her to Mrs. Dunlop and others in terms of sobriety and good sense. But the reader, we take for granted, knows how Burns wrote to Mrs. Dunlop.-"Only think of Burns," continues Wilson, "taking an Edinburgh belle to wife! He flew somewhat too fervently to 'Love's willing fetters-the chains of his Jean."" Again sayeth the oracle Of all the women Burns ever loved, Mary Campbell not excepted, the dearest to him by far, from first to last, was Jean Armour. During composition, her image rises up from his heart before his eyes the instant he touches on any thought or feeling with which she could in any way be connected; and sometimes his allusions to her might seem out of place, did they not please us by letting us know that he could not altogether forget her, whatever the subject the muse had chosen. Others may have inspired more poetical strains; but there is an earnestness in his fervours at her name, that brings her, breathing in warm flesh and blood, to his breast. High land Mary he would have made his wife, and perhaps have broken her heart. He loved her, living, as a creature in a dream; [this is not the Poet's own account of it;] dead as a spirit in Heaven. But Jean Armour possessed his heart in the stormiest period of the passions, and she possessed it in the lull which preceded their dissolution. She was well worthy of his affection, on account of her excellent qualities; and though never beautiful, had many personal attractions. But Burns felt himself bound to her by that inscrutable mystery in the soul of every man, by which one other being, and one only, is believed, and truly, to be essential to his happiness here without whom life is not life. This is somewhat mystical; though there is little doubt, we think, that Burns was sincerely attached to his wife. Yet in the spring of 1791, when he had been three years at Ellisland, a husband and a father; three years that were the most tranquil and happy of his troubled life, we find him writing Mrs. M'Lehose I cannot, will not, enter into extenuatory circumstances; else I could show you how my precipitate, headlong, unthinking conduct, leagued with a conjuncture of unlucky events, to thrust me out of a possibility of keeping the path of rectitude; to curse me, by an irreconcileable war between my duty and my dearest wishes, and to damn me with a choice only of different species of error and misconduct. I dare not trust myself farther with this subject. This letter enclosed his song, "Thine I am, my faithful fair." Mrs. M'Lehose has either been the inspiration of some of his most exquisite songs, or the necessary peg on which every amatory poet, Petrarch included, must hang his love verses. His most pathetic love-song-the most pathetic, indeed, that ever united passion, tenderness, and genius, effused-is said to have sprung from this unfortunate attachment. This origin may, to some sensitive minds, somewhat desecrate the song, "Ae fond kiss, and then we sever." Burns sent a copy of this song to Mrs. M'Lehose, but without any personal reference; as he did another to Mrs. Dunlop; and the lines, also sent to the late Clarinda, beginning "Sensibility, how charming!" stand inscribed, in his works, "To my dear and honoured friend, Mrs. Dunlop of Dunlop;" so that his poetical compliments were pretty equally distributed. There is another alleged heroine of the ex 66 66 an following Allan Cunningham in his Notes on Scot- "O May, thy morn was ne'er so sweet, But I will lang remember." Burns seems to have received some letters from Clarinda in the course of 1791; and in the autumn of that year he thus replies to them : I would have answered the first long ago; but on what subject shall I write you? How can you expect a correspondent should write you, when you declare that you mean to preserve his letters, with a view, sooner or later, to expose them on the pillory of derision, and the rack of criticism? This is gagging me completely, as to speaking the sentiments of my bosom; else, Madam, I could, perhaps, too truly "Join grief with grief, and echo sighs to thine!" I have perused your most beautiful, but most pathetic Poem: do not ask me how often, or with what emotions! You know that "I dare to sin, but not to lie!" Your verses wring the confession from my inmost soul, thatI will say it, expose it if you please-that I have, more than once in my life, been the victim of a damning conjuncture of circumstances; and that to me you must be ever "Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes." The world was going ill with Burns by this time. In the month of December he came to Edinburgh, and a complete reconciliation was, we are told, the consequence of a meeting, which was the last. Burns was, about this time, much harassed, and often in wretchedly low spirits; and but a few weeks previously he had resigned his farm in despair, and removed to Dumfries with his family. He once more needed a resting-place for his bruised heart; some one to pour the oil and wine into his chafed and tortured spirit. In the day of desolation, his heart, perhaps, reverted to the engaging and accomplished woman whose greatest error, in his eyes, could only be, that she had loved him not wisely, but too well; reverted, but with the sobered feelings which yet evince genuine tenderness for one whom he had bidden love him with all his faults, and in spite of them;" and whom he had come to love "in spite of hers." Some change had also taken place in the fortunes of Mrs. M'Lehose. She had lost one of her two children; and her husband, so far as we learn from a narrative which she left behind her, after the silence and neglect of many years, unexpectedly sent her an invitation to come to him in Jamaica, and a bill for £50 to equip her for the voyage. He also requested that their only surviving son should be placed at the best school which Edinburgh or its neighbourhood afforded. Mrs. M'Lehose, after considerable hesitation and doubt, was, by the advice of her friends, the liberal promises made for her child, and the good accounts which she received of the reformed character of her husband, induced to undertake the voyage. On this subject she had either corresponded with Burns, or, at all events, had by some means apprized him of quisite song, “Ae fond kiss," whom Mr. Lockhart, her purpose. On going to Jamaica, she met D with a cold reception from her capricious husband; and she remained for only a few miserable months on the island. She found Mr. M'Lehose with a coloured mistress and family, and his temper more violent and wrathful than ever. Her health suffered from the climate, and the nervous state superinduced by mental anxiety; and she must have been delighted to find herself back in Edinburgh with her son and among her friends. On hearing of her voyage, Burns sent her a couple of songs, which she was at liberty to apply to herself, if she pleased. He says nothing on the subject. They are those beginning and "Behold the hour, the boat arrive," "Aince mair I hail thee, thou gloomy December." It was on the 6th December, 1791, that they parted for ever. Before embarking for Jamaica, in the following February, Mrs. M'Lehose, who would not resign her character of religious monitor, however ungracefully it might sit upon her, thus exhorts him : Read my former letters attentirely: let the religious tenets there expressed sink deep into your mind; meditate on them with candour, and your accurate judgment must be convinced that they accord with the words of Eternal Truth! Laugh no more at holy things, or holy men remember, "without holiness no man shall see God." Another thing, and I have done: as you value my peace, do not write me to Jamaica, until I let you know you may with safety. Write Mary often. She feels for you and judges of your present feelings by her own. I am sure you will be happy to hear of my happiness and I trust you will-soon. When he learned that she had returned, it was Burns (who, at her request, had kept up a sort of correspondence with her friend Mary Peacock) that seems to have first broken silence. He sent her a volume of "Johnson's Museum," that treasury of many of his best songs; and made these frantic stipulations Shall I hear from you? But first hear me. No cold language, no prudential documents: I despise advice, and scorn control. If you are not to write such language, such sentiments as you know I shall wish, shall delight to receive, I conjure you, by wounded pride! by ruined peace! by frantic, disappointed passion! by all the many ills that constitute that sum of human woes, a broken heart!!!-to me be silent for ever. Is it, then, true, that if Clarinda flirted first, Burns loved longest? that the strongest nature was the most constant? Of her correspondence we find nothing more; and the last of his letters that appears, is dated 1793. It is written from an inn, while he was on some excise excursion, -and is quite as characteristic as any of the series: Before you ask me why I have not written you, first let me be informed by you, how I shall write you? "In friendship," you say; and I have many a time taken up my pen to try an epistle of "friendship" to you; but it will not do: 'tis like Jove grasping a pop-gun, after having wielded his thunder. When I take up the pen, recollection ruins me. Ah! my ever dearest Clarinda! Clarinda! What a host of memory's tenderest offspring crowd on my fancy at that sound! But I must not in dulge that subject. You have forbid it. I am extremely happy to learn that your precious health is reestablished, and that you are once more fit to enjoy that satisfaction in existence, which health alone can give us. My old friend Ainslie has indeed been kind to you. Tell him that I envy him the power of serving you. I had a letter from him a while ago: but it was so dry, so distant, so like a card to one of his clients, that I could scarce bear to read it, and have not yet answered it. He is a good, honest fellow, and can write a friendly letter, which would do equal honour to his head and his heart, as a whole sheaf of his letters which I have by me will witness; and though Fame does not blow her trumpet at my approach now, as she did then, when he first honoured me with his friendship, yet I am as proud as ever; and when I am laid in my grave, I wish to be stretched at my full length, that I may occupy every inch of ground I have a right to. You would laugh were you to see me where I am just now. Would to Heaven you were here to laugh with me, though I am afraid that crying would be our first employment. Here am I set, a solitary hermit, in the solitary room of a solitary inn, with a solitary bottle of wine by me; as grave and as stupid as an owl, but like that owl, still faithful to my old song; in confirmation of which, my dear Mrs. Mac, here is your good health. May the hand-waled benisons o' Heaven bless your bonnie face; and the wratch wha skellies at your welfare, may the auld tinkler deil get him to clout his rotten heart! Amen. You must know, my dearest Madam, that these now many years, wherever I am, in whatever company, when a married lady is called as a toast, I constantly give you; but as your name has never passed my lips, even to my most intimate friend, I give you by the name of Mrs. Mac. This is so well known among my acquaintances, that when any married lady is called for, the toastmaster will say, "O, we need not ask him who it is: here's Mrs. Mac!" Then a handful of his rhyming wares, his dearest and choicest treasures, are enclosed. In the three years that elapsed before death for ever closed the bright and feverish career of Clarinda's lover, we find no trace of farther correspondence between them. Few more words are needed to close the history of her whose memory must henceforth live in connexion with that of Scotland's Bard; and with what is the most agitating event in his many transient loves. Her name will also live in alliance with some of his finest songs. Mrs. M'Lehose resided in Edinburgh until her decease. After her return from Jamaica, her son was taken as an apprentice by Burns' friend, Mr. Robert Ainslie, W.S.; and the mother and son thus left alone, and fondly attached, continued to live together until the son married. She enjoyed a small, but well-managed independence from the original patrimony secured to her by her father, and the generosity of Lord Craig. Clarinda retained many of her early friends; and, for thirty years, spent a respectable and social, if not a gay life. Living to extreme old age, it was her fate not only to survive her early friends, but her only son, and all her grandchildren with the exception of the Editor of this Correspondence. She died in October 1841, in the house which she had occupied for many years on the Calton Hill. Among her friends, while life was spared them, were James Graham, author of "The Sabbath," the friend of that amiable Mary, whom the reader has already seen. This lady afterwards became the second wife of Mr. James Gray, a gentleman well known for his poetical talents, and as having written a generous Defence of Burns, with whom he became intimately acquainted while Master of the Grammar School of Dumfries. We have somewhere seen a copy of very elegant verses, addressed by Mr. Gray to Mrs. M'Lehose, on her annual social, old-fashioned New-year's-day parties, which would have made an appropriate ornament to this volume. Mr. Robert Ainslie was, also, to the last numbered among her friends; and him, with all the rest, she outlived. As the "fair mistress of the poet's soul," she continued to be an object of some interest, or curiosity, to the admirers of Burns. Clarinda kept a journal; and from it we have the following extracts of entries, one of them made after the lapse of forty years. She survived Burns for nearly half a century : "25th Jan., 1815.-Burns' birth day.-A great dinner at Oman's. Should like to be there, an invisible spectator of all said of that great genius." "6th Dec., 1831.-This day I never can forget. Parted with Burns in the year 1791, never more to meet in this world. Oh, may we meet in Heaven !" In looking back on what we have written, we feel that we may have been harsh, though not unjust, to that woman who, apparently, had at last acquired some interest in the affections of Burns. If it be so, we must plead that strong love and deep reverence for our National Poet which overpowers every sentiment, save the love of truth. GERMAN TRANSLATIONS OF POPULAR SCOTTISH SONGS. GERMAN literature is beginning to be enriched | highly. The lyrical reciprocity will not stop here. by specimens of those of our national lyrics which have a close affinity, or rather a kindred nature, with the popular songs of the Fatherland. The Germans have now got many of the best songs of Burns; and they appear to appreciate them WHEN MAGGY GANGS AWAY. BY JAMES HOGG. O what will a' the lads do When Maggy gangs away? When Maggy gangs away? Young Jock has ta'en the hill for 't- And that is mair in maiden's praise "Twill draw the red-breast frae the wood, The laverock frae the sky; The fairies frae their beds o' dew Will rise and join the lay: And hey! what a day will't be When Maggy gangs away! Our first contribution of this sort, which is by a Lady, and from the songs of the Ettrick Shepherd, is, at least, recommended by almost literal closeness to the original, while its spirit is preserved. WENN GRETCHEN GEHET HIN. BY M. L. J. O was machen alle die Burschen O was machen alle die Burschen Es giebt kein Herz das fürchtet nicht O was machen alle die Burschen Der junge Herr von Langen-Busch, Als Pfaffen geziemt, darin; Es wird Rothkehlchen aus dem Laub, Juch heisa was ist's für ein Tag Our next specimens are by Germans, and still quite as good as manuscript to all English readers, THE FLOWERS OF THE FOREST. BY G. A. VON HALEM, OF OLDENBURG. "I have heard a lilting At the ewes milking," &c., &c. Hier tönten sonst frühe Beim Melken der Kühe Gesänge der Knaben vor Tagesbeginn. Im Thal auf der Höhe ; Die wackersten Jünglinge sanken dahin! Wohl Mädchen die Bürden, Und scherzten und kosten mit Schäfern darin. Verhallt ist das Scherzen, Mit traurigem Herzen Füllt jedes die Eimer, und eilet dahin. Im Dämmern versteckten Sich Mädchen, und schreckten Die Schäfer, und spielten um Küssegewiun. Nun sitzen die Trüben, Und klagen den Lieben: Es sank wohl die Blume des Landes dahin! Am Kirmess beim Reihen War Kosen und Freien; Bei Mähen und Ernten scholl fröhlicher Sinn. Lasset die Herde steh'n Schutzlos im Freyen, Lasset den Fischerkahn Vor dem Altare! Kommt wie die Stürme, die Kommt wie die Fluthen, die Schiffe zerstören. Sammelt euch, sammelt euch, Sehet, sie kommen, sie Kommen, sie kommen, Sehet, sie haben die Waffen genommen. Hoch schwebt der Federbusch Laut ist durch Wald und Busch Wer hat die Mäntel hin Gereicht zu den Waffen! SCENES IN THE LIFE OF AN AUTHORESS. THE PARISH NURSE. WE are now to see the home to which the tender mercies of Miss Snig, the cousin and housekeeper of Justice Tender, and her jealousy of the kind-hearted old man's growing fondness for the infant Barbara, was about to consign our little heroine under the roof of Mrs. Kite; the parish nurse of the town which we shall take leave to call Deerbourne, though it bears no such name in the county map. The street wherein Mrs. Kite dwelt, was situated in a low suburb of the manufacturing town we have before mentioned. It was the very region of squalor and want, famine and riotous debauchery, ill fed and ill paid labour, crime and struggling virtue. The low tavern, with its vicious customers, that sordid gulf that swallowed up the bread of famished wives and children; the huckster's shop, where usury and imposition earned a foul and ruinous per centage; the gin-shop; the butcher's, where hung, in sickly array, the loathsome refuse of a higher market, destined not for the food of dogs, but for a hungered population; the low cellar or the garret of the artisan-homes where crime basked unseen, and hovels where honesty and virtue (man's last and best heirdom) still struggled on upheld by Hope: such scenes and such homes constituted the neighbourhood of Mrs. Kite. The street was narrow, and not over-blest with the light of heaven; but about the middle of it, it somewhat widened and here, in the least squalid part, was the house of Mrs. Kite. In truth, it assumed to itself a greater air of respectability than did the neighbouring dwellings: for its door was painted green; and the window not only possessed the necessary panes of glass, but boasted a row of bright red flower-pots, where vegetated, amid the parched mould, a few sickly plants. It was the afternoon of a dull winter's day, and in the low but wide-spread kitchen of Mrs. Kite's home the family were assembled ; and such a home and such a scene few would witness to forget. The floor of the room was of brick, so broken and worn by time, that in places it was sunk into hollows, wherein seemed to be gathered all the filth of a loathsome negligence. A few articles of crazy and old-fashioned furniture were placed around the kitchen, on which was piled an antiquity of dust and cobwebs. One corner of the ill-conditioned chamber held a large bed, that had once possessed curtains, the remnants of which *Count Purgstall, from his residence in Edinburgh, and intimate connexion with Sectland, possessed more than the ordinary qualifications for the task he aszumed; But Sal was not more obedient than her sister; and giving the hag a glance, as much as to say "fetch it yourself," she quietly went on with her work; and Mrs. Kite venting her spleen in a broad oath, arose, and reaching from the mantelpiece a phial filled with that nurses' comfort and death's friend, the celebrated "Daffy's Elixir," held back the infant on her lap, and inserting the lip of the bottle into its mouth, drenched it with what she thought a sufficient sleeping-draught. "There," exclaimed Mrs. Kite, "I hope ye'll sleep now, ye yelling devil! Lodnum does for the t'other imps; but there's no profit got out of you: for what with Godfrey and Daffy, and gin, you ain't kept for the three shillings that I get a-week for ye; half goes in duty, and the rest the quack puts in his pocket!" "The brat won't trouble ye long, I daresay," said Miss Sally; " 'taint been awake for three hours in the last fortnight, and its next sleep may be its last. And there are them as live about here, as will look sharp if it does die; for when little Jim White died in the summer, there was a precious buzz made; for 'tis common talk as how we dose the brats. The mother sent ye five shillings yesterday, as if to bribe us to be kind to it; and that's enough to pay for one week's rocking, if 'twanted it.” now hung in a thousand tatters, and ill concealed | from the arms of Suke, and stifling its cries with the rude flock-bed, upon which were stretched some her hand, bid Miss Sal Kite fetch her the Daffy. five or six sleeping children, of ages varying from two months to three years. Some seven or eight other children, scarcely older than those that slept, played about on the rude floor; some tied in a broken go-cart, others seated on the ground, and the rest endeavouring to walk, by the help of a chair or table that stood within reach. A wide chimney-piece occupied one side of the room, and the pinched-up and rusty grate, held, at the hour we speak of, a low and smoky fire, over which was swung a large boiling iron-pot, for the contents of which some of the Misses Kite seemed to wait, as they stirred the fire often; and then returned with due diligence to a broken washing-tub, that, propped upon a chair, stood in the middle of the room. Mrs. Kite was easily distinguished from her daughters, by being older and uglier and as we now present her to the reader, she was solacing herself with a short and very black pipe, and had drawn the low chair upon which she was seated so near the grate, that her feet rested amidst the pile of ashes that covered the hearthstone. The pipe seemed to have had a soothing influence upon her: for leaning forward, so that her bony elbows rested on her knees, she took a whiff every now and then, relapsing in the intervals, into a sort of half slumber, though not forgetting, between whiles, to jog a cradle that stood near. The eldest Miss Kite, who had probably seen some fifty years, was an exact representation of her mother; and as Mrs. Kite was a tall woman, Miss Kite was tall also, reaching to six feet two inches; and as none of the Misses Kite averaged less than six feet, they were known in their immediate neighbourhood by the name of the "Six long Kites." Miss Sukey Kite (for that was the name of the eldest) was dressed in a stuff gown, over which, as a contrast, was pinned a yellow silk handkerchief, and her locks of grizzled hair (concealed as well as they could be by a few borrowed curls) were thrust beneath a tattered gauze cap, in colour somewhat darker than her unwashed face. She occupied a seat near her mother; and whilst she beguiled the time by poring over a thumbed newspaper, borrowed from the nearest tavern, she rocked to sleep an emaciated infant of some six weeks old, who, either from pain or hunger, moved restlessly about; and as often as Miss Kite stayed the rocking of her chair, gave forth a feeble and stifled cry. "Curse ye, Suke!" said Mrs. Kite, aroused from her short slumbers; "can't ye rock the brat, instead of spelling out some hangman's story? There's the t'other gals a-washing, Sal a-mending, and Ria gone for the muffins : I'll take the poker to you, if ye don't stop that imp's yell. Lodnum it: I'm not going to have its mumping cry. Sleep it shall, whilst I've the muffins; or it hadn't need come within reach of my fingers." "Stop yer tongue," said Miss Suke. "The brat won't sleep; t'as had lodnum twice since noon; and it's made it sleep no more nor so much water." "Then Daffy it," said Mrs. Kite. "Come, give the imp to me, and I'll dose it." So saying, the hag snatched the wretched infant "You hussy," said Mrs. Kite, "say that again, and I'll dose you. Ye've taken to preaching, have ye, since ye sparked it with Ned Ruffle?" "Come, come," said Miss Suke, "don't be arter blazing at Sal, or I'll The threat was inaudible, or rather lost to hearing; for the two Misses Kite, who had been engaged at the washing-tub, now approached the fire to lift off the boiler; and Miss Suke, finding the fire disengaged, stirred it into a blaze, and swinging over the sooty tea-kettle, commenced the preparation of the tea-board. The dose that Mrs. Kite had administered to the wretched infant, soon produced the desired sleep; and as it lay stretched in an almost death-like slumber, a looker-on might have thought that it was indeed its last repose, saving for the laboured respiration that convulsed its debilitated frame. When it was at length quiet, the hag raised it roughly in her arms, and bearing it to the bed we have described, placed it amidst the other sleeping children; and casting a part of the coarse rug over it, left it to its fate. By the time Mrs. Kite had resumed her seat, Miss Suke had drawn a one-legged table in front of the fire; and, from the lumber of an adjoining shelf, had produced four or five tea-cups, each of a different colour and form,-some with saucers and some without. These, with a black tea-pot, wellnigh spoutless and graced with a tin lid, a broken milk jug, and a large knife, completed the minor preparations. Whilst Miss Suke had thus been occupied, all noise within the kitchen had ceased ; and the children, who had been before so busy, stayed simultaneously in their play, and, with straining eyes and anxious faces, watched every indication of the approaching tea-hour. Those that |