be staying for the benefit of her health in the
neighbourhood. She asked Burns to dine with her, and sent her carriage
to bring him to her house. This is part of the account she gives of
that interview:--

"I was struck with his appearance on entering the room. The stamp of
death was imprinted on his features. He seemed already touching the
brink of eternity. His first salutation was. 'Well, madam, have (p. 180)
you any commands for the other world?' I replied that it seemed a
doubtful case, which of us should be there soonest, and that I hoped
he would yet live to write my epitaph. He looked in my face with an
air of great kindness, and expressed his concern at seeing me look so
ill, with his accustomed sensibility.... We had a long and serious
conversation about his present situation, and the approaching
termination of all his earthly prospects. He spoke of his death
without any of the ostentation of philosophy, but with firmness as
well as feeling, as an event likely to happen very soon, and which
gave him concern chiefly from leaving his four children so young and
unprotected, and his wife hourly expecting a fifth. He mentioned, with
seeming pride and satisfaction, the promising genius of his eldest
son, and the flattering marks of approbation he had received from his
teachers, and dwelt particularly on his hopes of that boy's future
conduct and merit. His anxiety for his family seemed to hang heavy on
him, and the more perhaps from the reflection that he had not done
them all the justice he was so well qualified to do. Passing from this
subject, he showed great concern about the care of his literary fame,
and particularly the publication of his posthumous works. He said he
was well aware that his death would create some noise, and that every
scrap of his writing would be revived against him to the injury of his
future reputation; that his letters and verses written with unguarded
and improper freedom, and which he earnestly wished to have buried in
oblivion, would be handed about by idle vanity or malevolence, when no
dread of his resentment would restrain them, or prevent the censures
of shrill-tongued malice, or the insidious sarcasms of envy, from
pouring forth all their venom to blast his fame.

"He lamented that he had written many epigrams on persons against (p. 181)
whom he entertained no enmity, and whose characters he would be sorry
to wound; and many indifferent poetical pieces, which he feared woul