb. Next day we returned to Dumfries, and so ends our peregrination. I told you that in the midst of the storm on the wilds of Kenmore, Burns was rapt *See vol. IV. p. 38. rapt in meditation. What do you think he was about? He was charging the English army along with Bruce, at Bannockburn. He was engaged in the same manner on our ride home from St. Mary's Isle, and I did not disturb him. Next day he produced me the following address of Bruce to his troops, and gave me a copy for Dalzell." "Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled," &c.* Burns had entertained hopes of promotion in the excise; but circumstances occurred which retarded their fulfilment, and which in his own mind destroyed all expectation of their being ever fulfilled. The extraordinary events which ushered in the revolution of France, interested the feelings, and excited the hopes of men in every corner of Europe. Prejudice and tyranny seemed about to disappear from among men, and the day-star of reason to rise upon a benighted world. In the dawn of this beautiful morning the genius of French freedom appeared on our southern horizon with the countenance of an angel, but speedily assumed the features of a demon, and vanished in a shower of blood. Though previously a jacobite and a cavalier, * See vol. IV. p. 125. Burns had shared in the original hopes entertained of this astonishing revolution by ardent and benevolent minds. The novelty and the hazard of the attempt meditated by the First or Constituent Assembly, served rather, it is probable, to recommend it to his daring temper; and the unfettered scope proposed to be given to every kind of talents, was doubtless gratifying to the feelings of conscious but indignant genius. Burns foresaw not the mighty ruin that was to be the immediate consequence of an enterprize, which, on its commencement, promised so much happiness to the human race. And even after the career of guilt and of blood commenced, he could not immediately, it may be presumed, withdraw his partial gaze from a people who had so lately breathed the sentiments of universal peace and benignity, or obliterate in his bosom the pictures of hope and of happiness to which those sentiments had given birth. Under these impressions, he did not always conduct himself with the circumspection and prudence which his dependent situation seemed to demand. He engaged indeed in no popular associations, so common at the time of which we speak; but in company he did not conceal his opinions of public measures, or of the reforms required in the practice of our government and sometimes in his social and unguarded moments, he uttered them with a wild and unjustifiable ve hemence. |