Edinburgh towards the close of last century was a very different place from Edinburgh of the present day. It was then to a certain extent the hub of Scottish society; the centre of learning and literature; the winter rendezvous of not a few of the nobility and gentry of Scotland. For in those days it had its society and its season; county families had not altogether abandoned the custom of keeping their houses in town. All roads did not then lead to London as they do now, when Edinburgh is a capital in little more than name, and its prestige has become a tradition. A century ago Edinburgh had all the glamour and fascination of the capital of a no mean country; to-day it is but the historical capital invested with the glamour and fascination of a departed glory. The very names of those whom Burns met on his first visit to Edinburgh are part of the history of the nation. In the University there were at that time, representative of the learning of the age, Dugald Stewart, Dr. Blair, and Dr. Robertson. David Hume was but recently dead, and the lustre of his name remained. His great friend, Adam Smith, author of The Wealth of Nations, was still living; while Henry Mackenzie, Th The members of the middle class caught their tone from the upper ranks, and took their nightly sederunts and morning headaches as privileges they dared aristocratic exclusiveness to deny them. Douce citizens, merchants, respectable tradesmen, well-to-do lawyers, forgathered when the labours of the day were done to spend a few hours in some snug back-parlour, where mine host granted them the privileges and privacy of a club. Such social beings as these, met to discuss punch, law, and literature, were no less likely than their aristocratic neighbours to receive Burns with open arms, and once he was in their midst to prolong their sittings in his honour. Nor was Burns, if he found them honest and hearty fellows, the man to say them nay. He was eminently a social and sociable being, and in company such as theirs he could unbend himself as he might not do in the houses of punctilious society. The etiquette of that howff of the Crochallan Fencibles in the Anchor Close or of Johnnie Dowie's tavern in Libberton's Wynd was not the etiquette of drawing-rooms; and the poet was free to enliven the hours with a rattling fire of witty remarks on men and things as he had been wont to do on the bog at Lochlea, with only a few noteless peasants for audience. Burns entered Edinburgh on November 28, 1786. He had spent the night after leaving Mossgiel at the farm of Covington Mains, where the kind-hearted host, Mr. Prentice, had all the farmers of the parish gathered to meet him. This is of interest as showing the popularity Burns's poems had already won; while the eagerness of those farmers to see and know the man after they had read his poems proves most strikingly how straight the poet had gone to the hearts of his readers. They had recognised the voice of a human being, and heard it gladly. This gathering was convincing testimony, if such were needed, of the truthfulness and sincerity of his writings. No doubt Burns, with his great force of understanding, appreciated the welcome of those brother-farmers, and valued it above the adulation he afterwards received in Edinburgh. The Kilmarnock Edition was but a few months old, yet here was a gathering of hard-working men, who had read his poems, we may be sure, from cover to cover, and now they were eager to thank him who had sung the joys and sorrows of their workaday lives. Of course there was a great banquet, and night wore into morning before the company dispersed. They had seen the poet face to face, and the man was greater than his poems. Next morning he resumed his journey, breakfasting at Carnwath, and reaching Edinburgh in the evening. He had come, as he tells us, without a letter of introduction in his pocket, and he took up his abode with John Richmond in Baxter's Close, off the Lawnmarket. He had known Richmond when he was a clerk with Gavin Hamilton, and had kept up a correspondence with him ever since he had left Mauchline. The lodging was a It would be vain to attempt to describe Burns's feelings during those first few days in Edinburgh. He had never before been in a larger town than Kilmarnock or Ayr; and now he walked the streets of Scotland's capital, to him full of history and instinct with the associations of centuries. This was really the heart of Scotland, the home of heroes who fought and fell for their country, 'the abode of kings of other years.' His sentimental attachment to Jacobitism became more pronounced as he looked on Holyrood. For Burns, a representative of the strength and weakness of his countrymen, was no less representative of Scotland's sons in his chivalrous pity for the fate of Queen Mary and his romantic loyalty to the gallant Prince Charlie. His poetical espousal of the cause of the luckless Stuarts was purely a matter of sentiment, a kind of pious pity that had little to do with reason; and in this he was typical of his countrymen even of the present day, who are loyal to the house of Stuart in song, and in life are loyal subjects of their Queen. We are told, and we can well believe that for the first few days of his stay he wandered about, looking down from Arthur's Seat, gazing at the Castle, or contemplating the windows of the booksellers' shops. We know that he made a special pilgrimage to the grave of Fergusson, and that in a letter, dated February 6, 1787, he applied to the honourable bailies of Canongate, Edinburgh, for No sculptured marble here, nor pompous lay, "No storied urn nor animated bust"; This simple stone directs pale Scotia's way To pour her sorrow o'er her poet's dust.' On the reverse side is recorded the fact that the stone was erected by Robert Burns, and that the ground was to remain for ever sacred to the memory of Robert Fergusson. It is related, too, that he visited Ramsay's house, and that he bared his head when he entered. Burns over and over again, both in prose and verse, turned to these two names with a kind of fetich worship, that it is difficult to understand. He must have known that, as a poet, he was immeasurably superior to both. It may have been that their writings first opened his eyes to the possibilities of the Scots tongue in lyrical and descriptive poetry; and there was something also which appealed to him in the wretched life of Fergusson. 'O thou, my elder brother in misfortune, By far my elder brother in the Muses.' His elder brother indeed by some six years! But there is more of reverence than sound judgment in his estimate of either Ramsay or Fergusson. Burns, however, had come to Edinburgh with a fixed purpose in view, and it would not do to waste his time mooning about the streets. On December 7 we find This letter shows that Burns had already been taken up, as the phrase goes, by the Élite of Edinburgh; and it shows also and quite as clearly in the tone of quiet banter, that he was little likely to lose his head by the notice taken of him. To the Earl of Glencairn, mentioned in it, he had been introduced probably by Mr. Dalrymple of Orangefield, whom he knew both as a brother-mason and a brother-poet. The Earl had already seen the Kilmarnock Edition of the poems, and now he not only introduced Burns to William Creech, the leading publisher in Edinburgh, but he got the members of the Caledonian Hunt to become subscribers for a second edition of the poems. To Erskine he had been introduced at a meeting of the Canongate Kilwinning Lodge of Freemasons; and assuredly there was no man living more likely to exert himself in the interests of a genius like Burns. Two days after this letter to Gavin Hamilton there appeared in The Lounger Mackenzie's apprec But Mackenzie did more than praise. He pointed out the fact that the author had had a terrible struggle To Burns, at the time, such a criticism as this must have been all the more pleasing, inasmuch as it was the verdict of a man whose best-known work had been one of the poet's favourite books. We can easily imagine that, under the patronage of Lord Glencairn and Henry Erskine, and after Mackenzie's generous recognition of his genius, the doors of the best houses in Edinburgh would be open to him. His letter to John Ballantine, Ayr, written a few days after this criticism appeared, shows in what circles the poet was then moving. 'I have been introduced to a good many of the noblesse, but my avowed patrons and patronesses are, the Duchess of Gordon, the Countess of Glencairn with my Lord Burns was now indeed the lion of Edinburgh. It must have been a great change for a man to have come straight from the stilts of the plough to be dined and toasted by such men as Lord Glencairn, Lord Monboddo, and the Hon. Henry Erskine; to be fÊted and flattered by the Duchess of Gordon, the Countess of Glencairn, and Lady Betty Cunningham; to count amongst his friends Mr. Mackenzie and Professors Stewart and Blair. It would have been little wonder if his head had been turned by the patronage of the nobility, the deference and attention of the literary and learned coteries of Edinburgh. But Burns was too sensible to be carried away by the adulation of a season. A man of his keenness of penetration and clearness of insight would appreciate the praise of the world at its proper value. He bore himself with becoming dignity, taking his place in refined society as one who had a right there, without showing himself either conceitedly aggressive or meanly servile. He took his part in conversation, but no more than his part, and expressed himself with freedom and decision. His conversation, All who have left written evidence of Burns's visit to Edinburgh are agreed that he conducted himself with manliness and dignity, and all have left record of the powerful impression his conversation made on them. And Professor Stewart goes further than this when he speaks of the soundness and sanity of Burns's nature. 'The attentions he received during his stay in town from all ranks and descriptions of persons, were such as would have turned any head but his own. He retained the same simplicity of manner and appearance which had struck me so forcibly when I first saw him in the country; nor did he seem to feel any additional self-importance from the number and rank of his new acquaintance. His dress was perfectly suited to his station, plain and unpretentious, with a sufficient attention to neatness.' Principal Robertson has left it on record, that he had scarcely ever met with any man whose conversation displayed greater vigour than that of Burns. Walter Scott, a youth of some sixteen years at the time, met Burns at the house of Dr. Adam Ferguson, and was particularly struck with his poetic eye, 'which literally glowed when he spoke with feeling or interest,' and with his forcible conversation. 'Among the men who were the most learned of their time and country, he expressed himself with perfect firmness, but without the l But whilst ladies of rank and fashion were deluging this Ayrshire ploughman with invitations, and vying one with another in their patronage and worship, the mind of the poet was no less busy registering impressions of every new experience. If the learned men of Edinburgh set themselves to study the character of a genius who upset all their cherished theories of birth and education, and to chronicle his sayings and doings, Burns at the same time was studying them, gauging their powers intuitively, telling their limitations at a glance. For he must measure every man he met, and himself with him. His standard was always the same; every brain was weighed against his own; but with Burns this was never more than a comparison of capacities. He you will bear me witness that when my bubble of fame was at the highest, I stood unintoxicated with the inebriating cup in my hand, looking forward with rueful resolve to the hastening time when the blow of calamity should dash it to the ground with all the eagerness of vengeful triumph.' In a letter to Dr. Moore he harps on the same string, for he sees clearly enough that though his abilities as a poet are worthy of recognition, it is the novelty of his position and the strangeness of the life he has pictured in his poems that have brought him into polite notice. The field of his poetry, rather than the poetry itself, is the wonder in the eyes of stately society. To the Rev. Mr. Lawrie of Loudon he writes in a similar strain, All this time he had been busy correcting the proofs of his poems; and now that he was already assured the edition would be a success, he began to think seriously of the future and of settling down again as farmer. The appellation of Scottish Bard, he confessed to Mrs. Dunlop, was his highest pride; to continue to deserve it, his most exalted ambition. He had no dearer aim than to be able to make 'leisurely pilgrimages through Caledonia, to sit on the fields of her battles, to wander on the romantic banks of her rivers, and to muse by the stately towers or venerable ruins, once the honoured abodes of her heroes.' But that was a Utopian dream; he had dallied long enough with life, and now it was time he should be in earnest. 'I have a fond, an aged mother to care for; and some other bosom ties perhaps equally tender.' Perhaps, had Burns received before he left Edinburgh the £500 which Creech ultimately paid him for the Edinburgh Edition, he might have gone straight to a farm in the south country, and taken up what he considered the serious business of life. He himself, about this time, estimated that he would clear nearly £300 by authorship, and with that sum he intended to return to farming. Mr. Miller of Dalswinton had expressed a wish to have Burns as tenant of one of his farms, and the poet had been already approached on the subject. The past also as much as the future weighed on the poet's mind. His days had been so fully occupied in Edinburgh that he had little leisure to think on some dark and dramatic episodes of Mauchline and Kilmarnock; but now in his wanderings he has time not only to think but to brood; and we may be sure the face of Bonnie Jean haunted him in dreams, and that his heart heard again and again the plaintive voices of little children. In several of his letters now we detect a tone of bitterness, in which we suspect there is more of remorse than of resentment with the world. He certainly was disappointed that Creech could not pay him in full, but he must have been gratified with the reception his poems had got. The list of subscribers ran to thirty-eight pages, and was representative of every class in Scotland. In the words of Cunningham: 'All that coterie influence and individual exertion—all that the noblest and humblest could do, was done to aid in giving it a kind reception. Creech, too, had announced it through the booksellers of the land, and it was soon diffused over the country, over the colonies, and wherever the language was spoken. The literary men of the South seemed even to fly to a height beyond those of the North. Some hesitated not to call him the Northern Shakspeare.' This surely was a great achievement for one who, a few months previously, had been skulking from covert to covert to escape the terrors of a jail. He had hardly dared to hope for the commendation of the Edinburgh critics, yet he had been received by the best society of the capital; his genius had been recognised by the highest literary authorities of Scotland; If the poems this volume contained established fully and finally the reputation of the poet, the subscription list was a no less substantial proof of a generous and enthusiastic appreciation of his genius on the part of his countrymen. And that Burns must have recognised. A man of his s |