s: now he was glowing
with the most generous sentiments, now sinking to the very opposite
extreme.

One of the last visits paid to him by any friend from a distance would
seem to have been by Professor Walker, although the date of it is
somewhat uncertain. Eight years had passed since the Professor had
parted with Burns at Blair Castle, after the poet's happy visit there.
In the account which the Professor has left of his two days' interview
with Burns at Dumfries, there are traces of disappointment with the
change which the intervening years had wrought. It has been alleged
that prolonged residence in England had made the Professor fastidious,
and more easily shocked with rusticity and coarseness. However this
may be, he found Burns, as he thought, not improved, but more
dictatorial, more free in his potations, more coarse and gross in his
talk, than when he had formerly known him.

For some time past there had not been wanting symptoms to show that
the poet's strength was already past its prime. In June, 1794, he had,
as we have seen, told Mrs. Dunlop that he had been in poor health, and
was afraid he was beginning to suffer for the follies of his youth.
His physicians threatened him, he said, with flying gout, but he
trusted they were mistaken. In the spring of 1795, he said to one who
called on him, that he was beginning to feel as if he were soon to be
an old man. Still he went about all his usual employments. But during
the latter part of that year his health seems to have suddenly
declined. For some considerable time he was confined to a sick-bed.
Dr. Currie, who was likely to be well informed, states that this
illness lasted from October, 1795, till the following January. No (p. 175)
details of his malady are given, and little more is known of his
condition at this time, except what he himself has given in a letter
to Mrs. Dunlop, and in a rhymed epistle to one of his brother
Excisemen.

At the close of the year he must have felt that, owing to his
prolonged sickness, his funds were getting low. Else he would not have
penned to his friend, Collector Mitchell, the following request:--

Friend of the Poet, tried and leal,
Wha, wanting thee, might beg or steal;
Alake, alake, the meikle deil
Wi' a' his witches
Are at it, skelpin'! jig and reel,
In my poor pouches.

I modestly fu fain wad hint it,