ade its appearance, and alarmed the Kirk
Session so much, that they held several meetings to look over their
spiritual artillery, if haply any of it might be pointed against (p. 032)
profane rhymers. Unluckily for me, my wandering led me on another
side, within point-blank shot of their heaviest metal. This is the
unfortunate incident which gave rise to my printed poem, _The Lament_.
This was a most melancholy affair, which I cannot yet bear to reflect
on, and had very nearly given me one or two of the principal
qualifications for a place among those who have lost the chart and
mistaken the reckoning of Rationality.

"I gave up my part of the farm to my brother, and made what little
preparation was in my power for Jamaica. But, before leaving my
native country for ever, I resolved to publish my poems. I weighed my
productions as impartially as was in my power; I thought they had
merit; and it was a delicious idea that I should be called a clever
fellow, even though it should never reach my ears--a poor
negro-driver, or perhaps a victim to that inhospitable clime, and gone
to the world of spirits! I can truly say, that _pauvre inconnu_ as I
then was, I had pretty nearly as high an idea of my works as I have at
this moment, when the public has decided in their favour....

"I threw off about six hundred copies, of which I got subscriptions
for about three hundred and fifty. My vanity was highly gratified by
the reception I met with from the public; and besides, I pocketed, all
expenses deducted, nearly twenty pounds. This sum came very
seasonably, as I was thinking of indenting myself, for want of money,
to procure a passage. As soon as I was master of nine guineas, the
price of wafting me to the torrid zone, I took a steerage passage in
the first ship that was to sail from the Clyde, for

Hungry ruin had me in the wind.

"I had been for some days skulking from covert to covert, under (p. 033)
all the terrors of a jail, as some ill-advised people had uncoupled
the merciless pack of the law at my heels. I had taken the last
farewell of my friends; my chest was on the way to Greenock; I had
composed the last song I should ever measure in Caledonia, '_The
gloomy night is gathering fast_,' when a letter from Dr. Blackwood to
a friend of mine overthrew all my schemes, by opening up new prospects
to my poetic ambition."

It was at the close of July while Burns was, according to his own
account, "wanderi