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prior to the date of the letter. The burning of the "marriage lines" did not annul the "irregular marriage" for which Burns and Jean Armour were reproved by the Kirk Session of Mauchline in 1788, and taken bound to adhere to each other during their natural lives. When Mr. Auld granted Burns a certificate as a bachelor he did so in ignorance of the private marriage which had taken place previous to the appearance of both before the Kirk Session for discipline as unmarried persons. The Ainslie letter bears on the face of it that it was a bachelor communication to a trusted bachelor friend who had a penchant for facetiae of the sort; and Burns never did things by halves. It has never been published under respectable auspices. Ainslie's gross breach of confidence in preserving this letter contrasts strangely with Burns's tender handling of the former's faux pas with the cottar's daughter at Dunse.[1] Whatever he may have been in his earlier years, Robert Ainslie does not appear to advantage in his correspondence with Cromek, when the latter was collecting material for his "Reliques." That he was a friend of the fair-weather species appears from a letter of Burns to Clarinda, dated June 25th, 1794, in which he says:—
"I had a letter from him (Ainslie) a while ago, but it was so dry, so distant, so like a card to one of his clients, that I could scarce bear to read it, and have not yet answered it. He is a good, honest fellow, and can write a friendly letter. . . . Though Fame does not blow her trumpet at my approach now, as she did then, when he first favoured me with his friendship, yet I am as proud as ever; and when I am laid in my grave, I wish to be stretched at my full length, that I may occupy every inch of ground I have a right to."
- ↑ See "Robin shure in hairst."
