An accidental dislocation or fracture of an arm or a leg, which confined him for some weeks to his apartment, left him, during this time, leisure for serious reflection; and he determined to retire from the town, without longer delay. None of all his patrons interposed to divert him from his purpose of returning to the plough, by the offer of any small pension, or any sinecure place of moderate emolument, such as might have given him competence, without withdrawing him from his
poetical studies. It seemed to be forgotten, that a ploughman thus exalted into a man of letters, was unfitted for his former toils, without being regularly qualified to enter the career of any new profession; and that it became incumbent upon those patrons who had called him from the plough, not merely to make him their companion in the hour of riot not simply to fill his purse with gold for a few transient expenses, but to secure him, as far as was possible, from being ever overwhelmed in distress, in consequence of the favour which they had shown him, and of the habits of life into which they had seduced him. Perhaps, indeed, the same delusion of fancy betrayed both Burns and his patrons into the mistaken idea, that, after all which had passed, it was still possible for him to return, in cheerful content, to the homely joys and simple toils of undissipated rural life.
In this temper of Burns's mind, in this state of his fortune, a farm and the excise were the objects upon which his choice ultimately fixed for future employment and support.
Mr Alexander Wood, the surgeon who attended him during the illness occasioned by his hurt, no sooner understood his patient's wish to seek a resource in the service of the excise, than he, with the usual activity of his benevolent character, effectually recommended the poet to the commissioners of excise; and the name of Burns was enrolled in the list of their expectant officers. Peter Miller, Esq. of Dalswinton, deceived, like Burns himself, and Burns' other friends, into an idea, that the poet and exciseman might yet be respectable and happy as a farmer, generously proposed to establish him in a farm, upon conditions of lease which prudence and industry might easily render exceedingly advantageous. Burns eagerly accepted the offers of this benevolent patron. Two of the poet's friends, from Ayrshire, were invited to survey that farm in Dumfries-shire, which Mr Miller offered, A lease was granted to the poetical farmer at that annual rent which his own friends declared that the due cultivation of his farm might easily enable him to pay; what yet remained of the profits of his publication was laid out in the purchase of farm stock; and Mr Miller might, for some short time, please himself with the persuasion that he had approved himself the liberal patron of genius; had acquired a good tenant upon his estate; and had placed a deserving man in the very situation in which alone he himself desired to be placed, in order to be happy to his wishes. [1]
- ↑ Heron's account of the leasing of Ellisland is erroneous: the following we believe to be a correct and authorised statement, being given as such in Dr Robert Anderson's Edinburgh Magazine, for June 1799:
"Mr Miller offered Mr Bums the choice of several farms on the estate of Dalswinton, which were at that time out of lease. Mr Burns gave the preference to the farm of Ellisland, must charmingly situated on the banks of the Nith, containing upwards of a hundred acres of most excellent land, then worth a rent of from eighty to a hundred pounds. Mr Miller, after showing Mr Bums what the farm cost him to a farthing, allowed him to fix the rental himself, and the endurance of the lease. A lease was accordingly given to the poet on his own terms; viz. for fifty-seven years, at the very low rent of fifty pounds. And, in addition to this, when Mr Burns signed the tack, Mr Miller presented him with two hundred pounds, to enable him to inclose and improve his farm. It is usual to allow tenants a year's rent for this purpose, but the sum Mr Miller gave him was at least four years' rent. Mr Miller has since sold the farm to John M'Morrine, Esq. at nineteen hundred pounds, leaving to himself seven acres on the Dalswinton side of the river. It may not be improper to add, that Mr Miller's motive in wishing Mr Burns to settle at Ellisland, was to save him, by withdrawing him from
