had finished, and went out without speaking a word. A month later he was in Edinburgh the wonder and glory of his nation! His triumphant career in Edinburgh—a career without a parallel in the history of poets-is too well known to need a description here, so I shall pass over it, and come to his next love-affair-the curious episode of Clarinda. Her name was Agnes M'Lehose, and she was the wife of Mr. James M'Lehose, a gentleman of a roving disposition, who had as good as abandoned her and his children, to seek his fortune in the West Indies. Burns met her for the first time at a tea-party, at the house of a mutual friend, in the beginning of December, 1787. They were so much pleased with each other-she with his genius, and he with her voluptuous beauty -that a second party was proposed, to come off at her own house on the ensuing Saturday evening. Burns accepted the proposal with avidity, having acquired on the sudden a mighty relish for tea, but the night before the drinking was to have taken place, he was overset by a drunken coachman, and carried to his lodgings with a bruised knee. He wrote Mrs. M'Lehose a letter, stating the circumstance, and expressing his regret, and paid her some high-flown compliments which tickled her amazingly. She answered in the same strain, and inclosed him a poem which she had written. They kept up a brisk fire of small notes, charged with friendship and flattery. The fifth discharge of Burns brought down the colours of his "sweet enemy," but he gallantly destroyed his own, and they hoisted a new set, and continued their loving encounter, masked as Sylvander and Clarinda. They met a second time shortly after the New Year, and exchanged confidences, Clarinda giving Sylvander a history of her past life and troubles, and receiving his own in return. It is not easy to see what they proposed to themselves as the end of all this meeting and letter-writing; it could not have been marriage, for the husband of Mrs. M'Lehose was living, while Jean had a new claim upon Burns; neither does it seem to have been that looser tie, which society sometimes forgives in poets-at least I acquit Clarinda of all guilty intentions. She was young and unfortunate-the abandoned wife of a man whom she could not love-a creature of sentiment and sensibilitythe ardent admirer of Burns, whose fiery temperament she sympathized with-in short, a passionate and imprudent woman. She set her cap at Burns, as the saying is, without thinking of the consequences, and he encouraged her, rake that he was: always the slave of the moment, he gave himself up to the passion she inspired with an energy that startled her. She was for esteem and friendship—a Platonic attachment; his tropical nature demanded a warmer return. The correspondence that passed between them was printed, when the grave had closed over both, and a precious batch of nonsense it was: it is impossible to read it without a smile. Burns must have laughed to himself when he penned a paragraph like this: "You have a heart formed-gloriously formed-for all the most refined luxuries of love: why was that heart ever wrung? Oh, Clarinda! shall we not meet in a state, some yet unknown state of being, where the lavish hand of plenty shall minister to the highest wish of benevolence, and where the chill north wind of prudence shall never blow over the flowery fields of enjoyment?" He fooled her to the top of her bent. Their intimacy lasted till he departed from Edinburgh, when it may be said to have terminated, though several letters passed between them afterwards. He started from Edinburgh on the 18th of February, 1788, and arrived at Mossgiel on the 24th. It was time that he came, not only for his own sake as a man, but also for that of Jean, who had been turned out of doors by her father. There were many reasons why he should return to her, and not the least of these was a second pair of twins, who were born shortly after his arrival. In April he acknowledged her as his wife. His marriage made Clarinda furious, though I do not see why it should have done so. She could not marry him, and to keep him from marrying another was beyond her power, as no one should have known better than herself. She entered into her flirtation, or passion, or whatever the reader pleases to call it, with her eyes open, and ought to have foreseen the end. It might have been worse, much worse-for her. She never forgave Burns for deserting her, though she continued to correspond with him at intervals during his life, and after his death preserved his letters with jealous veneration. She died in 1841, at the age of eighty-two. MY NANIE, O. The heroine of this song, which was written about 1780, was a farmer's daughter, named Agnes Fleming. She lived near Lochlea, when Burns resided there, and afterwards in the family of Mr. Gavin Hamilton, at Mauchline. She is said to have been anything but handsome, though her figure and carriage were good. Behind yon hills where Stinsiar flows The westlin wind blaws loud and shrill: My Nanie's charming, sweet, and young; That wad beguile my Nanie, O! Her face is fair, her heart is true, A country lad is my degree, And few there be that ken me, O; My riches a's my penny-fee, And I maun guide it cannie, O; Our auld guidman delights to view His sheep and kye thrive bonnie, O; Come weel, come woe, I care nae by, I'll tak what Heaven will send me, O; Nae ither care in life have I, But live and love my Nanie, O. MARY MORRISON. The heroine of this beautiful song is not known with certainty, but the weight of evidence is in favor of Ellison Begbie, the daughter of a farmer in the parish of Galston. She was a servant in a family on the banks of the Cessnock, about two miles from Lochlea, where Burns resided when he wrote the song (1783, or '84), and is known to have been one of his sweethearts at that time. She was not at all beautiful, though much run after by the young men of the neighbourhood. She was the heroine of Burns' song, "On Cessnock Banks there lives a lass." O, Mary, at thy window be, It is the wished, the trysted hour! That make the miser's treasure poor: How blithely wad I bide the stoure, A weary slave frae sun to sun, Yestreen when to the trembling string, I sat, but neither heard nor saw. O, Mary, canst thou wreck his peace, At least be pity to me shown; A thought ungentle canna be The thought o' Mary Morrison. RIGS O' BARLEY. The heroine of this song was Anne Rankine (afterwards Mrs. Anne Mirry), the youngest daughter of Mr. John Rankine, a farmer in the neighbourhood of Lochlea. She met Burns at the house of her father, (to whom, by the way, Burns addressed a poetical epistle,) and was much amused on his first visit by his making a circuit around the parlour, to avoid treading on a small carpet in the centre of the floor! After the publication of the "RIGS O' BARLEY," she told him she had not expected to be celebrated by him in print. "O, ay," he answered, “I was just wanting to give you a cast among the lave." She was a tall, masculine-looking woman, and for the greater part of her life, which was a long one, she kept a house of entertainment in Cumnock. It was upon a Lammas night, Beneath the moon's unclouded light, The time flew by wi' tentless heed, Wi' sma' persuasion she agreed To see me through the barley. The sky was blue, the wind was still, The moon was shining clearly; I ken't her heart was a' my ain, I locked her in my fond embrace; She I hae been blithe wi' comrades dear; I hae been joyfa' gath'rin' gear; But a' the pleasures e'er I saw, Though three times doubled fairly, That happy night was worth them a', Amang the rigs o' barley. CHORUS. Corn rigs, and barley rigs, And corn rigs are bonnie: I'll ne'er forget that happy night Amang the rigs wi' Annie. SONG. Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary, And leave auld Scotia's shore? |