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THE HOUSE IN WHICH BURNS DIED--HIS CIRCUMSTANCES AND
LAST ILLNESS--GOES TO BROW--HIS ANXIETY FOR THE WELFARE OF HIS FAMILY--AN
AFFECTING ANECDOTE--THE POET’S RETURN TO DUMFRIES--THE ANXIETY OF THE
INHABITANTS--JESSIE LEWARS--HIS DEATH AND FUNERAL--THE FAMILY OF
BURNS--THE EXEMPLARY LIFE OF THE POET’S WIDOW--SALE OF HOUSE-HOLD EFFECTS.
After a timorous tap and a nervous pause at the door of
the house in which Burns died, It was opened by a neatly-dressed lady,
who, upon learning the nature of my business, invited me in, and most
obligingly conducted me through the various apartments, referring as she
did so to numerous little incidents associated with each. “This,” said
she, “is now the parlour, but it was used by Burns as a sitting room, and
in it he wrote many of his songs. That is the kitchen, a place much
frequented by him; and up here,” she continued, as she led the way up a
narrow staircase, “is the room in which he died.” It proved a small
oblong apartment, some fifteen feet by nine. Its appearance and
associations caused very many saddening thoughts to well up in my mind,
and as I stood on its threshold, fancy conjured up shadows of the dear
ones who surrounded the poet’s bed when his spirit forsook its casket of
clay. On the same floor there is a room of larger dimensions, as also a
closet in which the poet secluded himself during hours of inspiration, or
when he had any particular business to perform, and above them a couple of
attic bedrooms in which the children slept. This is the accommodation of
what constituted the home of Robert Burns, and it will readily be admitted
that it is of a superior order to the majority of middle-class people’s
houses, and that his circumstances at the time of his death were much
better than reported. His official income was £50 a year, but extra
allowances generally brought it up to £70. “Add to all this,” says
Chambers, “the solid perquisites which he received from seizures of
contraband spirits, tea, and other articles, which it was then the custom
to divide among the officers, and we shall se that Burns could scarcely be
considered as enjoying less than £90 a year. This, indeed, is but a small
income in comparison with the deserts of the bard; yet it is equally
certain that many worthy families in the middle ranks of life in Scottish
country towns were then supported in a decent manner upon no larger
means.” The poet’s eldest son informed the same writer that this house
was one of a good order, such as was used in those days by the better
class of citizens, and that his father and mother led a comparatively
genteel life. “They always had a maid-servant, and sat in their parlour.
That room and the two principal bedrooms were carpeted and otherwise well
furnished, and the dining table was of mahogany. There was much rough
comfort in the house not to have been found in those of ordinary citizens;
for, besides the spoils of smugglers, present of game and country produce
were received from the rural gentlefolks, besides occasional barrels of
oysters from Hill, Cunningham, and other friends in town.”
Despite this “rough comfort” the associations of the
house are saddening. The poet never recovered from the exposure mentioned
in last chapter, and in a brief month after it we find him telling his
woeful tale to Mrs Dunlop. He says--”I have lately drunk deep of the cup
of affliction. The Autumn robbed me of my only daughter and darling
child, and that at a distance, too, and so rapidly, as to put it out of my
power to pay the last duties to her. I had scarcely begun to recover from
that shock when I became myself the victim of a most severe rheumatic
fever, and long the die spun doubtful, until, after many weeks of a
sick-bed, it seems to have turned up life, and I am beginning to crawl
across my room, and once indeed have been before my own door in the
street.” Some time after this Miss Grace Aiken, a sister of Robert Aiken,
Ayr, met him in the street, and it was only by his voice that he was
recognized. “It was hoped by some of his friends,” says Dr. Currie, “that
he would live through the months of Spring and that the succeeding season
might restore him.” But they were disappointed. The genial beams of the
sun infused no vigor into his languid frame; the summer wind blew upon
him, but produced no refreshment. As a last resource he determined to try
sea bathing, and for that purpose removed to Brow, a watering place on the
shores of the Solway, ten miles from Dumfries. Before setting out he told
his Jean that he though himself dying and in a kind of prophetic spirit
added: “Don’t be afraid; I’ll be more respected a hundred years after I am
dead than I am at the present day.”
On his arrival at Brow, Mrs Walter Riddle, who had been
estranged from him for some time, and who was staying in the vicinity,
sent her carriage for him. He went to see her, and her account of the
interview is of such interest that I may be excused for transcribing it in
full. “I was struck,” says this lady, “with his appearance on entering
the room. The stamp of death was impressed on his features. He seemed
already touching the brink of eternity. His first salutation was ’Well,
madam, have you any commands for the other world?’ I replied that it
seemed a doubtful case which of us should be there soonest, and that I
hoped that he would yet live to write my epitaph. He looked in my face
with an air of great kindness and expressed his concern at seeing e look
so ill, with his accustomed sensibility. At table he ate little or
nothing, and he complained of having entirely lost the tone of his
stomach. We had a long and serious conversation about his present
situation, and the approaching termination of all his earthly prospects.
He spoke of his death without any of the ostentation of philosophy, but
with the firmness, as well as the feeling, of an event likely to happen
very soon, and which gave him concern chiefly from leaving his four
children so young and unprotected, and his wife in so interesting a
situation--in hourly expectation of lying-in with a fifth. He mentioned
with seeming pride and satisfaction the promising genius of his eldest
son, and the flattering marks of approbation he had received from his
teachers, and dwelt particularly on his hopes of that boy’s future conduct
and merit. His anxiety for his family seemed to hang heavy upon him, and
the more perhaps from the reflection that he had not done them all the
justice he was so well qualified to do. Passing from this subject he
showed great concern about the care of his literary fame, and particularly
the publication of his posthumous works. He said he was aware that his
death would occasion some noise, and that every scrap of his writing would
be revived against him to the injury of his future reputation; that
letters and verses he had written with unguarded and improper freedom, and
which he had earnestly wished to have buried in oblivion, would be handed
about by idle vanity or malevolence, when no dread of his resentment would
restrain them, or prevent the censures of shrill-tongued malice, or the
insidious sarcasms of envy, from pouring forth all their venom to blast
his fame. He lamented that he had written many epigrams on persons
against whom he entertained no enmity, and whose characters he should be
sorry to wound; and many indifferent poetical pieces, which he feared
would now, with all their imperfections on their head, be thrust upon the
world. On this account he deeply regretted having deferred to put his
papers into a state of arrangement, as he was now quiet incapable of the
exertion. The conversation was kept up with great evenness and animation
on his side. I had seldom seen his mind greater or more collected. There
was a frequently a considerable degree of vivacity in his sallies, and
they would probably have had a greater share had not the concern and
dejection I could not disguise damped the spirit of pleasantry he seemed
unwilling to indulge. We parted about sunset on the evening of that day
(the 5th of July, 1796). The next days I saw him again, and we
parted to meet no more.”
In the midst of these dejecting circumstances the dying
bard continued to sing. Witness his last song, the “Fairest maid on
Devon’s banks,” which accompanied the piteous letter to Mr Thomson
imploring the loan of five pounds to satisfy the demands of “a cruel
scoundrel of a haberdasher” who threatened him with proceedings. After
remaining a fortnight in Brow he sent the following to his devoted wife:
--”My dearest love,--I delayed writing until I could tell you what effect
sea-bathing was likely to produce. It would be injustice to deny that it
has eased my pains, and I think has strengthened me; but my appetite is
still extremely bad. No flesh nor fish can I swallow; porridge and milk
are the only things I can taste. I am very happy to hear by Miss Jessie
Lewars that you are well. My very best and kindest compliments to her and
all the children. I will see you on Sunday.--Your affectionate husband,
R.B.”
Before he left Brow he drank tea with the minister of
Ruthwell’s widow, and elicited much sympathy by his altered appearance.
The evening being beautiful, the sunbeams streamed through the window and
illumined the apartment. Fearing that the light would be too strong, her
daughter rose to let down the blinds, but the bard observing her intention
gave a look of great benignity, and said--”Thank you, my dear, for your
kind attention; but oh, let him shine! he will not shine long for me!”
Mr. James Gracie, banker, Dumfries, offered to send his
carriage to bring him home, but the poet did not avail himself of the
kindness. According to Allan Cunningham, he “returned on the 18th
in a small spring cart. The ascent to his house was steep, and the cart
stopped at the foot of the Mill-hole brae. When he alighted he shook
much, and stood with difficulty; he seemed unable to stand upright. He
stooped as if in pain, and walked tottering toward his own door; his looks
were hollow and ghastly, and those who saw him expected never to see him
in life again.” The writer goes on to say that “Dumfries was like a
besieged place. It was known that he was dying, and the anxiety not only
of the rich and learned, but the mechanics and peasants, exceeded all
belief. Wherever two or three people stood together, their talk was of
Burns, and of him alone. They spoke of his history, of his poems, of his
works, of his family, of his fame, and of his untimely and approaching
fate, with a warmth and an enthusiasm which will ever endear Dumfries to
my remembrance………………… His differences with them on some important points
were forgotten and forgiven; they thought only of his genius, of the
delight his compositions had diffused; and they talked of him with the
same awe as of more departing spirit whose voice was to gladden them no
more.”
The condition his wife was in, and the future of his
family, gave him much anxiety, and in an agony of mind he penned the
following to his father-in-law:--”My dear sir,--Do, for Heaven’s sake,
send Mrs. Armour here immediately. My wife is hourly expected to be put
to bed. Good God! what a situation for her to be in, poor girl, without a
friend! I returned from sea-bathing to-day, but I think and feel that my
strength is so gone that the disorder will prove fatal to me.--Your
son-in-law, R. B.”
Jessie Lewars, the daughter of Mr. John Lewars,
supervisor in Dumfries, who resided opposite the poet’s dwelling, hovered
by his bedside, and attended to his wants like a ministering angel. She
was the subject of at least two songs, and even on the bed of death he
fancied himself her lover, and wrote the following on the back of a
menagerie bill, which his physician handed her upon entering the room:--
“Talk not to me of savages
From Afrie’s burning sun;
No savage e’er could rend my heart
As, Jessie, thou hast done.
But Jessie’s lovely hand in mine,
A mutual faith to plight,
Not even to view the Heavenly choir
Would be so blest a sight.”
Upon another occasion, when she was attending upon him,
he took up a crystal goblet containing wine and water, and wrote on it:--
“Fill me with the rosy wine,
Call a toast--a toast divine;
Give the poet’s darling flame,
Lovely Jessie be the name;
Then thou mayest freely boast
Thou hast given a peerless toast.”
When she became slightly indisposed, he proffered to
write her epitaph, and another goblet inscribed:--
“Say, sages, what’s the charm on earth
Can turn Death’s dart aside?
It is not purity and worth,
Else Jessie had not died.”
When she recovered he said there was “a poetic reason
for it,” and wrote as follows:--
“But rarely seen since Nature’s birth
The natives of the sky;
Yet still one seraph’s left on earth,
For Jessie did not die.”
In the “memoranda” already quoted, Mrs. Burns states
that before his death he was “scarce himself for an hour together,” that
is, his mind wandered. He was aware of this, and told her to touch him,
and remind him that he was going wrong. The day before he died, he called
very quickly, and with a hale voice, “Gilbert, Gilbert!” On the morning
of the 21st (July, 1796) the children were brought into the
chamber to take a last look of their illustrious parent, “They stood round
the bed,” says Chambers, “while calmly and gradually he sank into his last
repose.” The eldest son (he was ten years of age) retained a distinct
recollection of the scene, and has reported the sad fact that the last
words of the bard were a muttered execration against the legal agent by
whose letter, wittingly or unwittingly, the parting days of Burns had been
embittered. On the 25th the remains were removed to the Town
Hall preparatory to the funeral, which the Volunteers had resolved to make
public and conduct with military honours. On the day following the funeral
took place. “A party of the Volunteers, selected to perform the military
duty in the churchyard,” says Dr. Currie, “stationed themselves in front
of the procession, with their arms reversed; the main body of the corps
surrounded and supported the coffin, on which were placed the hat and
sword of their friend and fellow soldier; the numerous body of attendants
ranged themselves in the rear; while the fencible regiments of infantry
and cavalry lined the streets from the Town Hall to the burial ground in
the southern churchyard--a distance of more than half a mile. The whole
procession moved forward to the sublime and affecting strain of music,
‘The Dead March in Saul,’ and three volleys fired over the grave marked
the return to Burns to his parent earth. The spectacle was in a high
degree grand and solemn, and accorded with the general sentiments of
sympathy and sorrow which the occasion called forth.” The same write
adds:--”It was an affecting circumstance that on the morning of the day of
her husband’s funeral Mrs. Burns was undergoing the pains of labour, and
that during the solemn service we have just been describing the posthumous
son of our Poet was born.”
Burns had nine children by his Jean--five sons and four
daughters. Two of the former and the whole of the latter died in
childhood. The eldest son (Robert), Chambers tells us, “excited
admiration by his general intelligence during his attendance of two
sessions at the University of Edinburgh and one at Glasgow.” He inherited
in no slight degree his father’s temperament and poetical taste, and wrote
verses, of which the following may serve as a specimen:--
“Hae ye seen, in the calm, dewy morning,
The redbreast wild warbling sae clear,
Or the low-dwelling, snow-breasted gowan
Surcharg’d wi’ mild evening’s soft tear?
Oh! then ye hae seen my dear lassie,
The lassie I lo’e best of a’;
But far frae the hame of my lassie
I’m mony a lang mile awa’.
“Her hair is the wing of the blackbird,
Here eye is the eye of the dove,
Her lips are the ripe blushing rose-bud,
Her bosom’s the palace of love.
Through green be thy banks, O sweet Clutha!
Thy beauties ne’er charm me ava;
Forgive me, ye maids o’ sweet Clutha,
My heart hear is wi’ her that’s awa’.
“O love, thou’rt a dear fleeting pleasure!
The sweetest we mortals here know;
But soon is they heaven, bright beaming,
O’ ercast with the darkness of woe;
As the moon on the oft-changing ocean
Delights the lone mariner’s eye,
Till red rush the storms of the desert,
And dark billows tumble on high.”
Mr.s Burns continued to reside in the house which had
been hallowed by her husband’s presence. She used to relate that shortly
after his death she thought he came to her bedside, and, upon drawing the
curtains, said--”Are you sleeping? I have been permitted to return to take
one look of you and the child, but have not time to stay.” The vision was
so vivid that she started up and ever thought it a reality. Perhaps it
was, for there are many similar occurrences on record which cannot be
altogether explained away. By the proceeds of a public subscription, and
the publication of a posthumous edition of her husband’s works, Mrs. Burns
was enabled to bring up her sons in a creditable way and maintain herself
in comfort. Mr. M’Diarmid of Dumfries states that “hers was one of those
well-balanced minds which cling instinctively to propriety and a medium in
all things……..In her tastes she was frugal, simple, and pure; and
delighted in music, pictures, and flowers. In Spring and Summer it was
impossible to pass her windows without being struck with the beauty of the
floral treasures they contained; and if extravagant in anything is was in
the article of roots and plants of the finest sorts. Fond of the society
of young people, she mingled as long as able in their innocent pleasures,
and cheerfully filled up for them the cup ‘which cheers but not
inebriates.’ Although neither a sentimentalist nor a ‘blue stocking,’ she
was a clever woman, possessed great shrewdness, discriminated character
admirably, and frequently made very pithy remarks.” She survived her
husband nearly thirty-eight years, and died of paralysis, in the room
which he breathed his last, on the 26th of March, 1834, in the
70th year of her age.
At her death, the household effects were sold by public
auction, and no sale ever created such excitement in Dumfries. People
were so anxious to possess relics of the celebrated family that paid
fabulous prices for mere trifles. According to the Dumfries Courier,
the auctioneer commenced with small articles, and when he came to a broken
copper coffee-pot, there were so many bidders that the price paid exceeded
twenty-fold the intrinsic value. A tea kettle of the same metal succeeded
and reached £2 sterling. Of the linens, a table-cloth marked 1792, which,
speaking commercially, may be worth half-a-crown or five shillings, was
knocked down at £5 7s. Many other articles commanded handsome prices, and
the older and plainer furniture the better it sold. The rusty iron top of
a shower bath which Mrs Dunlop of Dunlop sent to the Poet when afflicted
with rheumatism was bought by a Carlisle gentleman for £1 8s; and a low
wood kitchen chair, on which the later Mrs Burns sat when nursing her
children, was run up to £7 3s. The crystal and china were much coveted,
and brought, in most cases, splendid prices. Even an old fender reached a
figure which would go far to buy half-a-dozen new ones, and everything
toward the close attracted notice, down to grey-beards, bottles, and a
half-worn pair of bellows. The poet’s eight-day clock, made by a
Mauchline artist, attracted great attention from the circumstance that it
had frequently been wound up by his own hand. In the a few seconds it was
bid up to £15 or guineas, and was finally disposed of for £35. It was
understood that the purchaser would have advanced, if necessary, to £60.
Such, reader, are some of the associations of the house
in which Burns died. Sorrowfully I lingered on the threshold of the room
where the last sad scene in the drama of his life was enacted, and when I
took my leave and descended the steps at the front door, I felt as if they
were consecrated by the footsteps of him who tread them no more.
Rear high they bleak majestic hills,
Thy shelter’d valleys proudly spread,
And, Scotia, pour thy thousand rills,
And wave more shall poet tread
Thy airy height, thy woodland reign,
Since he, the sweetest bard, is dead,
That ever breathed the soothing strain.”
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