lisland, the other from Dalswinton--had journeyed thither
in company; and there, probably in some small cottage room, had the
strength of the peck o' maut been tried. Most likely, as Moffat is so
far on the way from Dalswinton to Edinburgh, Mr Masterton would part
with his two friends next day, and proceed on his way to the city,
while Burns returned to his farm, lone-meditating on the song in which
he was to make the frolic immortal.

With so explicit a statement from the poet, we never should have had
occasion to feel any doubt about the circumstances referred to in
'Willie brewed a peck o' maut,' had not Dr Currie, the editor of the
posthumous collection of Burns's works, inserted therein a note,
stating that the merry-meeting 'took place at Laggan, a farm purchased
by Mr Nicol in Nithsdale, on the recommendation of Burns.' Currie,
proceeding upon the undoubted fact of Nicol having purchased such a
farm, seems to have imagined that the meeting was what is called in
Scotland a _house-heating_, or entertainment given to celebrate the
entering upon a new domestic establishment, Laggan itself being of
course the scene. To add to the perplexity thus created, Dr Currie's
assumptions were taken up by a subsequent editor, who ought to have
known better--the late Allan Cunningham. He gives the whole affair
with daring circumstantiality. The song, he says, 'was composed to
commemorate the _house-heating_--as entering upon possession of a new
house is called in Scotland. William Nicol made the brewst strong and
nappy; and Allan Masterton, then on a visit at Dalswinton, crossed the
Nith, and, with the poet and his celebrated punch-bowl, reached Laggan
"a wee before the sun gaed down." The sun, however, rose on their
carousal, if the tradition of the land may be trusted.' Thus, as
Laggan is on the right bank of the Nith, while Dalswinton is on the
left, we have Masterton crossing the river to join Burns at Ellisland,
which is the converse of the procedure necessary on the supposition of
Moffat being the locality. A place called Laggan, about two miles from
Ellisland, being further assumed as the seat of Nicol, we have the
poet marching along to it bearing his punch-bowl as an essential of
the frolic!--a particular which this biographer would have probably
suppressed, if he had known that the real Laggan of William Nicol is
eight or nine miles from Ellisland, in a part of the country naturally
so difficult of access, that a visito