Chapter 3

'The first is a petition of T. J., farmer at Mirecleugh, addressed to the justices of peace for Dumfriesshire, reclaiming against a fine of L.5 which Collector Mitchell had imposed on him for "making fifty-four bushels of malt, without entry, notice, or licence." J. stated that he had been in the habit of making malt for forty years without making entry of his kiln or pond, which he deemed unnecessary, because the malting was always effected at one operation, and not till notice had been given to the proper officer. With respect to "notice" on this occasion--having inquired of Mr Burns which was the best way of sending it to him, he had been informed that a letter might be sent to "John Kelloch's," in Thornhill, whence it might be forwarded by post. He had brought Mrs Kelloch to swear that such a letter had been sent to her by J.'s son for Mr Burns, but had been mislaid. He offered to swear that he had sent the notice to Thornhill in good time, and had had no intention to defraud the revenue. With respect to "licence," J. averred that he had only been prevented from renewing it as usual this year because Mr Mitchell, on his applying for it, had put him off to another time, on the score of being too busy at the time to grant it to him.

'In respect of J.'s petition, the justices, Mr Fergusson of Craigdarroch, and Captain Riddel, ordered the collector to stop proceedings until they should have had an opportunity of inquiring into the truth of what it set forth. Then came Burns's "Answers to the Petition of T. J.:--

"1. Whether the petitioner has been in use formerly to malt all his grain at one operation, is foreign to the purpose: this last season he certainly malted his crop at four or five operations; but be that as it may, Mr J. ought to have known that by express act of parliament no malt, however small the quantity, can be legally manufactured until previous entry be made in writing of all the ponds, barns, floors, &c., so as to be used before the grain can be put to steep. In the Excise entry-books for the division there is not a syllable of T. J.'s name for a number of years bygone.

"2. True it is that Mr Burns, on his first ride, in answer to Mr J.'s question anent the conveying of the notices, among other ways pointed out the sending it by post as the most eligible method, but at the same time added this express clause, and to which Mr Burns is willing to make faith: 'At the same time, remember, Mr J., that the notice is at your risk until it reach me.' Further, when Mr Burns came to the petitioner's kiln, there was a servant belonging to Mr J. ploughing at a very considerable distance from the kiln, who left his plough and three horses without a driver, and came into the kiln, which Mr B. thought was rather a suspicious circumstance, as there was nothing extraordinary in an Excise-officer going into a legal malt-floor so as to [induce a man to] leave three horses yoked to a plough in the distant middle of a moor. This servant, on being repeatedly questioned by Mr Burns, could not tell when the malt was put to steep, when it was taken out, &c.--in short, was determined to be entirely ignorant of the affair. By and by, Mr J.'s son came in, and on being questioned as to the steeping, taking out of the grain, &c., Mr J., junior, referred me to this said servant, this ploughman, who, he said, must remember it best, as having been the principal actor in the business. The lad _then_, having gotten his cue, circumstantially recollected all about it.

"All this time, though I was telling the son and servant the nature of the premunire they had incurred, though they pleaded for mercy keenly, the affair of the notice having been sent never once occurred to them, not even the son, who is said to have been the bearer. This was a stroke reserved for, and worthy of the gentleman himself. As to Mrs Kelloch's oath, it proves nothing. She did indeed depone to a line being left for me at her house, which said line miscarried. It was a sealed letter; she could not tell whether it was a malt-notice or not; she could not even condescend on the month, nor so much as the season of the year. The truth is, T. J. and his family being Seceders, and consequently coming every Sunday to Thornhill Meeting-house, they were a good conveyance for the several maltsters and traders in their neighbourhood to transmit to post their notices, permits, &c.

"But why all this tergiversation? It was put to the petitioner in open court, after a full investigation of the cause: 'Was he willing to swear that he meant no fraud in the matter?' And the justices told him that if he swore he would be assoilzied [absolved], otherwise he should be fined; still the petitioner, after ten minutes' consideration, found his conscience unequal to the task, and declined the oath.

"Now, indeed, he says he is willing to swear: he has been exercising his conscience in private, and will perhaps stretch a point. But the fact to which he is to swear was equally and in all parts known to him on that day when he refused to swear as to-day: nothing can give him further light as to the intention of his mind, respecting his meaning or not meaning a fraud in the affair. _No time can cast further light on the present resolves of the mind; but time will reconcile, and has reconciled many a man to that iniquity which he at first abhorred._"'

No one can fail to see, even in this piece of business, something of the extraordinary mental energy of Burns.

The daily life of Burns, in his latter years at Dumfries, is described in the following terms:--'He has daily duties in stamping leather, gauging malt-vats, noting the manufacture of candles, and granting licences for the transport of spirits. These duties he performs with fidelity to the king and not too much rigour to the subject. As he goes about them in the forenoon, in his respectable suit of dark clothes, and with his little boy Robert perhaps holding by his hand and conversing with him on his school-exercises, he is beheld by the general public with respect, as a person in some authority, the head of a family, and also as a man of literary note; and people are heard addressing him deferentially as _Mr_ Burns--a form of his name which is still prevalent in Dumfries. At a leisure hour before dinner, he will call at some house where there is a piano--such as Mr Newall, the writer's--and there have some young miss to touch over for him one or two of his favourite Scotch airs, such as, the _Sutor's Daughter_, in order that he may accommodate to it some stanzas that have been humming through his brain for the last few days. For another half hour, he will be seen standing at the head of some cross street with two or three young fellows, bankers' clerks, or "writer-chiels" commencing business, whom he is regaling with sallies of his bright but not always innocent wit--indulging there, indeed, in a strain of conversation so different from what had passed in the respectable elderly writer's mansion, that, though he were not the same man, it could not have been more different. Later in the day, he takes a solitary walk along the Dock Green by the river side, or to Lincluden, and composes the most part of a new song; or he spends a couple of hours at his folding-down desk, between the fire and window in his parlour, transcribing in his bold round hand the remarks which occur to him on Mr Thomson's last letter, together with some of his own recently composed songs. As a possible variation upon this routine, he has been seen passing along the old bridge of Devorgilla Balliol, about three o'clock, with his sword-cane in his hand, and his black beard unusually well shaven, being on his way to dine with John Syme at Ryedale, where young Mr Oswald of Auchincruive is to be of the party--or maybe in the opposite direction, to partake of the luxuries of John Bushby, at Tinwald Downs. But we presume a day when no such attraction invades. The evening is passing quietly at home, and pleasant-natured Jean has made herself neat, and come in at six o'clock to give him his tea--a meal he always takes. At this period, however, there is something remarkably exciting in the proceedings of the French army under Pichegru; or Fox, Adam, or Sheridan, is expected to make an onslaught upon the ministry in the House of Commons. The post comes into Dumfries at eight o'clock at night. There is always a group of gentlemen on the street, eager to hear the news. Burns saunters out to the High Street, and waits amongst the rest. The intelligence of the evening is very interesting. The Convention has decreed the annexation of the Netherlands--or the new treason-bill has passed the House of Lords, with only the feeble protest of Bedford, Derby, and Lauderdale. These things merit some discussion. The trades-lads go off to strong ale in the closes; the gentlemen slide in little groups into the King's Arms Hotel or the George. As for Burns, he will just have a single glass and a half-hour's chat beside John Hyslop's fire, and then go quietly home. So he is quickly absorbed in the little narrow close where that vintner maintains his state. There, however, one or two friends have already established themselves, all with precisely the same virtuous intent. They heartily greet the bard. Meg or John bustles about to give him his accustomed place, which no one ever disputes. And, somehow, the debate on the news of the evening leads on to other chat of an interesting kind. Then Burns becomes brilliant, and his friends give him the applause of their laughter. One jug succeeds another--mirth abounds--and it is not till Mrs Hyslop has declared that they are going beyond all bounds, and she positively will not give them another drop of hot water, that our bard at length bethinks him of returning home, where Bonnie Jean has been lost in peaceful slumber for three hours, after vainly wondering "what can be keeping Robert out so late the nicht." Burns gets to bed a little excited and worn out, but not in a state to provoke much remark from his amiable partner, in whom nothing can abate the veneration with which she has all along regarded him. And though he beds at a latish hour, most likely he is up next morning between seven and eight, to hear little Robert his day's lesson in _Cæsar_, or, if the season invites, to take a half-hour's stroll before breakfast along the favourite Dock Green.'

Whenever a female of any rank secured the goodwill of Burns, he was sure to compliment her in verse, and it was always by putting her into the light of an adored mistress. In his latter days, when declining in health, an amiable young girl, sister of one of his brother officers, obtained his friendly regard by endeavouring to lighten the labours of housekeeping to his wife, then also in a delicate state. The lady, who still lives, 'relates that, one morning she had a call from the poet, when he offered, if she would play him any tune of which she was fond, and for which she desired new verses, to gratify her in her wish to the best of his ability. She placed herself at the pianoforte, and played over several times the air of an old song beginning with the words--

The robin cam to the wren's nest, And keekit in, and keekit in: O weel's me on your auld pow! Wad ye be in, wad ye be in? Ye'se ne'er get leave to lie without, And I within, and I within, As lang's I hae an auld clout, To row ye in, to row ye in.

'As soon as his ear got accustomed to the melody, Burns sat down, and in a very few minutes he produced the beautiful song:

OH, WERT THOU IN THE CAULD BLAST.

Oh, wert thou in the cauld blast On yonder lea, on yonder lea, My plaidie to the angry airt, I'd shelter thee, I'd shelter thee: Or did misfortune's bitter storms Around thee blaw, around thee blaw, Thy bield should be my bosom, To share it a', to share it a'.

Or were I in the wildest waste, Sae black and bare, sae black and bare, The desert were a paradise, If thou wert there, if thou wert there: Or were I monarch o' the globe, Wi' thee to reign, wi' thee to reign, The brightest jewel in my crown Wad be my queen, wad be my queen.

'The anecdote is a trivial one in itself; but we feel that the circumstances--the deadly illness of the poet, the beneficent worth of Miss Lewars, and the reasons for his grateful desire of obliging her--give it a value. It is curious, and something more, to connect it with the subsequent musical fate of the song, for many years after, when Burns had become a star in memory's galaxy, and Jessy Lewars was spending her quiet years of widowhood over her book or her knitting in a little parlour in Maxwelltown, the verses attracted the regard of Felix Mendelssohn, who seems to have divined the peculiar feeling beyond all common love which Burns breathed through them. By that admirable artist, so like our great bard in a too early death, they were married to an air of exquisite pathos, "such as the meeting soul may pierce." Burns, Jessy Lewars, Felix Mendelssohn--genius, goodness, and tragic melancholy, all combined in one solemn and profoundly affecting association!'

In numberless instances, the hitherto loosely stated facts of Burns's life are corrected in the present work, partly through the accuracy of a strictly historical arrangement, and partly by direct reference to written documents. On account of the value of dates in placing the facts and compositions in that order which gives so much illustration to the character of the poet, the editor has taken what might appear in other circumstances a pedantic degree of pains on that score. Of this we have an example in regard to the chronology of Burns's attachment to Highland Mary. To fix that affair as occurring in the summer of 1786--an episode in the connection of the poet with the young woman who ultimately became his wife--it is necessary to establish the death of Mary as occurring about the 20th of October that year. This is done partly by reference to a register of burial sites in a church-yard, and partly by a chain of curious evidence respecting the day which Burns celebrated three years after as the anniversary of the event. He composed on that day his beautiful address _To Mary in Heaven_, beginning--

Thou lingering star with lessening ray, That lov'st to greet the early morn, &c.

Mrs Burns had a recollection of the day, which, she said, was in September, at the end of harvest, and which, she added, he spent in his usual duties, though labouring under a cold. As the twilight deepened, he grew sad about something, and wandered out into the barn-yard, to which she followed him, entreating him in vain to observe that frost had set in, and to return to the fireside. She finally found him there stretched on a mass of straw, with his eyes fixed on a beautiful planet, which shone like another moon. He was engaged at that moment in apostrophising the soul of Mary. Out of this anecdote, the editor of the present work contrives to obtain evidence as to the true date in the following manner:--

'In the first place, the harvest was late that year. We find in the Scottish newspapers of the time, that, in the middle of October, a great deal of grain was still _out_ even in the favoured district around Falkirk; while a letter from Sanquhar (Burns's neighbourhood), dated the 21st, states that "while much was cut, _very little was yet got in_, owing to the bad weather." It appears that harvest was commenced by the 8th of September in some districts, but was interrupted by rains, and was not concluded till near the end of the ensuing month. Consequently, the incident _might_ take place in the latter part of October, and _still be connected with harvest operations_. The second portion of our evidence on the subject is from one of the exact sciences, and appears to us at once to settle the time of the day--the month--and almost the day of the month.

'It fully appears that the planet Venus is the one referred to by the poet, for the description applies only to it. Now Venus was in conjunction with the sun, May 30, 1789, and after that became visible as the _evening-star_ towards the end of the summer, reaching its greatest brilliancy in winter. It is therefore certain that the star which "loves to greet the early morn" did not at this time "usher in the day," and consequently, so far as the time of day alluded to in the poem is concerned, a poetical liberty was taken with truth. On the 21st of September the sun set at six o'clock, and Venus forty-four minutes thereafter. The planet was consequently not to be seen at that time except faintly in the twilight. But on the 21st of October the sun set in the latitude of Ellisland at 4h 53m, and Venus 1h 3m afterwards. Consequently, Venus would then have begun to assume a brilliant appearance during a short interval after sunset. On that day the moon was four days old, and within eight diameters of Venus. The planet would then of course be beginning to be dimmed by the moonlight, and this effect would go on increasing till the moon had passed the full--that is, early in November. If, then, we are to set aside the possibility of a later month than October, and keeping in view the all but certainty that Mary was not buried till some time after the 12th of that month, it seems reasonable to conclude, that the barn-yard musings of Burns took place between five and six o'clock of the evening of some day about the 19th or 20th of October, and consequently a very short time after the merry-meeting for the Whistle-contest at Friars' Carse.

'That a month later than October could have been the date of the incident will, I presume, scarcely be argued for. The moon was at the full on Tuesday the 2d of November, and it could not be till after that day that the first hour of the night would be "starry," with Venus in full blaze. By that time, as far as we can gather from the chronicles of the time, the harvest was past. Besides, Mrs Burns might easily mistake September for October, but scarcely for November, a month of such different associations. On this point the temperature of the time might throw some light, if we could be sure of the exact meaning to be attached to the phrase--"the frost had set in." It chances that the temperature of October that year was unusually high, the average at eight o'clock in the evening in Edinburgh being 45-1/2° Fahrenheit. The _Edinburgh Advertiser_ of 30th October speaks of apple-trees and bean-stalks renewing their blossoms in consequence of the extraordinary mildness. On the 19th of October, at eight o'clock in the evening, the thermometer indicated in Edinburgh 51°; on the 20th, at the same hour, 59°; on the 21st, 51° again. The only approach to frost was on the 30th and 31st, when, at eight in the evening, the thermometer was respectively at 33° and 37°. After this, it rose to a more temperate point. Hence it becomes evident that _literal frost_ did not then exist at any such period of the day. Probably Mrs Burns merely thought the evening was beginning to be comparatively chilly. If we can admit of this construction being put upon her words, I would be disposed to pitch upon the _warmest evening_ of the little period within which we are confined--for unless the poet had been in a peculiarly excited state, so as to be insensible to external circumstances, which is obviously a different thing from being in a merely pensive state, we must suppose him as not likely to lie down in the open air after sunset, except under favour of some uncommon amount of "ethereal mildness." Seeing, on the other hand, how positively inviting to such a procedure would be a temperature of 59°, I leave the subject with scarcely a doubt that the composition of _To Mary in Heaven_ took place on Tuesday the 20th of October, and that this was consequently the date of the death of the heroine.'

This, no doubt, seems a great muster of evidence about so small a matter; but to judge of the rationality of its being entered upon, the reader must keep in mind the relation of the incident to others. If it only proved that the comic drinking-song _The Whistle_, and _To Mary in Heaven_, were written within three days of each other, it might be not altogether labour lost, for it would establish an exceedingly curious literary anecdote. But the bearing it has on the whole affair of Highland Mary--one of the most deeply interesting passages of Burns's life--is such as, in our opinion, to make every other justification superfluous.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] _Life and Works of Burns._ Edited by Robert Chambers. 4 vols. Edinburgh: 1852.

VISIT TO THE COPPER-WORKS OF SWANSEA.

Our first glimpse of the copper-works was obtained in the 'gloaming' of a lovely night in August last year, as we rattled over the Landore viaduct of the South Wales Railway. On each side of us, we could behold, given out by the chimneys, innumerable flashes of lurid flame, which rose like meteors into the atmosphere, and scattered around a brilliant light, that was seen in the distance to blend with the waters of Swansea Bay. The scene was very beautiful, and singularly picturesque: we could have wished our enjoyment of it prolonged; but soon the shrill whistle, the escape-valve, and the lamps of the station, admonished us that our journey had come to an end.

Our principal object in visiting Swansea, was to obtain some information concerning the important business of copper-smelting, for which this port has now become so celebrated. Few of our readers, who have not enjoyed our opportunities of seeing them, can form any accurate conception of the vast extent and great economical value and importance of the Swansea copper-works. Indeed, the copper trade is far from being popularly known; and the reason is obvious. Iron, which is very widely distributed in the British islands, is invariably smelted wherever it occurs. Copper, on the contrary, is only mined in one or two localities; and it is never manufactured on the spot. This process is performed almost exclusively at Swansea; and hence the copper trade of the country is confined to a few individual houses, and these are in a locality alike remote and unfrequented by the everyday tourist.

At the period when the first copper-work was established on the banks of the Tawy, about a century ago, Swansea was comparatively an insignificant village. It is therefore to this branch of industry the town and port are chiefly indebted for their remarkable rise and progress. The population in 1801 was only about 6000; while in 1851, if we include the copper-smelting district, it had already reached the number of 40,000. The original cause of Swansea being selected as the great seat of the copper trade, we may very briefly explain. It was early discovered that, from the non-existence of coal in the mining districts of Cornwall and Devonshire, copper, although raised in vast abundance, could not be profitably smelted there. In fact, it was not until a considerable time after copper-mining was properly pursued in Cornwall, that the minerals could be turned to a profitable account. It became apparent at length, however, both from the large quantity of coal necessary for the reduction of copper-ores, and the great expense of the transport, that instead of carrying coal to Cornwall to smelt the ores--the greater quantity to the less--an opposite course must be pursued, and the ores carried to the coal districts, and there smelted.