ne, and another a grand tour
through the East Highlands, as far as Inverness, returning by Edinburgh,
and so home to Ayrshire.

In 1788 Burns took a new farm at Ellisland on the Nith, settled there,
married, lost his little money, and wrote, among other pieces, "Auld Lang
Syne" and "Tam o' Shanter." In 1789 he obtained, through the good office of
Mr Graham of Fintry, an appointment as excise-officer of the district,
worth L50 per annum. In 1791 he removed to a similar post at Dumfries worth
L70. In the course of the following year he was asked to contribute to
George Thomson's _Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs with
Symphonies and Accompaniments for the Pianoforte and Violin: the poetry by
Robert Burns_. To this work he contributed about one hundred songs, the
best of which are now ringing in the ear of every Scotsman from New Zealand
to San Francisco. For these, original and adapted, he received a shawl for
his wife, a picture by David Allan representing the "Cottar's Saturday
Night," and L5! The poet wrote an indignant letter and never afterwards
composed for money. Unfortunately the "Rock of Independence" to which he
had proudly retired was but a castle of air, over which the meteors of
French political enthusiasm cast a lurid gleam. In the last years of his
life, exiled from polite society on account of his revolutionary opinions,
he became sourer in temper and plunged more deeply into the dissipations of
the lower ranks, among whom he found his only companionship and sole,
though shallow, sympathy.

Burns began to feel himself prematurely old. Walking with a friend who
proposed to him to join a county ball, he shook his head, saying "that's
all over now," and adding a verse of Lady Grizel Baillie's ballad--

"O were we young as we ance hae been,
We sud hae been galloping down on yon green,
And linking it ower the lily-white lea,
But were na my heart light I wad dee."

His hand shook; his pulse and appetite failed; his spirits sunk into a
uniform gloom. In April 1796 he wrote--"I fear it will be some time before
I tune my lyre again. By Babel's streams I have sat and wept. I have only
known existence by the pressure of sickness and counted time by the
repercussions of pain. I close my eyes in misery and open them without
hope. I look on the vernal day and say with poor Fergusson--

"Say wherefore has an all-indulgent heaven
Life to the comfortless and wretched given."

On the 4th of July h