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iililpiilliiiilliipi 


i 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


Robert  Burns  and  the  Mkdk^vl  Profession. 


^  ,^i^     *" 


X 


Dr.  JOHN    MACKENZIE 

liy  William  Findlay,  after  an  Oil  Painting,  by  James  Tannock,  at  present  in  the 
possession  of  the  Misses  Mackenzie,  Edinburgh. 


Robert   Burns 

and 

The  Medical   Profession 


BV 

WILLIAM     FINDLAY,     M.D, 

("GEORGP:    UMBER". 
Author  of  "In  My  City  Garden"  and  "Avrshihe  Idylls' 


WITH   THIRTEEN  FULL- PAGE  PORTRAITS 


ALEXANDER     GARDNER 

Publisher  to  Her  Majesty  the  Queen 

PAISLEY;  and  PATERNOSTER  SQUARE,  LONDON 

1898 


Y-  5  j^ 


PEEFACE 


I  WAS  asked,  some  time  ago,  at  a  Burns  Anniversary  Celebra- 
tion, to  reply  to  the  toast  of  the  iVIedical  Profession ;  and  in 
casting  about  in  my  mind  what  to  say  in  justification  of 
the  honour,  it  occurred  to  me  that  the  name  of  the  Bard  was 
associated  with  the  medical  faculty  in  a  much  more  intimate 
manner  than  at  first  sight  appeared,  or  was  even  generally 
understood ;  and  that  it  was,  therefore,  a  not  inappropriate 
toast  to  be  proposed  at  a  gathering  of  Burns  admirers. 

Afterwards,  pursuing  the  same  train  of  thought,  and  going 
deeper  into  the  subject,  I  soon  became  convinced  of  the 
accuracy  of  my  conjectui'e — that,  indeed,  the  field,  if  some- 
what circumscribed,  was  so  rich  in  materials  and  interest, 
that  justice  could  not  be  done  to  it  within  the  prescribed 
limits  assigned  either  to  an  after-dinner  toast  or  in  a  reply  to 
the  same.  A  lecture,  or  even  a  book,  as  the  matter  grew 
under  my  hand,  seemed  the  likelier  and  the  truer  destination 
to  which  its  dimensions  should  reach.  This  solution  of  the 
business,  I  may  say,  became  still  more  apparent  as  I  pro- 
ceeded on  my  way,  and  came  to  tackle  those  controversial 
points  which  have,  more  particularly  of  late  years,  gathered 
around  Dr.  Currie's  biographical  achievement ;  and  which 
have  so  long,   and,   I   venture   to    think,  so    harmfully,   in- 


2  Pbefaci. 

Tolved  tlie  good  name  of  the  Poet.  Sadi  an  nnforbmate 
e^ct,  moseoTer,  has  been  mainlj  bioo^t  about  bj  Tiitne 
ci  the  biographesPs  tczj  omsckiitioiKiiess  (over-ri^teoas- 
ness)  in  discbazgii^  tbe  datjf  icbidli  he  conadeied  he 
owed  to  tbe  memoiT  ci  h^  sobject,  to  the  public,  and  to 
himself;  c(Ki£aiin^  thear^j,  a  sort  <^  classicism  on  his 
pnmooncenKnt  of  Bmnsls  ecnnrs  and  chaiacteiisatHML,  which, 
from  the  wanntii  of  appro^  witb  which  the  doctor's  judg- 
ment had  been  qnoted  by  so  many  dislingai^ied  anthontiK 
and  £rani  so  manj  di^xent  qoarfcexs,  came  to  be  looked 
vpagk  as  possessing  the  stamp  (^  finalitir,  and,  thezcfore, 
endowed  witb  a  oane^Mmdii^j  long  lease  of  life. 

In  the  esemtion  of  m j  ta^  the  matoials  f<Mr  whicb  aze, 
in  manj  iietances,  difficult  to  find,  and  not  alwajs  accessible, 
I  hare  tried  to  state  the  case  tampezatelT  and  feiilj  for  all 
concerned.  How  far  I  baxe  succeeded,  the  reader  most  be 
the  judge. 

That  ibese  pages  are  a  pexfect  or  complete  statement  of 
the  inqniij,  Robert  Bums  and  ^ke  Jfr  J'  ^  P  ^"csakm,  I  do 
not  fer  a  moment  amtend.     In  my  it-  T^    ~.s 

Infaliagiaphies,  lifaraij  catalogoes,  and  c: 
<^-tbe-way  nooks  and  covnexs  v£  book-^ieiTes,  it  k  pror. . 
that  I  have  rnkspd  out  some  omtribation:  bat  tbe  stater. :: 
is  as  cffin|dete  as,  witiii  care  and  labocr.  I  „  =en  ab. 

make  it. 

I  Imme  to  acknowledge  my  indditedness  to  Dr.  Alexander 
BaitezsoD,  Glasgow,  for  his  kindness  in   aHowing  me  free 


Preface.  3 

access  to  his  extensive  and  most  valuable  Bumsiana  libran" ; 
and  to  Dr.  James  Finlayson,  Hon.  librarian  to  the  Faculty 
of  Physicians  and  Surgeons,  Glasgow,  for  many  important 
bibliogiaphical  notes  beai-ing  on  the  subject  of  my  inquiry. 
I  have  also  to  thank  ]Mr.  F.  T.  Barrett  and  his  assistants,  of 
the  IMitchell  Libran%  Glasgow,  ]Mr.  D.  ]M'Xaught,  the  dis- 
tinguished editor  of  the  Anmud  Burns  Chronicle,  Dr.  H. 
Vevers  of  Hereford,  ]Mr.  James  Smith,  Raemoir,  Ayr,  IMr. 
Alexander  Anderson  of  the  Edinburgh  University  Librai'v, 
]\Iessrs.  Thomas  Rennie  and  William  Reid,  Glasgow,  j\Ir, 
James  Carment,  Dumfiies,  and  others,  for  their  obliging  help 
and  assistance  in  ftu-nishinsr  me  Avith  numerous  hints  and 
points  of  information,  or  otherwise  aiding  me  towards  the 
successful  completion  of  my  task.  I  have  likewise  to  express 
my  acknowledgments  to  Col.  J.  ^Maxwell  Witham,  Kirk- 
counell,  Newabbey,  Dumfriesshire,  for  kindly  permitting  me 
to  photograph  the  oil  painting,  in  his  possession,  of  his 
celebi^ated  relative,  the  late  Dr.  William  IMaxwell,  Dumfries  ; 
and  to  John  ]^Iackenzie,  Esq.,  W.S.,  Edinburgh,  for  furnish- 
ing me  with  a  photograph  of  his  grandfather,  the  late  Dr. 
John  ]Mackenzie  of  ^lauchline,  from  which  the  drawing  for 
the  present  work  was  made. 

WTTJTAAT  FINDLAY. 
FfiEsr  Villa, 

DEJTSTSTOtTS, 

Gljlsgow, 

October,  1S9S. 


CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

I.    Dr.  John  Mackenzie,  Mauchline, 9 

II.    Diis.  Gregory,  Wood,  Adair,  etc.,  Edinburgh,  ..  22 

III.  Dr.  John  Moore,  London,        35 

IV.  Drs.  Maxwell,  Thomson,  Mundell,  etc.,  Dum- 

fries,         57 

V.    James  Currie,  M.D.,  F.R.S.,  Liverpool,     .  69 

VI.    Dr.   David  Macbeth  Moir  (Delta),    and   the 

Grand  Alloway  Festival,        91 

VIL    Drs.  Fr.  Adams,  0.  W.  Holmes,  etc.,         ..        ..  100 

VIII.    Dr.  John  Brown  and  Others  down  to  the  end 

of  the  Eighties,        Ill 

IX.    A  Decade  of  Medical  Burnsites,   including 

Dr.  James  Adams,  Glasgow,      124 


Appendix- 
Sources  of  Information  for  this  Inquiry,         ..  135 

Index, 143 

Subscribers'  Names,         ..        ..        151 


LIST  OF  PORTRAITS. 


DR.    JOHN    MACKENZIE, 

PROFESSOR   JAMES   GREGORY,    M.D.,     . 
DR.   ALEXANDER   WOOD,  .. 
DR.    JOHN    MOORE, 

u  >« 

DR.    WILLIAM   INLAXWELL, 
JAMES   OURRIE,    M.D.,  F.R.S., 


DAVID   MACBETH   MOIR,    M.D.    (DELTA), 
FRANCIS   ADAJ.IS,    M.D.,  LL.D.,     .. 
DR.   OLIVER  WENDELL   HOLMES, 

DR.    JOHN   BROWN,  

JAMES   ADAMS,    M.D.,    F.F.P.S.G., 


Frontisjnece. 
to  face  page  22 
28 
35 
42 
51 
GO 
88 
91 
103 
107 
111 
124 


Robert  Burns  and  the  Medical  Profession. 


Dk.  JOHN  MACKENZIE,  MAUCHLINE. 

The  association  of  the  name  of  Burns,  })articailarly  in  his 
lifetime,  with  the  learned  professions  is  matter  of  commonest 
familiarity  to  the  most  ordinary  reader  of  his  works.  In  his 
confession, 

"  I've  been  at  drunken  writers'  feasts, 
Nay,  been  bitch-fou  'mang  godly  priests," 

he  has  focused  for  us,  in  his  own  pithy  style,  the  close  and 
bibulous  character  of  that  communion  ;  though  he,  doubt- 
less, intended  us  to  receive  the  declaration  with  a  pinch  of 
salt — to  take  from  the  lines  the  usual  liberal  discount  ac- 
corded to  the  man  of  humour,  who  is  generally  also  a  man  of 
exaggeration. 

It  might  have  been  better  for  Burns,  especially  in  the  be- 
ginning of  his  poetical  career,  while  farming  at  iNIossgeil 
with  his  brother  Gilbert,  had  he  been  less  intimate  with 
lawyers  and  new-licht  ministers,  all  of  whom,  C'arlyle  de- 
clared, would  require  to  be  sleeping  in  their  graves  before 

A 


10  Burns  and  the  Medical  Profession. 

the  world  would  be  able  to  see  their  quondam  champion 
and  boon-companion  aright.  It  is  questionable  if  their 
society  did  the  Poet  any  good  ;  the  probability  rather  is 
that  it  did  him  harm  ;  and  it  was  certainly  owing  to  his 
friendliness  with  the  new-lichts,  together  with  the  fact  that 
he  was  their  daringly  clever  and  candid  mouthpiece  and 
most  brilliant  fighting  man,  that  the  auld-licht  party,  not 
only  in  his  lifetime,  but  long  after  his  death,  was  so  bitterly 
hostile  to  him. 

If  his  relationship  to  the  most  rigidly  orthodox  section 
of  the  clergy  was,  in  those  days,  marked  by  scathing  satire 
on  his  side,  and  by  hatred  and  denunciation  of  his  charac- 
ter and  poetry  on  theirs,  continued  down  to  our  own  time 
by  the  narrower  and  more  intolerant  descendants  of  the 
auld-lichts,  no  such  dishonourable  wordy-warfare  and  slander 
distinguishes  his  intercourse  with  the  medical  faculty,  with 
whom  he  was  always  on  the  best  of  terms,  though  he  has 
never  employed  his  muse  to  celebrate  their  particular  virtues, 
as  he  has  those  of  some  lawyers  and  ministers. 

In  the  followiiig  encjuiry,  then,  I  propose  to  trace  this 
honourable  connection  of  his  with  members  of  the  medical 
profession  ;  for  there  are  next  to  no  materials  in  the  works 
of  Burns  themselves,  out  of  which  might  be  woven  a  piece  of 
literary  fabric,  with  some  such  title  as  Medicine  and  the 
Kindred  Arts  in  Burns.  There  are  none  of  those  riches,  like 
what  we  have  in  Shakspere,  for  instance,  from  which  might  be 
made  such  a  wealthy  contribution,  or  even  the  poor  pretence 
of  such,  as  Medicine  and  the  Kindred  Arts  in  the  Plays  of 
Shakspej-e,  by  the  late  Dr.  John  Moyes,  edited  by  his  friend, 
Dr.  James  Finlayson.  With  the  exception  of  a  few  allusions, 
scattered  here  and  there  throughout  his  poems,  which,  doubt- 


Dii.  JoHX  Mackenzie.  11 

less,  show  some  knowledge  of  medical  nomenclature,  as  well 
as  acquaintance  with  the  symptoms  of  disease  and  the  art  of 
healing,  there  are  practically  no  materials  at  all  for  a  similar 
undertaking,  even  of  the  most  limited  kind.  That  his  medical 
knowledge,  so  far  as  it  went,  was  not  without  both  soundness 
and  point,  is  proven  by  its  truthfulness  to  nature  and  skilled 
experience,  as  well  as  by  the  easy  familiarity  with  which  he 
handled  it  for  the  purposes  of  humourous  satire.  The  man 
of  poetical  genius,  to  be  sure,  arrives  at  a  good  deal  of  his 
knowledge  by  intuition.  That  line,  for  instance,  in  "The 
Farmer's  Ingle,'"  by  Burns's  great  exemplar,  Ferguson — 

"  The  mind's  ay  cradled  when  the  grave  is  near," 

is  a  very  good  illustration  of  the  doctrine  in  question.  It 
might  have  been  written  by  an  old  man  who  had  been  witness 
to  an  hundred  death  beds,  instead  of  by  a  mere  youth  of 
twenty  who  had  probably  never  once  seen  a  human  being  die, 
so  Shakesperian  is  it  in  character.  In  the  same  way  Burns, 
however  he  came  by  his  medical  knowledge — whether  by  the 
royal  road  of  intuition,  or  the  more  prosaic  one  of  obser- 
vation and  reflection — had  the  gift  of  employing  it  with 
equal  effect,  of  which  there  are  some  striking  specimens, 
though  in  a  different  vein  from  Fergusson's,  in  some  of  the 
verses  of  his  "  Epistle  to  John  Goldie  in  Kilmarnock.'" 

"  Poor,  gapin,  glowrin  Superstition  ! 
Wae's  mo,  she's  in  a  sad  condition  : 
Fye  !  bring  Llack  Jock,  her  state  physician, 

To  see  her  water  : 
Alas,  there's  ground  for  great  suspicion 
She'll  ne'er  get  better. 


12  Burns  axd  the  Medical  Profession, 


Enthusiasm's  past  redemption, 

Gane  in  a  gallopin  consumption  ; 

Not  a'  her  quacks,  wi'  a'  their  gumption, 

Can  ever  mend  her  ; 
Her  feeble  pulse  gies  strong  presumption, 

She'll  soon  surrender. 

Auld  Orthodoxy  lang  did  grapple, 
For  every  hole  to  get  a  stapple  ; 
But  now  she  fetches  at  the  thrapple, 

An'  fights  for  breath  ; 
Haste,  gie  her  name  up  in  the  chapel, 

'  Near  unto  death. ' " 

And  in  "  Death  and   Dr.    Hornbook,"   there  is  a  highly 
humorous   inventory  of   the   wares  of  the   would-be   village 


apothecary. 


"  'And  then  a'  doctor's  saws  an'  whittles, 
Of  a'  dimensions,  shapes,  an'  mettles, 
A'  kinds  o'  boxes,  mugs  an'  bottles, 

He's  sure  to  hae  ; 
Their  Latin  names  as  fast  he  rattles 

As  A  B  C. 

Calces  o'  fossils,  earths,  an'  trees  ; 
True  sal-marinum  o'  the  seas  ; 
The  farina  o'  beans  an'  pease 

He  has't  in  plenty  ; 
Aqua-fontis,  what  you  please, 

He  can  content  ye. 

Forbye  some  new,  uncommon  weapons, 

Urinus  spiritus  of  capons  ; 

Or  mite-horn  shavings,  filings,  scrapings, 

Distill'd  per  se ; 
Sal-alkali  o'  raidge-tail-clippings, 

And  mony  niae.' " 


Dr.  John  Mackenzie.  13 

I  never  read  Death's  description  of  Hornbook-s  little  stock- 
in-trade  without  calling  to  mind  that  famous  inventory  of 
the  contents  of  another  apothecary''s  shop  in  Mantua. 

"  And  in  his  needy  shop  a  tortoise  hung, 
An  alligator  stuff'd,  and  other  skins 
Of  ill-shaped  fishes  ;  and  about  his  shelves 
A  beggarly  account  of  empty  boxes, 
Green  earthen  pots,  bladders  and  musty  seeds, 
Remnants  of  pack-thread  and  old  cakes  of  roses, 
Were  thinly  scatter'd,  to  make  up  a  show." 

Not  that  there  is  any  very  genuine  resemblance  to  give 
countenance  to  the  coincidence.  On  the  contrary  Shakspere's 
picture  is  intensely  realistic,  while  Burns*'s  is  almost  riot- 
ously humorous,  and  even  bordering  on  the  farcical.  Neither 
is  it  possible,  without  running  the  risk  of  finding  oneself  in 
the  classification  of  the  wittv  Elia's  "  true  Caledonian,"  to 
take  this  satire,  as  in  any  sense,  pointing  its  shafts  at 
quackery.  Burns  is  not  righteously  indignant  at  the  mis- 
chief this  foolish  schoolmaster  and  grocer  is  working  on  the 
bodies  and  health  of  village  simpletons,  but  is  provoked 
rather  to  intolerable  mirth  by  the  vanity  and  conceit  of  his 
assumed  doctorship.  It  is  splendid  fun  he  is  after — not 
reformation.  And  it  probably  never  entered  into  his  calcu- 
lations that  its  effect  would  be  to  compel  this  self-appointed 
village  apothecary— this  man  "  o''  saws  an'  whittles "  to 
abandon,  not  only  liis  doctorship,  but  his  schoolmastership 
and  small  grocery  as  well,  and  even  to  forsake  his  native 
Tarbolton  and  seek  his  fortune  in  the  western  metropolis, 
where  a  grandson  of  his  is  a  practitioner  of  the  healing  art  at 
the  present  day,  showing  that  the  fatal  proclivity  towards 


14  Burns  axd  the  Medical  Pkofessiox. 

physic,  so  conspicuous  in  the  Hornbook  grandfather,  must 
have  run  in  the  blood  after  all. 

Since,  then,  the  works  of  Burns  afford  no  scope  for  linking 
his  name  with  medicine  and  the  kindred  arts  in  any  substan- 
tial sense,  my  task  must,  therefore,  of  necessity  confine  itself 
to  his  connection  with  those  individual  members  of  the  medi- 
cal profession  who  have  been  more  or  less  distinguished  as  his 
intimates,  correspondents,  biographers,  and  critics  and  pane- 
gyrists of  his  life  and  writings.  The  materials  for  such  an 
undertaking,  if  somewhat  limited  in  extent,  are  exceedingly 
rich  in  character ;  and,  as  I  said  before,  alike  honoiu'able,  in 
the  main,  both  to  Burns  and  his  medical  friends  and  admirers. 

If  the  doctors,  in  his  own  day  and  since,  never  boggled  over 
his  frailties,  like  the  clergy,  but  have  always  been  honourably 
distinguished  by  a  wise  toleration  and  charity,  and  the  high- 
est regard  and  enthusiasm  in  estimating  the  poet  and  his 
work,  it  is  not,  I  trust,  because  the  question  of  right  conduct 
in  man  or  woman  is  a  less  vital  matter  with  them,  but  rather, 
I  am  inclined  to  believe,  because  of  the  difference  of  their 
point  of  view.  This  larger  and  more  inseeing  vision,  which 
they  generally  bring  to  bear  on  all  questions  of  human  nature 
and  conduct,  they  owe,  I  think,  to  their  peculiar  education 
and  to  their  intercourse  with  disease,  which  makes  them  ac- 
cjuainted,  in  a  most  near-hand  way,  with  the  infirmities  of 
their  fellow  creatures.  The  lawyer  is  chiefly  conversant  with 
the  more  equivocal  side  of  hinnan  nature  ;  the  minister  with 
the  affected  side — with  mankind  on  their  best  behaviour ;  but 
the  doctor  knows  us  as  we  are — in  undress,  and  that  in  )nore 
senses  than  the  literal  one.  In  a  matter,  therefore,  of  seeming 
moral  declension  the  clergyman  only  sees  xchaf.s'  done,  not 
zohafs  resisted.     The  medical  man,  on  the  other  hand,  sees 


Dii.  John  Mackenzie,  15 

whafs  (lone  too,  but  he  also  discerns  what  was  perhaps  irre- 
sistible, through  some  organic  frailty,  flaw,  or  imperfection, 
hereditary  or  acquired,  in  the  unfortunate  constitution  of 
the  delinquent,  more  sinned  against,  it  may  be,  than  sinning, 
hence  his  frequently  greater  charity  and  toleration, 

IJurns^s  first  intimacy  with  a  member  of  the  medical  faculty 
is  a  matter  of  some  doubt.  Cliambers  says  that,  althougli 
Burns  was  taken  little  notice  of  while  flax-dressing  in  Irvine, 
it  would  appear  that  he  was  not  unknown  to  the  family  of 
the  provost,  Mr,  Hamilton  of  Craighlaw,  whose  house  still 
stands  at  the  corner  where  Glasgow  Venncl  and  High 
Street  meet — the  immediate  locality  of  the  Foefs  "  heck- 
ling "-shop.  His  son,  Dr,  Hamilton,  was  one  of  the  ac- 
quaintances of  Burns  who  became  security  to  the  printer  of 
the  Kilmarnock  edition.  This,  I  presume,  is  the  same 
gentleman,  Dr,  Hamilton  of  Kilmaniock  House,  whom  the 
historian  of  Kilmarnock  mentions  when  speaking  of  John 
Goldie,  Major  Parker,  Ur,  William  Moore,  Thomas  Samson, 
Rol)ert  Muir,  and  others  of  the  famous  band  of  the  Poet's 
Kilmarnock  friends. 

From  this  statement  of  Chambers,  it  would,  therefore, 
appear  more  than  probable  that  he  may  have  been  acquainted 
with  Dr.  Hamilton  prior  to  his  intimacy  with  Mr.  John 
Mackenzie,  a  Mauchlinc  surgeon,  which  began  when  he  was 
twenty-four  years  of  age,  after  his  return  to  Lochlea,  Tar- 
bolton,  and  during  his  father''s  last  illness,  about  the  end  of 
1783.  In  an  account  of  the  good  doctor's  impressions  of  this 
remarkable  Lochlea  household,  supplied  to  Josiah  Walker, 
Es([,,  we  learn  something  of  the  esteem  in  which  he  held  its 
members.  For  the  father  and  mother,  and  two  eldest  sons, 
Robert  and  Gilbert,  he  entertained  the  highest  regai'd,  and 


16  Burks  and  the  Medical  Professiox. 

was  struck  by  the  amount  of  general  culture  and  intelligence, 
considering  their  sphere  of  life,  shown  by  his  patient  and  two 
sons  ;  and  especially  by  the  brilliant  conversational  gifts  of 
the  Poet,  of  the  extent  of  whose  talents,  he  says,  no  person 
could  have  a  just  idea  who  had  not  had  an  opportunity  to 
liear  him  converse. 

The  intercourse  between  doctor  and  bard,  thus  begun  in 
the  sick  chamber  of  Lochlea,  continued  and  ripened  into 
genial  friendship  after  the  old  man's  death  and  the  family's 
removal  to  jNIossgiel.  We  have  noteworthy  testimony  of 
this  in  a  versified  epistle  Bm-ns  sent  to  his  brother  mason, 
inviting  him  to  be  present  on  the  24th  June,  1786  (St.  John's 
Day),  at  a  grand  procession  of  the  St.  James'  Lodge,  Tar- 
bolton,  and  of  which  he  himself  was  Depute  Master. 

"  Friday  first's  the  day  appointed 
By  the  Right  Worshipful  anointed, 

To  hold  our  grand  procession  ; 
To  get  a  blad  o'  Johnie's  morals, 
And  taste  a  swatch  o'  Hanson's  barrels 

I'  the  way  of  our  profession. 
The  Master  and  the  Brotherhood 

Would  a'  be  glad  to  see  you  ; 
For  me  I  would  be  mair  than  proud 
To  share  the  mercies  wi'  you. 

If  Death,  then,  wi'  skaith,  then, 
Some  mortal  heart  is  hechtin, 
Inform  him,  and  storm  him, 
That  Saturday  you'll  fecht  him. 

Robert  Burns." 

"  It  is  not  very  clear,"  says  Wm.  Scott  Douglas,  "  who  was 
the  '  Johnie '  thus  expected  to  dilate  on  morals  :  Professor 
Walker  tells  us  it  was  John  Mackenzie  himself,  whose 
favourite  topic  was  '  the  origin  of  morals.'  " 


])r.  John  Mackenzie.  17 

We  also  catch  an  interesting  glimpse  of  their  friendship  on 
a  September  Sunday  some  three  months  later.  Burns  was  on 
his  way  to  church  and  had  looked  in  on  his  friend  Gavin 
Hamilton,  whose  house  was  contiguous  to  the  church,  ex- 
pecting that  he  might  accompany  him  thither.  Gavin,  how- 
ever, declined,  but  told  him  to  bring  a  note  of  the  discourse 
in  four  stanzas.  A  bet  was  made  between  them  on  the  point, 
and  accordingly  at  the  end  of  the  forenoon  service,  Burns 
presented  him  with  four  of  the  verses  of  "  The  Calf,"  over 
which  he  had  been  musing  in  his  pew,  strange  to  say,  at  the 
very  time  that  Jean  Armour  was  giving  birth  to  twins,  but 
of  which  interesting  event  he  was  ignorant  till  later  in  the 
day.  Dr.  ^Mackenzie,  happening  to  call  at  Gavin  Hamilton's 
at  the  time  that  Burns  was  reading  his  performance,  was  so 
tickled  with  the  verses  that  he  extracted  from  him  the  pro- 
mise of  a  copy,  which  he  sent  the  same  Sunday  night, 
accompanied  by  a  brief  note,  telling  him  that  the  fourth  and 
last  stanzas  were  added  since  he  saw  him  that  day. 

Very  vivid  and  human  is  the  peep  into  this  Sabbath  nook 
of  Mauchline  life  upwards  of  a  hundred  years  ago,  than 
which  no  other  spot  of  Burns  ground  contains  within  such 
small  compass  so  many  memorials  of  those  personages  and 
dwellings  celel)rated  in  his  poems  and  nearly  associated  with 
his  own  life-history.  There  is  the  sacred  quiet  of  the 
two  or  three  village  streets,  with  the  pensive  colouring  of 
the  woods  and  fields  all  around.  The  old  church,  sitting 
dreamily  amid  its  slanting  tombstones,  and  overlooked  from 
three  different  points — Nanse  Tannock's,  Gavin  Hamilton"'s, 
and  Poosie-Nansie's,  has  "  skailed,""  and  dotting  the  uneven 
surface  of  the  churchyard  are  the  sober  forms  of  some 
of    the    lingering    worshipjiers    in    "  runkled    blacks."      On 


18  Burns  axd  the  Medical  Profession. 

the  lawyer^s  parlour  floor  we  recognise  the  three  woi'thies, 
as  distinctly  as  if  the  event  -were  a  thing  of  yesterday, 
Gavin  Hamilton,  Burns,  and  the  village  doctor,  their  heads 
together,  and  their  risible  faculties  in  full  exercise  as  the 
verses  of  "The  Calf"  are  being  recited.  Meanwhile  the 
youthful  minister,  the  Rev.  James  Steven,  has  descended  from 
the  pulpit  and  entered  the  session-house,  or  betaken  himself 
to  the  manse,  all  unconscious  of  the  three  merry  comrades  in 
the  lawyer's  parlour,  one  of  whom  has  given  such  poetical 
shape  to  his  conceits,  as  will  safely  carry  the  young  preacher 
down  to  posterity — a  service  he  was  not  very  likely  to  have 
done  for  himself. 

Some  six  or  seven  weeks  further  on  in  the  autumn,  October 
23rd,  1786,  and  three  months  after  the  publication  of  the 
Kilmarnock  edition  of  his  poems,  we  find  Burns,  with  his 
doctor  friend,  a  guest  at  the  dinner-table  of  Professor  Dugald 
Stewart,  who  was  then  staying  at  his  country  seat  near 
Catrine,  and  to  whose  notice  he  had  been  introduced  by  the 
Mauchline  surgeon.  How  he  enjoyed  himself  at  the  Pro- 
fessor's dinner-table,  that 

"  Ne'er  to  be  forgotten  day, 
Sae  far  he  sprachled  up  the  brae, 

He  dinner'd  wi'  a  Lord," 

arid  the  high  opinion  he  formed  of  great  folks  and  their 
simple  dignity  and  unaffected  manners,  he  tells  us  in  a 
letter  to  the  doctor  a  week  after  the  event,  enclosing  a  copy 
of  verses,  entitled,  "  Lines  on  Meeting  with  Lord  Daer " — 
that  young  nobleman  happening  to  be  one  of  the  dinner 
party  on  the  eventful  occasion. 

The  Mauchline  surgeon  not  only  introduced  Burns  to  Pro- 
fessor Dugald  Stewart,  the  philosopher,  who,  we  know,  from 


Du.  JoHx  Mackenzie.  19 

that  and  subsequent  interviews  with  him  in  Edinburgh, 
formed  a  very  high  opinion  of  his  great  intellectual  and 
poetical  gifts,  his  estimate  in  that  respect  somewhat  re- 
sembling Carlyle's,  but  he  also  introduced  him  to  his  patient, 
Sir  John  AVhitefoord,  before  that  gentleman  left  Ballochmyle 
for  the  capital ;  and  to  the  Hon.  Henry  Erskine,  both  of 
\vhoni  became  his  patrons  and  friends  in  Edinbui'gh.  He 
likewise  had  the  pleasure  of  making  his  works  known  to  Dr. 
Blair,  when  that  distinguished  divine  was  on  a  visit  to  Bar- 
skinniiing,  by  showing  him  "The  Holy  Fair,"  in  which 
poem,  by  the  by,  Mackenzie  is  himself  said,  by  Cham])ers, 
to  be  mentioned  under  the  name  of  "  Common-Sense,"  he 
having  written  on  some  controversial  topic  under  that  title 
shortly  before. 

"  In  yuid  time  comes  an  antidote 
Against  sic  poisoned  nostrum  ; 
For  Peebles,  frae  the  Water-fit, 

Ascends  the  holy  rostrum  ; 
See,  up  he's  got  the  Word  u'  God, 

And  meek  and  mim  has  viewed  it. 
While  Common- Sense  has  ta'en  the  road, 
And  aff  and  up  the  Cowgate, 
Fast,  fast  that  day." 

It  so  happened  that  Mackenzie  on  this  day  of  "  The  Holy 
Fair"  was  engaged  to  join  Sir  John  Whitefoord  of  Balloch- 
myle, and  go  to  Dumfries  House,  in  Auchinleck  parish,  in 
order  to  dine  with  the  Earl  of  Dumfries  ;  so,  after  attending 
church,  and  listening  to  some  of  the  out-door  harangues,  he 
was  seen  to  leave  the  assembly  and  go  off  along  the  Cowgate, 
on  his  way  to  Ballochmyle,  exactly  as  Peebles  ascended  the 
rostrum. 


20  Burns  and  thk  Medical  Profession. 

The  subsequent  history  of  this  worthy  and  genial  doctor 
may  be  briefly  stated,  as  follows.  On  leaving  Mauchline, 
with  which  he  was  doubly  associated,  inasmuch  as  he  was 
married  to  one  of  its  "  six  proper  young  belles,"  Miss  Helen, 
daughter  of  John  Miller  of  Millockshill,  he  commenced  prac- 
tice in  Irvine.  After  a  long  and  honourable  career  in  that 
ancient  and  royal  burgh,  in  the  course  of  which  he  not  only 
attained  the  highest  honours  of  the  magistracy,  but,  towards 
its  close,  in  1824,  received  from  his  Alma  Mater  the  degree 
of  M.D.  for  a  thesis  on  "  De  Carcinomate,"  he  retired  in 
1827  to  Edinburgh,  where  he  died,  January  11th,  1837,  at 
an  advanced  age.  The  well-known  literary  and  antiquarian 
collector — the  late  John  Whitefoord  Mackenzie,  W.S.,  Edin- 
burgh, M'as  his  son. 

And  as  a  convincing  proof  that  the  doctor's  interest  in 
Burns  had  not  cooled  in  the  long  interval  since  he  left  the 
atmosphere  of  Mauchline  and  its  neighbourhood,  it  is  re- 
corded of  him  that,  on  the  founding  of  the  Irvine  Burns 
Club  in  1827,  the  year  of  his  retiral,  he  presided  at  the 
opening  dinner  on  January  25th,  with  the  well-known  Mr. 
David  Sillar,  "  a  brither  poet "  (Epistle  to  Davie),  as  vice- 
chairman. 

It  is  a  singular  circumstance  and,  therefore,  worthy  of 
notice  here,  before  finally  passing  from  Mauchline  to  trace 
the  Poefs  medical  intimacies  in  Edinburgh,  that  another  of 
these  belles,  the  witty  Miss  Smith,  should  likewise  have 
secured  for  a  husband  a  medical  man,  who  was  also  a  valued 
friend  and  correspondent  of  Burns  :  I  refer  to  his  old  school- 
fellow at  Dalrymple  and  Ayr, 

Mr.  James  Candlish. 


Dk.  Johx  Mackenzie.  SI 

It  would  appear  that  young  Candlisli  was  originally  in- 
tended by  his  parents  for  the  Church,  but,  on  account  of 
creed  scruples,  drifted  into  medicine.  Towards  the  close  of 
his  medical  curriculum  at  Glasgow  University  he  taught 
languages  at  Mauchline,  and  while  there  formed  the  inti- 
macy of  Jane  Smith,  his  future  wife,  who  became  the  mother 
of  the  celebrated  divine,  Dr.  Candlish  of  Edinburgh.  As  he 
was  never  robust,  and  diffident  and  shy  almost  to  painful- 
ness,  he  eschewed  general  practice,  and  settled  in  Edinburgh 
about  1788,  as  a  teacher  of  medicine,  in  which  he  won  well- 
merited  distinction.  Here  he  was  made  known  to  many  of 
its  leading  personages  by  Burns,  who  had  just  bidden  his  final 
adieu  to  the  city.  In  a  letter  to  Mr.  Peter  Hill,  written 
from  Ellisland  about  March,  1789,  accompanying  the  gift  of 
a  ewe-milk  cheese,  the  Poet,  in  enumerating  their  common 
friends  who  might  be  permitted  to  taste  it,  names  Mr.  Can- 
dlish in  the  following  enthusiastic  terms  : — "  Candlish,  the 
earliest  friend,  except  my  only  brother,  that  I  have  on  earth, 
and  one  of  the  worthiest  of  fellows  that  ever  any  man  called 
by  the  name  of  friend,  if  a  luncheon  of  my  best  cheese  would 
help  to  rid  him  of  part  of  his  superabundant  modesty,  you 
would  do  well  to  give  it  him.'"'' 

He  died  somewhat  suddenly  of  a  brain  affection  on  April 
29th,  1806,  at  the  early  age  of  forty-six,  having  been  born 
the  same  year  as  Burns — 1759. 


II. 

Diis.  GREGORY,  WOOD,  ADAIR,  Etc.,  EDINBURGH. 

In  little  more  than  a  month  after  dining  at  Catrine  House 
Burns  had  bidden  farewell,  for  a  season  at  least,  to  the  rural 
life  around  Mauchline,  and  the  congenial  society  of  his 
friends,  Gavin  Hamilton  and  Dr.  Mackenzie,  and  betaken 
himself  to  the  gay  capital.  Thither  Professor  Stewart  had 
gone  before  him,  to  commence  his  winter  session  at  the 
University,  in  the  beginning  of  November,  carrying  with 
him  a  copy  of  the  humble  Kilmarnock  volume  to  introduce 
it  to  the  notice  of  his  friend,  Mr.  Henry  Mackenzie,  the 
author  of  The  Man  of  Feeling,  who  gave  it  a  generous  and 
highly  appreciative  criticism  in  The  Lonnger,  a  periodical 
work  published  in  Edinburgh  by  Mr.  Creech.  By  this  means 
the  PoeFs  fame  may  be  said  to  have,  in  a  great  measure, 
preceded  him,  so  that  on  his  arrival  in  Fair  Edina  he  was  at 
once  installed  as  the  intimate  and  associate  of  its  aristocratic 
leaders  of  fashion,  its  men  of  science,  and  its  brilliant  rem- 
nant of  Scottish  literati  who  adorned  the  latter  half  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  and  who  then  formed  such  a  conspicuous 
element  of  the  best  Edinburgh  society,  immbering,  as  it  did, 
amongst  its  circle  such  names  as  Dr.  Robertson,  Dr.  Blair, 
Dr.  Gregory,  Dr.  Adam  Ferguson,  Mr.  Mackenzie,  and  Mr. 
Eraser  Tytler. 

It  was  at  the  hospitable  table  of  Lord  Monboddo,  who 
was  then  as   remarkable  for  his   classic  suppers  as   for   the 


Pki>kessok  JA.MES   GREGORY,  M.D. 

From  an  Engraving,  by  the  kind  permission  of  James  I..  Caw,  Esq.,  of  ihe 
Scottish  National  Portrait  Gallery. 


Dr.  James  Gregory.  23 


beauty  of  his  daughter,  that  Burns  made  the  acquaintance  of 
Dr.  James  Gregory,  the  Professor  of  the  Practice  of  ]Medi- 
cine  in  Edinburgh  University,  the  scion  of  a  family  distin- 
guished for  generations  for  their  great  learning,  and  himself, 
not  only  the  leading  member  of  his  profession  in  Edinburgh, 
but  the  witty  and  humorous  associate  of  the  men  of  letters 
and  fashion  in  the  capital,  and  a  brother  of  the  Cannongate 
Kilwinning  Lodge  of  Eree  Masons. 

The  following  incident  is  related  by  Chambers  as  happen- 
ing at  the  table  of  Lord  Monboddo  between  Burns  and  the 
doctor  at  the  beginning  of  their  acquaintanceship.  "  Dr. 
Gregory,  who,  feeling  some  interest  in  the  psychology  of  such 
a  prodigy  of  genius,  began  to  question  Burns  about  his 
family  history.  The  Bard  had  been  dining  with  Mr. 
Howden,  jeweller.  Parliament  Square,  and  was  much  in 
a  humour  for  waggery.  '  Well,  Burns,'  said  the  learned 
physician,  '  What  sort  of  man  was  your  father  ? — a  tall 
man.^'  'Yes,  rather.''  'A  dark-complexioned  man  .^ ' 
'  Yes."  '  And  your  mother  ? ""  '  My  mother  was  not  a  man 
at  all,  sir.'  By  this  grammatical  quip  the  doctor  was  sadly 
discomfited ;  and  Burns  next  day  made  his  friend  Howden 
laugh  heartily  at  the  joke  in  his  shop  in  Parliament  Square." 

Li  spite  of  this  somewhat  inauspicious-looking  connnence- 
ment,  the  intimacy  thus  begun  soon  ripened  into  genuine 
friendship,  which  is  all  the  more  remarkable  considering 
the  difference  in  their  education  and  position  ;  but  perhaps, 
as  Chambers  suggests,  "  their  common  liability  to  the  saeva 
iridignatio  when  their  feelings  were  offended  by  foolish  or 
sordid  conduct,"  had  contributed  towards  it.  That  Burns, 
at  any  rate,  on  his  part,  was  deeply  impressed  from  their  first 
meetings  at  Lord  Monboddo's  "  with  the  large  intelligence, 


24  BURXS    AND    THE    MeDICAL    PROFESSION'. 

vigorous  thought,  and  high-minded  benevolence  of  the 
learned  author  of  the  Conapectus  Medichia:^''  we  have  his 
own  testimony  to  prove,  written  on  the  blank  page  of  an 
English  translation  of  Cicero's  Select  Orations  (London, 
1756),  presented  to  him  by  the  doctor. 

"  Edin.,  23rd  April,  1787. 

"  This  book,  a  present  from  the  truly  worthy  and 
learned  Dr.  Gregory,  I  shall  preserve  to  my  latest  hour,  as 
a  mark  of  the  gratitude,  esteem,  and  veneration  I  bear  the 
Donor.     So  help  me  God  ! 

"  Robert  Burns,'" 

Three  weeks  after  penning  the  above  characteristic  declara- 
tion, we  find  him  paying  the  doctor  a  compliment  in  verse. 
The  literary  set  who  were  in  the  habit  of  meeting  at  Lord 
Monboddo's  also  frequented  in  the  mornings  the  house  in 
High  Street  of  Mr.  Wm.  Creech,  the  publisher,  and  that  to 
such  an  extent  that  the  meeting  used  to  be  called  Creech's 
Levee.  It  happened,  however,  about  this  time,  that  the 
continuity  of  these  gatherings  was  broken  for  a  little  through 
the  absence  of  jSIr.  Creech  on  a  visit  to  London,  and  Burns 
took  the  occasion  to  indite  to  his  publisher  a  humorous 
lamentation,  in  the  following  couple  of  stanzas  of  which  he 
has  enshrined  not  only  the  doctor,  but  the  entire  literary 
coterie. 

"  Nae  raair  we  see  his  levee  door 
Philosophers  and  poets  pour, 
And  toothy  critics  by  the  score, 

In  bloody  raw  ! 
The  adjutant  o'  a'  the  core, 

Willie's  awa  ! 


Dr.  James  Gregory.  S5 

"  Now  worthy  Gregory's  Latin  face, 
Tytler's  and  Greenfield's  modest  grace  ; 
Mackenzie,  Stewart,  sic  a  brace 
As  Rome  ne'er  saw  ; 
They  a'  maun  meet  some  ither  place, 
Willie's  awa  !  " 

When  the  Poet  was  confined  to  his  lodgings  for  several 
weeks  with  his  sprained  knee  (during  which  period  transpired 
the  famous  Clarinda  and  Sylvander  correspondence)  Dr. 
Gregory  attended  him  in  the  capacity  of  physician,  while 
Mr.  Alexander  Wood  officiated  as  surgeon.  During  the 
visits  of  the  learned  author  of  the  Conspectus  Medicinae,  who 
in  his  day  and  place  was  looked  upon  as  a  prince  of  critics, 
he  was  in  the  habit  of  submitting  not  only  his  own  verses,  but 
Clarinda^s  as  well,  to  the  doctor's  critical  inspection.  In  one 
of  his  epistles  to  that  lady  he  tells  her  that  a  gentleman  for 
whose  character,  abilities,  and  critical  knowledge  he  had  the 
highest  veneration  had  just  called  in,  "  and  I  read,"  he  says, 
"  to  this  much-respected  friend  several  of  my  own  bagatelles, 
and,  among  others,  your  lines,  which  I  had  copied  out.  He 
began  some  criticisms  on  them  as  on  the  other  pieces,  when  I 
informed  him  they  were  the  work  of  a  young  lady  in  this 
town,  which,  I  assure  you,  made  him  stare.  My  learned  friend 
seriously  protested  that  he  did  not  believe  any  young  woman 
in  Edinburgh  was  capable  of  such  lines  ;  and  if  you  know 
anything  of  Professor  Gregory,  you  will  neither  doubt  his 
abilities  nor  his  sincerity." 

But  this  same  able  and  sincere  critic,  who  had  been  so 
lenient  and  complimentary  towards  the  versicles  of  Clarinda, 
could,  we  shall  see,  be  just  as  severe  on  occasion  to  the  com- 
positions of  her  Sylvander.     From  Ellisland  Burns  had  sent, 

B 


26  Burns  and  the  Medical  Profession. 

for  the  doctoi"'s  criticism,  a  short  poem  "  On  Seeing  a  Fellow 
Wound  a  Hare  with  a  Shot,  April,  ITSO,"  and  criticise  it  he 
did  with  a  vengeance.  To  begin  with,  he  acknowledges  that 
the  verses  have  real  poetic  merit,  such  as  fancy  and  tender- 
ness, and  some  happy  expressions  ;  so  much  so,  indeed,  that 
they  are  the  more  deserving  of  careful  revisal  and  the  utmost 
polish  ;  and  he  cites,  as  an  example  of  Avhat  correctness  and 
high  polish  can  do  in  enhancing  such  compositions,  the  two 
last  pieces  of  Mrs.  Hunter's  poetry  that  he  had  given  him. 
The  Mrs.  Hunter  here  referred  to,  by  the  by,  is  the  wife  of  the 
celebrated  surgeon,  John  Hunter,  and  the  authoress  of  that 
beautiful  song,  "  My  mother  bids  me  bind  my  hair."  It  is, 
therefore,  highly  gratifying  that,  if  we  cannot  link  the  name 
of  the  father  of  British  medicine  with  that  of  Burns  in  our 
enquiry,  we  can  employ  his  wife's  in  that  connection.  Dr. 
Gregory  appears  to  have  been  a  great  admirer  of  Mrs. 
Hunter's  poetry,  though  on  the  appearance  of  her  volume 
in  1802  it  met  with  but  little  mercy  at  the  hands  of  Francis 
Jeffrey,  who  said,  "  Poetry  does  not  appear  to  be  her  voca- 
tion, and  rather  seems  to  have  been  studied  as  an  accomplish- 
ment than  pursued  from  any  natural  propensity."  There 
were  other  critics,  however,  who,  it  is  but  fair  to  say,  admired 
her  poetry  equally  with  Dr.  Gregory,  who,  in  the  letter  we 
are  commenting  on,  requests  Burns  to  furnish  him  with 
another  and  amended  edition  of  his  verses  on  The  Wounded 
Hare  to  send  to  Mrs.  Hunter,  who,  he  feels  sure,  will  have 
much  pleasure  in  reading  it.  "  Pray  give  me  likewise  for 
myself,"  he  asks,  "  and  her  too,  a  copy — as  much  amended 
as  you  please — of  the  Watei'-Fotvl  on  Loch  Tu7-rit.  Let  me 
see  you,"  he  adds,  "  when  you  come  to  town,  and  I  will  show 
you  some  of  Mrs.  Hunter's  poems." 


Dr.  James  Guegoky.  27 

To  return,  however,  to  his  criticism  of  The  Wounded  Hare. 
"  As  you  desire  it,"  he  says,  "  I  shall,  with  great  freedom, 
give  you  my  most  rigvroiis  criticisms  on  your  verses.  The 
Wounded  Hare  is  a  pretty  good  subject ;  but  the  measure, 
or  stanza,  you  have  chosen  for  it,  is  not  a  good  one  ;  it  does 
not  How  well ;  and  the  rhyme  of  the  fourth  line  is  almost 
lost  by  its  distance  from  the  first ;  and  the  two  interposed, 
close  rhymes.  If  I  were  you  I  would  put  it  into  a  different 
stanza  yet. 

"  Stanza  I. — The  execrations  in  the  first  two  lines  are 
strong  or  coarse  ;  but  they  may  pass.  '  Murder-aiming ''  is  a 
bad  compound  epithet,  and  not  very  intelligible.  '  Blood- 
stained,"* in  stanza  III.,  line  4,  has  the  same  fault :  Bleeding 
bosom  is  infinitely  better.  You  have  accustomed  yourself  to 
such  epithets,  and  have  no  notion  how  stiff  and  quaint  they 
appear  to  others,  and  how^  incongruous  with  poetic  fancy, 
and  tender  sentiments.  Suppose  Pope  had  written,  '  Why 
that  blood-stained  bosom  gored,"*  how  Avould  you  have  liked 
it  ?  Form  is  neither  a  poetic,  nor  a  dignified,  nor  a  plain, 
common  word  :  it  is  a  mere  sportsman's  word  ;  unsuitable  to 
pathetic  or  serious  poetry.  '  Mangled  "*  is  a  coarse  word. 
'  Innocent,"*  in  this  sense,  is  a  nursery  word  ;  but  both  may 
pass. 

Stanza  4. — '  Who  will  now  provide  that  life  a  mother  only 
can  bestow,"  will  not  do  at  all  :  it  is  not  grammar — it  is  not 
intelligible.  Do  you  mean  '  provide  for  that  life  which  the 
mother  had  bestowed  and  used  to  provide  for  ?  "* 

There  was  a  ridiculous  slip  of  the  pen,  'Feeling'  (I  sup- 
pose) for  '  Fellow,''  in  the  title  of  your  copy  of  verses ;  but 
even  fellow  would  be  wrong  :  it  is  but  a  collocpiial  and  vulgar 
word,  unsuitable  to  your  seirtiments.     'Shot"  is  improper  too 


^8  Burns  and  the  Medical  Profession. 

— On  seeing  a  person  (or  a  sportsman)  wound  a  hare  ;  it  is 
needless  to  add  with  what  weapon  ;  but  if  you  think  other- 
wise, you  should  say,  with  a  foxcUng-piece.'''' 

More  rigorous,  blunt,  and  unceremonious,  in  view  of  the 
above  quotation,  he  could  hardly  have  shown  himself  had  he 
been  a  schoolmaster  correcting  a  pupiPs  English  composition 
exercise.  Dr.  Currie,  in  a  foot  note  to  this  letter  says,  and 
with  truth,  "  It  must  be  admitted  that  this  criticism  is  not 
more  distinguished  by  its  good  sense,  than  by  its  freedom 
from  ceremony.  It  is  impossible  not  to  smile  at  the  manner 
in  which  the  Poet  may  be  supposed  to  have  received  it.  In 
fact,  it  appears,  as  the  sailors  say,  to  have  tlu'own  him  quite 
a-back:     In  a  letter  which  he  wrote  soon  after,  he  says,  '  Dr. 

G is  a  good  man,  but  he  crucifies  me.'     And  again,  '  I 

believe  in  the  iron  justice  of  Dr.  G ;  but  like  the  devils, 

I  believe  and  tremble.'  However,  he  profited  by  these  criti- 
cisms, as  the  reader  will  find,  by  comparing  this  first  edition 
of  the  poem,  with  that  published  afterwards." 

Dr.  Wood. 

Alexander  Wood,  Surgeon,  Royal  Exchange,  Edinburgh, 
whom  we  saw  attended  Burns  in  conjunction  with  his  col- 
league. Dr.  Gregory,  though  not  the  Johnsonian  personality 
in  literary  circles  that  the  learned  author  of  the  Conspectus 
Medicinae  was,  nevertheless,  by  virtue  of  his  intimacy  and 
friendship  with  the  Poet,  deserves  a  notice  to  himself.  Lang 
Sandy  Wood,  as  he  was  usually  styled,  on  account  of  his 
lengthy  lanky  figure,  "  was,""  says  Chambers,  "  a  man  after 
Burns's  own  heart — kind,  quaint,  fond  of  childi'en  and 
animals  ;  he  even  resembled  the  poet  so  specifically,  as   to 


Dr.  ALEXANDER   WOOD 
By  the  kind  perniissioii  of  A.  W.  Iiiylis,  Esq.,  of  (Ueiicorse. 


Dk,  Alexander  Wood.  29 

have  had  at  one  time  a  pet  sheep,  which,  hke  Burns's  Mailie, 
'  trotted  by  him '  through  all  the  town  on  his  professional 
visits — a  trait  of  eccentricity  that  strongly  recalls  the  simple, 
cordial  days  of  our  grandfathers."  This  highly  gifted,  active, 
benevolent,  simple,  and  warm-hearted  surgeon,  was  a  member 
of  the  C.K.  Lodge  of  Free  Masons,  at  one  of  the  meetings  of 
which  he  is  said  to  have  first  made  the  acquaintance  of  the 
Poet,  for  whose  genius  he  entertained  the  general  share  of 
admiration.  He  afterwards,  as  before  remarked,  attended 
him  for  his  bruised  limb,  while  Burns  was  chafing  at  the 
enforced  confinement  his  injury  entailed,  and  conducting  the 
romantic  Sylvander  and  Clarinda  correspondence.  Clarinda, 
herself  the  daughter  of  a  Glasgow  physician,  in  one  of  these 
remarkable  epistles,  wrote,  "  I  am  glad  to  hear  Mr.  Wood 
attends  you  ;  he  is  a  good  soul,  and  a  safe  surgeon.  I  know 
him  a  little.  Do  as  he  bids,  and  I  trust  your  leg  will  soon 
be  quite  well." 

Lord  President  Dundas,  of  the  Court  of  Session,  dvinsr 
somewhat  suddenly  about  this  time,  13th  December,  1787,  it 
is  stated  that  Mr.  Charles  Hay,  Advocate,  pressed  Burns  to 
compose  some  elegiac  verses  on  the  occasion,  and  that  Dr. 
Wood  warmly  seconded  the  proposal,  suggesting  that  the 
poetic  compliment  might  lead  to  some  beneficial  results, 
through  the  powerful  political  influence  of  the  Dundas  family. 
There  appears,  however,  to  be  some  discrepancy  regarding 
these  statements ;  for  in  a  letter  to  Charles  Hay,  Esq., 
Advocate,  enclosing  a  copy  of  the  elegiac  performance,  while 
Burns  still  gives  that  gentleman  the  credit  of  suggesting  the 
subject  to  him,  he,  in  another  epistle  to  Alex.  Cunninghame, 
says,  "  My  very  worthy  and  respected  friend,  Mr.  Alexander 
Wood,  Surgeon,  urged  me  to  pay  a  compliment  in  the  way 


30  Burks  and  the  Medical  Proeession. 

of  my  trade  to  his  Lordship's  memory,"  a  task  in  which  he 
does  not  appear  to  have  had  very  much  heart.  Whichever 
of  the  two  gentlemen  was  the  proposer,  and  whichever  the 
seconder,  it  was  certainly  Dr.  Wood  who  carried  the  elegy, 
together  with  a  letter,  (written,  the  Poet  confesses,  in 
his  very  best  manner,  whatever  the  quality  of  the  verses)  to 
Mr.  Solicitor  Dundas,  the  dead  Lord's  son,  "And  not  finding 
him  at  home,  left  the  parcel  for  him.  His  Solicitorship, 
however,  ne^'er  took  the  smallest  notice  of  the  letter,  the 
poem,  or  the  poet."  The  following  note  subjoined  to  a  copy 
of  the  elegy  shows  how  the  Bard  felt  the  treatment  of  the 
great  Dundas  family.  "  The  foregoing  poem  has  some 
tolerable  lines  in  it,  but  the  incurable  wound  of  my  pride  will 
not  suffer  me  to  correct  or  even  peruse  it.  I  sent  a  copy  of 
it  with  my  best  prose  letter,  to  the  son  of  the  great  man,  the 
theme  of  the  piece,  by  the  hand,  too,  of  one  of  the  noblest 
men  in  God's  world,  Alexander  Wood,  Surgeon,  when  behold 
his  Solicitorship  took  no  more  notice  of  my  poem,  or  me, 
than  I  had  been  a  strolling  fiddler,  who  made  free  with  his 
lady's  name  over  the  head  of  a  silly  new  reel !  Did  the 
gentleman  think  I  looked  for  any  dirty  gratuity  ?  " 

If  this  proposal  of  the  kind  and  simple  surgeon,  in  the 
interest  of  his  poet-patient,  turned  out  a  melancholy  failure, 
he  was  more  fortunate  in  another  matter  he  took  in  hand.  I 
refer  to  his  exertions  in  recommending  Burns  to  the  Com- 
missioners of  Excise,  and  on  which  recommendation  his  en- 
X'olment  as  an  officer  followed. 


Dr.  M.  Fyfe.  31 


Du.  James  M'Kittrick  Adaih. 

A  young  relative  of  Mrs.  Dunlop  and  the  son  of  a  physician 
in  Ayr,  to  whom  Burns  had  before  been  introduced  by  the 
Rev.  Mr.  Lawrie,  minister  of  Loudoun,  falls  also,  most  con- 
veniently to  be  noticed  here,  as  it  was  from  Edinburgh  that 
the  doctor  and  he,  sometime  in  October,  1787,  and  im- 
mediately after  the  Poet's  second  visit  to  the  capital,  set  out 
together  on  a  short  tour,  by  Stirling,  Devon,  Clackmannan, 
and  Dunfermline,  the  highly  interesting  and  piquant  details 
of  which  he  afterwards  communicated  to  Dr.  Currie  for  his 
memoir.  In  the  vale  of  Devon,  where  they  were  storm- 
stayed  for  a  week,  they  were  the  guests  of  Mrs.  Hamilton  of 
Harvieston,  and  the  young  doctor  fell  in  love  with  the  eldest 
daughter,  Charlotte,  sister  of  Burns's  bosom  friend,  Gavin 
Hamilton  of  Mauchline,  which  lady,  two  years  later,  he 
married,  and  settled  down  to  medical  practice  at  the 
Pleasance,  Edinburgh.  Subsequently  he  removed  to  Harro- 
gate, where  he  died  in  1802,  at  the  early  age  of  thirty-seven. 
His  widow  survived  him  four  years,  dying  at  Edinburgh  at 
the  age  of  forty-three. 

M.  Fyfe,  Surgeon, 

with  whose  name,  as  a  fitting  close  to  the  present  paper, 
I  shall  now  bid  farewell  to  the  Edinburgh  faculty  ;  and  I 
cannot  do  so  more  appropriately  than  in  the  Poefs  own 
words,  addressed  to  his  friend.  Dr.  Fyfe,  half-an-hour  before 
turning  his  back  on  the  palaces  and  toxcers  of  Edhia,  where 
his  marvellous  personality  had  so  bewitched  its  society,  and 
where,  at  a  price,  I  fear,  infinitely  above  its  value,  he  had 
bought  such  a  variegated  human  experience. 


32  BURXS    AND    THE    MeDICAL    PROFESSION. 


"  Saturday  morn  :  six  ©""clock. 

My  Dear  Sir, — My  loins  are  gii'ded,  my  sandals  on  my 
feet  and  my  staff'  in  my  hand  ;  and  in  half-an-hour  I  shall  set 
off"  from  this  venerable,  respectable,  hospitable,  social,  con- 
vivial, imperial  Queen  of  cities,  Auld  Reekie.  My  compli- 
ments to  Mr.  M'Cartney,  and  I  have  sent  him  that  engraving. 
Farewell  ! 

'  Now,  God  in  heaven  bless  Reekie's  town 
With  plentj',  joy,  and  peace  ! 
And  may  her  wealth  and  fair  renown 
To  latest  times  increase  ! !  ! — Amen.' 

Robert  Burns." 


L'lst  of  Medical  Suhscrihers  to  First  Edinhirgh  Edition^ 

17S7, 


1. 


Mr.  James  Arrot,  Surgeon  Edinburgl 

Dr.  Aitken,  Edinburgh. 

Mr.  John  Andrew,  Surgeon,  Linlithgow. 

Dr.  Joseph  Black,  Professor  of  Chemistry,  Edinburgh. 

Broughaji,  of  Brougham  Hall,  Esq. 

BoRTHBY,  Esq.  :  4  copies. 

Dr.  Blaw,  Edinburgh. 

Mr.  Benjamin  Bell,  Surgeon,  Edinburgh, 

Mr.  J.  Brown,  Surgeon,  Douglas. 

Dr.  Buchanan,  Edinburgh. 

Mr.  Brown,  Surgeon,  Dunbar. 

Mr.  John  Bell,  Surgeon,  Edinburgh. 

Mr.  Wali-er  Colquhoun,  Surgeon,  Dumbarton. 

Dr.  John  Calder,  Furnivars  Inn,  Edinburgh. 

Robert  Carswell,  M.D.,  Paisley. 


List  of  Medical  Subscribers.  33 

Dr.  Henry  Cullek,  Edinburgh. 

Dr.  JoHK  Campbell,  Ayr. 

Dr.  George  Charles,  Ayr. 

Dr.  Andrew  Duncan,  Edinburgh. 

Dr.  James  Deans. 

Mr.  Forrest  Dewar,  Surgeon,  Edinburgh. 

Mr.  Andrew  Frodie,  Surgeon,  Dysart. 

Dr.  Charles  Fyfe,  Carohna  Cofiee-house,  London. 

Dr.  Gregory,  Edinburgh. 

Dr.  Nathan  Heron,  London  :  2  copies. 

Dr.  James  Hamilton,  Edinburgh. 

James  Hunter,  M.D.,  Edinburgh. 

Mr.  Thomas  Hart,  Surgeon,  Edinburgh. 

Mr.  Thomas  Hay,  Surgeon,  Edinburgh. 

Mr.  William  Inglis,  Surgeon,  Edinburgh. 

Mr.  Robert  Kerr,  Surgeon. 

George  Kirkaldie,  M.D. 

Mr.  Charles  Kerr,  Surgeon  to  the  37th  Regiment. 

Mr.  James  Law,  Surgeon,  Edinburgh. 

Dr.  LoRiMER,  Charlotte  Street,  Portland  Place,  London. 

Mr.  Hugh  Longan,  Surgeon,  Edinburgh. 

Mr.  Peter  Liddle,  Surgeon,  Westmains. 

Dr.  Alexander  Monro,  Edinburgh. 

Dr.  Moore,  London  :  4  copies. 

]\Ir.  Ha:milton  M'Clure,  Surgeon,  Edinburgh. 

Dr.  Alexander  M'Dougal. 

INIr.  R.  Montgomery,  Surgeon,  Beith  :  6  copies. 

Mr.  John  M'Kenzie,  Surgeon,  Mauchline :  2  copies. 

Andrew  Morris,  M.D.,  Glasgow. 

Mr.  John  Rae,  Surgeon,  Edinburgh. 

Dr.  Spens. 


34  Burns  and  thk  Medical  Profession. 

Dr.  Stenhouse,  St.  James''s  Square,  London. 

Mr.  P.  Sandilands,  Surgeon,  Royal  Navy. 

Dr.  Wilson,  Kelso. 

Dr.  Williamson,  Physician,  Nevis. 

Mr.  John  White,  Surgeon,  Paisley. 

Mr.  Alexander  Wood,  Surgeon,  Edinburgh. 

Mr.  Andrew  Wood,  Surgeon,  Edinburgh. 


Dr.  JOHN   MOORE 

By  the  kind  permission  of  Messrs.  Blackie  &  Son 


III. 

Dr.  JOHN  MOORE,  LONDON, 

WAS  the  son  of  an  Episcopal  clergyman  at  Stirling,  where  he 
was  born  in  1730.  He  studied  at  Glasgow  and  Paris,  served 
as  a  surgeon  in  the  army,  and  practised  in  Glasgow.  He 
had  his  residence  first  in  Donald's  Land,  Trongate,  opposite 
the  Tron  Steeple  (where  his  son.  Sir  John,  the  hero  of 
Corunna,  was  born),  and  afterwards  in  Dunlop  Street.  He 
was  a  great  friend  of  Smollet,  the  author  of  Roderick 
Random,  who,  a  few  years  his  senior,  was  at  this  time  being 
initiated  into  the  mysteries  of  pharmacy  and  minor  surgery 
in  Dr.  Gordon's  dingy  little  apothecary,  situated  in  Gibson's 
Land,  at  the  north  corner  of  Salt  Market  and  Prince's  Street, 
where  Moore  had  also  been  an  apprentice  before  setting  up 
as  a  surgeon  in  the  Trongate.  From  1772  to  1778  he 
travelled  on  the  Continent  with  Douglas,  eighth  Duke  of 
Hamilton,  and  afterwards  settled  in  London  as  a  man  of 
letters.  He  wrote  Zelnca,  a  novel ;  A  Vkto  of  Society  and 
Manners  in  France  ;  Edzoard,  a  novel,  etc. 

He  would  be  some  few  years  resident  in  London,  when 
Burns,  during  the  early  part  of  his  Edinburgh  career, 
entered  into  a  most  interesting  correspondence  with  him, 
which  extended  over  a  period  of  fully  four  years,  and  con- 
tinued down  almost  to  the  end  of  the  Ellisland  days.  The 
Poet  wrote  eight  letters  in  all,  including  the  famous  auto- 
biographical one,  dated  Mossgeil,  August  2nd,  1787,  which 


36  BUHXS    AXD    THE    INIeDICAL    PROFESSION. 

he  penned  on  his  return  home  after  his  first  visit  to  Edin- 
burgh, and  which  has  formed  the  basis  of  all  his  future 
biographies  ;  while  Moore,  on  the  other  hand,  wrote  six. 
The  immediate  occasion  of  this  correspondence  was  Mrs. 
Dunlop  sending  to  Burns  certain  passages  extracted  from 
the  doctor's  letters  to  herself,  containing  flattering  notices  of 
his  poems,  and  suggesting  that  he  would  not  be  unwilling  to 
open  a  correspondence  with  him.  These  extracts  he  received 
on  the  30th  December,  1786,  and  it  was  the  16th  or  17th 
January,  1787,  before  he  mustered  courage  to  write  to  Dr. 
Moore,  the  reason  he  assigned  to  Mrs.  Dunlop  for  this  delay 
being,  that  he  wanted  to  write  in  a  manner  at  once  worthy  of 
such  a  celebrated  author  and  his  own  character. 

These  two  conditions,  I  should  say,  are  amply  fulfilled  in 
the  opening  letter  of  this  correspondence.  It  is  modest  and 
deferential,  as  became  it,  to  the  great  literary  magnate  he 
considered  he  was  addressing  ;  and  it  is  dignified  and  honest, 
as  it  should  be,  coming  from  a  peasant  poet  who,  while  per- 
fectly well  aware  that  the  novelty  of  his  character  had  by  far 
the  greater  share  in  the  learned  and  polite  notice  he  had 
lately  received — that,  indeed,  the  hope  to  be  admired  for 
ages,  even  for  authors  of  repute,  was  often  "  an  unsubstantial 
dream,"" — nevertheless  knew  that  he  had  some  ability,  and 
had,  moreover,  claims  to  depict  the  humbler  rural  national 
life  of  which  his  poems  treat,  he  being  himself,  in  birth, 
education,  and  feeling,  one  of  themselves. 

The  doctor,  in  his  well-bred  reply,  January  23rd,  1787, 
may  be  said  to  be  equally  happy.  He  compliments  the  Poet 
on  his  disposition  and  temper,  of  which  he  takes  a  favourable 
impression  from  his  works — regrets  he  did  not  see  him  last 
summer  when   in   Scotland,   which  he  certainly  would  have 


Dr.  Johx  ]MooiiE.  S7 


done  had  he  only  seen  his  poems  earher,  and  which  poems  he 
gi'eatly  admires,  not  so  much  for  those  original  and  brilliant 
poetical  beauties  so  lavishly  scattered  through  them,  as  for 
the  love  of  his  native  country — that  feeling  of  sensibility  to  all 
objects  of  humanity  which  they  display,  and  the  independent 
spirit  which  breathes  through  the  whole. 

In  his  second  letter,  February  15th,  1787,  Burns  is  still 
more  deferential  to  the  great  literateurs,  of  whom  he  looked 
upon  Moore  as  one;  and  contrasts  the  time,  when  he  followed 
the  plough  and  could  boast  of  nothing  higher  than  a  distant 
acquaintanceship  with  a  country  clergyman,  with  his  present 
situation,  when  genius,  polished  by  learning,  and  at  its 
proper  elevation  in  the  eye  of  the  world,  is  his  frecpent 
associate,  making  him,  whom  mere  greatness  could  never 
embarass,  tremble  at  its  approach.  That  he  has  some  merit, 
he  repeats,  he  will  not  deny,  and  again  emphasises  his  belief, 
which  he  has  arrived  at  with  frequent  wringings  of  heart, 
that  it  is  the  noveltv  of  his  character,  and  the  honest 
national  prejudice  of  his  countrymen,  more  than  his  poetic 
abilities,  to  which  he  owes  his  present  elevation  among  great 
society  folks. 

The  doctor  in  his  reply,  February  28th,  1787,  and  ap- 
parently on  the  strength  of  his  correspondent's  over-generous 
compliments  to  the  Edinburgh  literati  in  tlie  contrast  he 
draws  between  his  past  and  present,  remarks,  a  little  un- 
graciously, I  think,  "It  is  not  surprising  that  you  improve  in 
correctness  and  taste,  considering  where  you  have  been  for 
some  time  past."  This  taking  of  Burns  so  completely  at  his 
word  shows  just  the  least  touch  of  Caledonianism  in  the 
doctor,  who,  hoAvever,  has  shrewdly  enough  read  his  poetic 
character,    to  dare  swear  that    there    is    no    danger   of  his 


38  Burns  axd  the  Medical  Phofession 

admitting  any  polish  which  might  weaken  the  vigour  of  his 
native  powers.  He  is  also  obliging  enough  to  say  that  he  is 
glad  to  perceive  that  he  disdains  to  decry  his  own  merit  as  a 
poet,  which,  to  do,  would  be  to  arraign  the  fixed  opinion  of 
the  public. 

About  two  months  after  this,  April  23rd,  1787,  Burns 
again  writes,  in  terms  of  most  grateful  warmth,  to  thank  the 
doctor  for  his  present  of  Vieza  of  Society^  a  gift  he  values  even 
more  as  a  mark  of  the  author's  friendly  esteem  than  for  its 
own  intrinsic  worth.  He  talks  of  leaving  Edinburgh  soon, 
and  again  comments  on  the  fact,  as  if  the  subject  haunted 
him  with  a  kind  of  grudge,  that  the  intimacies  and  friend- 
ships which  he  has  formed  among  the  rich,  the  great,  the 
fashionable,  and  the  polite,  are  all  of  too  tender  a  construction 
to  bear  carriage  150  miles — that,  having  no  equivalent  to 
offer,  he  is  afraid  his  meteor  appearance  will  by  no  means 
entitle  him  to  a  settled  correspondence  with  any  of  those 
who  are  the  permanent  lights  of  genius  and  literature. 

Moore,  in  his  acknowledgment  of  this  letter.  May  23rd, 
1787,  takes  no  notice  of  his  correspondent's  harp,  harping 
upon  the  old  string — that  the  seeming  friendship  between 
the  Edinburgh  celebrities  and  him  must  sooner  or  later  come 
to  an  end.  His  studious  silence  on  the  subject  rather,  I 
should  say,  accentuates  its  point  in  the  mind  of  the  Poet ;  as 
does  also  that  passage  where  he  begs  that  he  will  not  give 
himself  the  trouble  of  writing  to  him  when  it  is  inconvenient, 
and  that  he  will  make  no  apology,  when  he  does  write,  for 
having  postponed  it,  but  to  be  assured,  nevertheless,  that  he 
will  always  be  happy  to  hear  from  him.  Like  a  polite  and 
shrewd  man  of  the  world,  and  his  correspondent's  elder  in 
affairs  literary,  he  takes  up  the  safer  role  of  critic  and  general 


Dr,  Johx  Moohe.  39 


adviser.  He  has  just  received  the  new  edition  of  poems 
through  Creech,  and  points  out  to  the  author  that  it  is  not 
incumbent  on  him  to  send  copies  to  each  subscriber  propor- 
tionate to  his  subscription  money,  most  subscribers  only 
expecting  one  copy,  no  matter  how  many  they  may  have 
subscribed  for.  He  thinks  highly  of  some  of  the  poems 
added  to  the  new  edition,  particularly  the  Wniter  Night,  the 
Address  to  Edinburgh,  Green  Grow  the  Rashes,  and  the  two 
songs  immediately  following,  the  latter  of  which.  The  Gloomy 
Night  is  Gathering  Fast,  is  exquisite.  And  here  the  doctor 
shows  his  critical  insight  and  discrimination  by  pointing  out 
to  Burns  that  he  has  a  peculiar  talent  for  such  lyrical  com- 
positions, which  he  ought,  therefore,  to  indulge,  as  no  kind 
of  poetry  demands  more  delicacy  or  higher  polishing.  He  is 
of  opinion,  however,  that  there  is  nothing  added  equal  to  his 
Vision  and  Cotters  Saturday  N^ight,  as  in  these  are  united 
fine  imagery,  natural  and  pathetic  description,  with  sublimity 
of  language  and  thought.  Seeing  he  possesses  such  great 
variety  of  expression  and  command  of  the  English  language, 
he  advises  him  to  deal  more  sparingly  for  the  future  in  the 
provincial  dialect.  "  ^Vhy  should  you,"  he  asks,  "  by  using 
that,  limit  the  number  of  your  admirers  to  those  who  under- 
stand the  Scottish,  when  you  can  extend  it  to  all  persons  of 
taste  who  understand  the  English  language  ?  "  He  proposes 
to  him  to  plan  some  larger  work  than  he  has  yet  attempted, 
and  to  study  first,  with  a  view  to  its  proper  execution,  the 
best  English  poets,  and  a  little  more  of  history,  such  as  the 
Greek  and  Roman  stories  (abridged);  also  heathen  mvthology 
for  the  charmingly  fanciful  allusions  contained  therein,  and 
modern  history  of  France  and  Great  Britain,  from  the  be- 
ginning of  Henry  the  Seventh's  reign.     He  asks  a  sight  of 


40  Burns  axd  the  Medical  Puofession, 

his  unpublished  satirical  and  humorous  poems,  in  which  he 
thinks  him  very  strong,  and  pawns  his  word  to  give  no  copies; 
understands  he  intends  to  take  a  farm,  but  hopes  the  business 
of  husbandry  won't  prevent  him  from  making  occasional 
addresses  to  the  Muses.  Virgil,  before  him,  proved  to  the 
world  that  there  is  nothing  in  the  business  of  husbandry 
inimical  to  poetry,  and  trusts  his  correspondent  may  afford 
an  example  of  a  good  poet  being  a  successful  farmer. 
Finally,  he  winds  up  by  saying  that  if  he  is  ever  in  Scotland 
he  will  make  a  point  of  seeing  him,  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
should  Burns  ever  have  occasion  callino;  him  to  London  he 
promises  him  a  cordial  welcome  from  his  family. 

Since  receiving  this  letter  the  Poet  had  made  that  pil- 
grimage over  some  of  the  classic  ground  of  Caledonia,  Cowden 
Knowes,  Banks  of  Yarrow,  Tweed,  etc.,  which  he  told  the 
doctor  in  his  last  epistle  he  was  about  to  set  out  upon,  and 
had  returned  home  again  to  his  family  and  friends  at  Mauch- 
line.  It  was  during  his  brief  sojourn  at  Mossgiel  that  he  made 
a  stolen  visit,  in  the  end  of  June,  to  the  Western  Highlands, 
the  calf-country  of  Mary  Campbell ;  and  returning  by  Dum- 
barton and  Paisley  made  the  acquaintance  of  another  doctor. 
He  was  standing  in  one  of  the  streets  of  the  latter  town  with 
his  friend,  Alex.  Pattison,  bookseller,  when  Dr.  John  Taylor, 
happening  to  be  passing,  and  at  once  recognising  Burns  from 
his  portrait,  introduced  himself,  and  proposed  that  the  Poet 
and  his  friend  should  accompany  him  home,  which  they  did  (at 
first  with  reluctance,  but  afterwards,  as  the  "  crack  "  became 
good,  seemed  in  no  hurry  to  depart),  and  spent  a  most  agree- 
able afternoon  in  conversation  ;  for  the  doctor,  if  not  exactly 
a  poet  like  every  tenth  Paisley  body,  possessed  the  tempera- 
ment of  that  erratic  class  in  a  high  degree.     And  it  was  also 


Dr.  John  Moore.  41 


during  his  .short  stay  at  Mossgiel  (for  he  was  soon  off  to 
Edinburgh  again,  and  to  his  northern  tour  with  Nicoll),  that, 
being  confined,  as  he  says,  with  some  hngering  complaints  of 
a  gastric  origin,  and  to  divert  his  spirits  a  httle  from  this 
miserable  fog  of  enmil,  he  penned  his  autobiographical  letter, 
August  2nd,  1787,  to  Dr.  Moore,  wliich,  as  I  said  before,  has 
formed  the  basis  of  all  his  subsequent  biographies. 

The  doctor's  reply,  8th  November,  1787,  if  packed,  as 
usual,  with  good  and  serious  advice,  about  the  advisability  of 
his  using  the  Doric  more  sparingly  in  future,  planning  some 
larger  and  more  important  work,  and  looking  forward  to  a 
further  publication  of  his  pieces,  carefully  collected,  revised, 
and  polished,  is  also  exceedingly  cordial  and  happy,  parti- 
cularly in  his  parodying  of  Othello's  defence  in  acknowledg- 
ing the  merits  of  the  Poefs  own  account  of  himself,  "and 
the  admirable  manner  in  which 

"  Yon  run  it  tlirough  even  from  your  boyish  days 
To  the  very  moment  that  you  kindly  tell  it. 
Your  moving  accident  in  the  harvest  field 
With  her  whose  voice  thrill'd  like  th'  j^olian  Harp. 
Your  hairbreadth  'scapes  in  th'  imminent  deadly  breach, 
The  process  raised  by  holy  cannibals 
Who  such  devour  as  follow  Nature's  law, 
Your  wild  and  headstrong  rage  for  matrimony, 
Your  redemption  thence,  whereof  by  parcels 
I  had  something  heard,  but  not  distinctly." 

Burns  had  spent  his  second  winter  in  Edinburgh,  with  its 
Highland  and  other  tours ;  its  Clarinda  fever,  and  other 
dissipations,  revelries,  and  hospitalities  ;  and  had  been  in- 
stalled for  a  feAv  months  at  Ellisland  when  he  next,  Jaimary 
4th,  1789,  addressed  Dr.   Moore.     It  is  rather  singular  to 

c 


4^  Burns  and  the  Medical  Profession. 

observe  how  he  never  seems  to  get  away  from  his  first  idea  of 
the  doctor's  greatness  when  he  begins  to  write  to  him.  The 
very  thought  of  doing  so,  which  has  suggested  itself  to  him 
three  or  four  times  every  week  these  last  six  months,  he  says, 
"  gives  me  something  so  like  the  idea  of  an  ordinary-sized 
statue  offering  at  a  conversation  with  the  Rhodian  Colossus, 
that  my  mind  misgives  me,  and  the  affair  always  miscarries 
somewhere  between  purpose  and  resolve."  Now  that  he  has 
started,  however,  he  writes  a  pretty  long  letter,  in  the  open- 
ing paragraph  of  which  he  again  declares  that,  though 
willing  to  look  upon  himself  as  having  some  pretensions  from 
nature  to  the  poetic  character,  he  knows  a  great  deal  of  the 
late  eclat  was  owing  to  the  singularity  of  his  situation,  and 
the  honest  prejudice  of  Scotsmen.  Proceeding,  he  makes 
some  very  acute  observations  on  the  Muses'  trade,  the  apti- 
tude to  learn  which,  he  acknoAvledges,  is  a  gift  from  Heaven, 
while  excellence  in  it  is  the  fruit  of  industry  and  pains.  He 
is  not  going  to  be  in  a  hurry  publishing  again,  but  is,  never- 
theless, determined  to  pursue  the  vocation  of  poetry  with  the 
utmost  vigour  and  enthusiasm.  The  worst  of  it  is  that  when 
the  poet  finishes  a  piece,  what  with  viewing  and  reviewing  it, 
he  loses  in  some  measure  his  critical  discrimination.  Then 
he  wants  a  friend,  with  a  touch  of  kindness  as  well  as  can- 
dour ;  and  he  proposes  to  engage  the  doctor  in  that  capacity 
by  sending  him  an  essay  in  poesy,  which,  as  if  disposed  to 
take  advice  about  abandoning  the  provincial  dialect,  is  an 
experiment  in  English,  and  not,  it  must  be  confessed,  by  any 
means  a  happy  one.  This  poetical  epistle,  in  the  style  of 
Pope's  Moral  Ej/ntles,  is  addressed  to  INIr.  Robert  Graham  of 
Fintry,  and  has  to  do  with  his  aspirations  to  be  appointed 
Excise  officer  of  the   division   of   the  district  in   which  he 


Dr.  JOHN    l\rOORK 

From  an  Oil  Painting  by  Sir  T.  Lawrence,  P.R.A.     With  the  kind  permis 
James  L.  Caw,  Esq.,  of  the  Scottish  National  Portrait  Gallery. 


iioii  of 


Dr.  John  Moore.  43 


resides  ;  for,  though  he  has  taken  a  farm,  and  a  wife  too,  he 
has  about  as  much  reason  to  be  disappointed  with  the  former 
as  he  has  to  be  abundantly  satisfied  with  the  latter.  That, 
however,  it  was  neither  unskillful  husbandry,  nor  the  want  of 
personal  industry,  which  was  the  cause  of  his  dissatisfaction 
and  farm-failure,  we  have  the  testimony  of  his  own  thrifty 
and  managing  Jean,  and  also  that  of  his  man-servant, 
AVilliam  Clark,  who  lived  with  him  in  the  winter  of  1789-90. 
Indeed,  to  keep  down  expenses  he  for  a  time  did  the  work  of 
two  or  three  men,  riding,  on  an  average,  two  hundred  miles 
a  week  as  an  exciseman,  and  both  ploughing  and  sowing 
whenever  his  excise  duties  would  allow  him.  The  farm, 
declares  Chambers,  was  really  a  bad  bargain,  and  something 
might  have  been  made  of  it  with  more  capital,  but  Burns 
could  not  brook  the  idea  of  recalling  his  loan  to  his  brother, 
and  found  his  own  prosperity  by  ruining  the  Ayrshire  house- 
hold. 

Some  three  months  after  unbosoming  himself  of  these, 
among  other,  personal  confidences,  including  some  rather 
outspoken  observations  concerning  Mr.  Creech,  his  publisher, 
from  whom  he  seems  to  despair  of  ever  getting  a  settlement, 
he  takes  occasion  to  write  the  doctor  again,  March  23rd, 
1789,  introducing  a  neighbour,  the  Rev.  Mr.  Neilson,  who  is 
on  his  way  to  France,  in  order  that  he  might  instruct  his 
Reverence  how  best  to  get  thither  after  crossing  the  Channel. 
He  encloses  an  ode,  which,  he  says,  "  is  a  compliment  to  the 
memory  of  the  late  Mrs.  Oswald  of  Auchincruive  *"  (a  lady 
whom  he  thinks  the  doctor  knew  personally,  an  honour  of 
which  he  himself  could  not  boast),  whose  funeral  cortege 
arriving  at  the  little  Sanquhar  inn  on  a  wild  wintry  night, 
where  he  was  intending  to  rest  himself  and  his  jaded  Pegasus 


44  Burns  and  the  Medical  Profession. 

till  morn,  compelled  him  to  again  face  the  blast  and  travel 
twelve  miles  further  on,  through  the  wildest  moors  and  hills 
of  Ayrshire,  to  New  Cumnock,  the  next  inn.  Here,  after  a 
good  fire  had  so  far  recovered  his  frozen  sinews,  he  sat  down 
and  wrote  his  ode.  Like  his  epistle  to  Graham  of  Fintry,  it 
is  an  experiment  in  English,  and  a  very  indifferent  experi- 
ment, it  must  be  admitted,  it  is.  Moreover,  it  is  the  pro- 
duct of  a  bit  of  bad  temper,  which  circumstances,  doubtless, 
made  excusable  ;  but  there  can  be  no  excuse  for  the  worse 
than  bad  taste  which  not  only  makes  him  hold  up  to  execra- 
tion the  memory  of  a  lady,  whom  Chambers  considers  not 
fairly  liable  to  any  such  censure,  but  circulates  the  libel 
among  the  lady's  friends.  "  I  was  at  Edinburgh  lately,"  he 
adds  in  the  tail  of  his  letter,  "  and  settled  finally  with  Mr. 
Creech ;  and  I  must  own  that,  at  last,  he  has  been  amicable 
and  fair  Avith  me." 

In  the  next  epistle  he  receives  from  Moore,  June  10th, 
1789,  he  thanks  him  for  the  different  communications  of  his 
occasional  productions  in  manuscript ;  all  of  which  have 
merit,  and  some  of  them  merit  of  a  different  kind  from  what 
appears  in  published  poems  ;  but  he  takes  no  notice  of  his 
injudicious  lampoon  on  the  late  Mrs.  Oswald.  These  occa- 
sional productions  he  advises  him  to  carefully  preserve,  with 
a  view  to  publication  either  in  Edinburgh  or  London,  and 
promises  him  all  the  assistance  in  the  matter  he  can.  Then, 
returning  to  his  pet  subject,  he  urges  him  to  abandon  his 
Scottish  stanza  and  dialect,  and  use  the  English,  as  Scottish 
stanza  is  fatiguing  to  English  ears,  and,  he  thinks,  cannot  be 
very  agreeable  to  Scottish.  All  fine  satire  and  humour  in 
Holy  Fair  is  lost  to  the  English  people,  and  could  so  easily 
be  turned  into  English.     He  also  suggests  to  him  that  he 


Du.  JoHX  Moore.  45 


should  carefully  collect  and  polish  his  occasional  pieces,  with 
a  view  to  publication,  a  labour  which  would  not  interfere 
with  his  business  as  a  husbandman,  in  Avhich  he  understands 
he  is  very  learned.  And,  finally,  he  presents  him  with  a 
copy  of  his  novel  Zcluco,  and  shall  be  glad  to  have  his 
opinion  of  it,  because  he  knows  he  is  above  saying  what  he 
does  not  think. 

In  returning  thanks  for  the  present  of  Zeliwo,  a  year  later, 
14th  July,  1790,  Burns  must  have  whetted  the  doctors  appe- 
tite to  a  tantalising  degree  by  his  report  of  how  he  had  dis- 
figured its  pages  with  annotations,  as  "  I  never  take  it  up," 
he  says,  "  without  at  the  same  time  taking  my  pencil,  and 
marking  with  asterisras,  parentheses,  etc.,  wherever  I  meet 
with  an  original  thought,  a  nervous  remark  on  life  and 
manners,  a  remarkable,  well-turned  period,  or  a  character 
sketched  with  uncommon  precision."  He  has  gravely  planned, 
he  tells  him,  a  comparative  view  of  himself.  Fielding, 
Richardson,  and  Smollett,  in  their  different  qualities  and 
merits  as  novelists,  but  it  does  not  appear  that  he  ever 
brought  the  business  to  bear. 

His  eighth  and  last  letter,  enclosing  copies  of  his  Tarn  6' 
Shunter,  Elegy  on  Captain  Henderson,  and  the  ballad  on 
Queen  Manj,  is  dated  still  from  Ellisland,  28th  February, 
1791,  some  nine  or  ten  months  before  removing  to  Bank 
Street,  Dumfries,  and  discourses,  among  other  things,  upon 
the  wisdom  of  cherishing  the  memories  of  our  departed 
friends,  the  value  of  which,  however  problematical  to  the 
dead,  is  of  infinite  service  to  the  living.  He  hjis  just  read 
over  once  more  of  many  times  his  Zeliiro,  marking  with  his 
pencil,  as  he  went  along,  every  passage  that  pleased  him 
particularly  above  the  rest,  and  one  or  two  of  which,  with 


46  Burns  and  the  Medical  Profession. 

humble  deference,  he  is  disposed  to  think  unequal  to  the 
merits  of  the  book  ;  but,  so  far,  he  has  not  gratified  the 
doctor\s  curiosity  by  transcribing  them,  as  he  half-promised 
and  intended.  As  to  his  private  concerns,  he  is  going  on  as 
a  mighty  tax-gatherer  before  the  Lord,  and  has  lately  had 
the  interest  to  get  himself  ranked  on  the  list  of  Excise  as  a 
supervisor,  though  not  yet  employed  as  such.  He  laments 
the  death  of  his  kind  patron  the  Earl  of  Glencairn,  not  so 
much  because  he  recognises  that  his  getting  forward  now  in 
the  Excise  will  be  all  the  more  difficult,  as  on  account  of  the 
grateful  attachment  he  felt  towards  him,  pervading  his  very 
soul  and  entwining  itself  with  the  very  thread  of  his  exis- 
tence. However,  he  wont  despair  so  long  as  he  can  live  and 
rhyme,  and  provide  worthily  for  the  maintenance  and  the 
education  of  his  family  without  parting  with  any  of  his  in- 
dependence. 

If  Moore's  reply,  November  29th,  1791,  to  this  letter, 
criticising  Tarn  o'  Shanter  and  Matthew  Henderson,  is  not  so 
enthusiastic  as  might  have  been  expected,  his  advice  on 
another  point  is  full  of  good  sense :  I  refer  to  his  warning 
him  against  his  imprudence  in  scattering  abroad  so  many 
copies  of  his  verses.  His  motive  for  this  caution  is,  that  he 
wishes  him  to  collect  all  his  fugitive  pieces,  not  already 
printed,  and,  after  they  have  been  reconsidered  and  polished 
to  the  utmost  of  his  power,  to  publish  them  by  subscription, 
in  which  enterprise  he  promises  to  exert  himself  with 
pleasure.  In  his  future  compositions  he  again  wishes  he 
would  use  the  modern  English.  "  You  have,"  he  says, 
"  shown  your  powers  in  Scottish  sufficiently.  Although  in 
certain  subjects  it  gives  additional  zest  to  the  humour,  yet  it 
is  lost  to  the  English  ;  and  why  should  you  write  only  for  a 


Dr.  John  Moore.  47 


part  of  the  island,  when  you  can  command  the  admiration  of 
the  whole."  He  reminds  him  again,  too,  that  he  has  never 
yet  transmitted  those  marginal  annotations  of  Zehico,  which 
he  spoke  of  in  a  former  communication,  and  begs  him  to  do 
so  now,  assuring  him,  at  the  same  time,  that  whatever  their 
nature,  they  will  break  no  squares  between  them.  And, 
lastly,  he  asks  him,  if  he  chances  to  MTite  to  his  friend  Mrs. 
Dunlop,  to  excuse  his  silence  to  her,  as  he  hardly  ever  pens  a 
line  but  on  business,  "  which  apathy  of  friendship  the  devil 
take  ! "  exclaimed  Burns  when  he  conveyed  the  doctor's  ex- 
cuse to  Mrs.  Dunlop  the  next  time  he  wrote  to  her.  And 
his  business  now,  he  says,  in  writing  to  him  is  to  instigate 
him  to  a  new  publication,  and  to  tell  him  that,  when  he 
thinks  he  has  a  sufficient  number  of  pieces  to  make  a  volume, 
he  should  set  his  friends  on  getting  subscriptions.  He  has 
many  more  things  to  say,  which  would  be  easier  spoken  than 
written,  and  if  ever  he  goes  to  Scotland,  he  will  let  him  know, 
that  he  may  meet  him  at  his  own  house,  or  at  his  friend  Mrs. 
Hamilton's,  or  both. 

As  it  tm-ned  out,  however,  neither  he  nor  the  doctor  ever 
looked  upon  each  other  in  the  flesh.  And  if  they  held  no 
further  correspondence  with  each  other,  it  was  not  because 
Burns,  at  least,  had  exhausted  his  interest  in,  or  respect  for, 
his  old  correspondent,  as  is  manifest  from  a  letter  written 
three  years  afterwards  to  Mrs.  Dunlop,  while  that  lady  was 
on  a  visit  to  London.  "  You  will  have  seen,"  he  says,  "  our 
worthy  and  ingenious  friend  the  Doctor  (Dr.  Moore)  long 
ere  this.  I  hope  he  is  well,  and  beg  to  be  remembered  to 
him.  I  have  just  been  reading  over  again,  I  daresay  for  the 
hundred  and  fiftieth  time,  his  Vieza  of'  Socict//  and  Mamiers ; 
and  still  I  read  it  with  delif^ht."   But  whether  this  feat  is  to  be 


48  Burns  and  the  Medical  Profession. 

credited  as  a  tribute  to  the  reader,  or  the  author,  who,  I  fear, 
is  hardly  ever  read  at  all  now  unless  by  the  curious,  it  were 
difficult  to  say.  "  His  humour,"  he  adds,  "  is  perfectly 
original — it  is  neither  the  humour  of  Addison,  nor  Swift,  nor 
Sterne,  nor  of  anybody  but  Dr.  Moore,"  which  is  making  out 
a  good  case  for  the  individuality  of  his  author,  if  the  critic 
was  not  known  to  have  the  goodj'ault  of  being  more  generous 
than  discriminating  in  the  praise  of  his  contemporaries. 

And,  as  might  have  been  anticipated,  considering  the 
Poet's  circumstances,  and  what  is  still  more  unrcckonable  as 
a  factor  of  destiny,  his  characterisation,  none  of  the  doctor's 
advice,  so  frequently  and  so  earnestly  profeiTed,  seems  ever 
to  have  been  acted  upon.  Burns's  persistence  in  sticking  to 
the  vernacular  showed  him  to  be  wiser  in  his  day  and  genera- 
tion than  IMoore,  whose  advice  on  this  point  is  entirely  out 
of  harmony  with  the  best  of  later-day  criticism.  He  instinc- 
tively felt  that,  for  him  at  least,  there  were  infinite  possibili- 
ties of  expression  in  the  Scottish  which  were  not  in  the 
English.  Neither  could  he,  to  his  latest  day,  ever  be  got  to 
look  upon  literature  as  a  business — its  commercial  side  had 
no  charms  for  him.  There  was,  moreover,  in  his  mind,  per- 
haps just  the  fear  that  a  second  edition  of  his  poems,  similar 
to  the  first,  might  not  be  received  by  the  critics  with  the 
same  favour  ;  and  his  sensitive  spirit  shrank  from  an  experi- 
ence of  that  kind.  Nor  is  there  any  wonder  that  he  did  not 
show  more  confidence  in  his  own  pov^'ers,  when  it  never 
occurred  to  such  a  high  literary  authority  as  Dr.  Moore  that 
another  edition  could  be  a  success  on  any  other  terms  than 
those  of  subscription  and  a  beating  up  of  friends.  In  the 
light  of  all  that  has  transpired  since,  this  timidity  seems  a 
little  strange.     In  this  respect,  however,  Moore  is  not  worse 


Dr.  Johx  Moore.  49 


than  his  contemporaries.  It  was  as  difficult  for  them,  with 
their  education  and  hterary  canons,  to  grasp  the  full  signi- 
ficance of  Burns's  appearance  in  tlieir  midst,  as  it  was  for 
Burns,  the  victim  of  his  surroundings  and  education,  to 
realise  that  his  star  was  destined  to  kill  the  light  of  theirs — 
that  he,  being  nearer  Nature,  was  inaugoirating  a  new  era  in 
literature  that  would  not  only  be  alive  and  healthy  when 
theirs  was  as  detid  as  last  year"'s  leaves,  but  would  be  as 
modern,  aye  more  so,  a  hundred  years  hence,  than  to-day. 
And  yet  he  was  not  without  an  "  inkling "  of  something  of 
this  sort  either,  if  we  consider  his  reply  to  Mr.  Ramsay  when 
that  gentleman  asked  him  whether  the  Edinburgh  literati 
had  mended  his  poems  by  their  criticisms.  "  Sir,"  said  he, 
"  these  gentlemen  remind  me  of  some  spinsters  in  my  country, 
who  spin  their  thread  so  fine  that  it  is  neither  fit  for  warp 
nor  woof." 

It  is  not  so  remarkable,  therefore,  that,  in  the  highly  in- 
teresting correspondence  which  we  have  been  summarising, 
he  never  seemed  able  to  forget  that  he  was  addressing  a  very 
lofty  literary  personage,  whose  Zeluco  and  Vieio  of'  Society 
and  Manners  were  as  far  aljove  his  homespun  performances 
as  a  highly  polished  and  cultivated  lady  is  above  a  plain 
rustic  maiden ;  hence  he  is  never  familiar,  abandoned,  or 
exactly  at  his  ease,  though  always  dignified  and  frank,  as  he 
discusses  his  literary  and  other  affairs,  and  present  and  future 
projects.  He  does  certainly,  and  that  more  than  once,  claim 
for  himself  that  he  has  some  poetic  ability  ;  and  the  doctor 
not  only  readily  admits  it,  but  commends  him  for  his  honest 
avowal  and  for  not  exhibiting  any  mock-modesty.  And,  as 
an  example  of  his  own  saneness  in  grasping  a  situation,  even 
in  the  moment  of  its  most  pleasing  intoxication,  he  empha- 


50  Burns  and  the  Medical  Profession. 

sises,  as  we  saw,  over  and  over  again,  as  if  its  contemplation 
were  a  sore  point,  the  fact  that  he  is  not  to  be  taken  in  by 
all  this  Edinburgh  homage  and  applause — that  it  is  as  a 
phenomenon  more  than  as  a  poet  that  he  is  a  nine  days'* 
wonder  ;  and  that  when  this  vulgar  period  of  marvelling  has 
come  to  an  end,  he  will  have  to  go  his  way  back  to  the  rural 
shades  he  has  so  lately  emerged  from,  the  great  literary  and 
society  personages  and  he,  for  the  most  part,  bidding  farewell 
to  one  another. 

Dr.  Moore,  though  in  the  main  taking  Burns  at  his  own 
valuation,  is  not  only  more  than  moderately  enthusiastic  and 
discriminating  in  his  praise  both  of  the  man  and  the  poet, 
but  rejoices  at  his  Edinburgh  good  fortune  ;  and,  like  a  true 
friend,  exerts  himself  to  promote  his  interests.  It  was 
through  him  bringing  the  merits  of  Burns,  as  a  poet,  before 
Lord  Eglinton  that  his  Lordship  sent  him  a  subscription  of 
ten  guineas  for  two  copies  of  his  next  edition.  If  he  takes 
Burns  at  his  own  valuation,  he  also  takes  himself  at  the 
Poet's  estimate,  viz.,  that  he  is  a  very  superior  person,  of  a 
very  superior  literary  set,  and  is,  therefore,  as  lavish  (a  shade 
more  so,  perhaps)  of  his  advice  as  his  praise. 

In  all  this  correspondence,  however,  with  its  presents  and 
acknowledgments  of  books  and  poems,  its  criticisms  and 
advice  and  exchanging  of  views,  its  confidences  and  gossip, 
and  its  discussions  of  present  and  future  plans,  it  never  seems 
to  have  entered  the  doctor's  mind  that  the  young  peasant- 
poet  he  was  praising,  patronising,  and  advising,  was  the 
marvellous  genius  that  posterity  has  claimed  him  to  be — 
that  he  and  all  his  literary  tribe,  whom  Burns,  in  his  great 
veneration,  almost  spoke  of  with  bated  breath,  were  to  be 
indebted  for  their  immortality  more  to  contact  with  the  Ayr- 
shire peasant  than  to  their  own  works. 


Uk.   WILLIAM    MAXWELL 


From  an  Oil  Painting  in  the  possession  of  Colonel  J.  Maxwell  Withani, 
Kirkconnell,  Newabbe)'. 


IV 


Drs.  maxwell,  THOMSON,  MUNDELL,  Etc., 

DUMFRIES. 

Dumfries,  in  Burns's  time,  was  a  somewhat  gay  and  fashion- 
able garrison  town,  \\'hose  officers,  together  with  the  county 
gentry,  gave  an  aristocratic  tone  to  its  society.  It  was 
famous  for  the  entertainments  of  the  hunting,  races,  balls, 
assemblies,  and  theatre,  by  the  Caledonian  and  Dumfries  and 
Galloway  hunts  ;  and  for  its  convivial  dinner  and  supper 
parties  by  the  leisured  and  prosperous  burgesses,  the  well-to- 
do  professional  men,  and  those  living  in  retirement  on  com- 
petencies ;  the  latter,  a  not  inconsiderable  class  at  that 
period,  resident  in  the  pleasant  dwelling  place  'by  the  banks 
of  the  Nith. 

In  politics  it  was  no  longer  Whig,  but  rank  Tory,  and, 
therefore,  eminently,  even  ostentatiously,  loyal  to  the  govern- 
ment of  the  day.  Jacobitism  was  as  good  as  dead,  or  only 
lingered  passively  in  the  minds  of  a  few,  Burns's  and  his 
friend  Dr.  Maxwell's  being  among  the  number.  There  was, 
doubtless,  a  good  deal  in  the  Poet's  characterisation  to 
account  for  this  kindly  leaning ;  while  Maxwell,  though 
possessing  similar  sympathies  to  Burns,  had  a  hereditary 
tendency  towards  Jacobitism,  he  being  the  son  of  the  gallant 
Kirkconnell  Maxwell  who  went  out  with  Prince  Charles  in 
1745,  and  became  the  historian  of  the  expedition. 


52  Burns  and  the  Medical  Profession. 

As  an  illustration  of  this  blood  taint,  it  is  popularly  re- 
ported of  him  by  Chambers  that,  while  studying  at  the 
medical  schools  in  Paris  during  the  heat  of  the  Revolution, 
he  had  acted  as  one  of  the  National  Guard  round  the  scaffold 
of  Louis  XVI.,  and  had  dipped  his  handkerchief  in  the  royal 
blood.  The  truth  and  falsehood  of  this  romantic  little 
episode  are  set  forth  in  A  Paper  on  the  Subject  of  Biirns's 
P'tstols,  read  before  the  Society  of  Scottish  Antic^uaries,  in 
April,  1859,  by  the  Right  Rev.  Bishop  Gillis,  Roman 
Catholic  Bishop  of  Edinburgh,  into  Avhose  possession  the 
pistols  came  through  the  daughter  of  Dr.  Maxwell. 

The  Bishop,  who  knew  the  doctor  and  his  family  well, 
being  a  member  of  the  household  in  Edinburgh  to  which 
Maxwell  removed  from  Dumfries  in  1834,  and  under  the  roof 
of  which  he  died  in  October  of  the  same  year,  readily  admits 
his  bias  towards  Revolutionary  principles  in  his  youth,  and 
also  his  being  "  present  in  Paris  as  one  of  the  National  Guard 
around  the  scaffold  of  the  virtuous  and  unfortunate  Louis 
XVL  But,""  he  says,  "  if  for  no  other  reason  than  because  he 
was  at  the  time  under  arms  ;  none  but  he  who  would  cast  a 
general  slur  on  the  character  of  an  English  gentleman,  will 
believe  that  '  he  then  dipped  his  handkerchief  in  the  royal 
blood,' — no  one,  especially  who  ever  enjoyed  the  privilege  of 
Dr.  Maxwell's  acquaintance,  and  had  an  opportunity  of 
appreciating  the  high  breeding  of  the  man,  his  exquisite 
sense  of  propriety,  and  the  deep  and  noble  feelings  of  his 
generous  and  tender  heart,  can  ever  for  a  moment  connect 
liis  memory  with  the  perpetration  of  an  act  so  exclusively 
within  the  province  of  savage  brutality.''''  The  Bishop 
further  declares  that,  in  after  life,  he  never  spoke  "  of  the 
awful  sublimity  of  the  event  without  the  tears  welling  up 


Dr.  Maxwell.  53 


into  his  eyelids,"  he  having  been  so  close  to  the  scaffold  as 
not  only  to  see  the  face  of  the  royal  martyr,  but  to  hear  the 
words,  "  Fils  tie  Saint  Louis,  Montez  au  del !''''  addressed  to 
him  by  the  Abbe  Edgeworth. 

Until  I  read  the  good  Bishop's  defence  of  his  friend  I  had 
interpreted  the  act  imputed  to  him,  not  as  one  of  savage 
hrntality,  but  rather  as  an  exhibition  of  a  rare  and  beautiful 
sentimentalism,  of  the  same  character  as  Mark  Antony  in- 
stances when  he  says  : — 

"  They  would  go  and  kiss  dead  Caesar's  wounds, 
And  dip  their  napkins  in  his  sacred  blood  ; 
Yea,  beg  a  hair  of  him  for  memory  ; " 

or  as  Dumas  in  Txoenty  Years  After  relates  of  Athos  at  the 
beheading  of  Charles,  "  At  last  he  rose,  and  taking  his  hand- 
kerchief, steeped  it  in  the  blood  of  the  martyred  king." 

However,  be  this  little  story  fact  or  fiction,  certainly  Max- 
well, before  returning  to  his  own  country  and  commencing  in 
Dumfries  to  lay  the  foundations  of  that  medical  practice 
which  was  by  and  by  to  reach  a  very  high  professional  level, 
caught  the  revolutionary  spirit  which  was  rampant  in  Paris 
in  1793,  and  ever  afterwards  retained  the  impression  which  it 
produced  on  his  ardent  and  youthful  mind. 

Accordingly  he  was  considered  a  kind  of  head  centre  of  the 
Liberal  party  in  Dumfries ;  and  both  he,  and  Burns,  with 
Syme,  and  other  Liberals  and  opponents  of  the  government 
were  in  the  habit  of  holding  occasional  symposia,  at  which 
they  spoke  their  minds  freely,  with  locked  doors,  a  circum- 
stance not  unlikely  to  set  the  popular  imagination  to  work. 
These  democratic  tendencies,  therefore,  together  with  his 
other  genial  and  companionable  (pialities,  and  his  gift  of 
eloquence,  you  may  be  sure,  greatly  commended  his  friend- 


54  Burns  and  the  Medical  Profession. 

ship  to  Burns,  over  whom  his  mascuhne  intellect,  it  is  said, 
exerted  considerable  influence.  On  the  contrary  they  ren- 
dered both  Burns  and  Maxwell  objects  of  distrust  to  the 
ultra-loyal  Dumfriessians,  who  held  the  French  Democracy  in 
horror.  Now,  Burns  did  not  only  not  deplore  the  French 
Revolution,  but,  in  his  heart,  sympathised  with  it ;  and  his 
nature  was  too  open  and  candid  and  independent  in  its  char- 
acter to  conceal  from  the  world  what  he  felt  on  the  subject. 
Indeed,  it  was  his  very  outspokenness,  along  with  his  foolish 
presentation  of  cannon  to  the  French  nation,  that  got  him 
into  trouble.  Nor  was  his  friend  Maxwell  one  whit  behind 
him  in  his  imprudent  enthusiasm  for  liberal  principles,  which, 
coupled  with  his  residence  in  Paris  during  the  early  days  of 
the  Revolution,  brought  forth  the  well-known  denouncements 
of  him  and  his  presumed  designs,  by  Burke,  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  giving  him  thereby  a  permanent  place  in  the  politi- 
cal history  of  the  country,  as  his  connection  with  Burns,  as  his 
friend  and  physician,  has  conferred  upon  him  a  literary  one. 

But  for  all  their  rash  words  and  indiscreet  actions,  inspired, 
doubtless,  by  a  love  of  freedom,  and  sympathy  with  the 
oppressed  and  down-trodden  of  Avhatever  country,  they  were 
both  loyal  enough  at  heart ;  and  when  the  war  broke  out 
between  Great  Britain  and  France  in  1793  they  both,  with 
their  friend  Syme,  joined  a  volunteer  company  that  was 
formed  in  Dumfries  for  the  defence  of  the  fatherland. 
Burns,  indeed,  became  the  laureate  of  the  corps,  and  by  his 
patriotic  verses, 

"  Does  haughty  Gaul  invasion  threat  1 
Then  let  the  louns  beware,  sir  ! 
There's  wooden  walls  upon  our  seas, 
And  Volunteers  on  shore,  sir  : 


Dii.  Maxwell.  55 


The  Nith  shall  run  to  Cursinson, 

The  Criffel  sink  in  Solivay 
Ere  we  permit  a  foreign  foe 
On  British  ground  to  rally  ! 

We'll  ne'er  permit  a  foreign  foe 
On  British  ground  to  rally  ! " 

says  Lockhart,  "  did  more  good  service  to  the  government  of 
the  country,  at  a  crisis  of  the  darkest  alarm  and  danger,  than 
perhaps  any  one  person  of  his  rank  and  station,  with  the 
exception  of  Dibdin,  had  the  power  or  the  inchnation  to 
render." 

One  of  the  few  poetical  compliments  Burns  ever  paid  to 
the  medical  faculty  is  in  the  form  of  an  epigram  to  Dr. 
Maxwell  on  the  recovery  from  a  fever  of  Miss  Jessie  Staig, 
daughter  of  the  Provost  of  Dumfries,  the  heroine  of  the  song, 
Lovely  Young'  Jessie,  composed  about  eighteen  months  be- 
fore the  illness  referred  to.  Writing  to  Mrs.  Dunlop,  Sep- 
tember, 1794,  in  sympathetic  terms  of  the  indescribable 
nature  of  the  feelings  of  parents  concerning  the  well-being 
of  their  children,  he  describes  the  whole  circumstance  in 
detail,  which  I  beg  to  quote  entire,  as  it  contains  a  warm 
eulogium  on  the  skill  and  character  of  his  friend  Dr.  Maxwell. 
"  I  sympathised  much,"  he  says,  "  the  other  day  with  a 
father,  a  man  whom  I  respect  highly.  He  is  a  Mr.  Staig, 
the  leading  man  in  our  Borough.  A  girl  of  his,  a  lovely 
young  creature  of  sixteen,  was  given  over  by  the  Physician, 
who  openly  said  she  had  but  few  hours  to  live.  A  gentleman 
who  also  lives  in  town,  and  who  had  studied  medicine  in  the 
first  schools — the  Dr.  Maxwell  whom  Burke  mentioned  in 
the  House  of  Commons  about  the  affair  of  the  daggers — 
was  at  last  called  in ;  and  his  prescriptions,  in  a  few  hours, 


56  Burns  and  the  Medical  Profession. 

altered  her  situation,  and  have  now  cured  her.  Maxwell  is 
my  most  intimate  friend,  and  one  of  the  first  characters  I  ever 
met  with  ;  but  on  account  of  his  Politics  is  rather  shunned 
by  some  high  aristocrats,  though  his  Family  and  Fortune 
entitle  him  to  the  first  circles.  I  addressed  the  following 
epigram  to  him  on  the  occasion  : — 

Maxwell,  if  merit  here  you  crave, 

That  merit  I  deny  : 
You  save  fair  Jessie  from  the  grave  ! — 

An  angel  could  not  die  !  " 

Whatever  part  his  skill  played  in  the  recovery  of  "  Lovely 
Young  Jessie,"  it  was  of  no  avail  in  the  case  of  poor  Burns, 
whom,  as  all  the  world  knows,  he  attended  in  his  last  illness, 
with  a  kindness  and  assiduity  entirely  worthy  of  their  warm 
and  close  friendship.  Nor  was  Burns  unappreciative  of  his 
physician's  disinterested  zeal.  "  What  business,"  said  he  to 
Maxwell  one  day  in  a  humorous  reference  to  his  poverty, 
"  has  a  physician  to  waste  his  time  on  me  ?  I  am  a  poor 
pigeon  not  worth  plucking.  Alas  !  I  have  not  feathers 
enough  upon  me  to  carry  me  to  my  grave." 

As  a,  further  memorial  of  his  gratitude  he,  on  his  deathbed, 
presented  the  doctor  with  a  pair  of  pistols — the  same  which 
we  saw  came  into  Bishop  Gillis's  possession,  and  which  he 
afterwards  presented  to  the  Society  of  Antiquaries,  24'th 
January,  1859;  also  the  Poet's  youngest  child  Maxwell,  born 
July  25th,  1796,  the  day  of  his  father's  funeral,  and  who  died 
25th  April,  1799,  was  so  named  as  an  additional  mark  of 
respect  for  Dr.  Maxwell.  And,  as  it  turned  out,  he  proved 
himself  quite  worthy  of  so  much  good  feeling.  Sharing,  as 
he  did,  strongly  in  the  interest  caused  by  the  death  of  his 
illustrious    patient,    he,    with    Syme,   and    Cunninghame    of 


Dr.  Maxwell.  57 


Edinburgh,  entered  at  once,  and  with  the  greatest  cordiaHty, 
into  the  project  for  the  benefit  of  the  Poet's  family.  He 
also  corresponded  with  Gilbert  Burns,  who  entrusted  him 
with  the  negotiations  for  procuring  from  Mrs.  Dunlop  his 
brother's  letters  for  publication.  The  Poet's  eldest  son, 
Robert,  while  employed  in  the  Stamp  Office,  Somerset  House, 
London,  likewise  corresponded  with  his  father's  old  friend  and 
physician,  the  terms  of  which  show  him  to  have  been,  in  some 
respects,  a  chip  off  the  old  block. 

It  v.as  Maxwell  who  supplied  Currie  with  the  particulars, 
or  rather,  want  of  particulars,  as  Scott  Douglas  very 
pertinently  puts  it,  of  the  Poet's  illness  and  death;  and  which 
information  the  same  excellent  authority  considers  far  from 
satisfactory.  A  patient's  diseases,  both  in  the  eye  of  the  law 
and  in  medical  etiquette,  are  deemed  a  sacred  confidence  be- 
tween him  and  his  physician  ;  and  if  this  obligation  rests 
with  the  medical  attendant  while  his  patient  is  still  alive,  it 
is  surely  equally  binding  upon  him  after  his  death.  Though 
Burns's  body,  as  the  mere  mortal  instrument  through  which 
mankind  could  only  come  to  the  knowledge  of  his  marvellous 
lyric  music,  and  even  the  diseases  which  silenced  it  for  ever  in 
death,  must  always  have  a  precious  and  significant  interest 
for  his  countrymen,  he  is  surely  entitled  to  the  same  treat- 
ment from  the  medical  profession,  in  this  respect,  that  the 
law  and  good  taste  allow  to  commoner  mortals. 

Now,  this  is  just  what  Scott  Douglas  complains  that  he 
did  not  get.  There  exists  evidence  to  show,  he  says,  that 
certain  particulars  were  reluctantly  confided  by  Maxwell  to 
Currie,  which  proves  the  latter,  in  commenting  upon  the 
errors  of  Burns,  to  have  been  unworthy  of  such  a  sacred 
trust.     At  the  same  time,  if  Currie  sinned,  it  must,  we  feel, 

D 


58  Burns  and  the  Medical  Profession. 

have  been  with  his  head,  not  his  heart ;  for  he  was  on  his 
guard,  he  confesses  himself,  to  touch  this  thing  with  great 
tenderness,  since  touch  it  he  felt  it  his  duty  to  do.  But,  it 
may  reasonably  be  asked,  medical  man  and  all  as  he  was,  was 
he  qualified  to  receive  MaxwelFs  confidence  at  all,  or  to  touch 
it  with  the  necessary  impartiality  ;  for  "  it  should  be  borne 
in  mind,"  says  Scott  Douglas,  "  that  Dr.  Currie,  in  his 
medical  works,  took  every  opportunity  to  advocate  the  duty 
of  abstinence  from  alcoholic  liquors  ? "  Perhaps  not ; 
generally  speaking,  such  an  office,  in  my  experience,  would 
be  too  great  a  temptation  for  the  impartiality  of  any  tee- 
totaler, even,  I  may  admit,  the  kind,  sensible,  and  able  Dr. 
Currie ;  and  so  he  wrote  these  thirteen  words,  "  He  who 
suffers  the  pollution  of  inebriation,  how  shall  he  escape  other 
pollution  ?  "  which  brought  down  upon  his  unfortunate  head 
the  righteous  censure  of  Wordsworth  and  a  host  of  others 
who  saw  in  them  a  kind  of  blasphemy  against  Burns  ;  and 
which  even  the  reverse  of  squeamish  Scott  Douglas  wishes  he 
had  omitted,  even  although  the  omission  might  have  rendered 
his  picture  incomplete.  But  enough  for  the  present,  I  shall 
have  to  ask  you  to  look  a  little  closer  into  this  and  kindred 
matters  when  treating  more  in  detail  of  Dr.  Currie's  bene- 
volent achievement  and  the  attitude  of  the  critics  towards  it. 
It  would  have  been  strange  had  the  skill  of  the  doctor,  and 
he  still  comparatively  young,  attending  upon  such  an  illus- 
trious and  universally  lamented  patient,  remained  unchal- 
lenged. Certainly  (to  leave  out  of  account  the  taste  or  the 
justice  of  such  a  proceeding),  no  useful  purpose  can  be  served 
by  opening  up  such  an  enquiry  at  this  date,  for  the  very 
sufficient  reason  that  there  is  neither  clinical  nor  pathological 
evidence  upon  which  to  found  a  judgment.     Still,  if  only  as 


Dr.  John  Thomsox.  59 

an  illustration  of  how  doctors  (though,  in  the  main,  all  in 
agreement  on  the  gi'eat  question  of  the  Poefs  morals,)  differ 
as  to  the  nature  of  his  bodily  diseases,  it  may  be  worth  while 
glancing  for  a  little  at  the  appendix  to  a  work,  written  fifty 
or  more  years  ago,  and  after  Maxwell  had  been  dead  some 
ten  years,  by 

John  Thomson,  M.D., 

entitled.  Education:  Man's  Salvation  from  Crime,  Disease, 
and  Starvation. 

He  must  have  been  a  very  singular  personage  this  Dr. 
Thomson,  of  whose  history  a  few  particulars  are  to  be  gleaned 
from  Notes  and  Queries,  Sept.  and  Oct.,  1868,  which,  by 
throwing  some  rays  of  light  on  the  extraordinary  statements 
in  the  Vindicatory  Appendix  referred  to,  help  us  the  better 
towards  a  correct  estimate  of  their  worth.  Dr.  C.  J.  Ramage 
tells  us  that,  "  At  the  death  of  Burns  in  1796,  Mr.  John 
Thomson,  about  sixteen  years  of  age  at  that  time,  was  usher 
to  Mr.  Gx-ay,  the  Rector  of  Dumfries  Academy,  where  the 
eldest  son  of  the  Poet  was  in  attendance.  The  families  of 
Thomson  and  Burns  are  said  to  have  been  on  intimate  terms, 
so  much  so  was  this  the  case  that  Dr.  Thomson  told  my  in- 
formant, to  whom  he  was  related,  that  he  used  to  meet  Burns 
between  five  and  six  o'clock  in  summer  mornings  in  Dock 
Park,  rented  by  Thomson's  father,  for  the  purpose  of  improv- 
ing his  knowledge  of  the  French  language,  with  which 
Thomson  was  well  acquainted.  This  intimacy  will  account 
for  any  information  he  may  give  regarding  the  Poet's  last 
moments.  Mr.  Thomson  subsequently  became  tutor  in  the 
family  of  the  celebrated  Dr.  Gregory,  Professor  in  the  Univer- 
sity of  Edinburgh,  and  thereby  was  able  to  pursue  his  medical 


60  Burns  and  the  Medical  Puofession. 

studies.  He  graduated  there  in  June,  1809,  and  practised 
for  a  short  time  in  Deal,  and  some  years  after  for  a  short 
time  in  Dumfries.  He  retired  to  Edinburgh,  however,  and 
died  there  in  November,  1847,  at  the  age  of  sixty-seven." 

Another  correspondent  "F.  M.  S."  had  apparently  informed 
the  public  that  Dr.  Thomson  was  the  author  of  an  account 
of  Burns''s  death,  which  that  gentleman  had  special  facilities 
for  forming  a  correct  opinion  about ;  and  "  C,"  a  third  cor- 
respondent, writes  to  say  that  it  "  would  gratify  many  lovers 
of  literature  if  F.  M.  S.  were  to  publish  Dr.  Thomson"'s 
account  of  Burns's  death.  From  Dr.  Ramage's  statement  it 
appears  that  Dr.  Thomson  attended  the  poet  in  his  last  ill- 
ness merely  as  a  friend  of  the  family,  not  as  a  medical  practi- 
tioner. A  Mr.  Brown,  surgeon,  and  Dr.  Maxwell  were  the 
medical  attendants.  The  late  Joseph  Parkes  had  a  note  of 
Burns's,  addressed  to  Mr.  Brown,  asking  for  some  more  medi- 
cine, which  he  irreverently  styled  '  extreme  unction.*'  Jessie 
Lewars  (Mrs.  Thomson)  was  present  at  the  Poet's  death,  and 
she  said  that  Burns,  though  tortured  with  rheumatism,  was 
calm  and  resigned." 

F.  M.  S.  replies  to  C's.  request  as  follows  : — "  I  hardly  like 
to  publish  Dr.  Thomson's  description  of  the  state  of  Burns's 
mind  at  the  near  approach  of  death,  but  I  may  at  least  say 
that  it  is  very,  very  different  from  the  accounts  given  by  the 
poet's  biographers.  The  gentleman,  in  whose  MSS.  I  find  it 
was  a  clergyman,  for  whose  strict  and  undeviating  trutliful- 
ness  I  can  personally  vouch.  He  states  that  having  met  Dr. 
Thomson  when  on  a  voyage  to  London  by  sea,  and  having 
long  resided  in  the  neighbourhood  of  many  of  the  scenes  im- 
mortalised by  Burns,  he  asked  Thomson,  '  particularly,  with 
a  view  to  have  impartial  testimony  as  to  the  state  of  Burns's 


Dr.  Johx  Thomson.  61 

mind  at  the  near  approach  of  Death.''  Thomson,  he  says, 
'  solemnly  affirmed ""  the  truth  of  his  statement.  From  Dr. 
Ramage's  obliging  note,  it  appears  that  although  Dr.  Thom- 
son was  not  Burns's  medical  attendant,  he  was  at  least  one 
who  must  have  known  the  circumstances  well." 

Now  that  the  special  kno\\'ledge  here  hinted  at,  of  which 
this  undeviating  and  truthful  clergyman  was  the  sacred 
custodian,  was  something  over  and  above  what  the  doctor 
himself  lias  revealed  in  his  Vindicatory  Appendia.\  I  take  the 
liberty  to  doubt,  as  the  Appendix  was  written  some  twenty- 
four  years  before  the  transpiration  of  the  correspondence  in 
Notes  and  Queries,  and  three  years  before  the  doctor''s  own 
death.  But,  granted  that  all  was  disclosed  in  the  Appendix 
that  he  had  to  tell,  one  cannot  help  asking  what  wise  purpose 
he  intended  to  serve  by  writing  such  a  document  at  all,  un- 
less it  was  simply  to  let  off  steam,  an  operation  he  had 
evidently  been  performing  at  intervals  for  the  last  fifty  years. 
Nor  would  I  be  warranted  now  in  resurrecting  his  nonsense, 
but,  as  I  said,  by  way  of  a  little  variety,  and  as  an  illustration 
of  the  proverb  that  doctors  differ^  if  not  about  the  Poefs 
morals,  then  about  his  diseases.  Moreover,  had  this  difference 
of  medical  opinion  been  about  John  Smith's  liver  it  would  not 
have  mattered  to  the  world  a  brass  farthing,  but  the  fact 
that  it  was  about  Burns's  makes  a  great  alteration. 

The  doctor's  literary  style,  as  shown  in  his  treatise  on 
Education,  is  somewhat  Quixotic,  going  out  to  challenge  all 
who  differ  from  him  in  opinion,  much  as  the  knight  of  La 
Manclia  went  forth  to  combat  with  wind-mills,  or  to  the 
championship  of  distressed  damsels.  And  yet,  on  second 
thoughts,  his  extravaganza  reminds  one  more  of  the  Ancient 


62  Burns  and  the  Medical  Profession. 

Pistol  of  Boar^-  Head  tavern-renown,  than  the  immaculate 
Spanish  gentleman  and  professor  of  knight  errantry. 

He  separates  education  into  two  divisions,  Primation  and 
IMaturation,  the  first  being  that  which  we  get  from  the 
schoolmaster,  and  the  second  that  which  we  give  ourselves. 
In  the  unfolding  of  his  ideas  he,  in  regular  swash-buckler 
style,  tilts  against  everything  and  everybody — priestcraft, 
church  establishments,  women's  usurpation  of  the  functions  of 
the  lords  of  creation,  Scottish  and  American  notions  of  the 
profanation  of  the  Sabbath  by  railway  trains,  medical  educa- 
tion (hospital  and  other)  ;  commending  finally  his  own  Help- 
me-up  doctrine  as  the  only  genuine  panacea  for  crime, 
starvation,  etc.,  etc. 

In  his  Appendix  to  this  work,  which  I  beg  to  quote  entire 
on  account  of  its  pure  Burnsonianism,  he,  in  full  view  of  the 
approaching  festival  (held  in  honour  of  the  sons  of  Burns  at 
Alloway  in  1844),  flings  down  the  gauntlet,  in  true  Pistolian 
terms  and  spirit,  to  all  in  that  coming  congregation  whom  it 
may  concern. 

"  Before  sending  forth  these  fugitive  pages,  I  am  anxious 
to  say  that  the  Avord  '  help-me-up '  is  no  coinage  of  mine  ; — 
that  Scotia's  immortal  poet,  Robert  Burns,  supplied  me  with 
that  word.  Particular  circumstances  brought  me  into  very 
intimate  intercourse  with  him  during  the  closing  months  of 
his  most  eventful  life.  In  youth's  '  extatic  hour '  I  enjoyed 
the  ineflable  happiness  and  benefit  of  his  society; — for  months 
I  met  him  almost  every  morning  at  five  o'clock  on  the  banks 
of  the  Nith.  My  opinion  and  positive  belief  that  '  man  shall 
progress,'  were  there  and  then  often  discussed,  and  the 
channel  of  progression  here  briefly  described ;  he  called  my 
Help-me-up. 


Dr.  Johk  Thomson.  63 

"  Reader,  permit  me  to  pass  from  nomenclature  to  an 
infinitely  more  important  and  holy  concern,  to  vindicate  the 
memory  of  Robert  Burns  from  the  blackest  stain  which  Fame 
has  affixed,  diabolically  affixed,  to  his  splendid  escutcheon. 
Fame,  prompted  by  priests,  yes,  countenanced  by  friends,  has 
promulgated  an  untruth  that  Robert  Burns  died,  prematurely 
died,  dissipation's  martyr.  From  personal  correct  knowledge, 
I  proclaim  that  Robert  Burns  died  the  doctor's  martyr ;  and, 
as  a  very  few  years  must  sweep  away  all  living  testimony 
upon  that  point,  I  avail  myself  of  the  approaching  Festival, 
and  challenge  the  contradiction  of  all  his  living  co-tempor- 
aries who  may  there  congregate. 

"  The  truth  stands  thus — The  physician  of  Robert  Burns 
believed  that  his  liver  was  diseased,  and  placed  him  under  a 
course  of  mercury.  In  those  days  a  mercurial  course  was 
indeed  a  dreadful  alternative.  I  know  well  that  his  mercurial 
course  was  extremely  severe.  In  addition  to  this  severity,  his 
physician  believed  that  sea-bathing  was  the  best  tonic  after 
salivation.  Thus  he  was  sent  to  the  Brow  for  sea-bathing. 
In  the  course  of,  I  think,  three  weeks  he  returned  home  from 
sea-bathing,  inflated,  black  with  dropsy,  and  soon  died. 
Among  the  last  words  I  ever  heard  him  speak  were,  '  Well, 
the  doctor  has  made  a  finish  of  it  now.'' 

"  Such  I  affirm  to  be  the  truth.  '  Wha  then  dares  battle 
wi'  me  ? '  '  Come  forth,  thou  slanderer.'  Robert  Burns 
thus  stands  forth  Maturation's  sublimest  specimen.  Prima- 
tion  had  small,  very  small,  claim  upon  him.  I  carefully 
examined  his  early — I  believe  the  only  schoolmaster  he  ever 
had — and  found  that  at  the  age  of  thirteen  he  read  imper- 
fectly, but  had  never  learned  to  write.  He  died  Scotia's  first 
poet,    extensively   acquainted    with    general    literature,    an 


64  BURXS    AND    THE    MeDICAL    PrOFESSIOX. 

excellent  French  scholar,  and,  what  few  know,  could  relish 
and  appreciate  the  classic  odes  of  Horace.  Maturation  may 
indeed  triumphantly  claim  him  as  her  sublimest  specimen/"' 

If  the  belligerent  doctor's  opinion  as  to  the  true  condition 
of  Burns's  liver  is  on  a  par  with  his  statement  regarding  his 
proficiency  in  reading  and  writing  at  the  age  of  thirteen,  I 
fear  it  is  of  very  little  value  ;  for  Mr.  Murdoch,  who  was  not 
the  only  schoolmaster,  bat  the  first  he  ever  had,  seems  from 
his  written  testimony  to  hold  an  entirely  contrary  view. 
Besides,  what  could  the  opinion  of  a  mere  lad  of  sixteen, 
without  a  particle  of  medical  knowledge  or  experience,  even 
though  present  at  the  poet's  death-bed,  be  worth  ?  Nothing 
at  all !  He  v^ould  hear  the  talk  of  others  at  the  time,  and  it 
was  most  probably  this  which  got  crystallized  into  a  notion  of 
his  own  when  he  became  possessed  of  medical  knowledge. 

But  to  leave  Dr.  Thomson,  and  turn  for  a  little  to  another 
medical  man, 

Dr.  Mundell, 

a  retired  navy  surgeon  practising  in  Dumfries,  whose  intimacy 
with  Burns,  though  not  of  so  close  a  character  as  Maxwell's, 
rests  on  something  more  than  his  own  testimony.  In  a 
characteristic  letter  from  Ellisland,  dated  February,  1790,  the 
Poet  writes  : — "  Dear  Doctor. — The  bearer,  Janet  Nievison, 
is  a  neighbour,  and  occasionally  a  labourer  of  mine.  She  has 
got  some  complaint  in  her  shoulder,  and  wants  me  to  find  her 
out  a  Doctor  that  will  cure  her,  so  I  have  sent  her  to  you. 
You  will  remember  that  she  is  just  in  the  jaws  of  matrimony, 
so  for  heaven's  sake  get  her  '  hale  and  sound  '  as  soon  as 
possible.  We  are  all  pretty  well ;  only  the  little  boy's  sore 
mouth  has  again  inflamed  Mrs.  B 's  nipples. — I  am,  yours, 

RoBT.  Burns." 


Dr.  Mundell.  65 


It  was  he,  too,  along  with  Syme  and  Maxwell,  who  was 
invited  by  the  Poet  to  dine  at  his  house,  to  meet  two  honest 
Midlothian  fanners  and  Jean  Lorimer  and  her  father.  In 
writing,  January,  1796,  to  one  of  these  Midlothian  friends, 
Mr.  Robert  Cleghorn,  Saughton  INIills,  enclosing  "  The 
Lassie  o'  my  Heart,"  just  after  bare  recovery  from  a  rheuma- 
tic fever,  which  he  (Burns)  says  kept  him  bedfast  for  many 
weeks,  and  brought  him  to  the  borders  of  the  grave,  he 
reminds  his  friend  that  the  bearer  of  the  letter,  Mr.  Mundell, 
surgeon,  is  one  of  tiie  gentlemen  he  will  remember  to  have 
seen  at  his  house.  And  very  likely  it  was  this  same  Dr. 
Mundell  who,  on  retiring  from  professional  service  in  the 
Royal  Navy,  started,  in  company  with  some  other  gentlemen, 
a  cotton  factory,  which  flourished  for  a  number  of  years,  till  it 
was  injured  by  the  war  with  America,  and  whose  "ox"  the  Poet 
refers  to  in  a  letter  to  the  lady  of  Woodley  Park — "  There  is 
a  species  of  the  human  genus  that  I  call  the  g-in  horse-class ; 
what  enviable  dogs  they  are  !  Round  and  round,  and  round 
they  go — MundelFs  ox  that  drives  his  cotton  mill  is  their 
exact  prototype — without  an  idea  or  wish  beyond  their  circle ; 
fat,  sleek,  stupid,  patient,  quiet,  and  contented,  while  here  I 
sit,  altogether  Novemberish,  a  d — mnd  melange  of  fretfulness 
and  melancholy  ;  not  enough  of  the  one  to  rouse  me  to 
passion,  nor  of  the  other  to  repose  me  in  torpor ;  my  soul 
flouncing  and  fluttering  round  her  tenement,  like  a  wild  finch 
caught  amid  the  horrors  of  winter,  and  newly  thrust  into  a 
cage." 

It  ought  also  to  be  mentioned,  in  connection  with  the  pro- 
fession in  Dumfries,  that  it  was  one  of  the  surgeons  of  the 
town,  Mr.  Archibald  Blacklock,  who  was  present  at  the 
exhumation  of  the  Poefs  remains  when  the  mausoleum  was 


66  Burns  and  the  Medical  Profession. 

opened  for  the  interment  of  his  widow  in  1834 ;  and  that  he 
drew  up,  in  the  interest  of  the  science  of  phrenology,  a 
description  of  the  condition  and  appearances  of  the  bones  of 
the  skull,  which  were  declared  to  be  in  a  high  state  of  preser- 
vation, and  of  which  a  plaster  of  Paris  cast  was  accurately 
taken  after  every  particle  of  sand  or  foreign  body  had  been 
carefully  cleaned  and  washed  away. 

Before  taking  farewell  of  Burns  and  the  medical  profession 
in  and  connected  with  Dumfries,  permit  me  to  record  a  very 
beautiful  reminiscence  from  Dr.  James  Finlayson"'s  biography 
of  Dr.  Robert  Watt,  an  ex-President  of  the  Faculty  of 
Physicians  and  Surgeons,  Glasgow,  and  author  of  the  Biblio- 
theca  Britannica,  which,  for  its  charming  Burns  allusion, 
deserves  a  niche  all  to  itself  in  this  collection,  though  Watt 
was  not  a  doctor  at  the  time,  but  a  young  man  barely  out  of 
his  "  teens,""  engaged  in  making  part  of  the  line  of  road  from 
Sanquhar  to  Dumfries.  On  arriving  at  Dumfries,  he  was 
boarded  for  a  few  weeks  on  the  farm  of  Ellisland,  in  the  old 
house  which  the  Poet  and  his  family  had  recently  occupied. 
During  the  summer  he  spent  in  Dumfriesshire,  he  had 
frequent  opportunities  of  seeing  Burns,  but  cannot  recollect 
of  having  formed  any  opinion  of  him,  except  a  confused  idea 
that  he  was  an  extraordinary  character.  Wliile  there,  the 
voracious  young  book-worm  read  Burns's  poems  ;  and,  from 
an  acquaintance  with  some  of  his  relations,  he  occasionally  got 
from  the  Poefs  library  a  reading  of  other  works  of  the  same 
kind.  With  these  he  used  to  retire  into  some  of  the  con- 
cealed places  on  the  banks  of  the  Nith,  and  pass  his  leisure 
hours  in  reading,  and  occasionally  in  trying  his  hand  in 
writing  rhymes  himself.  From  this  period  he  dates  the 
commencement  of  his   literary  pursuits,   and  who  shall  say 


Dii.  Samuel  Hughes.  67 

that  Burns's  generosity  to  the  young  road-maker  did  not  play 
an  important  part  in  it  ? 

Of  equal  interest,  and  worthy  to  be  bracketed  in  this  Dum- 
fries leave-taking  with  the  passage  of  romance  in  the  life  of 
young  Watt,  is  an  incident  in  which  another  medical  man, 

Dr.  Samuel  Hughes,  of  Hereford, 

has  secured  immortality  through  contact  with  Burns,  When 
or  where  the  doctor  first  made  the  acquaintance  of  the  Poet 
it  were  difficult  to  say,  but,  as  he  graduated  at  Edinburgh  in 
1795,  it  is  not  improbable  that  he  may  have  known  him  while 
prosecuting  his  medical  studies  there,  which  was  also  the 
period  when  Burns  was  undergoing  his  lionising  in  the  Scot- 
tish capital.  Whether  or  not,  however,  he  had  been  intimate 
with  him  in  Edinburgh,  we  know  for  a  certainty  from  the 
doctor's  own  testimony,  written  on  a  blank  portion  of  a 
manuscript  copy  of  "  Bruce's  Address  to  his  Troops  at  Ban- 
nockburn  "  presented  to  him  by  the  author  in  his  own  hand- 
writing, that  he  met  Burns  in  Dumfries  in  the  autumn  of 
1795.  Dr.  Hughes'  own  words  are,  "  a  beautiful  poem  given 
me  by  the  author,  Mr.  Burns,  the  celebrated  Scottish  Poet 
when  at  Dumfries,  Saty.,  Augt.  8th,  1795. 

S.  H." 

Written  again,  immediately  below  this,  is  the  following, 
in  the  handwriting  of  his  daughter-in-law :  "  Given  to  my 
father-in-law,  Dr.  Hughes  of  Hereford,  by  Burns. 

Barbara  Hughes." 

This  manuscript,  which  is  now  the  property  of  the  Munici- 
pal Museum  of  Edinburgh,  having  been  presented  to  it  by 
Mr.  John  Kennedy  of  New  York,  29th  July,  1890,  has  accom- 


68  Burns  axd  the  Medical  Profession. 

panying  the  poem,  on  the  same  sheet  of  paper,  and  also  in 
Burns's  handwriting,  a  short  prose  account  of  the  historic  cir- 
cumstances upon  which  the  song  was  founded.  The  Poefs 
reason,  doubtless,  for  accompanying  the  verses  with  an  ex- 
planatory historical  sketch,  being,  that  the  medical  gentleman 
to  whom  he  was  presenting  it,  was  an  Englishman,  and  might, 
therefore,  not  be  supposed  to  be  too  conversant  with  Scottish 
history. 

Dr.  Hughes  subse(]uently  settled  in  the  city  of  Hereford, 
where  he  was  a  capable  and  highly  respected  physician  during 
the  greater  part  of  the  first  half  of  the  present  century,  and 
where,  as  early  as  1812,  he  was  chosen  to  fill  the  distinguished 
position  of  Mayor,  when  he  gave  a  banquet  to  one  hundred 
and  thirty  of  the  citizens  and  neighbours,  including  the 
Bishop  of  the  Diocese,  the  Dean  of  Hereford,  and  the  nobility, 
gentry,  and  clergy,  at  which,  it  is  recorded  "  mirth,  festivity, 
and  good  humour,  continued  to  enliven  the  hosjoitable  board 
till  a  late  hour." 


JAMES   CURRIE,  .M.D.,   F  R.S. 


JAMES  CURRIE,  M.D.,  F.R.S.,  LIVERPOOL, 

Whom  Carlyle  calls  Burns's  fir.st  and  kindest  biographer,  was, 
like  the  seer  of  Chelsea  himself,  a  native  of  Annandale,  Dum- 
friesshire, and  settled  in  active  practice  as  a  physician  in  the 
city  of  Liverpool  at  the  period  of  the  Poet's  death.  He  was, 
not  only  a  distinguished  member  of  his  own  profession,  being 
a  pioneer  in  thermometry  and  the  treatment  of  fever  by  cold 
affusion,  and  the  author  of  numerous  papers  on  medico- 
philosophical  subjects  read  before  the  learned  societies  of 
Liverpool  and  Manchester,  but  he  was  in  the  forefront  of 
every  good  work  which  had  for  its  object  the  amelioration  of 
the  sick  and  unfortunate  poor,  and  the  social,  intellectual,  and 
moral  improvement  of  his  adopted  fellow-citizens.  He  was  a 
liberal  in  politics,  of  the  rational  and  moderate  type,  and  a 
staunch  advocate  for  the  abolition  of  slavery.  He  also  enjoyed 
a  somewhat  dubious  fame  as  the  supposed  author  of  Jasper 
Wilsojis  Letter  to  Mr.  Pitt,  a  pamphlet  in  which  the  war,  in 
connection  with  the  French  Revolution,  was  deprecated  with 
an  eloquence  and  energy  far  from  pleasing  to  the  government ; 
and  which  produced  an  extraordinary  sensation  on  its  first 
publication,  three  editions  being  sold  in  London  in  two 
months  (not  to  mention  others  which  Avere  published  in  Scot- 
land and  Ireland),  besides  being  copied  into  the  periodical 
publications  of  America,  and  translated  into  the  languages  of 
Germany  and  France.     He  was,  moreover,  possessed  of  de- 


To  Burns  and  the  Medical  Profession. 

cided  literary  ambition ;  his  tastes  and  talents  in  this  direc- 
tion bringing  him  into  intimacy  with  the  well-known 
biographer  of  the  Lorenzo  cle  Medici,  Mr.  William  Roscoe. 
"  Few  strangers  of  eminence,"  says  Dr.  Currie*'s  son,  "  arrived 
at  Liverpool  without  an  introduction  to  Mr.  Roscoe  and  Dr. 
Currie ;  and  their  houses  were  the  resort  of  men  of  learning 
and  ability  from  all  quarters."" 

Dr.  Currie  was,  therefore,  as  may  be  readily  understood,  a 
great  admirer  of  his  fellow  countryman's  poems,  a  volume  of 
which  he  had  received  so  long  ago  as  1787  from  Dr.  Moore, 
the  well-known  author  of  Zchico ;  and  his  interest  in  which 
was,  doubtless,  enhanced  by  the  fact  that  he  had  a  casual  in- 
terview with  their  author  in  Dumfries  in  1792.  Accordingly, 
on  hearing  of  Burns's  death,  he  opened  up  a  lengthy  and  pro- 
tracted correspondence  with  his  old  college  friend,  Mr.  John 
Sjme  of  Ryedale  (whom  we  saw  was  engaged  with  Dr.  Max- 
well of  Dumfries  and  Cunninghame  of  Edinburgh  in  raising 
a  subscription  for  the  benefit  of  the  widow  and  family),  in- 
quiring, among  other  things,  Avhat  he  died  of,  as  a  report  was 
going  about  that  it  was  from  the  effects  of  habitual  di'inking  ? 
He  also  expressed  a  strong  interest  in  the  intended  subscrip- 
tion, and  in  the  preparation  of  a  Life  and  an  edition  of  the 
posthumous  works  of  the  Poet,  in  such  terms  as  amounted  to 
an  offer  of  his  own  literary  assistance  to  any  extent  that 
might  be  desired.  Within  a  month  he  had  himself  collected 
in  Liverpool  forty  or  fifty  guineas  towards  the  relief  fund,  but 
before  the  list  was  closed  he  managed  to  bring  it  up  to 
seventy  guineas. 

There  appears  to  have  been  some  uncertainty  at  first  as  to 
the  selection  of  an  editor  and  biographer.  Professor  Dugald 
Stewart  was  thought  of.     So  was  Mrs.  Walter  Riddell.     Dr. 


Dk.  James  Cliume.  71 


Currie,  Avho  discountenanced  the  idea  of  the  lady  of  Woodley 
Park  engaging  in  such  an  enterprise,  pressed  Synie  to  take  the 
matter  up.  Indeed,  he  gives  as  one  of  the  chief  reasons  for 
offering  his  own  services — that,  setting  aside  the  disadvantage 
of  httle  personal  acquaintance,  it  seemed  to  him  that  he  was 
fitter  for  the  task  than  a  lively  female,  who,  though  she  might 
feel  the  brilliancy,  might  not  be  able  to  sustain  the  force  or 
support  the  weight,  of  his  character.  In  the  end,  however, 
after  much  epistolary  debating  for  and  against  the  propriety 
of  Dr.  Currie  taking  the  affair  in  hand;  and  in  which,  it  must 
be  confessed,  prompted,  doubtless,  by  literary  ambition,  as 
well  as  an  honest  desire  to  serve  the  widow  and  her  family,  is 
revealed  on  the  doctor's  part  a  distinct  hankering  after  the 
task,  it  was,  at  the  earnest  solicitation  of  Mrs.  Dunlop  and 
other  friends  of  the  Poet,  finally  agreed  in  September  that  he 
should  discharge  the  onerous  duty  himself. 

Without  fee  or  reward,  then,  and  out  of  pure  love  for  the 
theme,  if  the  honourable  gi'atification  of  literary  ambition  be 
excluded,  this  kind-hearted  physician  undertook  the  task, 
because  nobody  else  among  the  Poefs  many  literary  friends 
could  be  got  to  do  it,  "  men  of  established  reputation,"  he 
tells  us  in  his  dedication,  "naturally  declining  an  undertaking, 
to  the  performance  of  which  it  was  scarcely  to  be  hoped  that 
general  approbation  could  be  obtained,  by  any  exertion  of 
judgment  or  temper."  He  undertook  it,  moreover,  at  a  time 
when  he  was  over  head  and  ears  in  a  large  and  lucrative 
practice,  and  when  he  was  busy  preparing  for  the  press  a 
medical  work,  embodying  his  views  and  researches  on  the 
chief  professional  employment  of  his  life — the  treatment  of 
fever  by  cold  affusion,  and  might,  therefore,  well  have  excused 
himself.     Besides,  his  health  was  anything  but  robust,  four 


72  BuilXS    AXD    THE    MeDICAL    PhOFESSIOX. 

of  his  seven  sisters  having  died  of  consumption,  inherited 
from  their  mother.  He  knew  the  fatal  family  tendency  was 
in  his  o-vvn  constitution,  and  he  had  not  only  to  be  watchful, 
but  to  absent  himself  from  his  practice  for  brief  periods  every 
now  and  then,  in  order  to  prevent  a  breakdown,  or  to  recover 
from  the  effects  of  an  alarming  illness.  In  spite  of  all  pre- 
cautions and  care,  however,  the  much-dreaded  malady  ulti- 
mately developed,  and,  together  with  heart  disease,  carried 
him  off  at  the  early  age  of  forty-nine,  his  immense  labours  as 
the  editor  and  biographer  of  Burns,  it  is  said,  greatly  ac- 
celerating the  sad  event. 

Some  conception  of  the  Herculean  nature  of  the  task  he 
undertook  may  be  gathered  from  his  own  words,  on  receiving, 
in  February,  1797,  from  his  friend  Syme  the  mass  of  materials, 
letters,  fugitive  poems,  etc.,  which  he  had  been  busy  collect- 
ing for  the  last  two  or  three  months.  "  I  received,"  he  says, 
"  the  huge  and  shapeless  mass  with  astonishment  !  Instead 
of  finding,  as  I  expected,  a  selection  of  his  papers  with  such 
annotations  as  might  clear  up  obscurities — of  papers  perused 
and  approved  of  by  his  friends  as  fit  for  publication,  or  fur- 
nishing the  materials  of  publication — I  received  the  complete 
sweepings  of  his  drawers  and  of  his  desk  (as  it  appeared  to 
me),  even  to  the  copy-book  on  which  his  little  boy  had  been 
practising  his  writing.  No  one  had  given  these  papers  a 
perusal,  or  even  an  inspection  :  the  sheep  were  not  separated 
from  the  goats;  and — what  has,  perhaps,  not  happened  before 
since  the  beginning  of  the  world — the  manuscripts  of  a  man 
of  genius,  unarranged  by  himself,  and  unexamined  by  his 
family  or  friends,  were  sent,  with  all  their  sins  on  their  heads 
to  meet  the  eye  of  an  entire  stranger." 

Overwhelmed  by  the  hugeness  of  a  task,  the  materials  of 


Dr.  James  Cuerie.  73 


which  were  so  scattered  and  pecuhar,  and  depending  so  much 
for  the  success  of  the  enterprise  on  the  taste,  the  delicacy, 
and  the  judgment  with  which  they  were  handled,  there  is 
little  wonder  if  he  declares  to  Syme  that,  "  in  this  situation 
you  will  not  be  surprised  that  I  feel  an  anxious  wish  to  de- 
cline the  undertaking,  if  any  other  person  can  be  found  to 
engage  in  it.*" 

Negotiations,  moreover,  of  a  peculiarly  delicate  character, 
had  to  be  conducted  with  various  persons  in  possession  of 
documentary  material  necessary  to  satisfactorily  complete  the 
publication.  Mrs.  Dunlop,  as  the  result  of  these  delibera- 
tions, gave  up  her  letters  in  exchange  for  her  own  to  Burns : 
Clarinda  kept  hers,  but  promised  to  transcribe  and  transmit 
passages  from  them,  provided  her  own  to  Burns  were  re- 
turned :  while  Thomson  readily  parted  with  the  sixty  songs 
Burns  had  sent  him  for  his  Melodies  of  Scotland ;  also  the 
valuable  and  delightfully  spontaneous  correspondence  which 
passed  between  them  anent  the  same. 

Currie  was  engaged  in  arranging  and  editing  this  miscel- 
laneous mass  of  materials,  and  in  writing  the  Life,,  for  over  a 
period  of  three  years  ;  and  the  only  assistance  he  received 
was  when,  under  a  threat  of  flinging  the  whole  thing  up, 
Gilbert  Burns  and  Syme  came  down  to  Liverpool  and  stayed 
a  fortnight  under  the  doctor's  roof.  It  was  in  the  summer  of 
1800  that  the  work,  in  four  volumes,  at  last  appeared.  Two 
thousand  copies  were  printed  at  31s.  6d.  each,  which  realised 
=£?1,400 — for  the  benefit  of  the  Poefs  family.  Its  appearance 
was  greeted  with  universal  favour,  for  the  tact  and  delicacy, 
and  the  skill  and  discretion  with  which,  under  difficult  cir- 
cumstances, he  had  accomplished  his  task.  At  least,  nothing 
to  the  contrary  ever  reached  his  ear,  and  he  died  some  five 

£ 


74  Burns  and  the  Medical  Profession. 

years  after  at  Sidmouth,  whither  he  had  travelled  from  Bath, 
under  the  grateful  impression  that  his  benevolent  exertions 
had  been  crowned  with  entire  success.  A  year  before  his 
death,  while  searching  for  health  at  Moffi\t,  he  called  at 
Dumfries  to  see  INIrs.  Burns,  and,  with  characteristic  unsel- 
fishness, selected  a  single  volume  out  of  the  Poet's  library,  as 
a  memorial  of  his  exertions  on  behalf  of  herself  and  family. 

Though  Currie  died  in  blissful  ignorance  of  any  serious 
adverse  criticism  of  his  benevolent  achievement,  he  had  pro- 
bably too  much  connnon-sense  not  to  know  that  posterity 
might  not  endorse  the  same  favourable  view  of  his  perfor- 
mance, as  his  friends  and  contemporaries  had  done ;  the 
particular  form  and  extent  that  such  adverse  criticism  might 
take  he  was  perhaps  not  qualified,  by  virtue  of  his  very  limi- 
tations, to  guess.  It  never  entered  into  his,  or  any  other 
person's  calculations,  that  in  the  coming  future  the  most  in- 
significant detail  of  the  Poet's  life  would  be  so  treasured  and 
criticised  as  it  has  been.  Nor  was  it  to  be  expected  that  that 
same  posterity,  in  pronouncing  judgment  upon  Currie,  would, 
in  a  spirit  of  extenuation,  consider  the  very  exceptional  cir- 
cumstances under  which  he  performed  his  difficult  task.  In 
a  business  of  this  kind  it  was  perhaps  not  right  that  it  should. 
At  anyrate,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  didn't.  In  the  long  inter- 
val that  has  elapsed  since  the  beginning  of  the  present  century 
numerous  indictments  have,  from  time  to  time,  been  brought 
against  him.  The  most  serious  are  his  unnecessary  candour 
about  the  faults  of  Burns — his  apologetic  treatment  of  his 
character — and  his  deliberate  suppression  and  alteration  of 
questionable  passages  and  dates  in  his  poems  and  letters  ; 
though,  in  this  connection,  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  he 
points  out,  in  one  of  his  communications  to  Syme,  that  "  not 


Dr.  James  Currie.  75 


one  of  the  copies  of  his  own  (Burns's)  letters  is  dated  ;  and, 
therefore,  a  stranger  cannot  arrange  them  in  the  order  of 
time,  so  as  to  make  them  convey  a  history  of  his  mind." 
But,  even  before  the  work  was  half  through  the  press,  there 
were  murmurs  from  unexpected  quarters,  unheard,  doubtless, 
by  Currie,  but  destined  to  reach  the  ear  of  the  world  by  and 
by.  Both  Lamb  and  Wordsworth,  especially  the  latter,  as  I 
shall  have  occasion  to  show  a  little  further  on,  felt  very  sore 
on  the  point  of  Currie's  over-righteous  treatment  of  his 
theme.  The  former,  in  writing  to  Coleridge,  August  or  Sep- 
tember, 1800,  asks,  "  Have  you  seen  the  new  edition  of 
Burns — his  posthumous  works  and  letters  ?  I  have  only  been 
able  to  procure  the  first  volume,  which  contains  his  life — very 
confusedly  and  badly  written,  and  interspersed  with  dull 
pathological  and  medical  discussions.  It  is  written  by  a  Dr. 
Currie.  Do  you  know  the  well-meaning  doctor  ?  Alas  ! 
ne  sutor  ultra  crepidam.'''' 

There  is,  it  must  be  confessed,  a  good  deal  of  truth  in  the 
witty  Elia's  description  of  the  life,  and  it  is  very  clever  of  him 
to  hit  the  "  well-meaning  doctor '"'  with  a  weapon  out  of  the 
Aesculapian  armoury.  You  have  but  to  run  over  the  different 
departments,  and  their  arrangement,  in  the  life,  to  see  how 
pat  the  words,  "  dull  pathological  and  medical  discussions  " 
are  as  applied  to  them. 

1st.  It  opens  with  a  prefatory  essay  on  the  character  and 
condition  of  the  Scottish  peasantry,  that  the  reader,  and  par- 
ticularly the  English,  may  the  better  understand  the  Poet's 
life,  surroundings,  and  work. 

2nd.  The  Poefs  own  autobiographical  letter  to  Dr.  Moore. 

3rd.   His  brother  Gilbert's  narrative. 

4th.  His  teacher,  IVIr.  Murdoch's  narrative. 


76  Burns  and  the  Medical  Profession. 

5th.  Comparative  examination  of  these  different  narratives, 
with  other  particulars  of  his  Ayrshire  hfe,  by  the  editor. 

6th.  Professor  Dugald  Stewart's  narrative, 

7th.  Other  particulars  of  his  Edinburgh  life,  including 
notes  of  his  tour  through  the  South  of  Scotland. 

8th.  Dr.  Adair's  account  of  his  tour  with  Burns  to  Stirling, 
Vale  of  Devon,  Clackmannan,  and  Dunfermline. 

9th.  His  Highland  tour  with  Mr.  Nicol. 

10th.  Other  incidents  of  his  Edinburgh  life  previous  to 
going  to  Ellisland. 

11th.  His  Dumfries  life  to  his  death. 

12th.  His  character — reflections  on.  An  examination  of 
the  poetic  temperament — its  incompatibilities  with  the  more 
practical  aspect  of  life.  Sensibility — genius,  the  possessors 
of  them  generally  strangers  to  true  tranquility  and  happiness 
unless  kept  right  by  the  regular  exertion  of  all  the  faculties 
of  body  and  mind  ;  hence  the  peculiar  temptations  and 
dangers  to  which  the  poetic  constitution  is  liable,  as  opium 
in  the  East,  and  alcohol  in  Western  Europe  and  Great 
Britain. 

13th.  Memoir  respecting  Burns,  by  a  lady — Maria  Riddell. 

14th.  An  inquiry  into  his  literary  merits,  preceded  by  a 
survey  of  the  state  of  letters,  particularly  Scottish,  anterior 
to  Burns — from  Dunbar  to  Ramsay  and  Fergusson. 

15th.  The  lyric  productions  of  Burns,  prefaced  by  an  in- 
quiry into  the  history  and  philosophy  of  the  song  and  ballad 
in  general. 

In  spite  of  Elia's  strictures  and  fun,  perhaps  the  dull 
pathological  and  medical-discussion  method  was  the  only  one 
open  to  Currie  ?  At  anyrate,  I  am  not  sure  that  he  did  not 
do  the  best  thing  for  Burns  by  this  method.     And,  whatever 


Dr.  James  Currie.  77 


its  defects  in  form  and  structure,  suggesting,  it  may  be,  to 
the  reader  some  feeling  of  confusion  and  want  of  literary 
unity,  it  has  certainly  the  merit  of  fulness  and  thoroughness  ; 
while  the  learned  culture  it  displays,  the  critical  discrimina- 
tion, the  wide  and  varied  knowledge  of  human  character,  the 
sound  common-sense,  the  high  purpose,  and  even  the  exceed- 
ingly competent  literary  expression,  are  a  more  than  sufficient 
refutation  of  the  fitness  of  the  proverb,  ne  siitor  ultra  crepi- 
dam,  which  Lamb  applied  to  the  well-meaning  doctor's  par- 
ticular case. 

But  let  us  leave  Elia,  who  is  speaking  as  much  in  his  reputed 
character  of  humourist,  and,  therefore,  of  exaggeration,  as 
serious  critic,  and  come  to  the  heavier  metal  of  "Wordsworth. 
It  would  be  some  nine  years  after  Currie's  death,  and  fourteen 
after  the  publication  of  his  edition  of  Burns's  works,  that  the 
publishers,  anxious  to  maintain,  on  the  expiry  of  the  copy- 
right, a  preference  in  the  market  for  their  own  impressions, 
bethought  them  of  an  edition  with  notes  and  emendations  by 
the  Poefs  surviving  brother,  Gilbert.  He  very  willingly  fell 
in  with  the  idea,  more  particularly,  since  he  had  now  been 
convinced  by  two  of  his  brother's  surviving  intimates,  Mr. 
Gray  of  the  Dumfries  Academy,  the  teacher  of  the  Poefs 
children,  and  Mr.  Findlater,  his  superior  oflRcer  in  the  Excise, 
that  Dr.  Currie  had  done  injustice  to  his  brother's  memory. 

It  was  at  this  point  that  Wordsworth  took  up  the  cudgels 
by  issuing  a  pamphlet,  in  the  form  of  a  letter  to  Mr.  Gray, 
and  intended  at  first  for  Gilbert's  edition,  discussing  the 
whole  question  of  the  biographer's  duty  to  his  subject, 
especially  in  regard  to  the  extent  to  which  it  was  proper  to 
go  in  laying  bare  faults  and  failings.  He  avowed  his  indig- 
nation at  the  revelation  of  the  "infirmities"  of  Burns  made 


78  Burns  and  the  Medical  Profession. 

by  Dr.  Currie,  and  professed  a  desire  to  see  this  evil  corrected. 
Gilbert,   though  feeling  annoyed  at   Wordsworth*'s  interfer- 
ence, resolved  to  follow  his  suggestion.      This  action  of  his 
brought  forth  an  indignant  protest  from  Mr.  Roscoe  against 
the   imputation  of  faults   to  his  friend,   Dr.  Currie,   whose 
woric   had  been   approved  of  by  none  more  heartily,  at  its 
publication,  than  by  Gilbert  Burns.      Gilbert  defended  him- 
self by    declaring  that   when   Currie's   book   came   out   (the 
proof-sheets   of   which  neither   he    nor  Syme  ever  saw),  lie 
supposed   that   the  biographer  had  spoken   of  his  brother's 
errors  upon  good  information,  he  himself  having,  for  the  last 
few   years    of  the  Poet's  life,    lived  fifty   miles  off,  had  no 
opportunity  of  knowing  how  the  case  really  stood  ;  he,  there- 
fore,   approved    of   Dr.   Currie's  memoir   at    the    time,   but 
afterwards,  from  what  he  had  learned  from  Mr.  Findlater,  he 
became  convinced  that  the  statements  had  been  exaggerated. 
This  protest  of  ]\Ir.  Roscoe  and  defence  of  Gilbert  Burns, 
led  to  a  most  elaborate  and  protracted  correspondence,  as  is 
seen  from  the  Earnoch  MSS.  in  Annual  Burns  Chronicle  for 
1898,    in    which    Roscoe,  in    the  interest    of  his  friend   Dr. 
Currie's  honour,  and  that  of  the  Currie  family,  fights  most 
tenaciously  for  the  propriety  of  leaving  things  as  the  doctor 
left  them  in  his  memoir ;  and  in  which  Gilbert  Burns  con- 
tends  as    strenuously  as  it  was  possible  for  a  man   to  do, 
overweighted  as  he  always  was  by  a  sense  of  the  greatness  of 
the    obligation    the    Burns  family   owed   to   Currie,   for  the 
vindication    of   his    brother's    honour.       At    tliis    date,    the 
solicitude  of  Currie's  friends  for  his  honour  at  the  expense  of 
Burns's,    seems    neither  just   nor  wise.       Messrs.    Gray  and 
Findlater's  evidence,    published    by    Alexander   Peterkin    in 
1814,  was  already  before   the  world,  and  the  public  would 


Dr,  James  Currie.  79 


draw  their  own  conclusions  whether  Gilbert  Bin-ns  spoke  out 
holdhj,  or  allowed  himself  to  be  gagged,  or  his  statement 
whittled  down  to  next  to  nothing.  Mi-.  Roscoe's  attitude, 
moreover,  is  all  the  more  remarkable  since  he  admits  in  one 
of  his  letters  that  the  evidence  of  these  two  gentlemen  might 
have  influenced  the  final  opinion  of  Dr.  Currie. 

That  the  conviction  of  Gilbert  Burns,  that  Currie''s  state- 
ments had  been  exaggerated,  is  the  reasonable  belief  of  all  at 
the  present  day  who  have  taken  the  trouble  to  examine  this 
matter  for  themselves,  nobody,  I  think,  will  deny.  And  Dr. 
Currie,  had  he  lived,  would  have  been  the  first  to  honourably 
atone  in  some  of  the  subsequent  editions  for  his  exaggera- 
tions. Wordsworth  himself,  in  his  letter  to  Mr.  Gray,  admits 
as  much  when  he  says  that  the  author  of  these  objectionable 
passages,  "  If  he  were  now  alive,  would  probably  be  happy  to 
efface  them." 

But  does  Dr.  Currie  deserve  the  severe  censure  that  has 
been  meted  out  to  him  in  this  affair .''  It  must  be  borne  in 
mind  that  he  did  not  belong  to  that  Tennysonian  class  of 
biographers  who  think  they  have  nothing  to  do  with  a  poefs 
loudnesses.  Neither  was  he  of  Wordsworth's  way  of  thinking, 
who  considers  that  a  biographer  has  nothing  to  do  with  the 
private  life  of  a  poet,  unless  he  has  also  been  a  public  man 
and  borne  a  certain  part  in  the  affairs  of  the  world,  when  such 
knowledge  might  then  be  necessary  to  explain  his  public 
actions.  "  Nothing  of  this,"  he  says,  "  applies  to  authors, 
considered  merely  as  authors.  Our  business  is  with  their 
books,  to  understand  and  to  enjoy  them.  And  of  poets  more 
especially  it  is  true  that,  if  their  works  be  good,  they  contain 
within  themselves  all  that  is  necessary  to  their  being  compre- 
hended and  relished." 


80  Burns  and  the  Medical  Profession. 

Burns^s  xvildnesses,  however,  could  not  have  been  ignored, 
even  if  his  biographer  had  held  similar  views  to  those  of 
Tennyson  and  Wordsworth  ;  they  were  so  much  a  part  of  the 
man,  and  the  man  was  his  poems  and  songs,  in  a  sense 
altogether  different  from  either  of  the  cases  of  the  two  gi'eat 
artists  mentioned,  or  indeed  almost  any  other  poet.  Besides, 
Burns  was  himself  contiimally  drawing  attention  to  them,  and 
sometimes  in  humorous  moods  and  sometimes  out  of  the 
depths  of  remorse,  colouring  them  with  the  hues  of  exaggera- 
tion, little  thinking  that  he  would  be  taken  absolutely  at  his 
word,  but  expecting  rather  the  usual  deduction  charitably 
yielded  in  cases  of  self-depreciation,  whether  of  poets  or 
commoner  mortals. 

Now,  if  Gilbert  Burns,  M'ho  surely  knew  his  own  brother 
better  than  anybody,  and  living,  as  he  declared  in  his  defence 
to  Mr.  Roscoe,  during  the  last  few  years  of  the  Poet's  life 
only  fifty  miles  away  from  him,  credited  Dr.  Currie's  state- 
ment of  his  errors,  there  was  surely  still  greater  excuse  for  Dr. 
Currie,  living  five  times  that  distance  from  him,  accepting,  as 
he  doubtless  thought  from  reliable  and  respectable  sources, 
that  evidence  which  formed  the  substance  of  his  accusations 
against  Burns's  character.  If  he  erred,  and  I  think  he  did,  it 
was  in  not  going  further  afield  for  his  information,  more 
especially  as  his  own  personal  knowledge  of  how  the  case 
stood  was  ml.  He  informs  us  himself,  in  a  footnote  to  the 
Life,  that  Dr.  Maxwell  furnished  him  with  the  particulars  of 
the  Poet's  last  illness  and  death,  and  it  is  not  too  much  to 
presume  that  Syme  was  the  chief  informant  on  the  subject  of 
his  errors.  It  is,  indeed,  recorded  in  black  and  white  that  he, 
in  the  beginning  of  the  undertaking,  questioned  Syme  on 
these  very  points,  and  he  would,  doubtless,  receive  an  answer. 


Dr.  James  Currie.  81 

Later,  again,  after  the  publication  of  the  L\fe^  he,  in  a  letter 
to  the  same  correspondent  acknowledging  the  assistance  of  his 
observations  in  estimating  the  character  of  Burns,  asks  whether 
he  has  touched  the  Bard  with  a  rough  or  lenient  hand,  and 
whether  the  portrait  he  has  drawn  resembles  the  original,  two 
points  on  which  he  seems  to  feel  a  certain  amount  of  sensi- 
tiveness, like  a  man  not  altogether  sure  of  his  own  action, 
and,  therefore,  for  his  own  peace  of  mind,  standing  in  need  of 
a  certificate. 

It  has  been  argued  that  Syme  knew  Burns  well — none 
better,  and  loved  him  too  sincerely  to  give  his  friend  away — 
all  which  may  be  conceded,  and  yet  the  wisdom  of  the 
biographer  questioned  who  w'ould  rely  on  this  one  man's 
evidence  alone,  though  it  seemed  to  confirm  a  report  to  the 
same  effect  which  had  reached  his  ear  in  Liverpool  prior  to 
the  Poefs  death.  But  the  truth  of  such  an  argument,  I 
should  think,  would  depend  not  so  much  on  the  informant's 
good  intention  as  on  his  characterisation.  He  was  certainly 
not  without  cleverness,  and  was  named,  as  we  saw,  among 
the  Poet's  possible  biographers  ;  but  his  character  was  not 
distinguished  for  seriousness,  and  we  know  he  was  given 
somewhat  to  romancing.  As  an  instance  of  his  loose  and 
unreliable  style,  he  is  said  to  have  declared  that  Burns  was 
"  burnt  to  a  cinder ""  ere  Death  took  him  ;  and  Henley,  who 
is  unscrupulous  enough  to  lay  hold  on  anything  that  will 
work  into  his  unseemly  picture  of  the  defamation  of  the 
Poet's  memory,  has  seized  upon  this  phrase  to  demonstrate 
"  that  Burns  had  damaged  himself  with  diink."  Now,  this 
is  not  a  scientific  phrase  :  it  is  simply  a  figure  of  speech  ;  and 
if  it  means  anything  definite  at  all,  it  might  as  well  signify 
that,  as  a  spiritual  force,  he   was  bui'nt  out — that  he  had 


82  Burns  and  the  Medical  Profession, 


lived  too  fast  in  an  intellectual  and  emotional  sense,  and  so 
was  an  extinct  force.  It  woidd  be  going  out  of  any  unbiased 
critic''s  way  to  interpret  the  words  as  conveying,  from  him,  a 
layman,  at  least,  the  idea  of  atrophy  of  certain  internal 
organs  through  the  burning  effects  of  alcohol.  Besides, 
Syme  was  the  last  man  that  should  have  talked  as  Henley 
interprets  him  to  have  done.  I  suppose  he  did  as  much 
drinking,  if  not  more,  than  Burns ;  and  he  was  the  older 
man,  and  should  have  protected  him  against  excesses,  and 
not  encouraged  him,  as  we  know  he  did,  if  he  recognised  the 
value  of  his  life  to  the  nation. 

Perhaps,  too,  Currie  should  have  known,  as  a  student  of 
human  nature  and  as  a  man  of  the  world,  that  there  is  a  dis- 
position, even  among  well-meaning  friends,  to  exaggerate 
the  drinking  propensities  of  a  man  of  genius,  as  conferring  an 
additional  glorification  to  the  sum  of  his  achievements,  just 
as  vulgar  people,  to  whom  the  marvellous  and  wonderful 
appeal  strongly,  are  prone  to  associate  extraordinary  clever- 
ness with  excessive  drunkenness,  thereby  giving  it  the  char- 
acter of  a  dogma  of  every-day  life.  What  part  the  doctor's 
own  bias  in  the  direction  of  temperance  doctrines  may  have 
played  in  the  matter  it  is  impossible  to  say,  but,  judging 
from  his  own  words,  he  seems  to  have  been  alive  to  such 
temptation  in  striving  to  do  the  right.  Wordsworth  Avon- 
ders  how  the  affecting  passage,  where  the  poet  himself  pleads 
for  those  who  have  transgressed  : — 

"  One  point  must  still  be  greatly  dark, 
The  moving  ivhy  they  do  it, 
And  just  as  lamely  can  ye  mark 
How  far,  perhaps,  they  rue  it. 


Dr.  James  Currie.  83 


Who  made  the  heart,  'tis  he  alone 

Decidedly  can  try  us  ; 
He  knows  each  chord — its  various  tone, 

Each  spring,  its  various  bias. 

Then  at  the  balance  let's  be  mute, 

We  never  can  adjust  it  ; 
What's  done  we  partly  may  compute, 

But  know  not  what's  resisted." 

Wordsworth  wonders  how  the  recollection  of  this  affecting 
passage  "  did  not  check  so  amiable  a  man  as  Dr.  Currie, 
while  he  was  revealing  to   the   world  the  infirmities  of  its 
author."     He  seems,  however,  to  have  had  just  such  a  guard 
on  himself,  from  the  following  words,     "  It  is,  indeed,"  he 
says,  "  a  duty  we  owe  to  the  living,  not  to  allow  our  admira- 
tion of  great  genius,  or  even  our  pity  for  its  unhappy  destiny, 
to  conceal  or  disguise  its  errors.     But  there  are  sentiments  of 
respect,  and  even  tenderness,  with  which  this  duty  should  be 
performed ;    there  is   an    awful    sanctity  which    invests    the 
mansions  of  the  dead  ;  and  let  those  who  moralise  over  the 
graves  of  their  contemporaries,  reflect  with  humility  on  their 
own  errors,  nor  forget  how  soon  they  may  themselves  require 
the  candour  and  sympathy  they  are  called  upon  to  bestow." 
It  must  be  conceded,  I  think,  that  a  biographer,  working  in 
the  spirit  of  this  solemn  ideal,  if  he  trespass  against  his  sub- 
ject's memory,  must  do   it  more  from  mistaken  duty  than 
from  malice.     Besides,  Currie  felt  that  if  he  did  not  touch 
this  matter,  which  he  believed  was  of  such  a  clamant  char- 
acter, somebody  else  would,  and  not  so  tenderly  or  so  kindly. 
Lockhart,  in  traversing  this  knotty  part  of  the  Burns  pro- 
blem, considers  that  the  truth  may  probably  be  found  to  lie 
between  Currie's  statement  and  those  of  Messrs.  Gray  and 


84  Burns  and  the  INIedical  Profession. 

Findlater,  as  something  ought  perhaps  to  be  deducted  from 
the  latter  on  the  score  of  personal  friendship.     But,  it  might 
be  asked,  may  there  not  be  another,  simpler,  and  even  more 
reliable  way  of  arriving  at  an  opinion  ;  and  the  wonder  is  that 
Currie  did  not  think  of  it,  only  it  was  perhaps  too  soon  "^     Is 
it  necessary  to  found  a  judgment  at  all  on  hearsay  evidence, 
however  authoritative  and  respectable,  in  a  grave  matter  of 
this  kind  ?     It  has  always  seemed  to  me  that,  during  the  last 
four  years  of  the  Poet's  life  in  Dumfries,  against  which  the 
charge  of  excessive  indulgence  in  alcohol  is  mainly  brought, 
he  had  no  time  for  excessive  drinking,  far  less  for  recovering 
from  its  effects,  which  he  ^\'ould  have  required  to  have  done 
before  being  capable  of  renewed  intellectual  effort.     And  we 
know  that  he  was  not  a  good  drinker.     He  confessed  to  Pro- 
fessor Dugald  Stewart  that  there  was  no  merit  in  his  abstin- 
ence, as  he  had  to  pay  too  dearly  for  the  slightest  indulgence. 
The  habitual  drunkard  is,  as  a  rule,  incapable  of  any  serious 
work,  good  or  bad  :  even  the  periodical  "boozer"  relinquishes 
all  labour  till  he  has  done  with  hi^  "booze"  and  fairly  recovered 
from  its  effects.     Now  Burns,  besides  performing  his  Excise 
duties,    which    we  noAv    know    for    a  ftict  he  did  very    well, 
wrote  some  one  hundred  and  fifty  pieces  of  verse.     AVith  the 
exception  of  a  few  odd  sonnets,  epigrams,  monodies,  ballads, 
theatrical  addresses,  and  rhyming  epistles,  they  were  nearly  all 
songs — his  very  best  too.     "  And  only  the  man,"  says  a  writer 
in  the  Glasgow  Herald  for  Jan.  29, 1898,  "who  has  attempted 
to  follow  him  through  the  songs  which  he  read  and  refined  can 
understand  the  severitv  of  his  labours — labours  to  which  the 
throwing  off  of  such  extraordinary  pieces  of  the  nature  of  a 
tour  dejorcc  as  '  Tam  O'  Shanter '  or  '  The  Jolly  Beggars  ' 
Avas  a  trifle,  because  it  was  really  an  exquisite  pleasure."     He 


Dr.  James  Ci'krie.  85 


also  wrote  some  one  hundred  and  thirty  letters,  including  the 
fifty-six  to  George  Thomson  in  connection  with  the  songs  he 
was  sending  him  for  his  Musical  Melodies — letters  too,  which, 
for  distinct  literary  quality,  were  even  more  of  a  marvel  to 
some  of  the  Edinburgh  literati  than  his  verse.  He  corrected, 
moreover,  the  proof  sheets  of  two  different  publications — 
Johnsons  Museum,  and  a  two-volume  edition  of  his  poems. 
And  he  did  all  this  at  his  very  highest  literary  water-mark, 
and  with  not  the  remotest  hint  of  the  drunkard  in  a  single 
line,  or  even  word,  during  the  brief  space  of  four  years,  while 
struggling  with  honest  poverty,  and  while  discharging  the 
duties  of  a  volunteer,  regularly  attending  masonic  meetings, 
and  generally  taking  part  in  those  festivities  and  social  and 
public  functions  which  his  fame  had  imposed  on  his  citizen- 
ship ;  and  while,  like  his  worthy  father  before  him,  superin- 
tending the  education  of  his  children,  and  building  up  their 
character  by  conversation  and  selected  readings  from  the 
English  classics. 

This  four  years  record  of  work,  which  must  surely  have 
swallowed  up  the  greater  part  of  his  leisure,  and  left  a  very 
small  margin  for  indulgence  in  those  excesses  to  which  Currie 
is  blamed  for  giving  a  too  ready  credence,  is  all  the  more 
remarkable  when  his  indifferent  health,  during  a  considerable 
part  of  the  time,  is  taken  into  account.  For  upwards  of  a 
year  before  his  death — from  early  summer  of  1795 — ^his  health 
began  to  give  way.  This,  however,  was  not  the  first  of  his 
illness ;  for  in  a  letter  to  Mrs.  Dunlop,  June  25,  179'i,  speak- 
ing of  his  poor  health,  he  says  : — "  My  medical  friends 
threaten  me  with  a  Hying  gout,  but  I  trust  they  are  mistaken."" 
In  the  autumn  of  that  same  year,  1795,  he  was  so  greatly 
prostrated  by  the  death  of  his  little  girl  at  Mauchline,  whose 


86  Burns  and  the  Medical  Puofession. 

burial  he  was  too  unwell  to  attend,  that  he  was  compelled  to 
abandon  all  literary  work  for  a  time.  This  is  also  the  period 
of  the  story  of  the  accidental  complaint — from  October,  1795, 
till  January  following — which  Currie  states  he  was  confined 
with,  but  which  Burns  himself  indignantly  denied  when  his 
friend  Crombie,  shortly  before  his  death,  inquired  of  him  as 
to  its  truth.  In  commenting  on  this  accidental  complaint 
story,  Mr.  William  Wallace,  editor  of  the  new  Chambers'" 
edition,  says : — "  Currie  undoubtedly  deserves  censure  for 
having  made,  in  public,  charges  against  the  moral  character 
of  Burns,  which,  from  their  nature,  can  only  be  discussed  in 
camera^  The  same  distinguished  Burns  scholar  and  trenchant 
critic  considers  further  that  Currie,  in  virtue  of  the  exagger- 
ated view  he  took  of  the  Poet's  errors,  did  not  give  him 
sufficient  credit  for  honestly  struggling  to  overcome  his  faults 
and  do  well.  In  harping,  as  he  did,  on  the  weakness  of  his 
will  he  forgot  to  make  allowance  for  the  strength  of  his  pas- 
sions. Mr.  Wallace  inclines  rather  to  hold  with  Carlyle — 
that  he  had  an  iron  resolution,  and  believes  that,  had  death 
not  cut  him  off  prematurely,  or  accidentally  for  that  matter, 
for  we  have  no  medical  statement  of  authority,  or  even  at  all, 
as  to  the  possibilities  of  prolonged  life  that  were  in  him,  the 
chances  were  in  favour  of  his  resolution,  in  the  very  exercise 
of  a  continual  strife  to  do  well,  being  ultimately  rewarded 
with  victory. 

I  am  reminded  here,  in  the  mention  of  the  name  of  Carlyle, 
that  his  strictures,  which  proceed  on  somewhat  different  lines 
from  those  of  the  others,  have  still  to  be  considered.  They 
don't  deal  so  much  with  Dr.  Currie's  mistakes  and  errors  of 
judgment  in  treating  of  his  subject,  as  with  the  larger  ques- 
tion of  capacity  for  a  great  and  distinguished  treatment  of 


Dr.  James  Cuurie.  87 

the  subject.  ^Vhile  acknowledging  that  "  Currie  loved  the 
Poet  truly,  more  perhaps  than  he  avowed  to  his  readers,  or 
even  to  himself,  he  objects  to  his  "  everywhere  introducing 
him  with  a  certain  patronising  and  apologetic  air,  as  if  the 
polite  public  might  think  it  strange  and  half  unwarrantable 
that  he,  a  man  of  science,  a  scholar  and  gentleman,  should  do 
such  honour  to  a  rustic.  In  all  this,  however,  we  readily 
admit  that  his  fault  was  not  want  of  love,  but  weakness  of 
faith,  and  regret  that  the  first  and  kindest  of  all  our  Poefs 
biographers  should  not  have  seen  further,  or  believed  more 
boldly  what  he  saw." 

Now,  it  is  all  very  well  for  Carlyle  to  blame  Currie  for 
weakness  of  faith — for  lack  of  prophetic  vision ;  in  which 
he  was  no  greater  a  sinner  than  his  contemporaries  ;  but  he 
forgets  that  he  performed  his  task  immediately  after  the 
Poefs  death,  which  is  altogether  another  matter.  Nathaniel 
Hawthorne,  America's  greatest  man  of  letters,  in  Our  Old 
Home,  says,  and  says  very  truly,  in  discussing  this  very  sub- 
ject, "  It  is  far  easier  to  know  and  honour  a  poet  when  his 
fame  has  taken  shape  in  spotlessness  of  marble,  than  when  the 
actual  man  comes  staggering  before  you,  besmeared  with  the 
sordid  stains  of  his  daily  life.  For  my  part,  I  chiefly  wonder 
that  his  recognition  dawned  so  brightly  while  he  was  still  liv- 
ing. There  must  have  been  something  very  grand  in  his  im- 
mediate presence,  some  strangely  impressive  characteristic  in 
his  natural  behaviour  to  have  caused  him  to  seem  like  a  demi- 
god so  soon." 

It  was,  however,  quite  another  affair  when  Carlyle  himself 
came  to  write  his  essay,  which,  for  general  grasp,  keenness  of 
insight,  tenderness,  generosity,  daringness,  and  even  righteous- 
ness, is  still  the  greatest  treatment  of  the  theme,  and  could 


88  Burns  and  the  Medical  Puofessiox. 

gauge  a  truer  opinion,  and  recognise  that  the  peasant  bard,  in 
his  Hfetime,  was,  not  only  a  true  British  poet,  but  "  one  of 
the  most  considerable  British  men  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury." Moreover,  Carlyle  and  other  adverse  critics  over- 
look the  very  important  fact  that  the  task  Currie,  like 
a  shrewd  sensible  man,  set  before  himself,  was  to  write 
a  life  and  edit  an  edition  of  the  Poet's  works  ostensibly 
for  the  benefit  of  his  widow  and  orphan  children.  It  was  the 
immediate  success  of  the  present  that  perplexed  and  stimu- 
lated him  more  than  the  verdict  (praise  or  blame)  of  the 
future.  He,  therefore,  felt  it  his  duty  to  publish  nothing  to 
the  world  that  would  jeopardise  in  the  slightest  that  project, 
hence  his  suppressions  and  alterations  of  text  and  his  tamp- 
erings  with  dates,  which  have  brought  down  on  his  unlucky 
memory,  especially  of  late  years,  the  heavy  censure  of  the 
critics.  I  would  even  include  within  the  scope  of  this  same 
category  those  deliberate  alterations  of  the  dates  of  the  letters 
of  his  relative,  Mrs.  Dunlop,  to  Burns  during  his  latter 
years,  in  order  to  conceal  from  the  public  that  that  lady 
withdrew  from  him  her  friendship  for  a  time ;  which, 
I  think,  unpardonable  action,  on  Currie's  part,  might  be  read 
as  much  in  the  light  of  a  mistaken  kindness  to  Burns  as 
towards  his  own  relative. 

He  was  also  of  opinion  that  more  was  to  be  gained  from 
that  public,  to  which  he  was  appealing,  than  lost  by  stating, 
with  the  utmost  kindness  and  discretion  he  could  command, 
what  he  considered  to  be  the  truth  about  the  Poet's  declen- 
sions, which,  he  believed,  from  the  most  trustworthy  informa- 
tion supplied  to  him,  were  of  such  a  nature  that  they  could 
not  be  ignored ;  and  that,  if  he  did  not  touch  them,  somebody 
else  would,  with  a  far  unkinder  hand. 


JAMES   CURRIE,  .M.D.,   F.R.S. 


Dr.  James  Cuiirie.  89 

Looked  at  in  this  light,  then,  which,  after  all,  is  the  only 
fair  one,  Dr.  Currie  did  his  work  very  well,  like  an  honest 
Burns  worshipper ;  and  the  Burns  world  owe  him  a  signal 
debt  of  gratitude ;  for,  much  as  has  been  written  on  the 
theme  since,  it  is  marvellous  how  very  little  past  his  very 
thorough  performance  we  have  really  got,  or  can  get. 

Medical  Subscribers  to  Currie''s  First  Edition,  1800. 

Adair,  J.  M.,  M.D.,  Harrogate. 

BiDDOEs,  Dr.,  Bristol. 

BosTocK,  John,  IM.D.,  Liverpool. 

Cairncross,  Axd.,  Esq.,  Surgeon,  London. 

Caldwell,  Robt.,  Esq.,  Surgeon,  6th  Fencible  Regiment. 

Carson,  William,  M.D.,  Birmingham. 

Charles,  George,  Esq.,  M.D.,  Ayr. 

Clark,  Robt.,  M.D.,  Dublin. 

Clark,  James,  Esq.,  Surgeon. 

Cromfpon,  Peter,  M.D.,  Eton  House,  near  Liverpool. 

Currie,  William,  M.D.,  Chester. 

Currie,  Jajles,  M.D.,  F.R.S.,  Liverpool. 

Elliot,  IMr.  Thos.,  Surgeon,  London. 

Goldie,  jNIr.  Joseph,  Surgeon,  LiNerpool. 

Graham,  Thos.,  Esq.,  Surgeon,  Royal  Navy. 

Hojie,  Dr.  James,  Professor,  Edinburgh. 

McIxtosh,  Dr.  William,  late  of  Jamaica. 

Millar,  Dr.  Richard,  Glasgow. 

Moore,  John,  M.D.,  Cliiford  Street,  London. 

ISIoRRis,  Dr.  Hugh,  Glasgow. 

Percival,  Thos.,  M.D.,  F.R.S.,  Manchester. 

Rattray,  Dr.,  Coventry. 

F 


90  Burns  and  the  Medical  Profession. 

Saumarez,  Mr.,  Surgeon,  Newington  Butts. 

Small,  Dr.,  Dundee. 

Tait,  Dr.  William,  Edinburgh. 

Taylor,  Dr.,  Manchester. 

Towers,  Mr.  James,  Surgeon. 

Urie,  Mr.  Archd.,  Assistant  Surgeon,  58th  Regiment. 

Wood,  Alexr.,  Esq.,  Surgeon. 


DAVID    ^[ACBETH    MOIR,  M.D. 

(Delta) 

By  the  kind  permission  of  Messrs.  Blackie  &  Son. 


VI. 

DR.  DAVID  MACBETH  MOIR  (Delta), 

AND    THE    GEAXD    ALLOWAY    FESTIVAL. 

In  the  long  interval  of  forty-four  years,  between  the  publi- 
cation of  Currie's  edition  of  the  Life  and  Posthumous  Works 
of  Burns,  in  1800,  and  the  holding  of  the  Grand  Alloway 
Festival  in  18-i4,  there  were  issued  from  the  press  upwards  of 
two  hundred  different  editions,  including  some  French  and 
German  translations.  During  that  interval  there  also  ap- 
peared numerous  other  collateral  publications  treating  of  the 
Burns  theme.  Only  a  few,  however — the  productions  of 
medical  men — require  a  passing  notice  in  this  collection. 


Robert  John  Thornton,  M.D.,  London 


(the  son  of  a  member  of  the  medical  profession,  and  well- 
known  wit,  humourist,  and  man  of  letters,  who  died  in  1768, 
when  the  subject  of  the  present  sketch  was  quite  a  child),  was 
also,  like  his  father,  possessed  of  extensive  literary  acquire- 
ments. He  was  the  author  of  a  work,  notable  in  its  day,  on 
Tlie  Philosophy  of  Medicine,  published  in  1798,  in  four  volumes. 
He  also  wrote  The  Philosophy  of  Politics,  published  a  year 
later,  in  three  volumes.  And  early  in  his  career  he  ruined  him- 
self in  a  gigantic  literary  speculation — the  publication  in 
1799-1804  of  a  work  of  extraordinary  size  on  Botany  (a 
science  to  which  he  was,  from  his  youth,  passionately  devoted, 


92  Burns  and  the  Medical  Profession. 

and  upon  which  he  wrote  voluminously),  entitled,  Tlie  Temple 
of  Flora ;  or,  Garden  of  the  Botanist,  Poet,  Painter,  and 
Philosopher ;  with  plates  very  splendidly  coloured  after 
nature  by  celebrated  artists. 

In  addition  to  all  this  scientific  literary  activity,  he  found 
time,  in  his  busy  practice,  and  amid  that  poverty,  which 
his  devotion  to  Botany  had  brought  down  upon  his  luckless 
head,  to  tread,  for  once  at  least,  the  flowerier  paths  of  litera- 
ture, I  refer  to  that  little  treatise  he  wrote,  which  is 
his  justification  to  a  notice  in  this  inquiry,  entitled  A  School 
Virgil,  London,  1813,  and  Illustrations  to  the  same,  London, 
1814  ;  and  which  is  a  kindly,  sympathetic,  and  appreciative 
notice  of  Burns ;  with  severe  reflections  on  George  Thomson. 
These  reflections,  however,  especially  in  the  light  of  Mr. 
Hadden's  recent  biography  of  Thomson,  are  now  understood 
to  be  quite  unfounded. 

W.   AiNSLIE,   M.D., 

is  the  author  of  the  following  lines,  written  on  seeing  Mr, 
Thom's  sculpture  of  Tarn  o'  Shanter  and  Souter  Johnny, 
which  appeared  in  the  Morning  Post,  1829  : — 

"  That  the  great  bard — what  need  to  tell  the  name  ? — 
In  after  times,  should  still  more  mighty  be, 
At  Heaven's  command,  behold  a  Garrick  came, 
And  both  were  crowned  with  immortality  ! 

So  to  the  earth,  in  these  our  later  days, 

Was  Thorn,  with  his  soul-breathing  chisel,  sent  ; 

That  Burns,  enwreath'd  in  everlasting  bays, 
Might  speak  again  in  living  adamant." 


Dr.  R.  R.  Madden.  93 


R.    R.    Madden,   M.D, 


a  native  of  Ireland,  was  educated  in  Dublin,  and  after  study- 
ing medicine  in  Paris,  Naples,  and  London,  travelled  for 
some  years  in  the  East.  Returning  to  England,  he  practised 
for  a  time  as  a  surgeon  in  Curzon  Street,  Mayfair.  After- 
wards, in  1833,  he  went  out  to  Jamaica  as  one  of  the  special 
magistrates  appointed  to  administer  the  statute  abolishing 
slavery  in  the  plantations,  but,  getting  into  trouble,  he  took 
a  toui  to  America.  He  also  visited  Africa  and  Western 
Australia  in  public  and  official  capacities ;  and  in  184?8  he 
returned  to  Ireland,  where  he  died  in  1886. 

Dr.  Madden  was  a  true  Irish  patriot,  a  man  of  affairs,  a 
journalist,  a  medical  practitioner,  and  a  most  extensive  mis- 
cellaneous writer;  being,  among  numberless  other  publica- 
tions, the  author  of  Lrfe  and  Martyrdom  of  Savonarola, 
Travels  in  Turkey ,  The  Musselman  (a  novel),  Literary  Life 
and  Correspondence  of  the  Countess  Blessington,  and  The 
Ijijirmities  of  Genius,  illustrated  by  referring  the  anomalies  in 
the  Literary  Character  to  the  Habits  and  Constitutional 
Peculiarities  of  Men  of  Genius,  London,  Saunders  and  Otley, 
1833.  This  latter  work,  \\Titten  when  practising  medicine  in 
Mayfair,  and  before  going  out  to  Jamaica,  contains  a  chapter, 
the  twentv-first,  on  Burns.  I 

As  was  to  be  expected,  in  view  of  such  a  title  as  The 
Infrmities  of  Genius,  the  doctor,  in  this  Burns  essay,  deals 
solely  with  the  poet — the  man,  and  not  with  his  poetry ;  and 
if  he  does  so  in  a  more  or  less  scientific  spirit,  it  is  neither 
narroAv,  unkindly,  nor  unsympathetic.  It  is  questionable, 
indeed,  how  far,  if  at  all,  he  knows  the  poems  of  Burns  ;  and 
he  appears  to  have  come  by  his  knowledge  of  the  man  chiefly 


94  Burns  axd  the  Medical  Profession. 

from  Dr.  Currie's  biography  of  the  Poet,  which  he  quotes 
largely  and  approvingly.  He  is  not  of  Lamb's  opinion,  that 
it  is  very  confusedly  and  hadly  xcriUen,  and  interspersed  with 
dull  pathological  and  medical  discussions.  He  holds  rather 
that  it  deserves  to  be  considered  one  of  the  best  specimens  of 
biography  in  the  English  language,  not  only  for  the  philo- 
sophical spirit  in  which  it  is  written,  but  for  its  noble  effort 
to  vindicate  the  character  of  genius. 

Dr.  Madden  is  inclined  to  lay  the  blame  of  Burns's  errors 
at  the  door  of  his  dyspepsia — the  literary  malady,  which  he 
traces  as  present  in  his  constitution  from  his  earliest  days, 
and  which,  doubtless,  was  responsible  for  his  liypochondriacal 
melancholy,  his  nervous  headaches,  his  palpitations  and  sink- 
ings of  the  heart,  etc.,  etc.  The  dejection  consequent  on 
this  hypochondria,  in  his  early  years,  he  points  out,  was 
soothed  by  the  excitement  of  the  tender  passion.  In  later 
life  he  employed  other  means  to  alleviate  it — alcohol,  which 
had  the  dangerous  effect  of  aggravating  the  disease.  He 
quotes  Currie  as  to  the  fatal  defects  in  his  character  consist- 
ing in  his  comparative  weakness  of  volition  and  in  the  acute- 
ness  and  strength  of  his  sensibility ;  while  the  occupations  of 
a  poet  are  as  little  calculated,  in  the  one  case,  to  strengthen 
the  governing  powers  of  the  mind,  as  they  are,  in  the  other, 
to  weaken  that  sensibility  which  requires  perpetual  control ; 
which  deliverance  he  characterises  as  worth  all  that  has 
ever  been  said  on  "  the  poetic  temperament."  "  Indolence,"" 
again,  "the  baneful  attendant  of  morbid  sensibility,""  he 
considers,  and  I  cannot  help  thinking  in  culpable  ignorance 
of  the  amount  of  genuine  work  Burns  did  during  the  very 
years  in  question,  as  I  tried  to  show  in  the  preceding  chapter 
— Idleness  he  considers  the  next  factor  in  the  production  of 


Dr.  R.  R.  Maddex.  95 

that  train  of  symptoms  which  heralded  a  premature  death,  as 
it  aggravated  his  hypochondria,  for  the  rehef  of  which  he 
had  recourse  to  the  seductive  use  of  stimulants,  which  had  to 
be  increased  to  meet  the  failing  strength  of  body,  and  conse- 
quently of  volition,  and  the  proportionate  increase  of  sensi- 
bility caused  by  the  soothing  and  gi*atification  of  the  diseased 
sensations. 

Speaking  of  the  Poefs  last  rheumatic  illness,  which  had  so 
shattered  his  already  enfeebled  constitution,  the  doctor  has 
some  significant  observations.  "In  June  he  was  recommended 
to  go  into  the  country  ;  '  and  impatient  of  advice,'  says  his 
biographer, '  as  well  as  of  every  species  of  control,  he  deter- 
mined for  himself  to  try  the  effects  of  bathing  in  the  sea.' 
Burns,  however,  distinctly  says  in  two  of  his  lettei-s,  this  ex- 
traordinary remedy  for  rheumatism  was  prescribed  by  his 
physician  ;  '  The  medical  men,'  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Cunningham, 
'  tell  me  that  my  last  and  only  chance  is  bathing  and  country 
quarters,  and  riding.'  For  the  sake  of  the  faculty,  I  trust 
that  Burns  was  mistaken  in  the  matter,  for  no  medical  man 
of  common-sense  could  think  that  a  patient  sinking  under 
rheumatism,  and  shattered  in  constitution,  was  a  fit  subject 
for  so  violent  a  remedy  as  the  cold  bath.  No  medical  man 
can  consider,  without  shuddering,  the  mischief  it  must  have 
produced  in  the  case  of  Burns." 

In  spite  of  the  fact  of  the  remarkable  fruitfulness  of  the 
press  in  the  multiplication  of  new  editions  and  other  colla- 
teral Burnsiana  matters  during  these  forty-four  years,  the 
Scottish  nation  may,  nevertheless,  be  said,  generally, 
to  have  regarded  its  Poet  with  a  feeling  of  apathy  since  lay- 
ing him  with  so  much  pompous  ceremonial  in  the  churchyard 


96  Burns  and  the  Medical  Profession. 

of  St.  Michael.  And  the  Grand  Festival  held  in  honour  of 
his  sons,  at  their  father's  birthplace,  may  be  described  as,  not 
only  the  first  symptoms  of  an  awakening  from  its  unworthy 
attitude  of  indifference,  but  the  dawn  of  a  new  state  of 
things,  out  of  which  was  to  emerge  the  materials  for  the 
building  up  of  a  progressive  Burns  cult,  and  the  founding  of 
a  real,  salutary  hero-worship. 

Lord  Eglinton  presided  on  the  eventful  occasion ;  and  there 
were  present  such  notabilities  as  Henry  Glassford  Bell,  Esq., 
Sheriff  Substitute  of  Lanarkshire,  Professor  Wilson  of  Edin- 
burgh (Christopher  North),  Archibald  Alison,  Esq.,  Sheriff 
of  Lanarkshire,  and  author  of  the  History  of  Europe,  Colonel 
Mure  of  Caldwell,  author  of  Travels  in  Greece,  William 
Ay  ton,  Esq.,  Advocate,  and  a  whole  host  of  others,  more  or 
less  celebrated  in  war,  diplomacy,  the  senate,  public  life,  and 
at  the  bar.  There  was,  however,  among  the  distinguished 
company,  one  celebrity,  specially  invited  to  attend,  though 
not  in  evidence.     I  refer  to 

Dr.  David  Macbeth  Moir,  of  Musselburgh, 

better  known  by  his  pen-name  A  (Delta)  of  BlacJizvood,  the 
friend  and  intimate  of  that  gifted  literary  brotherhood,  which 
included  Wilson,  the  Blackwoods,  Ferrier,  Simpson,  Dr. 
Robert  Macnish,  Christison,  Robert  Chambers,  Dr.  John 
Brown,  and  Thomas  Aird,  his  biographer. 

Dr.  Moir,  as  is  well-known,  was  a  hard-working  and  most 
capable  medical  practitioner  all  his  too  brief  life,  to  which 
his  Outlines  of  the  Ancient  History  of  Medicine,  published  in 
1831,  bear  excellent  testimony ;  so  also  does  his  heroic 
attendance,  night  and  day,  upon  the  plague-stricken  inhabi- 


Dr.  David  Macbeth  Mom.  97 

tants  of  Musselburgh  during  that  fearful  visitation  of  cholera 
which  swept  over  Europe  at  this  time  ;  and  his  Practical 
Observations  on  the  same  malignant  theme,  published  in 
1833,  which  was  followed  by  Proofs  of  its  Contagiousness  in 
184'3.  But  he  was,  besides,  a  most  distinguished  poet  and 
man  of  letters,  finding  time,  in  the  midst  of  his  busy  practice, 
for  the  gratification  of  his  literary  passion,  mostly  when 
other  folks  were  busy  sleeping.  He  is,  indeed,  one  of  the 
solitary  examples,  not  only  of  the  compatibility  of  medicine 
with  letters,  but  of  their  entirely  successful  union  in  his  own 
remarkable  person.  Out  of  a  very  considerable  out-put  (at 
least  for  one  of  his  busy  years),  of  prose  and  verse,  and  all  of 
a  highly  meritorious  character  for  workmanship  and  polish, 
the  two  works  possessing  the  greatest  amount  of  immortality 
are,  doubtless,  his  Mansie  Waucli  and  Cassa  Wappy.  And 
if  the  former  has  been  provocative  of  more  innocent  mirth 
and  healthy  laughter  than  perhaps  any  other  work  of  a 
similar  kind,  the  latter  has  contributed  towards  the  shedding 
of  more  medicinal  tears,  by  bereaved  fathers  and  mothers, 
than  any  other  child's  poem  in  the  language. 

Though  Dr.  Moir  did  not  take  any  public  part  in  the  day"'s 
proceedings  at  the  grand  Alio  way  banquet  in  1844,  he  did 
perhaps  a  far  greater  service  to  the  occasion,  and,  certainly, 
to  posterity,  by  composing  his  Commemorative  Burns  Poem, 
published  in  Blackioood  at  the  time.  In  writing  to  his  friend 
Aird  of  Dumfries,  a  month  or  two  thereafter,  he  says,  "  My 
days,  and  sometimes  my  nights,  are  absorbed  in  professional 
hurry  ;  and  often  for  a  \veek  at  a  time  I  cannot  answer  a 
single  letter — my  opportunity  for  reading  at  these  times  being 
a  book  in  my  phaeton.  ^Vith  the  exception  of  the  lines  to 
Burns,  and  another  piece,  I  do  not  remember  another  product 


98  Burns  and  the  Medical  Profession. 

of  my  muse  for  the  last  twelve  months.  Apropos  of  the  lines 
to  Burns,  they  have  been  popular  probably  beyond  any  other 
thing  that  I  have  ever  written,  and  have  been  republished  in 
fifty  different  quarters." 

And  they  deserved  to  be,  for  his  stanzas  are  not  only 
penned  in  the  genuine  spirit  of  hero-worship,  but  he  writes 
like  a  man  who  knows  his  subject  down  to  the  bottom,  as 
well  as  all  round.  The  following  lines  are  a  good  example  of 
his  exceeding  sanity  on  that  portion  of  the  Burns  theme 
which  has  proved  a  stumbling-block  to  so  many  of  the  smaller 
order  of  minds,  and  is  a  pronouncement  distinctly  in  advance 
of  his  own  day. 

"  Judge  not  ye,  whose  thoughts  are  fingers, 
Of  the  hands  that  witch  the  lyre — 
Greenland  has  its  mountain  icebergs, 
^tna  has  its  heart  of  fire  ; 
Calculation  has  its  plummet  ; 
Self-control  its  iron  rules  ; 
Genius  has  its  sparkling  fountains  ; 
Dulness  has  its  stagnant  pools  ; 
Like  a  halcyon  on  the  waters, 
Burns's  chart  disdained  a  plan — 
In  his  soarings  he  was  Heavenly, 
In  his  sinkings  he  was  man." 

It  is  a  singular  and  noteworthy  coincidence  that,  with  a 
view  to  recruit  his  declining  health  by  rest  and  change  of 
scene,  he  should  have  been  on  a  visit,  accompanied  by  his 
wife  and  little  son,  to  the  land  of  Burns  where  he  met  the 
illness  which  was  so  soon  to  prove  fatal  to  him.  On  his  re- 
turn to  the  inn  after  a  short  drive  to  the  cottage  where  Burns 
was  born  and  the  other  objects  of  interest  in  that  celebrated 
locality,  which  he  was  desirous  of  showing  his  wife  and  son, 


Dr.  David  Macbeth  Moir.  99 

he  was  seized  with  a  violent  spasm.  The  next  day  he  was  a 
little  better  and  determined  to  return  home,  taking  Dumfries 
on  the  way.  He,  however,  never  reached  Musselburgh  ;  his 
illness  quickly  developing  into  an  acute  peritonitis  after 
arriving  at  Dumfries,  where  he  died  in  a  few  days,  at  the  age 
of  fifty -three. 


VIL 
DRS.  FR.  ADAMS,  O.  W.  HOLMES,  Etc., 

AND    THE    1859    CELEBRATIONS. 

Between  the  Alloway  Festival  and  the  next  most  important 
event  of  the  Burns  cult — the  Centenary  Celebration — it  falls 
to  me  to  notice  the  name  of 

James  R.  McConochie,  M.D.,  Louisville,  Ky., 

who  was  the  author  of  a  little  work,  Leisure  Honrs^  partly 
poetical  and  partly  prose,  written  in  the  spare  moments  of 
his  busy  professional  life,  and  published  in  184*8.  There  is  a 
prose  sketch  in  the  little  volume,  called.  Recollections  of 
Robert  Burns,  a  subject  upon  which  he  considers  himself  well 
qualified  to  speak,  being  not  only  a  native  of  Dumfries,  where 
his  father  was  a  minister,  but  educated  there,  at  the  same 
school  as  Burns''s  son,  both  boys  sitting  on  the  same  form. 
He  remembered  the  Poet  well,  and  would  be  some  seven  or 
eight  years  of  age  when  he  was  first  pointed  out  to  him,  one 
evening  at  the  Dock,  the  general  resort  of  the  Dumfriesians 
at  the  close  of  the  labours  of  the  day. 

The  doctor,  however,  does  not  tell  us  anything  new  con- 
cerning Burns.  His  presentment  is  the  usual  stereotyped  one, 
about  his  great  genius,  and  equally  great  errors,  but  apprecia- 
tive and  kindly  withal.     It  could  hardly  be  expected  that  a 


Dk.  Alexander  M.  Walker.  101 

lad  of  seven  years  old  could  have  formed  any  opinion  of  his 
own  on  such  a  subject.  He  has,  moreover,  fallen  into  a  good 
many  mistakes,  such  as,  that  Jean  Armour's  father  was  a 
tailor,  which  render  his  Recollections,  especially  from  the  per- 
sonal point  of  view,  comparatively  worthless.  Indeed,  the 
likelihood  is  that  he  penned  them  more  from  reading  and  the 
remembrance  of  hearsay  evidence  heard  fifty  or  sixty  years 
ago,  than  from  personal  Recollections. 

A  tribute  of  a  very  different  character  to  the  one  just 
recorded  is  that  of  a  Lecture,  published  in  1858,  by 

Alexander  M.  Walker,  M.A.,  M.D., 

071  the  Private  and  Literary  Life  of  Burns,  which  he  had,  by 
request,  delivered  a  few  years  previously,  before  some  of  the 
Metropolitan  Literary  and  Scientific  Institutions.  In  the 
preface  to  his  lecture  he  solicits  the  patronage  of  the  nobility 
and  gentry  and  tradesmen  of  the  town  and  vicinity,  as  the 
proceeds  from  the  sale  of  the  little  publication  are  to  be 
devoted  to  the  purchase  of  some  of  the  best  standard  authors 
for  the  library  of  the  Useful  Knoidedge  Institidion,  of  which 
the  doctor  was  honorary  secretary. 

Two  years  later  again,  in  1860,  he  published  a  second 
Lecture  on  the  Poems  and  Songs  of  Burns,  which  had  also,  he 
informs  us  in  the  preface,  been  previously  delivered  before  the 
above  mentioned  Metropolitan  Societies ;  and,  in  issuing 
which,  he  once  more  solicits  the  patronage  of  his  neighbours 
and  fellow-townsmen,  the  proceeds  of  the  sale  in  the  present 
case  being  for  the  benefit  of  the  Chapel  of  Ease  School. 

The  delivery  and  publication  of  these  two  lectures  is  unique, 
especially  when  it  is  considered  that  the  lecturer  was  an  Irish- 


102  Burns  and  the  Medical  Profession. 

man  practising  as  a  physician  in  a  south  of  England  fashion- 
able watering  place — Tunbridge  Wells.  But  had  he  not 
disclosed  his  nationality,  it  could  have  been  easily  discovered 
from  his  text  that  he  had  never  been  either  in  Ayi'shire  or 
Dumfriesshire,  which  he  speaks  of  as  though  they  w^ere  the 
highlands  of  Perthshire.  If,  however,  he  was  ignorant  of  the 
topographical  character  of  these  two  counties,  which  were 
mainly  identified  with  the  life  and  work  of  Burns,  his  ac- 
quaintanceship with  both  the  spirit  and  letter  of  the  Poet's 
Private  and  Literary  Life,  and  with  his  Poems  and  Songs,  is 
thorough  and  sound.  His  first  lecture  is  a  most  eloquent, 
enthusiastic,  and  generous  tribute  to  the  character  of  the 
Scottish  Bard,  but  thoughtful  and  discriminating  withal,  being 
of  opinion,  considering  his  circumstances  and  the  time,  that 
he  was  fairly  well  equipped,  educationally  and  otherwise,  for 
the  work  his  hand  found  to  do,  because  he  supplemented  what 
he  lacked  from  the  teaching  of  his  schoolmaster  and  his  own 
father,  by  the  most  assiduous  self-culture,  in  order  that  the 
product  of  his  art  might  not  suffer  through  poverty  of  know- 
ledge, or  its  expression  be  unworthy  of  the  theme  he  was 
singing  through  want  of  cultivation. 

His  second  lecture  is  an  equally  able,  warm,  and  scholarly 
criticism  of  the  Poems  and  Songs,  showing,  by  his  comparative 
analysis,  not  only  fine  insight  into  his  subject,  but  wide 
culture  and  knowledge  of  the  world's  greatest  masters  in 
literature.  And,  like  all  the  performances  of  medical  men, 
both  lectures  are  conspicuous  for  the  spirit  in  which  they 
touch  upon  the  Poefs  failings — a  spirit  which  he  commends 
as  one  of  the  signal  merits  of  Dr.  Currie's  memoir. 

In  the  great  centennial  celebrations  of  1859,  which  pro- 
duced so  many  tributes,  both  at  home  and  abroad,  to  the 


FRANCIS   ADAMS,  M.D.,  LL.D. 


From  Marble  Bust  in  Aberdeen  University,  by  permission  of  the  Principal, 

Sir  W.  Geddes. 


Dr.  Francis  Adams.  103 

beloved  memory  of  Scotland's  Bard,  the  medical  profession  is 
worthily  represented.  On  the  one  hand,  as  far  north  as 
Banchory,  Kincardineshire, 

Francis  Adams,  M.D.,  LL.D., 

commemorates  the  event  by  a  Centenary  Discourse  on  the 
Writings  of  Burns ;  and,  on  the  other,  across  the  wide 
Atlantic,  Dr.  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  sounds  his  lyre  to  the 
same  popular  strain ;  though  these  two  conspicuous  examples 
do  not,  by  any  means,  exhaust  the  list.  In  every  other  town 
and  village  in  Scotland,  and  in  England  and  Ireland,  and  in 
America  and  the  Colonies,  medical  men  were  not  only  present 
at  the  celebrations,  but,  in  numerous  instances,  they  presided 
and  proposed  the  toast  of  the  Immortal  Memory,  in  a  man- 
ner entirely  worthy  of  the  best  traditions  of  the  profession. 

This  circumstance  of  the  veteran  Kincardine  doctor's  essay 
into  the  dangerous  field  of  Burns  speculation  and  criticism  is 
all  the  more  remarkable,  because,  though  like  Dr.  Moir,  a 
notable  example  of  the  successful  union  of  medicine  and 
letters,  his  walk  of  literature  was  not  in  the  realms  of  poesy 
and  humorous  fiction,  but  amid  the  severer  classicism  of 
Grecian  lore.  Like  Delta,  too,  his  literary  achievements 
were  the  product  of  hard-earned  and  scanty  leisure,  and  what 
he  could  steal  from  his  sleep,  as  he  was  all  his  life  a  hard- 
working "  Country  Doctor." — "  It  is  a  noticeable  fact,"  says  a 
writer  in  a  cutting  from  the  Scotsman,  May  1857,  with  this 
heading,  which  I  came  across  the  other  day  in  the  IVIitchell 
Library,  pasted  by  some  loving  hand  on  the  title-page  of  a 
small  volume,  in  which  Dr.  Adams's  centenary  lecture  is 
bound  up  with  Carlyle's  celebrated  essay  and  other  pamph- 
lets ;  and  from  its  style  and  contents,  I  should  say,  is  from 


104  Burns  and  the  Medical  Profession. 

the  pen  of  the  author  of  Rah  and  His  Friends,  Dr.  John 
Brown,  who  writes  so  charmingly  of  the  Deeside  practitioner 
in  his  Horae  Stibsecivae — "  It  is  a  noticeable  fact,  and  some- 
thing to  be  proud  of,  that  the  most  learned  physician  in 
Britain,  and  probably  in  Europe,  is  at  this  moment  a  country 
surgeon  in  a  small  village  on  Deeside — Dr.  Francis  Adams, 
of  Upper  Banchory,  the  editor  and  translator  of  Hippocrates, 
Paulus  ^gineta,  and  Aretaeus.  We  well  remember  finding 
this  great  scholar  at  his  careless  jentacidum,  diverting  himself 
with  doing  an  ode  of  Horace  into  Greek  verse ;  being  then, 
and  we  daresay  still,  at  the  call  of  any  shepherd's  'crying 
wife  ■"  up  in  the  solitudes  of  Clochnabane,  and  living  such  a 
life  as  we  all  remember  Scott  describing  in  the  '  Surgeon's 
Daughter.""  In  any  other  country,  such  a  man  would  not 
have  been  permitted  to  remain  long  in  such  a  position — 
Scotia  is  assuredly  leonum  arida  riutrix.  Our  lions  are  very 
drily  nursed — they  are  perhaps  all  the  more  lively  and  leonine 
— but  small  thanks  to  their  mother." 

After  this  highly  interesting  introduction  to  Dr.  John 
Brown's  "  Country  Doctor,"  who  was  familiarly  known  as 
Francie  Adams  in  the  district,  where  he  was  considered  the 
best  surgeon  and  the  worst  equestrian,  and  who,  while 
"  fighting  for  a  livelihood,  educating  his  family,  and  in- 
volved in  his  multifarious  and  urgent  duties,"  found  time 
to  become  the  author  of  upwards  of  a  score  of  publica- 
tions —  surely  "  one  of  the  most  signal  instances  of  the 
pursuit  and  mastery  of  knowledge  under  difficulties,  to  be 
found  even  among  our  Scottish  Worthies,"  the  reader  may  be 
made  acquainted  with  the  fact,  that  his  admiration  for  the 
Writings  of  Bnrns  was  both  high  and  enthusiastic.  His 
Discourse,  indeed,  which  shows  both  fullness  and  knowledge 


Dr.  Francis  Adams.  105 

of  his  subject,  is  a  -well-reasoned,  judicious,  and  generous 
tribute  to  the  marvellous  genius  of  Burns  as  a  poet,  setting 
him  high  above  all  other  lyric  singers,  of  whatever  country  or 
clime,  either  before  his  day  or  since.  Nor  is  his  treatment  of 
the  man  a  whit  less  large-minded  and  charitable,  which  is 
saying  a  good  deal,  when  it  is  remembered  that  his  discourse 
was  delivered  in  the  Church  (the  shops  in  the  town  being 
shut  that  day),  and  that  it  required  more  sincerity  of  convic- 
tion and  bravery  to  write  as  Dr.  Adams  did  forty  years  ago 
than  now.  Speaking  of  his  religion  and  morality,  he  says, 
"  Never  can  it  be  said  of  Burns  that  (to  use  the  solemn  language 
of  a  great  moralist)  '  he  tortured  his  fancy  and  ransacked  his 
memory  only  that  he  might  leave  the  world  less  virtuous  than 
he  found  it,  might  intercept  the  hopes  of  the  rising  generation, 
and  spread  snares  for  the  soul  with  greater  dexterity.""  O, 
no  !  Burns  was  not  the  man  to  call  right  wrong,  and  wrong 
right.  Those  who  judge  harshly  of  Burns  are  generally  cold- 
blooded formalists  in  religion,  and  these  are  not  the  persons 
to  sit  in  judgment  on  him  to  whom  (assuredly  for  some  noble 
purpose)  his  Creator  had  given 

'  The  thrilling  frame  and  eagle  spirit  of  a  child  of  song.'  " 

Again,  "  My  own  estimate  of  Burns''s  moral  conduct  during 
'  the  few  and  weary  days  of  his  sojourn  here  below  "*  may  be 
given  in  a  few  words.  He  had  his  sins  and  his  follies  ;  alas  ! 
who  is  amongst  us  that  has  not  ?  But  it  is  my  deliberate 
opinion  that,  to  the  best  of  his  ability,  he  always  did  justice, 
loved  mercy,  and  walked  humbly  with  God  ;  that  if  he  saw  a 
fellow-creature  an  hungered,  none  could  be  more  prompt  to 
give  him  food — if  athirst,  to  give  him  drink — or  if  in  prison, 
to,minister  to  him.     Is  not  this  the  true  spirit  of  Christianity  ? 

G 


106  Burns  and  the  Medical  Profession. 

Let  us  join  then  in  the  prayer  of  Wordsworth,  who  himself 
had  a  deep  sympathy  with  Nature  and  the  poet  of  Nature — 

*  Sweet  Mercy  !  to  the  gates  of  Heaven 
This  minstrel  lead,  his  sins  forgiven  ; 
The  rnefal  conflict,  the  heart  riven 

With  vain  endeavour, 
And  memory  of  earth's  bitter  leaven 
Effaced  for  ever. 

But  why  to  him  confine  the  prayer, 

When  kindred  thoughts  and  yearnings  bear 

On  the  frail  heart  the  purest  share 

With  all  who  live  ?— 
The  best  of  what  we  do  and  are, 

Just  God,  forgive  ! '  " 

Talking  of  the  Poefs  coarseness  in  certain  of  his  poems, 
particularly  in  his  satires,  he  has  also  a  sensible  word.  Had 
Burns  lived  in  our  day  he  would,  doubtless,  have  written 
differently  ;  and  he  readily  admits  that  the  usages  of  the 
present  day  in  these  respects  are  preferable.  But  he  could 
hardly  help  himself;  he  simply  did  what  every  writer  in  the 
same  line  did,  viz.,  copy  the  example  of  the  great  masters  of 
comic  satire  who  had  preceded  him.  And,  after  all,  as  Dr. 
Adams  very  pertinently  reminds  us,  "  Coarseness  in  speaking 
or  in  writing  was  a  thing  that  concerned  the  manners  rather 
than  the  morals,  and  merely  affected  the  surface  of  character. 
In  this  respect  it  was  akin  to  filthiness  in  personal  habits. 
It  did  not  follow  because  a  man  had  a  foul  skin  or  spoke 
coarsely  at  times,  that  he  was  corrupt  to  the  core.  In  short, 
the  heart  might  be  clean,  although  the  skin  or  mouth  was 
foul." 


Dr.  OLIVER    WENDELL   HOLMES 


From  Vol    L  of  the  Riverside  Edition  of  "  The  Writings  of  O.  W.  Holmes.' 
By  the  kind  permission  of  Messrs.  Sampson,  Low,  IMarslon,  &  Company. 


Dr.  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes.  107 

Turning  now  from  the  hardy  north,  where  this  learned 
"  Country  Doctor  "  thought  so  kindly  and  spoke  so  sanely  of 
Bums,  the  poet  and  the  man,  I  would  ask  you  to  glance  for 
a  little  to  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic,  where,  from  the  city 
of  Boston, 

Dr.  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes 

sent  forth  his  Centenmal  Poem  in  honour  of  the  1859  celebra- 
tion. 

Dr.  Holmes  has  bulked  so  largely  and  so  long  in  the  eye 
of  the  reading  world  as  a  man  of  letters  that  it  is  not  gener- 
ally known  how  distinguished  an  ornament  he  was  of  his  own 
profession  ;  though  nobody  acquainted  with  medicine  can 
read  his  works  without,  as  his  friend  and  correspondent,  Pro- 
fessor Sir  W.  T.  Gairdner,  of  Glasgow,  says,  being  struck 
"  Avith  the  large  grasp  of  contemporary  thought,  combined 
with  medical  and  physiological  illustration,  as  a  quite  new 
phenomenon  alike  in  literature  and  medicine.'"  "  I  have 
passed,"  he  humorously  remarked  himself  a  few  years  ago,  in 
a  conversation  with  the  late  editor  of  the  British  Medical 
Journal,  "  the  best  years  of  my  life  as  a  doctor,  and  I  hope 
they  are  not  ashamed  of  me,  and  do  not  reproach  me  for 
choosing  to  tread  the  flowery  path  of  very  light  literature." 
As  a  matter  of  fact  Dr.  Holmes,  like  Moir  and  Adams,  was, 
and  had  been,  a  hard-working  practitioner  in  the  city  of 
Boston  M'hen  he  wrote  his  Centennial  Poem  on  Burns:  In 
1843,  when  he  was  only  thirty-four  years  of  age,  he  published 
his  great  controversial  Essay  on  the  Treatment  of  Puerperal 
(child-bed)  Fever,  which,  in  its  splendid  prescience,  antici- 
pated the  marvellous  bacteriological  discoveries  of  our  own 


108  Burns  and  the  Medical  Profession. 

day.  He  was  appointed  in  1847  to  the  chair  of  Anatomy 
and  Physiology  at  Harvard  University,  a  post  he  held  with 
great  acceptance  and  distinction  for  the  long  period  of  forty 
years.  While  performing  his  professional  duties,  he  still 
canned  on  his  practice  in  Boston  ;  finding  time  in  the  midst 
of  it  all  to  woo  the  Muse,  and  even  to  deliver  lectures  to 
"  lyceum  assemblies." 

It  was  in  the  very  thick  of  this  busy  time,  then,  1857  to 
1859,  when  his  Breakfast  Table  papers  were  running  in  the 
Atlantic  Monthly^  and  apprising  the  reading  world  that  a 
new  and  original  star  had  arisen  on  the  literary  horizon,  that 
he  threw  his  centennial 

"  pebble  on  the  cairn 
Of  him,  though  dead,  undying  ; 
Sweet  Nature's  nursling,  bonniest  bairn 
Beneath  her  daisies  lying." 

But  the  whole  poem,  which  is  a  beautiful  tribute  to  the 
genius  and  humanity  of  Burns,  is  also  distinguished  by  that 
wise  charity  for  which,  I  contend,  doctors  are  proverbial,  as 
the  following  lines  show  : — 

"  We  love  him,  not  for  sweetest  song, 
Though  never  tone  so  tender ; 
We  love  him,  even  in  his  wrong, — 
His  wasteful  self-surrender. 

We  praise  him,  not  for  gifts  divine, — 

His  Muse  was  born  of  woman, — 
His  manhood  breathes  in  every  line, — 

Was  ever  heart  more  human  1 


Dr.  Oliver  "NVexdell  Holmes.  109 


We  love  him,  praise  him,  just  for  this  : 

In  every  form  and  feature, 
Through  wealth  and  want,  through,  woe  and  bliss, 

He  saw  his  fellow  creature  ! 

No  soul  could  sink  beneath  his  love, — 

Not  even  angel  blasted  ; 
No  mortal  power  could  soar  above 

The  pride  that  all  outlasted  ! 

Ay  !  Heaven  had  set  one  living  man 

Beyond  the  pedant's  tether, — 
His  virtues,  frailties.  He  may  scan 

Who  weighs  them  altogether." 

The  following  charming  little  incident,  recorded  thirty 
years  after,  shows  that  this  evergreen  doctor"'s  heart  still 
remained  unchanged  to  its  first  love.  In  replying  to  my 
friend,  Dr.  John  Dougall,  Glasgow,  who  had  sent  him  some 
daisies  gathered  from  the  field  at  Mossgiel,  after  first  pressing 
them  between  the  leaves  of  a  copy  of  The  Meditations  of 
Marcus  Aurelius,  and  afterwards  in  the  pages  of  a  copy  of 
The  Autocrat  of  the  Brealxfast  Table ^  he  says,  "The  daisies 
from  Mossgiel  remain  as  when  you  sent  them,  except  that  I 
gave  one  of  them  to  a  lady,  who,  I  know,  would  value  it 
highly.  I  feel  much  obliged  to  you  for  send'ng  them,  and 
they  are  not  less  welcome  for  the  plea.sant  letter  that  comes 
Avith  them.  I  am  proud  to  think  that  my  book  found  itself 
in  the  company  of  Marcus  Aurelius,  and  that  it  should  hold 
between  its  leaves  the  modest  flower  which  Burns  has  in- 
vested with  a  tender  beauty  it  never  drew  from  the  soil  or 
air  in  which  it  grew.  You  need  not  be  surprised  that 
Americans  are  frequent  pilgrims  to  the  places  made  dear  to 


110  BURXS    AXD    THE    MeDICAL    PllOFESSIOX. 

tliem,  and  to  all  that  read  his  songs,  by  the  poetry  of  Burns. 
He  ought  to  have  passed  ten  years  of  his  life — or  five  at  least 
— in  America,  for  those  words  of  his — 

'  A  man's  a  man  for  a'  that,' 

show  that  true  American  feeling  belonged  to  him  as  much  as 
if  he  had  been  born  in  sight  of  the  hill  before  me  as  I  write — 
Bunker  Hill." 


Dr.  JOHN    P.ROWX 
(Kab  and  his  Friends.) 


VIII. 


DR.    JOHN    BROWN    AND    OTHERS,    DOWN    TO 
THE   END   OF  THE   EIGHTIES. 

It  is  a  supreme  satisfaction  to  be  able  to  link  in  the  present 
inquiry  the  name  of  Dr.  John  Brown,  the  celebrated  author 
of  Rah  and  His  Friends  and  a  whole  host  of  other,  the 
most  delightful,  essays  and  papers  and  sketches,  comprised  in 
his  Horae  Siihsecivae.  The  writings  in  these  volumes, 
exhibiting,  as  they  do,  a  most  captivating  and  beautiful 
individualism,  wide  culture,  great  purity  of  style,  and 
elevated  thought,  have  justly  become  English  classics. 
Their  ripe  wisdom,  moreover,  and  soundest  of  common-sense- 
teaching  on  medical  subjects,  on  art,  and  on  the  great 
verities  of  human  life  and  religion,  make  them  a  library  in 
themselves,  the  knowledge  alone  of  which  would  be  an  educa- 
tion in  itself  to  any  young  man,  and,  in  particular,  I  often 
think,  to  any  young  medical  man ;  for,  though  Dr.  Brown 
was  not,  in  the  same  sense  perhaps  as  Holmes  (whom  in  other 
respects  he  strongly  resembles),  a  medical  pioneer  himself,  he 
understood,  none  better,  the  history  and  philosophy  of 
medicine  and  medical  teaching,  and  became,  with  shrewdest 
insight,  the  historian  and  critic  of  some  of  the  great  medical 
movements  and  the  men  chiefly  concerned  in  them. 

While  the  whole  world  was  ringing  with  the  centennial 
celebrations  of  Burns,  this  sweet-blooded  Edinburgh  physician 


112  Burns  and  the  Medical  Profession. 

and  most  lovable  of  all  men  of  letters  was  preparing  for  the 
press  his  Horae  Subsecivae^  which  contains  some  interesting 
bits  of  Barnsiana. 

In  the  lieading  to  that  most  charming  paper,  "  Oh,  I'm 
wat,  wat,"  he  relates  a  very  pretty  little  incident  in  the 
youtliful  life  of  Burns,  illustrative  of  his,  even  then,  gift  of 
humour.     I  give  it  in  the  doctor^s  own  words  : — 

"  The  Father  of  the  Rev.  Mi:  Steven  of  Largs  zvas  the  son 
of  a  ^farmer,  xcho  lived  next  Jarm  to  Mossg  kl.  When  a  hoy 
of  eight,  he  Jonnd  '•Robbie^  xcho  was  a  great  friend  of  his, 
and  of  all  the  children,  engaged  digging  a  la?ge  trench  in  a 
Jield,  Gilbert,  his  brother,  with  him.  The  boy  pausing  on  the 
edge  of  the  trench,  and  looking  down  upon  Burns,  said, 
'  Robbie,  whafs  that  ye're  doin  ? '  '  HoxcMn''  a  miicMe  hole, 
Tammie.'  'What for?'  'To  Imry  the  Deil  in,  Tammie!" 
(one  can  fancy  how  those  eyes  would  gloiv).  '  jV  but,  Robbie^ 
said  the  logical  Tammie,  'hod' re  ye  to  get  him  in?''  ^ Ay^ 
said  Burns,  '  thafs  it,  hoo  are  we  to  get  him  in  I '  and  went  off 
into  shouts  of  langhter ;  and  every  nozo  and  then  during  that 
summer  day  shouts  would  come  from  that  hole  as  the  idea  came 
over  him.  If  one  could  only  have  daguerreotyped  his  day^s 
fancies !  "*' 

In  a  finely  imagined  analysis  of  the  old  song,  "  Aye 
Waukin"*,  O  ! "  he  contrasts  the  version  of  it  in  Chambers'' 
Scottish  Songs  with  Burns's  amended  reading  of  the  same ; 
and  very  much,  it  must  be  confessed,  provided  his  view  of 
Burns's  version  is  the  correct  one,  to  the  disadvantage  of  the 
latter.  At  the  same  time,  he  admits  that  Burns,  in  almost 
every    instance,    not    only    adorned,    but    transformed    and 


Dr.  John  Bnowx.  113 


purified  whatever  of  the  old  he  touched,  breathing  into  it  his 
own  tenderness  and  strength.  And  he  describes,  as  the  chief 
charm  of  the  love  songs  of  Burns,  that  the  Poet  is  not 
making  love,  but  in  it.  "  Certainly,"  he  says,  "  of  all  love 
songs  except  those  wild  snatches  left  to  us  by  her  Avho  flung 
herself  from  the  Leucadian  Rock,  those  of  Burns  are  the 
most  in  earnest,  the  tenderest,  the  '  most  moving,  delicate, 
and  full  of  life.''  Burns  makes  you  feel  the  reality  and  the 
depth,  the  truth  of  his  passion  :  it  is  not  her  eye-lashes,  or 
her  nose,  or  her  dimple,  or  even 

'  A  mole  cLnque-spotted,  like  the  crimson  drops 
I'  the  bottom  of  a  cowslip,' 

that  are  '  winging  the  fervour  of  his  love ;  **  not  even  her 
soul ;  it  is  herself.  This  concentration  and  earnestness,  this 
perfervor  of  our  Scottish  love  poetry,  seems  to  me  to  contrast 
curiously  with  the  light,  trifling,  philandering  of  the  English; 
indeed,  as  far  as  I  remember,  we  have  almost  no  love  songs  in 
En^rlish,  of  the  same  class  as  this  one,  or  those  of  Burns. 
They  are  mostly  either  ot  ^he  genteel,  or  of  the  nautical 
(some  of  these  capital),  or  of  the  comic  school.  Do  you 
know  the  most  perfect,  the  finest  love-song  in  our  or  in  any 
language ;  the  love  being  affectionate  more  than  passionate, 
love  in  possession,  not  in  pursuit  ? 


'  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  bo  my  bosom, 

To  share  it  a',  to  share  it  a'. 


114  Burns  and  the  Medical  Profession. 

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  inspiration  for  this,  among  the  last,  if  not  the  very 
last,  of  the  love-songs  the  Poet  ever  wrote,  was  supplied  by 
Jessy  Lewars,  she  who  tended  him  on  his  deathbed,  playing 
over  and  over  on  the  piano  the  air  of  that  old  song, 

"  The  robin  cam'  to  the  wren's  nest, 
And  keekit  in,  and  keekit  in." 

Dr.  Brown,  in  a  passage  in  that  beautiful  paper  on  "  Arthur 
H.  Hallam,"  further  emphasises  this  affectionate  character  of 
the  love  in  Burns's  songs.  "  We  can,"  he  says,  speaking  of 
In  Memonam,  "  recall  few  poems  approaching  to  it  in  this 
quality  of  sustained  affection.  The  only  English  poems  we 
can  think  of  as  of  the  same  order,  are  Cowper's  lines  on  seeing 
his  mother''s  portrait : — 

*  O  that  these  lips  had  language  ! ' 

Burns  to  '  Mary  in  Heaven  ; '  and  two  pieces  of  Vaughan — 
one  beginning, 

'  0  thou  who  know'st  for  whom  I  mourn  ;  ' 

and  the  other, 

'  They  are  all  gone  into  the  world  of  light.'  " 


Dr.  Robert  Dick.  115 


Following  close  upon  the  recent  celebrations,  and  probably 
inspired  by  them,  I  have  also  to  chronicle  the  name  of 

James  Strachan,  Surgeon,  Blackford, 

author  of  A  Voyage  to  the  Arctic  Regions^  a  gentleman  who 
was  in  active  country  medical  practice  for  upwards  of  thirty- 
five  years,  and  in  the  autumn  of  his  days  published  a  little 
volume  of  poetry,  entitled,  Mural  Pieces  in  Rhyme  and  Blank 
Verse,  Edinburgh,  1860.  His  treatment  of  the  various  sub- 
jects of  his  muse,  which,  as  their  title  indicates,  are  mostly  of 
a  religious  and  moral  character,  is  slight  and  short,  the 
execution  not  being  always  equal  to,  or  worthy  of  the  theme. 
In  an  Ac7'0stic  on  Burns,  an  Episode,  and  Tarn  o'  Shanter, 
he  refers  to  Burns,  and  sings  his  praises,  perhaps  with  more 
warmth  of  heart  than  poetic  skill.  He  is  inclined  to  over- 
look the  debauchery  in  Tarn  o'  Shanter  in  consideration  of 
its  other  merits. 

"  Gif  you  or  me  fiud  fault,  we're  unco  bauld 
Wi'  him  who  wrat  sae  much  for  our  enjoy, 
An'  fley'd  sae  muckle  grief  frae  our  employ." 

And  likewise,  as  appearing  very  soon  after,  if  not,  indeed, 
actually  belonging  to  the  centenary  category,  I  ought  to  in- 
clude the  name  of 

Robert  Dick,  M.D.,  CM., 

who  graduated  at  Glasgow  University  in  1834  ;  practised  in 
London  and  Edinburgh  ;  and  died  at  the  latter  city  in  1878. 
He  was  as  prolific  with  his  pen,  as  he  was  extravagant  in  the 
subjects  which  it  handled,  being,  among  other  works,  the 


116  Burns  and  the  Medical  Pkofession. 

author  of,  Derangements  of  the  Organs  of  Digestion,  1840 ; 
A  New  and  Catholic  Liturgy,  1846  ;  Physiology,  its  Physical, 
Moral,  Political,  and  Hygienic  Teachings ;  an  Essay  in 
Blank  F(?/-«',  1849  ;  The  Literary  Aurora,  1858;  Marriage 
and  Pojndation,  their  Natural  Laws,  1858  ;  The  Spiritual 
Dunciad,  1859  ;  and  the  Autobiography  and  Poetical  Com- 
positions, including  Tartarns,  Elysium,  Elijah,  and  the  Paulo- 
post  of  Man ;  or,  the  Land ;  Rent,  and  Food-Free,  and 
Concrete  Air — Nitrogen  Milleniimi,  1863 ;  which  remarkable 
work  contains  an  Ode  on  the  Centenary  of  Burns'' s  Birthday. 

However  insane  the  company,  judging  from  the  foregoing 
titles,  in  which  this  ode  finds  itself,  there  is  nothing  of  mad- 
ness in  its  matter.  It  sets  out  by  sketching  the  character, 
particularly  in  its  sterner  aspects,  of  our  Scottish  scenery, 
amid  which  the  Poet  was  nurtured  ;  and  describes  a  snow- 
storm. 

"  But  ah  !  full  soon  Toil  came  to  claim  the  boy ; 
Leaving  too  narrow  phase 
Of  happy,  vacant  days, 
'To  paidle  i'  the  burn  and  rin  about  the  braes,' 
His  frame,  while  still  unknit,  the  plough,  the  scythe  employ," 

Then  it  notes  how  his  "  manly  sire "  took  careful  heed  for 
the  education  and  culture  of  his  mind ;  how  he  suddenly 
awoke  to  fame ;  went  to  "  Edina's  regal  seat "  and  received 
the  homage  of  the  learned  and  the  great.  "  But,"  it  signifi- 
cantly asks — 

"  Was  he  happier  then, 
Even  in  the  proudest  hour. 
Than  when  he  told  his  tale  of  love, 
In  hawthorn-scented  bower  ?  " 


Dr.  Robert  Dick.  117 


and  answers  in  the  neijative — 


o 


"  No  I  for  ambition,  glory  are  apart 
From  man's  true  nature,  never  fiU'd  his  heart  ; 
But  love,  pure,  holy,  homely, 
Of  woman,  modest,  comely, 
Is  still  the  heavenliest  gift 
Of  which  lost  Eden's  outcast  is  unreft  ; 
And  this.  Burns,  natheless  all  his  errors,  knew, 
When  link'd  to  long-lov'd  Jean,  at  last  in  wedlock  true  !  " 

It  next  conducts  his  reluctant  footsteps  from  that  Edin- 
burgh, which,  it  has  been  wisely  said,  "  took  so  much  out  of 
him  and  put  so  little  back  in  its  place." 

"  From  dulcet-mingled  wiles 

Of  man's  applause  and  woman's  smiles  ; 
From  pleasure,  dazzling  success,  beauty, 
To  humble  rustic  duty, 

Unmann'd  in  nought  the  Bard  returns, 

More  jjurely,  brightly  burns 
The  light  of  Genius  in  him  ; 

His  fancy  every  theme  adorns  ; 
Temptations  rarely  win  him. 
Then  struck  his  lyre  those  chords, 

Even  henceforth  to  be 
A  nation's  deathless  'household  words,' 
His  lay  of  '  Auld  lang  syne,' 

And  other  minstrelsy  ; 
Which  Scot  with  Scot  will  chorus, 
While  lasts  the  land  that  bore  us. 

Drop  we  the  veil  o'er  Bnrns's  after-story. 

For  us,  for  him  too  soon. 

His  sun  went  down  at  noon  ; 
Fault  and  mischance  dimming  its  parting  glory. 


118  Burns  and  the  Medical  Profession. 


He  left  Ids  name 
Amid  his  country's  constellations, 

In  the  poetic  sky, 

Immortally 
To  sparkle  on  with  brightest  corruscations. 
In  comic  and  pathetic  alternations." 

It  usually  happens  after  great  events,  like  the  1859  Cele- 
brations, that  enthusiasm  exhausts  itself  and  a  period  of 
reaction  sets  in.  But  the  press  was  as  active  as  ever  in 
issuing  new  editions.  Monuments  too,  were  being  erected, 
one  after  another,  all  over  the  country.  There  were,  besides, 
other  collateral  Burnsiana  publications  constantly  making 
their  appearance,  as  the  ever-increasing  bibliographies  be- 
wilderingly  inform  us.  And  if  the  adage  has  any  application, 
it  must  be  to  the  medical  profession  ;  for  there  is  a  gap  of 
thirteen  years  between  the  tiny  tributes  of  Strachan  and  Dick 
and  the  delivery  of  a  lecture  on,  Robert  Burns,  the  Poet,  by 

David  Sime,  M.D.,  Inellan, 

before  the  good  people  of  that  little  Clyde  watering  place, 
where  he  was  the  resident  medical  practitioner,  and  which 
was  afterwards,  at  the  special  request  of  his  audience,  pub- 
lished by  Maclehose  &  Sons,  Glasgow.  Eight  years  later, 
April,  1881,  the  same  lecture  (if  not  exactly  word  for  word, 
at  least  thought  for  thought)  appeared  as  an  article  in  the 
Catholic  Presbyterian,  under  the  title  of  the  Poetry  of 
Robert  Burns.  His  point  of  view  here  is  precisely  that 
of  the  original  lecture,  only,  if  anything,  a  little  more 
pronounced.  He  treats  his  subject  from  the  aspect  of  the 
poet  rather  than  the  man,  as  the  latter  might  long  since 
have  been,  and  is,  indeed,  being,  forgotten,  but  for  the  mar- 


Dk.  David  Simk.  119 


vellous  genius  of  the  former  keeping  him  alive.  And  though 
he  adopts  this  course  advisedly,  because  he  is  of  opinion  that 
the  sooner  the  man,  with  his  struggles  and  his  errors,  is 
forgotten,  the  better — that,  indeed,  it  is  of  no  consequence 
he  should  be  remembered  since  we  have  his  works,  he  cannot 
altogether  escape  glancing  at  the  man,  whose  frailties  he 
touches  with  the  same  generous  hand  that  we  have  seen 
characterises  his  medical  brethren  generally. 

All  the  same,  Dr.  Sime  does  not  appear  to  have  been 
attracted  by  the  man,  Robert  Burns,  in  the  same  degree  that 
he  has  been  by  his  poetry  ;  and  the  reason  probably  is  (for 
he  holds  the  usual  stereotyped  view  of  his  errors),  that  he  has 
not  studied  his  life  as  deeply  as  he  seems  to  have  done  his 
works.  He  is  not  one  of  those  who  feel  that  we  ought  to  be 
as  grateful  for  his  life  as  his  poetry — that,  in  fact,  we  could 
not  have  had  the  special  kind  and  quality  of  poetry  he  has 
given  us,  without,  at  the  same  time,  his  special  characterisa- 
tion, with  all  its  moral  riskiness,  which  produced  it;  and  that 
if  we  esteem  the  product  a  good  and  wholesome  thing,  then 
we  must  loyally  accept  the  other.  It  does  not  seem  to  have 
occurred  to  Dr.  Sime,  as  it  did  to  "Wordsworth,  that  "  many 
peculiar  beauties  which  enrich  his  verses  could  never  have 
existed,  and  many  accessory  influences,  which  contribute 
greatly  to  their  effect,  would  have  been  wanting,  unless  it 
were  felt  that  he  was  a  man  who  preached  from  the  text  of 
his  own  errors  ;  and  whose  wisdom,  beautiful  as  a  flower  that 
might  have  risen  from  seed  sown  from  above,  was  in  fact  a 
scion  from  the  root  of  personal  suffering."  Nor  does  he,  like 
Oliver  Wendell  Holmes, 

"  love  him,  even  in  his  wrong — 
His  wasteful  self-surrender." 


120  Burns  and  the  Medical  Puofession. 

This  larger  and  Words worthian  view — that  the  Poet's  loss 
is  our  gain  ;  that  through  his  sorrows  and  his  errors  we  are 
the  nearer  blessing  and  wisdom ;  and  that,  therefore,  we 
ought  to  accept  his  life,  broken  as  it  is,  with  humble  thank- 
fulness and  reverent  pityfulness,  is  quite  foreign  to  Dr.  Sime's 
conception.  He  has  not  considered  that  the  enthusiasm  of 
the  Scottish  people  for  their  Bard  has  its  origin  in,  and  draws 
its  very  sustenance  from,  his  personality ;  and  that  to  strike 
it  out  of  the  bargain  would  be  to  give  the  death-blow  to  our 
Burns  worship,  which  has  grown  up  around  the  man,  even 
more  than  his  work.  If  it  were  possible,  which  it  is  not,  to 
view  Burns  purely  as  a  literary  artist,  like  Shakspere  and 
Scott,  there  could  be  no  more  anniversary  celebrations,  which 
the  doctor  perhaps  might  not  consider  an  unmixed  blessing. 

But  if  Dr.  Sime,  in  the  plan  of  his  paper,  deliberately 
chooses  to  ignore  the  man,  he  devotes  himself  all  the  more 
enthusiastically  to  a  masterly  analysis  of  his  poems  and  songs, 
which  shows  him  to  be  possessed  of  considerable  culture,  rare 
insight,  and  a  very  distinctive  literary  gift,  which,  I  under- 
stand, he  is  exercising  with  success  at  the  present  day  in 
London,  being  already  the  author  of  In  Manhurij  City,  a 
novel,  and  The  Literary  Charm  of  the  Pilgrim'' s  Progress. 

There  is  a  further  lapse  of  nine  years,  as  far  as  I  have  been 
able  to  inform  myself,  between  Dr.  Sime's  very  admirable 
performance  and  that  of  a  much  less  ambitious  character, 
which  only  merits  notice  here,  as  being  from  the  pen  of 

John  M'Cosh,  M.D.,  Edin.,  F.R.C.S.E.,  H.E.I.C.S.,  and 

F.R.G.S.L. 


Dr.  John  M'Cosh.  121 


He  was  a  native  of  Kirkmichael,  Ayrshire  ;  studied  at  Glas- 
gow from  1827  to  30,  in  which  latter  year  he  became  a 
Licentiate  of  the  R.C.S.E.  ;  then  probably  entered  into  the 
Government  Service  of  India,  the  experience  gained  in  that 
field  forming  the  subject  of  his  thesis,  On  the  Prospects  and 
Practice  of  a  Bengali  Medical  Officer,  with  which  he  graduated 
M.D.  in  Edinburgh  in  1841.  He  also  published  several 
other  works  relating  to  India  and  the  East,  as  Topography 
of  Assam,  Calcutta,  1837 ;  Medical  Advice  to  the  Indian 
Stranger,  London,  1841 ;  Advice  to  Officers  in  India,  London, 
1856.  He  was  likewise  the  author  of  Nuova  Italia,  and  the 
volume  which  is  the  subject  of  the  present  notice,  published 
in  1882,  and  entitled,  Sketches  in  Verse  at  Home  and  Abroad, 
and  from  the  War  of  the  Nile,  in  Ten  Cantos.  In  the  fourth 
canto  of  this  work,  which  ranges  over  a  wide  field  of  contem- 
porary subjects  and  events,  he  takes  the  reader  a  ramble 
through  the  Land  of  Burns,  his  visit  to  Auld  Ayr,  in  par- 
ticular, he  tells  us,  being  a  case  of  the  scenes  of  youth 
revisited. 

"  Full  fifty  years  have  passed  away 
Since  in  auld  Ayr  we  had  our  stay, 
And  now  return  in  sad  dismay, 

At  change  of  names  and  places." 

He  pays  the  most  reverent  homage  at  the  shrines  of  the  Poet 
in  Alloway  and  Dumfries,  moralises  on  liis  chequered  career 
in  the  latter  town,  and  on  the  ungrateful  neglect  of  its 
inhabitants  towards  their  Bard,  for  the  offspring  of  whose 
muse  he  predicts,  the  world  o''er,  a  never  dying  fame. 


H 


122  Burns  and  the  Medical  Profession. 

I  shall  close  this  chapter  with  a  contribution  of  a  slightly 
more  noteworthy  character,  published  four  years  later,  1886 
— Poems,  Songs,  and  Sonnets,  by 

William  Stenhouse,  M.D., 

who  Avas  a  Glasgow  graduate,  and  practised  in  Dunedin, 
N.Z.  (being  honorary  physician  to  the  hospital  there),  and  in 
London.  Some  three  years  before  the  publication  of  his  little 
book  of  poems  he  was  compelled  to  have  his  foot  amputated ; 
and  was  just  contemplating  resuming  his  professional  labours 
with  renewed  energy  when  he  received  a  serious  injury  to  his 
spine  through  a  carriage  accident,  which  entirely  laid  him 
aside  from  active  practice.  It  was,  he  tells  us  in  his  preface, 
written  from  Fitzroy  Square,  London,  during  the  sleepless 
nights,  consequent  on  his  long  and  serious  illness,  that  he 
wrote  his  book  of  poems,  which  treat  mainly  of  the  social, 
moral,  and  political  questions  of  the  day,  questions  which, 
however  much  they  may  be  considered  by  some  to  be  without 
the  range  of  poetry,  are,  nevertheless,  he  assures  us,  bound  up 
with  the  welfare  of  the  race. 

His  January  Tzoenty-Fifth,  however,  the  poem  which 
entitles  him  to  a  notice  here,  is  surely  not  in  that  category — 
beyond  that  pale,  being  one  of  those  much  berhymed  sub- 
jects, which,  if  we  are  to  judge  by  the  frequency  with  which 
it  is  chosen,  lends  itself  most  admirably  to  poetical  treatment. 
If  Dr.  Stenhouse's  performance  is  not  one  of  the  very  best,  it 
is  certainly  not  one  of  the  worst ;  and,  particularly  in  that 
charity  which  covereth  a  multitude  of  sins,  artistic  as  well  as 
moral,  is  in  harmony  with  the  general  pronouncement  of  his 
medical  brethren. 


Dr.  William  S'I'exhouse.  123 


"  So  good  and  ill  are  mixed 

By  the  Creator's  will, 
With  enmity  betwixt 

That  good  may  evil  kill. 
But  in  this  contest  stern 

The  strongest  often  fail, 
And  through  their  failure  learn 

At  last  how  to  prevail. 
Thus  David  and  his  son 

Oft  in  this  contest  fell, 
And  were  but  all  undone, 

As  sacred  writ  can  tell. 
Was  Shakspere  without  stain. 

Or  Goethe  the  profound. 
That  some  should  so  complain 

Our  Burns  was  unsound  ? 
He  sinned  and  suffered  much, 

And,  by  experience  taught, 
He  warned  us  that  such 

Is  with  grave  perils  fraught, 
As  gentle  as  a  maid. 

He  was  as  woman  weak — 
Ere  tempted  to  upbraid 

Let  his  sweet  merit  speak." 


IX. 


A  DECADE  OF  MEDICAL  BURNSITES,  INCLUDING 
DR.  JAMES  ADAMS,  GLASGOW. 

Coming  down  to  still  more  recent  times — the  nineties,  when 
Burns-worship,  no  longer  a  synonym  for  Bacchus-worship, 
is  gradually  dissociating  itself  from  the  unworthy  orgies 
common  to  the  devotees  of  this  jovial  god,  and  becoming 
crystallised  into  a  sort  of  ritual  of  its  own — a  more  or  less 
shapely  organisation,  with  high  and  worthy  purposes,  such  as 
the  institution  aniong  school  children  of  prize  competitions 
in  singing  and  recitation,  with  the  object  of  encouraging  the 
study  of  the  works  of  Burns  in  their  native  Doric ;  the 
establishment  of  homes  for  the  indigent,  like  those  at  Moss- 
giel ;  exhibitions  of  the  relics,  manuscripts,  and  editions  of 
Burns  ;  and  such  like  kindred  projects. 

The  Burnsites,  throughout  the  Avorld,  are  no  longer  a 
heterogeneous  mass  of  atoms,  whose  enthusiasm  is  only  ap- 
parent on  the  twenty-fifth  of  January,  on  which  night  it 
evaporates  even  more  completely  than  the  steam  of  the  toddy 
circulating  round  the  table.  They  are  now  a  coherent  and 
highly  influential  body  of  federated  clubs,  which  boasts  an 
organ  of  its  own — The  Annual  Burns  Chronicle,  devoted 
to  the  interests,  aims,  and  purposes  of  the  Burns  cult.  Nor 
can  I  see  any  reason  why  our  Burns-worship  should  not  be- 
come more  and  more  practical  every  year ;  and  that  too, 
in  spite  of  the  character  usually  ascribed  to  our  patron  saint 


\\ 


JAMES   ADAMS,  M.D.,   F.F.P.S.G. 


Dr.  James  Adams.  125 


— that  he  was  not  practical,  which  I  hold  is  a  gross  libel  ; 
for  in  every  community  in  which  he  lived  he  was  among  the 
foremost  in  starting  any  good  work  which  had  for  its  object 
the  moral  and  intellectual  improvement  of  his  fellows,  notably 
his  passion  for  founding  libraries. 

I  don't  know  whether  it  wavS  these  improved  times  among 
Burns's  adherents  which  found  out 

Dr.  James  Adams, 

a  veteran  Glasgow  practitioner,  or  he  who  found  out  them  ? 
I  should  rather  think  it  was  the  latter — that  he  discovered 
himself  at  this  period  ;  for  there  is  the  fullest  evidence  in  his 
writings  that  he  has  been  an  ardent  and  enthusiastic  Burns 
scholar  all  his  life,  and  is  only  now,  in  his  aged  retire- 
ment, giving  the  world  of  his  ripeness.  His  Btirnss  ^Clilor'is' 
a  Remmiscence,  which  appeared  in  August,  1893,  is  an  ex- 
ceedingly readable  little  book,  being  written  in  a  vigorous, 
direct,  and  freshly-piquant  style  ;  and  is  as  creditable  to  his 
heart  as  his  head.  In  speaking  of  his  own  modest  perfor- 
mance he  is,  he  says,  "encouraged  to  think  there  may  be  some 
of  the  mind  of  Hogg,  the  Ettrick  Shepherd,  who  said  that  he 
admitted  a  sheep's  head  dressed  for  dinner  was  not  a  very 
bonny  dish,  '  but,  man,  there's  a  heap  o'  gude,  confused 
feedin'  aboot  it.'  "  I  admit  the  heap  o'  feedin',  without  the 
confusion  ;  for,  so  full  is  his  knowledge,  he  rather  brings 
order  out  of  confusion. 

»  Ostensibly,  the  little  book  is  a  vindication  of  the  character 
of  Jean  Lorimer  (Burns's  "Chloris") — "  the  lassie  wi'  the  lint- 
white  locks,"  from  the  unworthy  slanders  and  base  inuendos 
of  Allan  Cunninghame,  whom  the  writer,  in  certain  passages 
of  righteous  indignation  and  trenchant  criticism,  which  are  as 


126  Burns  and  the  Medical  Profession. 


refreshing  and  invigorating  as  the  nor'land  breezes,  does  not 
spare.  Though  this  is  his  ostensible  purpose,  he  necessarily 
travels  over  a  great  deal  of  highly-interesting  Burns  ground, 
showing  a  most  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  entire  theme  ; 
and  winds  up  with  an  earnest  and  eloquent  appeal  for  a 
people's  (family)  edition  of  Burns — a  Burns  that  might  be 
read  by  a  father  to  his  sons  and  daughters,  and  from  which 
every  coarse  and  unworthy  word  would  be  eliminated  ;  and 
he  bases  the  wisdom,  and  justice,  and  generosity  of  his  appeal 
upon  the  dying  words  of  Burns  himself. 

"  Chloris,"  he  tells  us,  in  her  later  Edinburgh  days,  was  a 
patient  of  his  worthy  father ;  and  he  relates,  in  a  most 
charmingly-realistic  way,  how,  as  a  boy,  on  his  w^ay  home 
from  school,  he  went,  by  his  father's  instructions,  to  her  house 
to  receive  a  packet  containing  some  Burns  manuscripts,  with 
which  the  grateful  old  lady  insisted  on  presenting  the  doctor, 
as  he  would  take  no  fee  for  his  professional  attendance  upon 
her.  From  this  "  Reminiscence  "  he  proceeds  to  the  trium- 
phant vindication  of  the  character  of  "  Chloris,"  whom  he 
proves,  up  to  the  hilt,  only  to  have  been  a  "  white-flower 
love "  of  the  Poet,  and  whose  only  sin  was  her  misfortune. 
Indeed,  he  shows,  by  evidence  of  the  most  conclusive  char- 
acter, that  there  never  was,  or  could  have  been,  anything 
between  the  pair  but  what  was  entirely  honourable  to  Jean 
Lorimer  either  as  a  young  girl  or  deserted  wife,  and  to  Burns 
as  a  married  man  and  her  lyric  artist  admirer.  He  points 
out,  moreover,  that  "  Chloris"  was  as  much  a  friend  of  Mrs. 
Burns  as  of  the  Poet  himself,  all  their  intercourse  being 
above  board,  and  participated  in,  and  approved  of  by  her. 
Pflrs.  Burns,  indeed,  to  her  dying  day,  never  entertained 
any  other  notion  about  poor  "  Chloris,"  but  that  she  was  an 


Dr.  Ja^ies  Adams,  127 


innocent,  though  unfortunate  woman  in  her  early  marriage 
with  a  scamp,  who  immediately  thereafter  deserted  her. 
Besides,  the  Lorimers  and  the  Burnses  were  not  only  on  terms 
of  great  intimacy,  but  were  in^the  habit  of  visiting  at  each 
other's  homes,  which  is  incredible  had  the  Poefs  relationship 
to  his  model  not  been  of  the  worthiest.  As  illustrating 
the  honourable  terms  of  intimacy  existing  between  the  two 
families.  Dr.  Adams  quotes  a  letter  from  Burns,  August, 
1795,  inviting  Mr.  Lorimer  and  his  daughter  Jean  to  dine 
with  him  at  his  house  in  Dumfries,  to  meet  Mr.  Robert 
Cleghorn  and  two  Midlothian  farmers,  friends  of  the  Poet. 
"  Mrs.  Burns,"  he  says  in  his  note  to  Mr,  Lorimer,  "  desired 
me  yesternight  to  beg  the  favour  of  Jeanie  to  come  and  par- 
take, and  she  was  so  obliging  to  promise  that  she  would." 
Drs.  Maxwell  and  Mundell,  he  likewise  informs  him,  are  to 
be  of  the  dinner-party,  at  which  Mrs,  Burns,  all  unconscious 
of  jealousy  or  like  feeling,  sang,  to  the  great  delight  of  her 
guests,  one  of  the  "  Chloris  "  songs,  "  O,  Thafs  the  Lassie  o' 
My  Heart." 

Dr.  Adams  even  further  demonstrates,  if  further  demon- 
stration were  necessary,  how  Burns,  after  "Chloris's""  desertion, 
with  a  beautifully-tender  consideration  on  his  part,  chose  his 
themes  in  song,  with  a  view  to  show  his  sympathy  for  her, 
and  to  help  her  to  retain  her  self-respect  in  the  midst  of  her 
misfortunes,  w'hen,  doubtless,  there  were  in  the  little  School 
for  Scandal  round  about  her,  plenty  of  askance  looks,  and 
Mrs.  Grundy-whisperings  and  head-shakings. 

Having  finally  disposed  of  Allan  Cunninghame*'s  worse 
than  base  fictions,  our  author  then  plunges  into  the  subject  of 
"  Chloris "  and  the  thirty  songs  inspired  by,  or  dedicated  to 
her,  and  this  he  does  with  a  fulness  of  knowledge  and  insight, 


128  Burns  and  the  Medical  Profession. 

and  a  subtlety  of  criticism,  which  shows  that  he  knows  his 
subject  thoroughly,  not  only  as  a  literary  historian,  but  as  a 
true  critic  of  lyric  art. 

Dr.  Adams  has  published  several  other  valuable  contribu- 
tions to  Burnsiana  literature — The  Pot  Boiler — an  Impeach- 
ment and  Defence ;  Deity  and  Dirt — a  Review  of  an  old 
Controversy  on  Robert  Burns ;  Burns  as  an  Exciseman ; 
Glimpses  of  Clarinda  in  Edinhurgh  Sixty  Years  since — 
all  written  in  the  same  racy,  terse,  and  piquant  style,  just, 
I  fancy,  as  the  doctor  would  talk  ;  and  showing,  by  his  wealth 
and  aptness  of  quotation,  that  he  knows  his  Shakspere  as  well 
as  his  Burns,  but  his  "  Chloris"  is  his  chef  d'ocuvre. 

In  liringing  this  inquiry,  Robert  Burns  and  the  Medical 
Profession^  to  a  close,  I  have  now  briefly  to  chronicle,  as 
belonging  to  the  same  period  of  Burns  Renaissance  in  which 
the  name  of  Dr.  Adams  so  worthily  figures,  the  following 
contributions  from  members  of  the  medical  faculty  at  home 
and  abroad,  and  my  task  is  finished. 

Poem  on  Robert  Burns,  by 

Dr.  John  M,  Harper, 

written  on  the  Occasion  of  the  Poefs  Anniversary,  and  read 
before  the  Literary  and  Historical  Society  of  Quebec,  of 
which  the  author  is  Vice-President. 

Robert  Burns,  a  Lecture  delivered  in  Investigator  Hall, 
Paine  Memorial,  before  the  Ingersoll  Secular  Society,  by 

Dr.  W.  Symington  Brown. 

In  this  able,  sympathetic,  and  well-written  lecture,  the  doctor 
traces  the  secret  of  the  Poet's  popularity ;  though,  as  might 


Dr.  William  P'indlay.  129 

be  expected,  considering  the  audience  before  whom  it  was 
delivered,  he  uses  his  name  somewhat  unfairly  as  a  text  to 
preach  secularistic  and  agnostic  ideas.  Nevertheless,  as  he 
travels  through  his  life-story,  he  lays  his  finger  on  a  good 
many  sensible  things,  one  or  two  of  which  are  worth  quoting. 
"  Burns  must  have  been  a  very  industrious  man,  who  set  a 
proper  estimate  on  the  value  of  time,  and  worked  while  it  was 
day  with  all  his  might."  "  It  is  evident  that  no  habitual 
drunkard  could  have  produced  such  an  amount  of  good 
literary  work  in  so  short  a  time." 

In  speaking  of  his  intimacies  with  Highland  Mary,  Jean 
Armour,  and  Mrs.  Maclehose,  which,  however  inexplicable, 
unjustifiable,  and  even  discreditable,  were,  nevertheless,  he 
affirms,  the  inspirers  of  some  of  his  very  best  songs,  which, 
"  it  is  safe  to  say  would  never  have  been  written  if  Burns  had 
been  a  model  youth,  after  the  Sunday  School  pattern.  You 
take  your  choice  whetlier  it  would  have  been  better  to  lose 
the  poetry  or  the  passion." 

Lines  on  the  Burns  Statue  at  Albany^  N.Y.,  by 
D.  M.  Henderson,  M.D.,  Baltimore. 

The  Epistles  of  Noah  (Glasgow,  1883),  contains  "  Burns  : 
from  a  Showman's  Pint  o"'  View,"  by 

William  Findlay,  M.D.  (Geo.  Umber),  Glasgow. 

In  Ross's  Burnsiana  (Paisley,  1894),  "  Lamb  and  Burns,"  by 
the  same  author  ;  in  Burns'' s  Highland  Mary  (Paisley,  1894), 
"  Highland  Mary  in  Fact  and  Fiction  ; "  in  In  My  City 
Garden  (Paisley,  1895),  "  A  Bairns'  Burns's  Anniversary ; " 
and  in  Ayrshire  Idylls  (Paisley,  1896),  "A  Ride  in  a  Carrier's 
Cart "  through  a  famous  nook  in  the  Land  of  Burns. 


130  BUKXS    AXD    THE    MeDICAL    PROFESSION. 

Anniversary  Poem  (January  25th,  189Jf.)  on  Robert  Burns, 
by 

Dii.  Bexjamin  F.  Leggette, 

Author  oi  A  SheaJ' of  Song,  A  Tramp  tlirougli  SxvitzerJand, 
etc.,  etc. 

Verses  on  Robert  Burns,  by 

Dii.  A.  M.  M'Clelland,  Toronto,  Canada. 

The   late,  much    esteemed,    and  highly  popular  east-end 
Glasgow  doctor, 

George  R.  Mather,  M.D., 

was  a  noted  lover  and  collector  of  the  Fine  Arts,  particularly 
the  examples  of  Bough  and  Chalmers,  in  which  his  collection 
was  very  rich ;  and  the  enthusiastic  memorialist  of  the 
brothers,  Drs.  William  and  John  Hunter,  under  the  title  of 
Two  Great  Scotsmen,  published  by  Maclehose  &  Sons  in 
1892.  He  was  also  the  author  of  a  paper  on  the  Genius 
and  Character  of  Burns,  originally  delivered  as  an  address 
before  the  Dennistoun  Burns  Club  (of  which  he  was  President) 
on  January  25th,  1892  ;  and  sometime  after  his  sudden  and 
startlingly  tragic  death  at  a  Faculty  dinner  while  replying 
to  the  toast  of  the  Army,  Navy,  and  Volunteers  (of  one  of 
the  corps  of  which  latter  body  he  was  the  popular  surgeon), 
published  by  his  widow,  along  with  other  of  his  literary 
fragments,  in  a  neat  memorial  volume,  from  the  press  of 
R.  Robertson,  Glasgow.     1896. 

If  the  burly  doctor,  who  was,  at  all  times,  distinguished 
for  the  geniality  and  warmth  of  his  feelings,  as  well  as  for  the 


Dll.    C.    C],ARK    BuilMAX.  131 

eloquent  and  manly  expression  of  what  he  felt,  sheds  no 
fresh  hght  on  the  well-worn  theme,  or  enriches  it  with  no  new 
or  subtle  thought,  certainly  no  warmer,  heartier,  or  more 
generous  tribute,  than  this  in  the  glowing  and  robust  words 
of  Dr.  Mather,  was  ever  paid  to  the  "  Genius  and  Character 
of  Burns,""  whose  "  poems,"  he  tells  us,  "  are  full  of  the  most 
generous  sentiments,  the  interfusion  of  which  tends  to  bind 
men  brothers  over  the  world  ;  they  kindle  anew  feelings  of 
patriotism,  which  make  us  proudly  revere  the  gi'eat  and 
glorious  past,  and  resolve  to  guard  at  sacrifice  of  heart's 
blood  what  our  fathers  won  for  us  ;  they  preserve  under  con- 
secrating light  the  memories  of  home — its  duties,  its  joys, 
and  its  sorrows  ;  they  soothe  us  in  the  hour  of  heart-wreck, 
when  all  is  dark  and  drear ;  and  they  cheer  us  as  no  jovial 
songs  of  any  time  have  ever  done,  in  our  hours  of  sociality, 
when  innocent  mirth  rules  high." 

A 71  Account  of'  the  Art  of  Typography^  as  practised  in 
Alnxoick  from  1781  to  1815^  with  biographical  notes  of  all  the 
publications  during  that  period^  by 

C.  Clark  Buiimax,  L.R.C.P.  and  S.,  Edin.,  Alnwick  : 

Printed  by  the  Ahiivick  and  County  Gazette,  and  Steam 
Printing  Co.,  Ltd.,  21  Bondgate  Within,  Alnwick,  1896. 

The  above  learned  and  able  paper  was  read  by  Dr.  Burman, 
a  medical  practitioner  in  Alnwick,  before  the  Young  Men's 
Mutual  Improvement  Association  of  that  town,  on  February 
12th,  1896,  and  afterwards  published ;  the  author's  en- 
thusiastic admiration  of  the  marvellous  powers  of  Thomas 
Bewick  a.s  an  engraver  on  wood,  he  tells  us  in  his  "  Foreword," 
inducing  him  to  illustrate  a  few  special  copies  with  examples 


132  Burns  and  the  Medical  Profession, 

of  wood -cuts  executed  bj  the  celebrated  Newcastle  engraver 
exclusively  for  Alnwick  printers.  Among  the  wood-cuts 
furnished  are  eight  vignettes  from  Biirns's  Poems,  and  sixteen 
of  the  tail-pieces  from  the  same  work,  all  printed,  he  informs 
us  in  interesting  detail,  from  the  original  blocks  which  were 
specially  supplied  by  Mr.  Bewick  from  designs  by  Mr. 
Thurston  for  the  famous  1808  Alnwick  edition  of  the  Poetical 
Worlis  of  Robert  Burns,  Avith  his  life,  in  two  volumes  ;  and 
which  blocks  are  now  in  the  doctor's  own  collection. 

All  about  Highland  Mary,  is  the  title  of  an  article  in  Dr. 
Ross's,  All  about  Burns,  1896,  by 

Theodore  F.  Wolfe,  A.M.,  M.D. 

It  was  " prepared,'"'  he  tells  us,  "during  a  sojourn  in  'The 
Land  of  Burns  ' — while  it  adds  a  little  to  our  meagre  know- 
ledge of  Mary  Campbell,  aims  to  present  consecutively  and 
congiiiously  so  much  as  may  now  be  known  of  her  brief  life, 
her  relations  to  the  bard  and  her  sad,  heroic  death," — which 
is  a  very  good  description  of  his  purpose  and  achievement. 


APPENDIX. 


APPENDIX. 


SOURCES  OF  INFORMATION  FOR  THIS  INQUIRY. 

CuRRiE  (Dr.  Jajles),  "  The  Complete  Works  of  Robert 
Burns  ;  with  an  Account  of  his  Life,  and  a  Criticism  of  his 
Writings,  to  which  are  prefixed  some  Observations  on  the 
Character  and  Condition  of  the  Scottish  Peasantry."  1  vol. 
Halifax,  1863. 

Burns  (Robert),  "  Poems  chiefly  in  the  Scottish  Dialect." 
1  vol.     Edinburgh,  1787.     (List  of  Subscribers  consulted). 

CuRRiE  (Dr.  James),  "  The  Works  of  Robert  Burns  ;  with 
an  Account  of  his  Life,  and  a  Criticism  of  his  Writings,"  etc., 
etc.  4  vols.  London,  1800.  (List  of  Subscribers  con- 
sulted). 

Douglas  (William  Scott),  "The  Works  of  Robert  Buitis," 
6  vols.     London,  1891. 

Chambers  (Dr.  Robert),  "  Life  and  Works  of  Robert 
Burns,"'  Revised  by  William  Wallace.  4  vols.  Edinburgh 
and  London,  1896. 

GiBsox  (J.),  "  Bibliography  of  Robert  Burns."  Kilmar- 
nock, 1881. 

M'Kay,  (Archibald),  "  History  of  Kilmarnock."  Kilmar- 
nock, 1880.     P.  184. 


136  Appendix. 


Carlyle  (Thomas),  "Essay  on  Burns."  Edinburgh  Reviexv, 
No.  96. 

Marshall  (James),  "  A  Winter  with  Robert  Burns." 
Edinburgh,  1846. 

M'DowALL  (William),  "History  of  the  Burgh  of  Dumfries." 
Edinburgh,  1867.  Also  "  Burns  in  Dumfriesshire."  Edin- 
burgh, 1870. 

FiNLAYsoN  (Dr.  James),  "  Biography  of  Dr.  Robert  Watt." 
London,  1897.     Pp.  5-7. 

Notes  and  Queries  for  September  and  October,  1868. 

GiLLis  (Right  Rev.  Bishop),  "  A  Paper  on  the  Subject  of 
Burns's  Pistols."     Edinburgh,  1859. 

Chambers  (Robert),  "  Lives  of  Illustrious  and  Distin- 
guished Scotsmen  from  the  Earliest  Period  to  the  Present 
Time,  arranged  in  alphabetical  order."  4  vols.  Glasgow, 
1835. 

Thomson  (Dr.  John),  "  Education  :  Man's  Salvation  from 
Crime,  Disease,  and  Starvation  ;  with  Appendix  vindicating 
Robert  Burns."     Edinburgh,  1844. 

Anderson  (Alexander),  of  Edinburgh  University  Library, 
searched  Matriculation  Album  of  the  Edinburgh  University, 
1795,  for  date  of  Dr.  Samuel  Plughes'  graduation. 

"  Bruce's  Address  to  his  Troops  at  Bannockburn."  Ex- 
amined Manuscript  in  Edinburgh  Municipal  Museum. 

Annual  Burns  Chronicle.  No.  1,  1892,  till  No.  7,  1898. 
"  The  Chronological  Summary  of  the  Life  and  Writings  of 
Robert  Burns,  abridged   from   '  Kilmarnock   Edition  "" — Life 


Appendix.  137 


and  Notes — W.  Scott  Douglas  ;''''  and  the  "Earnock  MSS.," 
by  the  Editor,  D.  M'Naiight ;  also  the  Bibliographies,  chiefly 
consulted. 

Rogers  (Dr.  Charles),  "The  Book  of  Robert  Burns." 
Printed  for  the  Grampian  Club.     Edinburgh,  1889. 

KiLPATRiCK  (James  A.),  "  Literary  Landmarks  of  Glasgov.." 
Glasgow,  1898.  ("Smollett's  Back  Attic,"  and  "The 
Bohemia  of  Burns.") 

CuRRiE  (William  Wallace),  "  Memoirs  of  the  Life,  Writ- 
ings, and  Correspondence  of  James  Currie,  M.D.,  F.R.S., 
Liverpool."     London,  1831. 

Wordsworth  (V>^illiam),  "  A  Letter  to  a  Friend  of  Robert 
Burns :  occasioned  by  an  intended  Republication  of  the 
Account  of  the  Life  of  Burns  by  Dr.  Currie."    London,  1816. 

Henley  (W.  E.),  "  Burns's  Life,  Genius,  xVchievement." 
Edinburgh  and  London,  1898. 

Wallace  (William),  "  Robert  Burns  and  Mrs.  Dunlop." 
London,  1898. 

AiRD  (Thomas),  "  Poetical  \Vorks  of  David  Macbeth  Moir, 
M.D.  (Delta)."     2  vols.     Edinburgh,  1852. 

Adams  (Frakcis,  M.D.,  LL.D.),  "  Centenary  Discourse 
on  the  Writings  of  Burns."     Aberdeen,  1859. 

Madden  (R.  R.,  M.D.),  "The  Infirmities  of  Genius,  illus- 
trated by  referring  the  Anomalies  in  the  Literary  Character 
to  the  Habits  and  Constitutional  Peculiarities  of  ]\Ien  of 
Genius."— Chapter  XXL,  Burns.     London,  1833. 

Ross  (John  D.),  "  Round  Burns's  Grave."     Paisley,  1892. 

I 


138  Appendix. 


Biiowx  (Dr.  JoHx),  "  Horae  Subsecivae."  3  vols.  Edin- 
burgh, 1882.  ("  Dr.  Adams  of  Banchory,"  "  Oh,  I'm  wat, 
wat,"  and  "  Arthm-  H.  Hallam.") 

British  Medical  Journal,  October  13th,  1894.  ("Dr. 
OHver  Wendell  Holmes.'^) 

FuLLARTOx  (A.  &  Co.),  "  Chronicle  of  the  Hundredth 
Bh'thday  of  Robert  Burns."     London,  1859. 

Walker  (A.M.,  M.A.,  M.D.),  "Lecture  on  the  Private 
and  Literary  Life  of  Robert  Burns."  Tunbridge  Wells, 
1858  ;  and  "  Lecture  on  the  Poems  and  Songs  of  Burns." 
Tunbridge  Wells,  1860. 


SiME  (Dr.  David),  "  Robert  Burns,  the  Poet :  a  Lecture," 
Glasgow,  1873  ;  and  "  The  Poetry  of  Robert  Burns."  In 
Catholic  Prcsbi/terian  for  1881,  vols.  V.  and  \T. 

MuNK  (AViLLiAM,  M.D.,  F.S.A.),  "  The  Roll  of  the  Royal 
College  of  Physicians  of  London."  Vol.  III.,  1801  to  1825. 
London,  1827. 

Addison  (W.  Ixnes),  "  Roll  of  the  Graduates  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Glasgow."     Glasgow,  1898. 

Adams  (Dr.  James),  "  Burns's  '  Chloris  '  :  a  Reminiscence." 
Glasgow,  1893. 

Ross  (John  D.),  "  Burnsiana."  Parts  1  to  6.  Paisley, 
1892-97. 

Strachax  (James,  Surgeon,  Blackford),  "  Moral  Pieces  in 
Rhyme  and  Blank  Verse.''  Edinburgh,  I860.  (Contains 
"  Acrostic  on  Burns,"  P.  99,  and  "  Tam  o'  Shanter.") 


Appexdix.  139 


Dick  (Robert,  M.D.,C.M.),  "  Autobiography  and  Poetical 
Compositions,  including  Tartarus,  Elysium,  Elijah,  and  the 
Paulo-post  of  ]Man  ;  or  the  Land,  Rent,  and  Food-Free,  and 
Concrete  Air-Nitrogen  Millennium."  London,  1863.  (Con- 
tains "  Ode  on  the  Centenary  of  Burns's  Birthday," — to  be 
seen  in  Faculty  of  Advocates  Library,  Edinburgh.) 

M'CosH  (John,  M.D.),  "  Sketches  in  Verse  at  Home  and 
Abroad."     London,  1882. 

SiTiXHOusE  (William,  M.D.),  "Poems,  Songs,  and  Sonnets." 
Glasgow,  1886.     (Contains  "  January  25th.") 

BuRMAN  (C.  Clark,  L.R.C.P.  and  S.,  Edinburgh),  "  An 
Account  of  the  Art  of  Typography,  as  practised  in  Alnwick 
from  1781  to  1815."     Alnwick,  1896. 

"  Catalogue  of  the  Glasgow  Burns  Exhibition."     Glasgow, 

leS98. 

Mather  (George  R.,  INl.D.),  "  In  ]\Iemoriam."  Glasgow, 
1896.  (Contains  address  on  the  "  Genius  and  Character  of 
Burns.") 

M'CoNACHiE  (James  R.,  ]\1.D.,  Louisville,  Ky.),  "Leisure 
Hours."  1846.  (Contains  "  Recollections  of  Robert  Burns," 
Pp.  131-156.) 

Ross  (John  D.,  LL.D.),  "  All  About  Burns."  New  York, 
1896  ;  and  "  Burns's  Highland  Mary."     Paisley,  1894. 


INDEX. 


INDEX. 


Adair,    Dr.    James    McKittrick, 

B.'s  fellow-traveller  in  vale  of 

Devon,  31. 
Adams,    Dr.   Francis,    Banchory, 

"  the  most  learned  physician  in 

Europe,"  104. 

B.'s  religion  and  morality  by, 
105. 

His  coarseness  by,  106. 
Adams,  Dr.  James,  Glasgow,  vin- 
dication of  "Chloris"  bj',  125- 

127. 

Other  Burnsiana  contributions 
by,  128. 
Ainslie,  Dr.  W.,  92. 
Aird,    Thomas,   Dumfries,   friend 

of  "Delta,"  96,  97. 
Alison,  Sheriff  Archibald,  90. 
Alloway,    Grand   Festival   at,    in 

1844,  96. 
Armour,  Jean,  17,  43. 

Her  opinion  of  "  Chloris,"  126, 

129. 
Auld-licht  party,  10. 
Ayton,  William,  advocate,  96. 

Bell,  Henry  Glassford,  96. 
Blacklock,     Archibald,     surgeon, 

Dumfries,  65. 
Blair,  Rev.  Dr.,  Edinburgh,  19, 

22. 
Brown,  Mr.,  surgeon,   Dumfries, 

60. 
Brown,     Dr.      John,      "  Deeside 

Country  Doctor"  (Fr.  Adams) 

by,  104. 

B.'s  love  songs,  opinion  of  by, 
their  earnestness  and  affec- 
tionate character,  113,  114. 

General  estimate  of,  as  physician 
and  man  of  letters,  111. 


Brown,  Dr.  W.  Symington,  on  in- 
compatibility of  habitual  drink- 
ing and  good  literary  work,  129. 
Burman,   Dr.  C.  Clark,  Alnwick, 

131. 
Burns,  Gilbert,  57 

Defence  of  his  brother  by,  77-80. 
Visit  to  Liverpool  of,  73. 
Burns,  Mrs.,  74,  126,  127. 
Burns,     Robert,    medical    know- 
ledge of,  11,  12. 
Critical  strictures  by  Dr.  Greg- 
ory on  "  Wounded  Hare  "  of, 
27,  28. 
Dr.   John  MacKenzie,   Mauch- 
line,  his  friendship  for,  15-19. 
"The  Calf,"  circumstances  uu- 
der  which  it  was  composed, 
17,  18. 
Dumfries  life  of,  and  record  of 
literary      and      other      work 
accomplished      during      that 
period,   84. 
Dundas  family,  their  treatment 

of,  29,  30. 
Ill-health  of,  in  Dumfries,  85. 
Incident  at  table  of  Lord  Mon- 
boddo  between  Dr.  Gregory 
and,  23. 
Infirmities   and   errors  of,   and 
Currie's     treatment     of    the 
same  challenged,  77. 
Loyal  Dumf riesians'  distrust  of, 
on  account  of  his  liberal  prin- 
ciples and  revolutionary  sjun- 
pathies,    and   his    friendship 
with  Maxwell  and  Syme,53-4. 
Novelty  of  character  more  tlian 
poetic  abilities  responsihle  for 
Edinburgh  reception  of,  36, 
37,  38. 


144 


Index. 


On  the  Muses'  trade,  observa- 
tions of,  42. 

Relationship  to  Edinburgh 
literati  of,  and  general  sane- 
ness  of  point  of  view  of, 
regarding  the  same,  4t),  50. 

Wood,  Dr.  A.,  friendship  for, 
29,  30. 

Zeluci),  criticisms  on,  by,  45. 
Burns,  Robert,  Poet's  eldest  son, 

correspondence    of,     with    Dr. 

Maxwell,  57. 
Bui-ness,  William,  Poet's  father, 

deathbed  of,  15. 

"Calf,  The."  17,  69. 

Candlish,    Dr.    James,    B. 's    old 

Dalrymple  school-fellow,  20,  21. 
Candlish,  Rev.   Dr.,    Edinburgh, 

son  of  Dr.  James,  2  . 
Carlyle,   Thomas,   9,   19,   69,   86, 

87,  88. 
Clarinda  (Mrs.  Maclehose),  Edin- 
burgh, 25,  29,  73,  129. 
Clark,  William,  B.'s  man-servant 

at  EUisland,  testimony  of,  43. 
Cleghorn,  Robert,  Saughton  Mills, 

65,  127. 
Coleridge,  Samuel  T. ,  75. 
Cowper,  the  poet,  114. 
Creech,  William,  publisher,  Edin- 
burgh, 24,  43,  44. 
Crombie,  Alexander,  86. 
Cunninghame,   Alexander,  W.S. , 

Edinburgh,  56,70,  95. 
Cunninghame,  Allan,  Dr.  Adams' 

castigation    of,    for    slandering 

"Chloris,"125. 
Currie,  Dr.  James,  Liverpool,  28, 

31. 

Adverse  criticism  of,  for  his 
treatment  of  Poet's  errors, 
75-79. 

Death  and  universal  approval 
of  biographical  achievement 
of,  74. 


Difficulties  of  the  task  of,  72,  73. 

Life  and  labours  of,  69. 

Mistake  of,  in  not  going  further 
afield  for  his  information,  80. 

Offer  of  literary  services  of,  and 
selection  of,  to  Avi'ite  Life, 
etc.,  70. 

Particulars  of  B.'s  last  illness 
and  death  supplied  by  Max- 
well to,  57,  58. 

Praise  of,  for  his  biographical 
achievement,  94,  102. 

Strictures  against,  further  ex- 
amined, and  character  vindi- 
cated, 81-89. 

Daer,  Lord,  18. 

Dick,  Robert,  M.D.,  CM.,  Lon- 
don and  Edinburgh,  literary 
enterprises  of,  and  "  Burns 
Birthday  Ode"  by,  116-118. 

Doctors,  charity  and  toleration  of, 
14. 

Dougall,  Dr.  John,  Glasgow, 
Mossgiel  daisies  sent  to  O.  W. 
Holmes  from,  109. 

Douglas,  eighth  Duke  of  Hamil- 
ton, 35. 

Douglas,  William  Scott,  16,  57,  58. 

Dumfries,  Earl  of,  19. 

Dumfries,   character  and  politics 
of,  in  B.'s  day,  51. 
Death  of  "Delta"  at,  99. 
Life  and  work  of  Poet  in,  84. 

Dundas,  Lord  President,  29.  30. 

Dunlop,  Mrs.,  31,  36,  47,  55,  57, 
71,  73,  85,  88. 

Eglinton,  Lord,  50,  90. 
Erskine,  Hon.  Henry,  19. 

Ferguson,  Dr.  Adam,  Edinburgh, 

22. 
Fergusson,  Robert,  the  poet,  11. 
Findlater,    Mr.,    Poet's    superior 

officer  in  the  Excise,  77,  78. 


Index. 


145 


Findlay,  Dr.  William,  Glasgow, 
Burnsiana  contributions  of, 
129. 

Finlayson,  Dr.  James,  Glasgow, 
10,  66. 

Gairdnar,  Sir  W.  T.,  Professor  of 
Practice  of  Medicine  in  Glasgow 
University,  on  O.  W.  Holmes 
as  scientist  and  man  of  letters, 
107. 

Gillis,  Right  Rev. ,  Roman  Catho- 
lic Bishop  of  Edinburgh,  vin- 
dication of  Maxwell  by,  52. 

Glencairn,  Earl  of,  Poet's  grateful 
attachment  to,  46. 

Goldie,  John,  Kilmarnock,  11,  15. 

Gordon,  Dr.,  Glasgow,  Moore  and 
Smollett  apprentices  to,  35. 

Graham,  Robert,  of  Fintry,  42, 
44. 

Gray,  Mr.,  Dumfries  Academy, 
59,  77-79. 

Greenfield,  Rev.  Prof.,  Edin- 
burgh, 25. 

Gregory,  Prof.  James,  M.D., 
Edinburgh,  B.'s  friend,  physi- 
cian and  critic,  22-28,  59. 

Hamilton,  Mr.,  of  Craighlaw,  15. 

Hamilton,  Mrs.,  Harvieston,  31. 

Hamilton,  Charlotte,  wife  of  Dr. 
Adair,  31. 

Hamilton,  Gavin,  Mauchline,  17, 
18,  31. 

Hamilton,  Dr.,  Kilmarnock,  15. 

Harper,  Dr.  John  M.,  Quebec, 
128. 

Hay,  Charles,  advocate,  Edin- 
burgh, 29,  30. 

Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  87. 

Henderson,  Dr.  M.,  Baltimore, 
129. 

Henley,  W.  E.,  81,  82. 

Hill,  Peter,  bookseller,  Edin- 
burgh, 21. 


Hogg,  the  Ettrick  Shepherd,  125. 

Holmes,  Dr.  Oliver  Wendell,  103. 

As  doctor  and  man  of  letters, 

107. 
Burns  Centennial  Poem  by,  its 

all-wise  charity,  108. 
Dr.     John     Brown     compared 

with,  ]11. 
Mossgiel   daisies   sent    by   Dr. 

Dougall  to,  109. 
Poet     loveable     even     in     his 
wrong,  119. 
Hornbook,  Dr.,  12,  13. 
Howden,     Mr.,    jeweller,     Edin- 
burgh, 23. 
Hughes,    Dr.  Samuel,    Hereford, 

67,  68. 
Hunter,  John,  the  celebrated  sur- 
geon ;  and  his   wife,    authoress 
of  "My  mother  bids  me  bind 
my  hair,"  26. 

Jeffrey,  Francis,  reviewer  of  IMrs. 
Hunter's  poems,  26. 

Kennedy,  John,  New  York,  67. 

Lamb,  Charles,  strictures  on  Cur- 

rie  by,  75-77. 
Land,     Donald's,     Dr.     Moore's 

Trongate  residence,  35. 
Land,     Gibson's,     Dr.    Gordon's 

surgery  in,  35. 
Lawrie,  Rev.  Mr.  Loudoun,  31. 
Lawyers,  9. 

Human  nature  as  viewed  by,  14. 
Leggette,  Dr.  Benjamin  F. ,  130. 
Lochlea,  15,  10. 
Lock  hart,  John  Gibson,  55,  83. 
Lorimer,  Jean  (Chloris),  character 

vindicated,  125. 

Jean  Armour's  opinion  of,  126. 
Lorimer,  Mr.,  127. 

MacKenzie,      John,      surgeon, 
Mauchline,  15-20. 


K 


146 


Index. 


MacKenzie,  John  Whitefoord, 
W.S.,  Edinburgh,  20. 

MacKenzie,  Henry,  Edinburgh, 
22,  25. 

Macnish,  Dr.  Robert,  Glasgow, 
friend  of  "  Delta,"  9G. 

Madden,  Dr.  R.  R.,  a  true  Irish 
patriot,  traveller,  and  miscel- 
laneous writer.  "  Infirmities 
of  Genius  "  by,  93-95. 

Mather,  Dr.  George  R.,  Glasgow, 
130,  131. 

Mary,  Highland,  129,  132. 

Mauchline.  churchyard  of,  17. 

Maxwell,  Dr.  William,  Dumfries, 
Attendance    of,   in    Poet's    last 

illness,  56-60,  65,  78,  80. 
Jacobitism  of,  51. 
Presence  of,  at  dinner  in  B.'s 

with  the  Lorimers,  127. 
Residence  in  Paris  of  ;  revolu- 
tionary tendencies  of ;  de- 
noTincement  of,  by  Burke  in 
House  of  Commons  for  sedi- 
tious liberalism  ;  and  patriot- 
ism of,  as  a  volunteer,  53-55. 

McClelland,  Dr.  A.  M.,  Toronto, 
Canada,  130. 

McConochie,  Dr.  James  R. ,  Louis- 
ville, Ky.,  Burns  recollections 
of,  100. 

McCosh,  Dr.  John,  Land  of  B. 
revisited  by,  120,  121. 

Medicine  in  Shakspere,  10,  13. 

Medicine  in  Burns,  10. 

Miller,  Helen,  one  of  the  six 
Mauchline  belles,  married  to 
Dr.  MacKenzie,  20. 

Miller,  John,  Millockshill,  20. 

Ministers,  short-sightedness  of, 
14. 

Mofl'at,  visit  of  Dr.  Currie  to,  74. 

Moir,  Dr.  David  Macbeth  (Delta), 
medical  and  literary  achieve- 
ments of,  and  presence  of,  at 
Grand  Alloway  Festival,  96. 


B.    Commemoration  Poem  by, 

97. 
Visit  to  Land  of  B.  by,  and  sud- 
den illness  and  death  of,  98. 
Monboddo,  Lord,  Edinburgh,  22, 

23. 
Moore,  Dr.  John,  London,  35-40. 
Advice  to  B.    by,   to  abandon 

Scottish  stanza,  44. 
Autobiographical  letter  from  B. 

to,  41. 
Caution  to  B.  by,  against  giving 
away  too  many  copies  of  hia 
verses  ;  also  advising  him  to 
collect  fugitive  pieces  for 
fresh  publication,  46-48. 
Mental  attitude  to  B.    of,  49, 

50,  70. 
Observations    by    B.     on     the 

Muses'  trade  to,  42,  43. 
Strictures  by  B.  on  "Zeluco" 
of,  45. 
Moore,    Sir  John,   hero    of    Cor- 

unna,  35. 
IMoore,  Dr.  William,  Kilmarnock, 

15. 
Mossgiel,  16. 

Indigent  Homes  at,  124. 
Short  stay  at,  before  returning 
to  Edinburgh,  during  which 
he   penned    autobiographical 
letter  to  Dr.  Moore,  41. 
Moyes,  Dr.  John,  10. 
Muir,  Robert,  Kilmarnock,  15. 
Mundell,  Dr.,  Dumfries,  64,  65, 

127. 
Mure,  Col,  of  Caldwell,  96. 
Musselburgh,  Dr.  Moir  of,  96. 

Neilson,    Rev.  Mr.,   introduction 

to  Dr.  Moore  of,  43. 
Nicol,     William,     High     School, 

Edinburgh,  41. 
^ievison,    Janet,    Dumfriesshire, 

64. 
New-licht  ministers,  9. 


Index. 


147 


Oswald,    Mrs.,    of   Anchiucruive, 
funeral  cortege  of,  43. 
Lampoon  on,  44. 

Parker,  Major,  Kilmarnock,  15. 

Parkes,  Joseph,  60. 

Peebles,  Rev.  William,  minister 
of  Newton-upon-Ayr  (''  Water- 
fit^'),  19. 

Peterkin,  Alexander,  publisher, 
78. 

Pamage,  Dr.  C.  J.,  59,  60. 
Ramsay.  John,  of  Ochtertvre,  49. 
Riddell,'  Mrs.  Walter,  65,  70. 
Robertson,  Rev.  Dr.,  Edinburgh, 

22. 
Roscoe,  Mr.  William,  Liverpool, 

friend  of  Dr.  Currie,  70,  78-80. 

Samson,  Thomas,  Kilmarnock,  15. 

Shakspere,  medicine  in,  10,  13. 

Sidmouth,  death  of  Currie  at,  74. 

Sillar,  David  ("  a  brither  poet  "), 
20. 

Sime,  Dr.  David,  Innellan  and 
London,  on  the  Poet  versiis  the 
Man,  118-120. 

Smith,  Jane,  the  witty  Miss,  one 
of  the  six  Mauchline  belles, 
married  to  Dr.  Candlish,  20. 

Smollett,  friend  of  Dr.  Moore,  35. 

Staig,  Miss  Jessie,  Dumfries,  cure 
of,  by  Dr.  Maxwell,  55,  56. 

Stenhouse,  Dr.  William,  Dunedin, 
N.Z.,  and  London,  122,  123. 

Steven,  Rev.  James,  "The  Calf," 
18. 

Stewart,  Prof.  Dugald,  Edin- 
burgh, 18,  25,  70,  84. 

Strachan,  James,  surgeon,  Black- 
ford, 115. 


Subscribers  (medical),  list  of,  to 
first  Edinburgh  edition,  32-34. 

Subscribers  (medical),  li.st  of,  to 
Currie's  first  edition,  89,  90. 

Syme,  John,  Ryedale,  53,  54,  56, 
65,  70,  73,  80-82. 

Taylor,  Dr.  John,  Paisley,  40, 

Tennyson,  79,  114. 

Thomson,  Mrs.  (Jessie  Lewers), 
60,  114. 

Thomson,  Dr.  John,  vindication 
of  B.'s  character  by,  59-64. 

Thomson,  George,  Edinburgh,  73, 
85,  92. 

Thornton,  Dr.  Robert,  John, 
botany  and  Burns  by,  91,  92. 

Tytler,  Alexander  Frazer,  Edin- 
burgh, 22,  25. 

Vaughan,  Dr.  Henry,  114. 

Walker,  Dr.  Alexander  M.,  Tun- 
bridge  Wells,  on  the  Man  aud 
the  Poet,  101,  102. 

Walker,  Prof.  Josi;ih,  15,  16. 

Wallace,  William  (editor.  Cham- 
bers Bxcrns),  censure  of  Currie 
by,  86. 

Watt,  Dr.  Robert,  66. 

Wilson,  Professor  (Christopher 
North),  96. 

Whitefoord,  Sir  John,  19. 

Wolfe,  Dr.  Theodore  F. .  historio- 
grapher of  Highland  INIary,  132. 

Wood,  Alexander,  surgeon,  Edin- 
burgh, 25,  28,  30. 

Wordsworth,  William,  58,  75. 
B. ,  a  preacher  from  the  text  of 

his  own  errors,  by,  119. 
Defence   of  B.'s  character  by, 
77-79,  82,  106. 


SUBSCRIBERS. 


SUBSCRIBERS 


Fredk.    Vasey    Adams,    F.F.P.S.G.,    10    Queen's    Crescent, 

Glasgow,  ^V, 
Jaimes  a.  Adams,  M.D.,  5  Woodside  Place,  Glasgow. 
Alex.  Aitken,  Church  Street,  Stranraer. 
J.  R.  Allan,  Bintang,  Dalkeith  Avenue,  Dumbreck,  Glasgow. 
James  W.  Allan,  M.B.,  18  India  Street,  Glasgow, 
William  Allan,  M.P.,  Scotland  House,  Sunderland. 
James  Montgomerie  Alston,  M.D.,  L.R.C.S.Edin.,  Eastbank, 

Airdrie. 
Jas.  Wallace  Anderson,  M.D.,  1  Annfield  Place,  Dennis- 

toun,  Glasgow. 
Grant  Andrew,  M.B.,  F.F.P.S.  G.,  13  Woodside  Ten-ace, 

Glasgow. 
W.  Craibe  Angus,  81  Renfield  Street,  Glasgow. 
James  Armstrong,  M.B.,  84  Rodney  Street,  Liverpool. 
Rev.  Wm.  ARNorr,  27  Roslea  Drive,  Dennistoun,  Glasgow. 

William  F.  Baillie,  Free  Library,  Kidderminster. 

M.  Bain,  J.P.,  C.C.,  Woodside,  Mauchline. 

James  Moores  Ball,  M.D.,  3509  Franklin  Avenue,  St.  Louis, 

Mo.,  U.S.A. 
Geo.  Granville  Bantock,  M.D.,  F.R.C.S.  Edin.,  12  Granville 

Place,  Portman  Sc[uare,  London,  W. 
John  Barclay,  M.D.,  Sealield  House,  Banff. 


152  Subscribers. 


T.   C.  Barras,  M.B.,  CM.,  5  Seton  Terrace,    Dennistoun, 

Glasgow. 
W.   G.   Barras,  M.D.,  L.S.Sc,  Westbourne,   Bellahouston, 

Govaii. 
JoHV  Barrie,  M.D.,  2  Haselrigge  Road,  C'lapham,  London. 
F.  Faithfuix  Begg,  M.P.  Bartholomew  House,  London,  E.C 
JoHX  Stothart  Bell,  M.B.,  CM.,  The  Green,  Lockerbie. 
Joseph  Bell,  F.R.C.S.  Edin.,  2  Melville  Crescent,  Edinburgh. 
Allan   INIohrisgk    Black,    148    Cathcart   Street,   Kingston, 

Glasgow. 
Malcolm  Black,  M.D.,  5  Canning  Place,  Glasgow. 
George  P.  Boddie,  M.B.,  147  Bruntsfield  Place,  Edinburgh. 
David  Brouie,  M.D.,  c/o  Miss  Brodie,  Coningsby  Place,  Alloa. 
George   Arbuckle    Brown,   M.B.,    CM.,   2   Oswald   Place, 

Whiteinch,  Glasgow. 
W.    I>.    Brown,    L.R.CP.,    L.R.C.S.  Edin.,    8c    L.F.P.S.  G., 

24  Percy  Circus,  King's  Cross  Road,  London,  W.C. 
John  Bruce,  M.B.,  Lauriston,  Grimsby. 
Alex.  Buchanan,  33  Roslea  Drive,  Dennistoun,  Glasgow. 
Jas.  R.  Buchanan,  L.F.P.S.  G.,  7  Broompark  Drive,  Dennis- 
toun, Glasgow. 
John  Burns,  F.F.P.S.,  15  Fitzroy  Place,  Glasgow, 
Wm.  M'Gregor    Burns,  M.R.C.S.   Eng.,  etc.,  13  Annfield 

Place,  Glasgow. 


Rev.  John  Cairns,  Holm  Manse,  Kilmarnock. 

Gilbert   Campbell,  M.B.,  12  Hamilton   Crescent,  Partick, 


Glasgow. 


Rev.  RoBT.  Campbell,  4  Craigpark,  Dennistoun,  Glasgow. 
W.  Campbell,  3  Dundas  Street,  City,  Glasgow. 
Gordon    Carnachan,   L.F.P.S.  G.,   Laurel    Lodge,  Clynder, 
Rosneath. 


Subscribers.  153 


David  Carruthers,  Solicitor,  Kilmarnock. 

James  Bell  Carruthers,  M.D.,  4a  Melville  Street,  Edinburgh. 

Prof.  John  Chiexe,  Pres.  R.C.S.  Edin.,  26  Charlotte  Square, 

Edinburgh. 
James  Clark,  79  W.  Regent  Street,  Glasgow. 
Charles  F.   Clarke,  ?,1.R.C.S.,  24  Park  Road,   Plumstead, 

London,  S.E. 
T.   S.  Cloustox,  M.D.,  F.R.C.P.  Edin.,  Tipperhnn    House, 

Morningside,  Edinburgh. 
James  Coats,  Jr.,  Ferguslie  House,  Paisley. 
Prof.  Joseph  Coats,  M.D.,  8  University  Gardens,  Glasgow. 
William  Core,  M.D.,  Barnhill  Hospital,  Glasgow. 
David  Couper,  M.D.,  1  Oakley  Terrace,  Dennistoun,  Glasgow. 
Ja:\ies  Couper,  599  Duke  Street,  Glasgow. 
James  Craig,  L.R.C.P.S.  Edin.,  6  Annfield  Place,  Dennistoun, 

Glasgow. 
Rev.  John  Craig,  B.D.,  The  Manse,  Lanark. 
David  Crichtox,  R.N.  M.J.N. A.,  6  Duncan  Street,  Newing- 

ton,  Edinburgh. 
David  M.-R.  Crichtox,  M.B.,  CM.  Edin.,  6  Duncan  Street, 

Newington,  Edinburgh. 
W.  Crowther,  Free  Public  Library,  Derby. 
William  Cullex,  IM.B.,  CM,  9  Grafton  Place,  Glasgow. 

James  Dick,  Armathwaite,  41  Newark  Drive,  Pollokshields. 
Fraxc.  Gibb  Dougall,  10  Broompark  Terrace,  Dennistoun, 

Glasgow. 
Prof.  John  Dougall,  M.D.,  6  Behnar  Terrace,  Pollokshields, 

Glasgow. 
Wm.  Dougax,  M.D.,  2  Sandyford  Place,  Glasgow. 
John  Drew,  M.D.,  Rudeeroft,  Stirling. 


154  Subscribers. 


DuxDEE  Burns  Club,  Dundee. 

Prof.  James  Dunlop,  M.D.,  16  Carlton  Place,  Glasgow. 

James  Dunlop,  M.B.,  CM,,  5  Wester  Craigs,  Dennistoun, 

Glasgow. 
Rev.  Thomas  Dunlop,  6  St.  Alban's  Square,  Bootle,  Liverpool. 

Geo.  Henry  Edington,  M.D.,M.R.C.S.  Eng.,  14  Buckingham 

Terrace,  Glasgow,  W. 
James  Erskine,  M.A.,  M.B.,  351  Bath  Street,  Glasgow. 

Peter  Ferguson,  Invereden,  PoUokshields,  Glasgow. 

Joseph  A.  Ferguson,  16  Leven  Street,  PoUokshields,  GlasgoM^ 

John  Fixdlay,  Townhead  House,  Low  Fenwick,  Ayrshire. 

Mrs.  M.  A.  Fisher,  3  Richmond  Street,  Glasgow. 

J.  Steel  Fisher,  M.A.,  18  Burnbank  Terrace,  Glasgow. 

J.  A.  Fitz-hugh,  M.D.,  158  Main  Street,  Amesbury,  Mass., 

U.S.A. 
Robert  Ford,  142  Ingleby  Drive,  Dennistoun,  Glasgow. 
Thos.  Forrest,  M.B.,  CM.,  F.F.P.S.  G.,  12  Royal  Terrace, 

Crossbill,  Glasgow. 
John  W.  Eraser,  168  W.  George  Street,  Glasgow. 
Wm.  Frew,  M.D.,  CM.  Edin.,  Walmer,  Kilmarnock. 
Andrew  B.  Fulton,  M.B.,  CM.,  Irondale  House,  Muirkirk. 

Sir  Wm.  T.  Gairdner,  K.C.B.,  M.D.,  LL.D.,  F.R.S.,  9  The 

College,  Glasgow. 
Fred.  S.  Genney,  M.B.,  CM.,  Marchmont  House,  Lincoln. 
William  F.  Gibb,  M.D.,  CM.,  St.  James  Place,  Paisley. 
John  Gill,  M.B.,  CM.,  Langholm. 
Prof.  John  Glaister,  M.D.,  F.R.S.  Edin.,  4  Grafton  Place, 

Grafton  Square,  Glasgow, 


Subscribers.  155 


J.  T.  GouDiE,  Oakleigh  Park,  Pollokshields,  Glasgow. 
Andrew  Graham,  M.D.,  L.R.C.S.  &  P.E.,  Curriebank,  Curiie. 
Robert    Greenhill,   M.B.,    CM.,    556    Dalmarnock    Road, 

Glasgow. 
Robert  Grieve,  L.R.C.S.  Edin.,  52  Holmhead  St.,  Glasgow. 

James    Hamilton,    M.D.,   F.F.P.S.  G.,    1    Royal    Crescent, 

Crossbill,  Glasgow. 
James  Harvey,  M.B.,  CM.,  7  Blenbeim  Place,  Edinburgb. 
William  Harvey,  5  Bruce  Street,  Stirling. 
Rev.  Robert  Hislop,  12  Royal  Terrace,  Glasgow. 
Archd.  Hood,  6  Bute  Crescent,  Cardiff. 
John  A.  Hope,  M.B.,  CM.,  Barnbill  Hospital,  Glasgow. 
Tnos.  Hunt,  R.S.W.,  227  West  George  Street,  Glasgow. 

Geo.  Skeen  Illingworth,  M.B.,  CM.,  86  Nitbsdale  Road, 
Polloksbields,  Glasgow, 

W.  F.  Kay,  Edinburgb. 

J.  K.  Kelly,  IM.D.,  14  Somerset  Place,  Glasgow. 

Ja:\ies  Killin,  Beecbgrove,  Compton  Road,  Wolverbampton. 

Thomas  Killin,  168  W.  George  Street,  Glasgow. 

James  F.  King,  81  W.  Regent  Street,  Glasgow. 

Andw.  J.  KiRKPATRiCK,  179  ^V.  Gcoi'ge  Street,  Glasgow. 

Rev.  David  Lambie,  3  V'iewfortb  Place,  Blackness  Avenue, 

Dundee. 
Alex.  Lamont,  10  Ardgowan  Terrace,  Sandyford,  Glasgow. 
R.  Cowan  Lees,  M.B.,  CM.,  F.F.P.S.  G.,  1  Woodside  Place, 

Glasgow. 
Alex.  Lesslie,  Viewbank  Terrace,  Dundee, 


156  SunSCRIBERS. 


Thos.  Livingstone,  M.D.,  CM.,  J.P.,  Stanhope,  Durham. 

J.  ]M.  LocniiEAD,  The  Laurels,  Paisley. 

C.   W.   LocKYEu,  M.R.C.S.,  L.R.C.P.,  T  St.  Julian's  Farm 

Road,  W.  Norwood,  London,  S.E. 
James  Louttit,  55  Renfrew  Street,  Glasgow. 

William  M'Alister,  M.B.,  The  Elms,  Kilmarnock. 

William  IMcCall,  6  Seton  Terrace,  Dennistoun,  Glasgow. 

David  McCowan,  7  Lynedoch  Crescent,  Glasgow. 

Charles  C.  Macdonald,  352  Duke  Street,  Glasgow. 

Peter  MacEwan,  Ph.C,  F.C.S.,  42  Cannon  St,  London,  E.G. 

Johnstone  Macfie,  j\I.D.,  45  Ashton  Terrace,  Hillhead, 
Glasgow. 

J.  R.  Macgregor,  Lonend,  Paisley. 

James  M'Hardy,  L.F.P.S.  G.,  Bellfield,  Banchory,  N.B. 

Wm.  McIiavraith,  13  George  Street,  Woherhampton. 

Geo.  IM'Intyre,  M.B.,  6  Whitehill  Gardens,  Dennistoun, 
Glasgow. 

John  Macintyre,  M.B.,  F.R.S.  Edin.,  179  Bath  Street, 
Glasgow. 

David  Mackay,  Provost,  Portland  House,  Kilmarnock. 

Prof.  John  G.  M'Kendrick,  M.D.,  LL.D.,  F.R.S.,  University, 
Glasgow. 

Alex.  ]\I'Kenzie,  St.  Catherine''s,  Paisley. 

John  MacKenzie,  W.S.,  16  Royal  Circus,  Edinburgh. 

Adam  M'Kiji,  136  Trongate,  Glasgow. 

Charles  R.  M'Lean,  L.F.P.S.  G.,  L.R.C.P.  E.,  15  Annfield 
Place,  Dennistoun,  Glasgow. 

Alex.  INIcLelland,  M.B.,  L.R.C.S.  Edin.,  Ardenlee,  Alex- 
andria, N.B. 

QuiNTix  INI'Lenxan,  M.B.,  191  Pitt  Street,  Glasgow. 


SCBSCKIBEIIS.  157 


Edwd.  M'Millax,  L.R.C.S.  Edin.,  Rannochlea,  1  St.  Andrew's 

Drive,  Pollokshields. 
D.   C.   McVail,  M.B.,  L.R.C.P.E.,  3   St.  James's  Terrace, 

Glasgow. 
John   C.   McVail,  M.D.,    32    Balshagray  Avenue,  Particle, 

Glasgow. 
Walter  M'Vey,  34  Granby  Terrace,  Hillhead,  Glasgow. 
J.  N.  Marshall,  M.D.,  7  Battery  Place,  Rothesay. 
Mrs.  George  Mather,  14  Annfield  Place,  Glasgow. 
JoHX  Melvix,  6  Old  Irvine  Road,  Kilmarnock. 
Thomas    Mexzies,  F.E.I.S.,   Hutcheson's   Grammar   School, 

Glasgow. 
Alex.  Miller,  L.R.C.P.  Edin.,  L.F.P.S.  G.,  1  Royal  Terrace, 

Crosshill,  Glasgow. 
AxDREw  RoxALD  MiTCHELL,  M.B.,  CM.,  15  Montcith  Row, 

Glasgow. 
Mitchell  Library,  Glasgow\ 
R.  Moir,  M.B.,  46  South  Street,  St.  Andrews. 
William  Moore,  M.B.,  CM.,  1  Eglinton  Terrace,  Ayr, 
James  Morton,  Gowan  Bank,  Darvel. 
Wm.   Muir,   M.B,   cm.,    F.F.P.S.  G.,    16   Monteith   Row, 

Glasgow. 
W.   L.   Muir,   L.R.C.P.  E.,  L.F.P.S.  G.,  1   Seton   Terrace, 

Glasgow. 
Hermaxx  MiJLLER,  Miiiclng  Lane,  London. 
JoHX  Falcoxer  Murlsox,  M.D.,  22  Monteith  Row,  Glasgow. 
Hugh  Murray,  F.R.C.S.  E.,  F.F.P.S.  G.,  1  Wellesley  Place, 

The  Crescents,  Glasgow,  W. 
James  Murray,  30  Bellgrove  Street,  Glasgow. 


158  Subscribers. 


Archd.  Neilson,  L.R.C.P.  Edin.,  L.F.P.S.  G.,  10  Somerville 

Place,  Glasgow. 
Percy  Newth,  M.B.,  3  Sillwood  Place,  Crowborough,  Sussex. 
Geo.  Newton,  2  Onslow  Drive,  Dennistoun,  Glasgow, 
Jas.  H.  Nicoll,  M.B.,  4  Woodside  Place,  Glasgow. 

Prof.  Oliver,  M.D.,  7  Ellison  Place,  Newcastle-upon-Tyne. 
Henry  O'Neill,  M.D.,  6  College  Square,  East,  Belfast. 

Robert  Paterson,  Schoolhouse,  Invergowrie,  Dundee. 

Wji.    Patrick,    M.D.,    143    Greenhead    Street,    Bridgeton, 

Glasgow. 
Alex.  Pa'iterson,  M.D.,  E.R.C.S.E.,  22  India  Street,  Glasgow. 
Geo.  C.  Peachey,  L.R.C.P.,  Brightwalton,  Wantage,  Berks. 
Robert  Peden,  Helena,  Galston,  Ayrshire. 
Robert  Pollok,  M.D.,  CM.,  Laurieston  House,  Pollokshields, 

Glasgow. 
John  Porter,  M.B.,  CM.,  10  Annfield  Place,  Glasgow. 

Alfred   Theodore   Rake,   M.B.,    B.S.,  F.R.CS.,  8  Sheriff 

Road,  West  Hainpstead,  London,  N.AV. 
A.  Maitland  Ramsay,  M.D.,  15  Woodside  Place,  Glasgow. 
Alex.    Rankin,    M.D.,    CM.,    38    Abbotsford    Place,   SS., 

Glasgow. 
Alex.  Rankin,  30  Hope  Street,  Glasgow. 
James    Rankin,   L.F.P.S.  G.,   L.M.,    18    Dundonald    Road, 

Kilmarnock. 
Walter  L.  Rankin,  L.R.C.S.  Edin.,  Old  Edenkill,  Strath- 

blane. 
Rev.  D.  A.  Reid,  B.D.,  The  Manse,  Monkton. 
Wm.  Reid,  M.A.,  61  Grant  Street,  Glasgow. 


Subscribers.  159 


Thomas  Rexnie,  156  Buccleuch  Street,  Glasgow. 

Andrew  H.  Riddell,  i\lelbourne. 

Daxiel  Riddell,  Old  Manse,  Parkhead,  Glasgow. 

David  Riddell,  9  Roslea  Drive,  Dennistoiin,  Glasgow. 

David  Riddell,  Junr.,  9  Roslea  Drive,  Dennistoun,  Glasgow. 

Rev.  John  Riddell,  B.D.,  Levenside  Manse,  Renton. 

Alex.  Robeutsox,  M.D.,  F.F.P.S.  G.,  11  Woodside  Crescent, 

Glasgow. 
Andrew  B.  Robertson,  Harriet  Cottage,  Kilmarnock. 
John  Robertson,  M.D.,  Benview,  Dumbarton. 
Tom  Robertson,  178  George  Street,  Glasgow, 
J.   Maxwell  Ross,   M.A.,  F.R.C.S.  Edin.,   County  Medical 

Officer,  Dumfriesshire. 
Willia:m  Row  at,  St.  Margarets,  Paisley. 
James  B.  Russell,  B.A.,  LL.D.,  M.D.,  23  Montrose  Street, 

Glasgow. 

Arthur  Sanderson,  Edinburgh. 

F.  R.  Sanderson,  Edinburgh. 

John  Scott,  Governor,  H.M.  Prison,  Ayr. 

Robert  Scotf,  8  Buchanan  Street,  Glasgow. 

Robert  M'Cowan  Service,  M.D.,  3  Annfield  Place,  Dennis- 
toun, Glasgow. 

Gordon  Sharp,  M.D.,  3  St.  George's  Terrace,  Camp  Road, 
Leeds. 

A.  Wood  Smith,  M.D.,  F.F.P.S.  G.,  11  Woodside  Terrace, 
Charing  Cross,  Glasgow. 

Captain  David  Sneddon,  Dean  Cottage,  Kilmarnock. 

Rev.  T.  SoMERviLLE,  M.A.,  11  Westercraigs,  Glasgow. 

J.  Nigel  Stark,  M.B.,  F.F.P.S.  G.,  4  Newton  Place,  Charing 
Cross,  Glasgow. 


160  Subscribers. 


John    Lindsay    Steven,    M.D.,    FF.P.S.  G.,    16   Woodside 

Place,  Glasgow, 
John  Findlay  Stevenson,  L.R.C.P.  Edin.,  176  Castle  Street, 

Glasgow. 
John  Stewart,  M.B.,  Beith. 
James   Stirling,  M.B.,  CM.,   41    j\lain   Street,  Bridgeton, 

Glasgow. 
Geo.  E.  Symington,  Endjne,  Paisley. 
J.  Cockburn  Syson,  INl.D.,  11  Annfield  Place,  Glasgow. 

George  Taggart,  Killycarran,  11  Onslow  Drive,  Glasgow. 

R.  D.  Tannahill,  F.S.I.,  Dunimarle,  Kilmarnock. 

Wm.  Taylor,  L.D.S.,  F.P.S.  G.,  290  Duke  Street,  Glasgow. 

Sir  Charles  Tennant,  Bart.,  The  Glen,  Innerleithen. 

J.  Maxtone  Thom,  M.B.,  CINI.,  D.P.H.,  H.M.  Prison,  Bar- 

linnie. 
A.  B.  Todd,  Breezyhill,  Cumnock. 
John  Tullis,  Inchcape,  Dennistoun,  Glasgow. 
Rev.  John  Turnbull,  Barlinnie,  Glasgow. 
Hugh  Turner,  L.F.P.S.  G.,  2  Bellgrove  Street,  Glasgow. 

Henry  Vevers,  M.R.C.S.,  Highmore  House,  Hereford. 

Rev.  Wm.  T.  Walker,  7  Onslow  Drive,  Dennistoun,  Glasgow. 

Jaivles  Wallace,  S.D.,  Braehead,  Paisley. 

John  Wallace,  Factor,  Ballochmyle,  Mauchline. 

John  Veitch  Wallace,  L.R.C.S.  Edin.,  290  Langside  Road, 

Glasgow. 
Jajles  L.  Waters,  ^M.B.,  South  Boulevard,  Hull. 
John   Watson,  10  Belhaven  Terrace,  Kelvinside,   Glasgow. 
Rev.  J.  Anderson  Wait,  Hopemount,  Dennistoun,  Glasgow. 


Subscribers.  161 


William  Whitelaw,  M.D.,  D.P.H.,  J.P.,  Kirkintilloch. 
J.  A.  AViLsoN,  M.D.,  D.P.H.,  Auburn,  Hill  Street,  Spring- 
burn,  Glasgow. 
Alex,  Wood,  Thornly,  Saltcoats. 
Joseph  Wright,  Elmbank  House,  East  Kilbride. 

Geo.  Yeamax,  ]M.1).,  6  India  Street,  Glasgow. 
D.  YouxG,  M.D.,  Parkhcad,  Glasgow. 


BOOKSELLERS 

JoHX  Ada:m,  Aberdeen. 

J.  AxDERsox  &  Son,  Dumfries. 

J.  Arxot,  Edinburgh. 

A.  Baxexdixe,  Edinburgh. 

Thos.  Boyd,  Oban. 

James  H.  Browtc,  Edinburgh. 

W.  Bryce,  Edinburgh. 

Bryce  Si  Murray,  Glasgow. 

Miss  Chisholm,  Glasgow. 

Douglas  &  Foulis,  Edinburgh. 

J.  Duxx,  Edinburgh. 

A.  Elliot,  Edinburgh. 

R.  GiBsox  &  Soxs,  Glasgow. 

J.  R.  GoRDox,  Banff'. 

R.  Graxt  &  Sox,  Edinburgh. 

W.  &  R.  Holmes,  Glasgow. 

R.  W.  Hltcter,  Edinburgh. 

D.  Johxstoxe,  Edinburgh. 

W.  Love,  Glasgow. 

L 


169.  Subscribers. 


J.  M'Callum  &  Co.,  Glasgow. 
M'Geachy  &  Co.,  Glasgow. 
J.  R.  M'Intosh,  Edinburgh. 
J.  Mackay,  Edinburgh. 
A.  M'KiM  &  Co.,  Glasgow. 
J.  N.  M'KiXLAY,  Glasgow, 
Maclehose  &  Son,  Glasgow. 
A.  W.  Macphail,  Edinburgh. 
J.  M'Raith,  Glasgow. 
J,  Millar,  Beith. 
John  Molyneaux,  Edinburgh. 
MoRisoN  Bros.,  Glasgow. 
W.  MrRDoc'.H,  Kilmarnock. 
Thos.  p.  Nicoll,  Aberdeen. 
Oliver  &  Boyd,  Edinburgh. 
G.  Petrie,  Dundee. 
P.  Ritchie,  Edinburgh. 
W.  S.  SiME,  Glasgow. 
J.  Smith  &  Son,  Glasgow. 
John  R.  S^niith,  Aberdeen. 
T.  Smith,  Edinburgh. 
J.  Thin,  Edinburgh. 
Thomson  Bros.,  Edinburgh. 
J.  Thompson,  Belfast. 
D,  AVyllie  &  Son,  Aberdeen. 


liY   THE   SAME    AUTHOR. 

Ayrshire  Idylls  of  Other  Days. 

With  four  Illustration.'i,  Crown  Svo,  Cloth  Antique^ 
^41  Pcigcs,  price  5!-,  post  free. 


"This  book  does  not  belong  to  the  category  of  cheap  pathos  and  rather 
obvious  sentiment  of  the  modern  Scottish  novel.  It  is  frankly  original, 
and  contains  suitable  first  impressions  of  a  North-country  idealist  who  has 
no  need  to  harp  on  1  orrowed  strings.  Let  those  who  still  possess  their 
souls  in  misgiving  read  'A  Ride  in  a  Carrier's  Cart,'  or  'Between  the 
Preachings,'  and  we  venture  to  predict  that  they  will  want  to  know  more 
about  Mr.  'George  Umber'  than  we  are  able  to  tell  them." — T]ie  Speaker. 

"  Graceful  in  diction  and  kindly  in  tone,  the  sketches  are  studded  with 
passages  which  show  familiarity  with  English  literature,  as  well  as  with 
the  humble  side  of  life  in  Ayrshire  half-a-century  ago."— 2'/(e  Scotsman. 

"There  is  a  pleasant  vein  of  retrospection  in  Aijrsklre  Idylls  of  Other 
Days.  .  .  .  Whether  the  author  describes  his  loiterings  at  the  '  Old 
Cross  Bookstall,'  or  his  journeys  'in  a  Carrier's  Cart,'  he  has  always  some 
pleasant  remiuisceuce  to  record — a  little  incident  that  illustrates  the  life  of 
the  people  in  his  early  days,  or  some  quaint  character  that  remains 
impressed  upon  his  mind." — Daily  News, 

"  'George  Umber'  evidently  has  an  alert  eye  for  real  life  and  a  whole- 
hearted love  of  books,  as  well  as  a  very  competent  literary  gift  wherewith 
to  give  utterance  to  his  own  fancies  and  impressions." — Glasyoiv  Herald. 

"  Those  Ayrshire  Idylls  of  Other  Days  are  all  alive  with  tenderness  and 
truth.  Jlany  as  they  read  will  feel  themselves  young  again  and  moving 
about  the  countryside  that  is  so  dear  to  them." — Dundee  Advertiser. 

"  The  personal  element  is  for  us  the  greatest  charm  of  the  book,  for  from 
its  presence  the  dozen  sketches  acquire  a  real  living  force  that  nothing  else 
could  give,  and  is  the  source  of  that  keen  pleasure— whether  of  spirit,  or 
mind,  or  intellect,  localise  it  where  you  may — which  every  reader  of  these 
genial  sketches  must  experience." — W.  B.  Daily  Mail. 

"The  treatment  throughout  is  characterised  by  keen  insight,  observa- 
tion, and  a  line  spirit  of  sympathy," — Glasgow  Evening  Citizen. 

"It  is  a  book  worthy  of  the  author  of  hi  My  City  Garden,  who  has,  we 
feel  sure,  other  good  things  in  store  for  us." — The.  Daily  Record. 

"  It  is  not  every  day  one  finds  a  book  so  capable  of  stimulating  the  better 
feelings  and  perceptions  as  the  present,  and  it  may  be  hoped  that  as  this  is 
not  the  first,  it  may  not  be  the  last  of  such  genial  and  artistic  writings  from 
the  pen  of  so  capable  an  author." — Dundee  Courier. 

ALEXANDER   GARDNER,  PAISLEY  axd   LONDON. 


BY  THE   SAME   AUTHOR. 

In   My  City   Garden. 

W/fh  tzoelve  Illustrations,  Croicn  Svo,  Cloth  Antique, 
34-0  Pages,  priee  0/-,  post  free. 


"Alongside  of  Barrie-like  touches  are  delightful  transcripts  of  human 
life  and  experience,  and  tine  bits  of  genial  wisdom." — Glcmfoio  Herald. 

"It  is  a  thoughtful  book,  beautifully  written  and  illustrated.  From  its 
charming  pages  there  exudes  a  fragrance  as  from  some  homely  flower.  It 
is  almost  too  good  to  be  popular  ;  but  those  who  read  it  once  will  read  it 
again,  and  give  it  an  honoured  place  on  their  library  shelves." — Dundee 
Advertiser. 

"We  were  most  strongly  moved  by  '  Uncle  Venuer's  Reminiscence,' and 
'The  Kitchen  Meeting,' the  latter  almost  equalling  Barrie  at  his  best; 
while  the  whimsical  humour  of  '  A  Bairn's  Burns  Anniversary  '  is  delightful 
from  whatever  point  of  view  it  is  regarded." — Daily  Mail. 

"The  volume  is  one  that  will  be  treasured  by  all  who  know  a  really 
good  book  when  they  find  it,  and  it  is  manifestly  from  the  pen  of  an  author 
who  does  not  write  for  mere  writing's  sake." — Diuidee  Courier  and  Dundee 

]Vepkl>i  Nevs. 

"There  is  a  quiet  wisdom  about  'George  Umber's  '  pages  which  irre- 
sistibly attracts  the  reader." — I  he  British  Weekly. 

"In  My  City  Garden  is  a  book  in  which  fact  and  fancy  are  pleasantly 
blended. "-  -  The  Speaker. 

"  And  it  is  a  very  pleasant  and  homely  book  he  writes  of  his  City  Garden 
—surely,  in  his  case,  as  magic  an  inspirer  of  meditation  as  Thoreau's 
'  Walden,'  or  the  savage  solitude  of  a  Crusoe.  The  illustrations  are  admir- 
able."— Glasgow  Avenin(/  Neivs. 

"  //)  My  City  Garden  may  be  described  as  a  prose  poem.  The  illustra- 
tions are  clever  and  original." — The  Bailie. 

"  On  the  whole,  Dr.  Findlay  has  accomplished  his  difficult  task — that  of 
idealising  and  giving  interest  to  the  commonplace  incidents  of  suburban 
life-  -with  great  success,  and  at  places  his  style,  we  think,  is  equal  to  that 
of  Barrie  or  Watson.  '  The  Kitchen  Meeting '  and  '  Uncle  Venner's 
Ilemiuiscence '  are  as  good  as  anything  of  the  kind  we  have  read." — IVie 
Glasf/ow  Medical  Journal  (April,  1S96). 

"The  author,  whoever  he  is,  is  apjiarently  a  physician,  and  also  a  man 
of  wide  culture  and  large  experience  in  human  ways  and  human  life." — 
Scottish  Eeview  (January,  1896). 


ALEXANDER  GARDNER,  PAISLEY   and   LONDON. 


Los  Angeles 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


F52  Kobert  Burns  and 
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