should combine to make her name a household word. But, whatever may have been her thoughts, fancies, or affections, here was their end; and under this fair tomb is laid the purer part of that romantic attachment expressed by the world-known words Burns and his Highland Mary.' Standing here beside her monument, and looking at the bas-relief of the lovers' parting never to meet again in this world, we are insensibly led to run over in our memories the little that we know concerning Highland Mary's history. And, in truth, it will probably be but very little. The merest shreds of it are given by the majority of Burns' biographers, who tell us of her name, her situation, her parting with her lover, and her death at Greenock; merely this, and nothing more;' in fact, just the scanty intelligence that is given to us by Burns himself. Before we have done with the subject, we shall see that Burns had ample reasons for reticence; which reticence may have been winked at by his first biographers as much from charity as from ignorance of the real facts; and adopted by subsequent writers either from necessity or indolence. No one appears to have taken the trouble to deviate from the beaten path of information into a search for fresh and more satisfactory evidence, until the year 1850, when a paper on the subject was read before the Society of Scottish Antiquaries, by Mr. William Douglas, who endeavoured to fix the period of Burns' attachment to his Highland Mary to a later time of his life than the poet bimself would assign it a very important point, which had always been misunderstood or misrepresented, and on which, indeed, the whole gravamen of any charge that we may make against Burns must hang. But it was not till the year 1851 that Mr. Robert HIGHLAND MARY'S HISTORY. 123 Chambers, with painstaking care, filled up the sketchy outlines of Highland Mary's history, and corrected some popular errors concerning her; and, notably, that she was a dairymaid at the castle of Montgomery.' But the researches of Messrs. Chambers and Douglas appear to have been overlooked, not only by the compilers of Tourists' Guide-books, but also by the biographers of Burns, who still give us that scanty measure of incorrect information regarding the poet's betrothed that has been doled out to sympathising and curious readers from the days of Dr. Currie to the present hour. Since this is the case, it may prove interesting to record what is known concerning Highland Mary and her connection with Burns. It is a history as yet unwritten, so far as regards the arrangement of scattered details into chronological order, and the gathering up of the disjointed threads of the narrative into a systematic whole. Besides this, but little can be added to those facts and dates that have been so industriously worked out by Messrs. Douglas and Chambers; although I have been able to glean a few scraps of information from personal enquiries, and from the internal evidence afforded by Burns' poems and correspondence. Let me, then, arrange my waifs and strays in due order; and, from the salvage, construct the true story of Burns and his Highland Mary. It is a story which, when examined by the uncompromising light of dates and facts, will be found to place Burns in anything but that sentimental and heroic position which he is popularly supposed to fill. Its last page was turned in the most important year of the poet's life-the year 1786; a year crowded with conflicting passions and events; a year that witnessed the obscurity of a Lowland farmer's life, and the sudden flaming out of a reputation that appears to increase in brilliancy with the advance of years; and the year which terminated the modest career of one, whose fame it is that she was first in Burns' love, and who, it is to be hoped, died in her sweet belief. BURNS AND HIS HIGHLAND MARY. 125 CHAPTER XII. THE TRUE STORY OF BURNS AND HIS HIGHLAND MARY. Highland Mary's Birth, Parentage, and Early Years-Not a ARY CAMPBELL was of Highland parentage, MARY born near Dunoon, on the Firth of Clyde, and the eldest of eight children. Her father was a sailor in a revenue cutter, whose station was at Campbelton, in Cantire, Argyleshire. Her mother numbered among her relatives the Rev. David Campbell, of Loch Ranza, Isle of Arran; and, at his house, Mary spent some of her youthful years; to which circumstance may doubtless be attributed her superiority in cast of mind, manner, and intelligence to her station in life. Her mother always spoke of her as a paragon of gentleness and amiability, and, above all her other qualities, loved to dwell most upon her sincerity. She would appear also to have grown up in beauty, a sweet, sprightly, blue-eyed creature;' and, although we cannot implicitly put faith in the exaggerations of a poet-lover, who can liken his loved one's form, sae fair and faultless,' to that of the 'powers celestial;' yet Burns had so keen an eye for the beautiful in nature, especially in her completest work, a beautiful woman, that we can hardly imagine that Highland Mary would have received so large a share of his attentions, and have made so great an impression on his mind, unless she had possessed that attractive gift- the gift of good looks. We may believe him, however, when he says that she was a warm-hearted, charming young creature as ever blessed a man with generous love.' She was induced to leave her uncle's house at Loch Ranza by the solicitations of another relative, Mrs. Isabella Campbell, who was housekeeper to a family in Ayrshire; and so Mary Campbell came across the water to that county where was Robert Burns. In what year this happened we do not precisely know; but she was nursemaid in the family of Mr. Hamilton, of Mauchline, at the time when his son Alexander was born, July 1785; and it is thought that she saw him through some of the early stages of infancy before leaving Mr. Hamilton's service. Mr. Chambers seems to think that she continued in that service up to the period of her betrothal and departure for Campbelton, but says that there is some obscurity about the situations and movements of Mary.' She is popularly spoken of as having been dairymaid* to Colonel Hugh Montgomery (afterwards the Earl of Eglintoun), whose mansion of Coilsfield was on the banks of the Ayr. This belief may have arisen from the scene of the * Hugh Miller goes farther than this, and, in his imaginary 'Recollections' of Burns, makes the poet thus introduce Mary Campbell to his friend: This, Mr. Lindsay, is a loved friend of mine, whom I have known and valued for years. ever, indeed, since we herded our sheep together under the cover of one plaid.' (Tales and Sketches.) |