and supposing that poetry would scarcely give a living, agreed to go to Jamaica in the capacity of bookkeeper on a plantation. In order to pay for his transportation he published, at the suggestion of a friend, a number of poems lying in his table drawer. The enthusiasm with which the Kilmarnock volume was received in all directions promptly put an end to the Jamaica scheme. The "Ayrshire Ploughman," as he now came to be called, went to Edinburgh instead. Winter in Edinburgh. "The journey from Mossgiel to Edinburgh," says Principal Shairp, "was a sort of triumphal progress. The feasting and enthusiasm on the way were, moreover, merely a foretaste of what the whole winter in Edinburgh was to be. All classes welcomed him to their homes and hearts; in one sense better still, all subscribed liberally to the second edition of his poems, published in April, 1787," for the sole benefit of the author." From this edition Burns received £500, a huge fortune for one of his experience. Farewell to Greatness in Edinburgh. After travelling in various parts of Scotland, and visiting Ayrshire, Burns returned to Edinburgh. But his second winter there was not to be a duplicate of the first. Though he had been proclaimed on all sides a brilliant conversationalist and a satisfactory guest, the novelty of the ploughman poet had worn off, and the best of Edinburgh's intellectual and social life was weary of its "lion." Burns was, moreover, very proud, and acted as if the adulation of Edinburgh was only his due. He once wrote to a friend: "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 which I have a right to." In March, 1788, he left Edinburgh, and TAM O'SHANTER CROSSING THE BRIDGE OF AYR. some biographers have doubtless painted too darkly the Poe of nat and th hackg The m turns "artle sympa 1 Despite brought man has a Scotch setting, it is much broader in its reach. "For a' that, an' a' that, It's coming yet, for a' that, That man to man, the warld o'er, Shall brothers be for a' that." Burns's Songs. But Burns's most enduring claim on the "Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes " and to "Of poet a nature dom; Alth Arcadi called Travel |