tuned, no doubt, that he would not lie there and get his death of cold. He went in instead and wrote to a confidante who would not betray him — to Mary in heaven. And how tender, how wistful and longing, are those lovely lines! How clear before him, in that winterly-autumnal night, with early frost in the air making all the stars glow and glitter, rises the never-to-be-forgotten summer day, when —

success as a farmer. On the whole, proba-, maiden-pure, of his Mary dead; and who
bly, the life suited him very well. He had can tell what dead hopes, what schemes
a great deal of riding- as much as two untold, what better life that might have
hundred miles in a week, some one says; been? Not a word of these could he say,.
and wherever he went, every door of rich in honour and justice, to the woman by
and poor flew open to the poet. He must his side, who stood and begged and impor-
have had actual enjoyment of his popu-
larity, such as falls to the lot of few writ-
ers, in these wanderings over the country.
The very face of that pleasant land bright-
ened with smiles to see him. In the farm
and the cottage as well as in the hall, he
was received with enthusiasm. Now and
then he could do a kindness which grati-
fied his good heart, and increased his
popularity. No doubt he liked it well
enough. And yet by times there would
come over him a dreary thought of better
things which might have been. He en-
couraged himself in his career with words
which would seem but an ostentatious brag
of his devotion to his duty if they did not
mean something deeper. Thus, when he
laments over his office of gauging auld
wives' barrels, he ends with a recollection
of its needfulness:

Ayr, gurgling, kissed his pebbled shore, O'erhung with wild woods, thickening green;" and flowers and birds mingled their sweet existence in the lovers' meeting! Can he ever forget that sacred hour? His heart swells, and idle tears come to his eyes as the good housewife bustles round him; and life, with its fireside comfort and unescapable reality, embraces and binds him in a hundred chains. Perhaps the dead Mary was no wiser, no loftier, than goodhumoured forbearing Jean; but with her the life of dreams and imagination, the life that might have been, had departed. Where was their place of rest?

Nothing can be more touching than the silent, inexpressible pathos of this scene. Like a man of honour, he said nothing to his wife about it, nor indeed to any other mortal. And not even to his celestial confidante does he unbosom the heaviness How often does he say it!-reminding of the dragging chain, and that sense of himself of what he had to think of, of what deadly weight and oppression which comes he must work for with pathetic reitera- upon a man when fate closes round him, tion. No; he would not allow himself to and he feels that nothing can better him, forget them, would not permit all these nothing make his future different from substantial reasons for living and working, the past. His anguish breaks from him in and holding by his existence, to fade out the only way that was lawful and honourof his mind. But that September night, able to such a man, in such a way that when his anxious wife followed him out to even a jealous woman could scarcely take the barnyard, and found him "striding up offence; and Jean does not seem to have and down slowly, and contemplating the been jealous, or anything but a good, easy, sky, which was singularly clear and star-sweet-tempered soul. But what worlds ry," what thoughts of the might-have-been of suggestion breathed out of that paswere those which were surging up gloomi- sionate remembrance, that sacred and unly and sadly into the poet's mind? The forgotten grief! wife went in, hoping he would follow; but, coming out again, fearing that his cold would get worse by this exposure, found him lying "on a heap of straw, with his eyes fixed on a beautiful planet which shone like another moon.' Those poet eyes that glowed and dilated through the dew of unshed tears, what were they gazing at? A star, and the sweet image,

Professor Wilson treats this period of Burns's life, as his defender and champion is sufficiently justified in treating it; and with a dazzling play of special pleading almosts succeeds in proving to his bewildered reader that the life of his poet, then as at all other times, was perfectly successful, spotless, and splendid. We fear, however, that this theory will not stand against

come

And

the concurring evidence of all his biogra- gave up his farm at Ellisland, and rephers. His life was full of temptation, full moved into a small house at Dumfries. of opportunity for those convivial enjoy- There he lived five years-and died. ments which were not only counted ex-Through all this time he was, to use a cusable by the temper of the time, but homely phrase, burning the candle at both gloried in by all whose heads were strong ends. He rode fast and far, and attended enough to indulge in them without ruin. diligently to all the duties of his vocation. And to ourselves it appears little wonder He poured forth floods of songs songs that a man to whom such unbounded full of passion and fervour and which hopes had once opened up, and to whom were not mere creations of the brain, but such moderate realization of hope had commemorated-in warmer terms than who felt himself fatally distanced was probably called for by one out of fifty of in the race, and whose heart had failed these relationships - an amount of agreehim along with his hopes to us it is lit- able intercourse with his fellow-creatures tle wonder that he fell into greater and which must have occupied no small portion greater indulgence in that easy way of of his time. He wrote numerous letters; forgetfulness. He had failed even as a he entered warmly, sometimes too warmly, farmer, and he had failed in finding any into politics; he often spent half the night higher standing-ground; but in every tav- after this active employment of the day in ern, and at every uproarious table where merry companies, of which he was the inhe chanced to find himself, there was ob- spiration, and where his talk was more faslivion, there was honour and admiration cinating than the wine — or, to speak more and enthusiastic homage. He might be truly, if less poetically, the toddy which but a hard-riding gauger in the morning, flowed freely enough all the same. but at night he was a king. And of all into all these multifarious occupations he things in the world to be kept in lawful rushed with the impetuosity and unity of and moderate bounds, this habit is the most his nature, doing nothing by halves. He difficult. To "fetter flames with silken threw himself into Thomson's book of band" is an enterprise as easy. There Songs with zeal as great as if it had been seems no doubt that the entire country- the only work he had in hand; and withal, side, great and small, abetted and encouraged Burns thus to forget his sorrows - until the moment came when the more prudent persons in it perceived that the excitement of his life was becoming too intense, and the race towards some precipice of downfall more headlong than could be encouraged any longer. Then they stopped short in their invitations "for his good," and advised him for his good, and became exhortatory and full of admonitions. It is very likely that the poet took it badly and with reason enough. For no man had so befriended him, so helped him in his difficult way, as to have the right of exhortation. They had invited him to their houses, so long as his visit was an honour-they had fêted him, so long as fêting Burns was a distinction to themselves; and now what right had they to stop short and advise? So he quarrelled with some hotly, and with others coldly, feeling a mist of separation grow between him and many whom he had held in warm esteem: and the countryside gathered itself away from him and stood by, with that stillness and awful interest which marks the spectators of every desperate tragedy, to see how long the headlong race would last, and how soon the catastrophe would come.

The race did not last long. In 1791 he

neither pleasure nor poetry prevented him from doing his work as an exciseman with And the most punctilious exactitude. Thomson accepted the songs, and was easily, very easily convinced that the author wanted no remuneration; and all the gentleman who had known him, and did know him, and to some of whom even he had told his hopes and wishes, stood by, not even helping him on to be a supervisor, the most modest bit of promotion. His hope was that he might, on securing this step, have been eligible for the post of collector, which was well paid, and would have given him abundant leisure for literary work. We do not remember whether this easy possibility of improving his position has been much dwelt on by his biographers; but the neglect of it is a much more serious sin to be charged against the Dumfriesshire gentry than the original offence of giving him an exciseman's place, which has been thrown in their teeth so often. A little trouble, a little steady backing from one or two influential persons, might have easily raised Burns to this modest eminence, and given him all his heart desired. But this backing no one gave. It would seem incredible were it not very far from a solitary instance of such strange carelessness. Were it to be done over again, no doubt the

"His bonnet stood ance fu' fair on his brow, His auld ane looked better than mony ane's

new,

But now he lets't wear any way it will hing,
And casts himsel dowie upon the corn bing.
Oh were we young, as we ance hae been,
We suld have been galloping down on yon green.
And linking it ower the lily-white lea,
And werena my heart licht I would dee.'

Meanwhile he did his humble work with less and less hope, and tried his best to It seems impossible to conceive that get such good as was possible out of the such a story could have been invented. dregs of his broken life. Much gentle and To show that his forlorn heart was still kind domestic virtue lingered about him "licht," God help him! Burns took the to the end, notwithstanding all his vaga- young man home and made him merry. ries. He would help his boys to learn What words these are! and with what untheir lessons, and read poetry with them, speakable meaning they must have fallen directing their childish taste; and for years from the poet's lips. Sad courage, endurthere might be seen of an afternoon by ance, gaiety, and profound untellable deany chance passer-by, in a little back street spair-not any great outburst, but an alin Dumfries, through the ever-open door, most tranquil ordinary state of mind. one of the greatest of British poets, sitting" Werena my heart licht I would dee - it reading, with half-a-dozen noisy children is the sentiment of all his concluding years. about, and their mother busy with a house- And thus he died - thirty-seven years wife's ordinary labour. This, we say, was old- worn out. His old terror of a jail visible to everybody who chanced to pass came over him again like a spectre at the that way; and the days ran on quietly, end, but he died owing no man anything, and the world grew used to the sight, and stern in his independence to the last. Of it never seems to have occurred to any course his friends in Dumfries would not one how many blockheads had comfortable have allowed him to go to jail for five or ten libraries to maunder in, while this man — pounds, Mr. Lockhart says. And we answer sole of his race in Scotland, and almost in No, of course they would not- they dared the kingdom, for Wordsworth and Cole- not. But nobody came forward to say, ridge were still little more than boys- Here is my purse. Nobody even attempthad neither quiet nor retirement possible. ed to pay his poor little seaside lodging With an inconceivable passive quiet the for him, as Professor Wilson remarks, or good people went and came, and took it as to lift a single obstacle out of his way. It the course of nature. A little later they was easy to say that he was proud, and were proud of having seen it; in the mean- would accept help from no one; and no time it moved them not an inch. Neither one, so far as we can see, ever attempted, would it now, were it all to be done over with generous comprehension of a generagain. ous pride, to chase these scruples away.

There is one pathetic scene still, which appears to us out of the mists before death and peace come to end all. Professor Wilson rejects the story with that scornful laughter which is shrill with coming tears. But we see no reason to reject it. On the contrary, all the internal evidence is in its favour. The story is told by a young country gentleman, who rode into Dumfries on a fine summer evening, to attend a ball, and saw Burns walking by himself down the side of the street, while various county people, drawn together by the evening's entertainment, were shopping or walking on the other.

"The horseman dismounted and joined Burns, who, on his proposing to him to cross the street, said, 'Nay, nay, my young friend, that's all over now;' and quoted, after a pause, some verses of Lady Grizel Baillie's pathetic ballad:

He died cheerfully and manfully like a Christian; though with his heart rent asunder by fears for the helpless children whom he was leaving behind him. And the moment he was dead his friends came and buried him: and red-coated splendours lined the streets, and a certain noble officer who would not in his lifetime permit the gauger to be introduced to him, played mourner to the dead poet. Strange satire, enough to tempt devils to laughter, but men to very different feelings. And while there was scarce a meal left in the penniless house the bells tolled and the shops were closed, and a great procession swept through the streets, and volleys were fired over the grave of him who had been carried out of that home of poverty. What a change all in a moment!- because he was dead, and neglect or honour, help or desertion, could effect him nevermore.

"Is not this like long ago?"

But let us add that the true Scotland, ] for which he lived and sang, never slighted "You talk like an old woman, Tita," and never has forgotten her poet. She says one of the party. "And yet your gave him an education such as a prince eyes are as pretty as they were a dozen might have been glad of, and many a de- years ago, when you used to walk along lightsome hour by Ayr and Nith, and in the the beach at Eastbourne, and cry because breezy wholesome fields. And so long as you were afraid of becoming the mistress he was in her safe keeping he was happy, of a house. And now the house has been and strong, and spotless, a very model of too much for you; and you are full of conpoetic life and joy and freedom. She has fused facts, and unintelligible figures, and given him a grave besides, and many a petty anxieties, until your responsibilities tear which would have kept it green, but have hidden away the old tenderness of for the senseless blocks of stone with which your look, except at such a moment as this it has been heaped over. And wherever when you forget yourself. Tita, do you rethe common people from whom he member who pricked her finger to sign a sprang, whom he loved and understood document in her own blood, when she was and made known to the world-wherever only a school-girl, and who produced it they meet they sing his songs, they speak years afterwards with something of a his language, they hold his name dear. shamefaced pride?" It is all they ever could do for him. And the others built his monument. It was late, but it was handsome, or so at least the taste of the time thought. And what more would a Poet have?

From Macmillan's Magazine.

THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF A

PHAETON.

"Stuff! says Tita, angrily, but blushing dreadfully all the same; and so, with a frown and an imperious manner, she stepped down to the margin of the river.

Now mark this circumstance. In the old days of which my Lady was then thinking, she used to be very well content with pulling bow-oar when we two used to go out in the evenings. Now, when the Lieutenant and Bell had been comfortably placed in the stern, Tita dain

BY WILLIAM BLACK. AUTHOR OF "A DAUGHTER tily stepped into the boat and sat down

66

OF HETH," ETC.

CHAPTER V.

QUEEN TITANIA AFLOAT.

Say, Father Thames, for thou hast seen
Full many a sprightly race,
Disporting on thy margent green,
The paths of pleasure trace,
Who foremost now delight to cleave
With pliant arm thy glassy wave?”

AT length we hit upon one thing that Count von Rosen could not do. When we had wandered down to the side of the Thames, just by Maidenhead Bridge, and opposite the fine old houses, and smooth lawns, and green banks that stand on the other margin of the broad and shallow river, we discovered that the Lieutenant was of no use in a boat. And so, as the young folks would have us go up under the shadows of the leafy hills of Cliefden, there was nothing for it but that Tita and I should resort to the habits of earlier years, and show a later generation how to feather an oar with skill and dexterity. As Queen Titania stood by the boathouse, pulling off her gloves with economic forethought, and looking rather pensively at the landing-place and the boats and the water, she suddenly said

quite naturally to pull stroke. She made no apology. She took the place as if it were hers by right. Such are the changes which a few years of married life produce,

So Bell pulled the white tiller-ropes over her shoulder, and we glided out and up the glassy stream, into that world of greenness and soft sounds and sweet odours that lay all around. Already something of Bell's prophecy was likely to come true; for the clouds were perceptibly growing thinner overhead, and a diffused yellow light falling from no particular place seemed to dwell over the hanging woods of Cliefden. It gave a new look, too, to the smooth river, to the rounded elms and tall poplars on the banks and the long aits beyond the bridge, where the swans were sailing close in by the reeds.

We had got but a short way up the river when our coxswain, without a word of warning, shot us into a half-submerged forest that seemed to hide from us a lake on the other side. Tita had so little time to ship her oar that no protest was possible; and then the Lieutenant catching hold of the branches pulled us through the narrow channel, and lo! we were in a still

pearly edges, and a touch of scarlet and gold along their western side.

"What a drive we shall have this evening!" cried Bell. "It will be a clear night when we get to Henley, and there will be stars over the river, and perhaps a moon, who knows?"

"I thought you would have provided a moon, mademoiselle," said the Lieutenant, gravely. "You have done very well for us this evening-oh! very well indeed. I have not seen any such beautiful picture for many years. You did very well to keep a dark day all day, and make us tired of cold colours and green trees; and then you surprise us by this picture of magic-oh! it is very well done."

"All that it wants," said Bell, with a critical eye, "is a little woman in a scarlet When, at length, we had got past the shawl under the trees there, and over the picturesque old mill, and reached the sea green of the rushes-one of those nice fat of tumbling white water that came rush- little women who always wear bright ing down from the weir, it seemed as shawls just to please landscape-painters though the sky had entered into a compact making a little blob of strong colour, you with Bell to fulfil her predictions. For as know, just like a ladybird among green we lay and rocked in the surge watch- moss. Do you know, I am quite grateful ing the long level line of foam come tumb- to a pleasant little countrywoman when ling over in spouts, and jets, and white she dresses herself ridiculously merely to masses, listening to the roar of the fall, make a landscape look fine; and how can and regarding the swirling circles of white you laugh at her when she comes near? bells that swept away downward on the I sometimes think that she wears those stream there appeared in the west, just colours, especially those in her bonnet, out over the line of the weir, a parallel line of of mere modesty. She does not know what dark blood-red. It was but a streak as will please you-she puts in a little of yet; but presently it widened and grew everything to give you a choice. more intense -a great glow of crimson holds up to you a whole bouquet of flowers, colour came shining forth - and it seemed and says, Please, miss, do you like blue? as if all the western heavens, just over for here is corn-cockle; or red? - for that line of white foam, were becoming a here are poppies; or yellow?- for here mass of fire. Bell's transformation-scene are rock-roses.' She is like Perdita, you was positively blinding; and the bewilder- know, going about with an armful of blosment of the splendid colours was not les- soms, and giving to everyone what she sened by the roar of the tumbling river, that thinks will please them." seemed strangely wild in the stillness of the evening.

She

"My dear," said Tita, "you are too generous; I am afraid the woman wears those things out of vanity. She does not know what colour suits her complexion best, and so wears a variety, quite sure that one of them must be the right one. And there are plenty of women in town, as well as in the country, who do that too."

"I hope you don't mean me," said Bell, contritely, as she leant her arm over the side of the boat, and dipped the tips of her fingers into the glassy stream.

But when we turned to drop quietly down stream, the scene around was so lovely that Queen Titania had no heart to pull away from it. For now the hanging woods of beach and birch and oak had caught a glow of the sunset along their masses of yellow and green, and the broad stream had the purple of its glassy sweeps dashed here and there with red, and in the far east a reflected tinge of pink mingled with the cold green, and lay soft But if we were to get to Henley that and pure and clear over the low woods, night, there was no time for lingering and the river, and the bridge. As if by longer about that bend by the river, with magic, the world had grown suddenly light, its islands, and mills and woods. That etherial, and full of beautiful colours; and great burst of colour in the west had been the clouds that still remained overhead the expiring effort of the sun; and when had parted into long cirrhous lines, with 'we got back to the inn, there was nothing