2012 Winter the Digital Conversion of This Burns Chronicle Was Sponsored by RBWF Past President Robert Stewart

Robert Burns World Federation Limited

www.rbwf.org.uk

2012 Winter The digital conversion of this Burns Chronicle was sponsored by RBWF Past President Robert Stewart

The digital conversion was provided by Solway Offset Services Ltd by permission of the Robert Burns World Federation Limited to whom all Copyright title belongs.

www.solwayprint.co.uk Burns Chronicle Winter 2012 Printers, Dumfries. Tel: 01387 262960 Tel: the Printers, Dumfries. Solway Offset Over half a century ago people said that our new chocolate biscuit was unbeatable

so we haven’t changed them. The nineteen fifties saw the introduction of lots of very interesting ideas. One of them was the Tunnock’s Caramel Wafer. With food rationing only recently ended this big biscuit was especially welcome with its layers of wafer and caramel and the generous milk chocolate coating. It quickly became and remains a favourite here and all over the world. Today it’s exactly the same and just as popular because the only thing different is the dark chocolate alternative.

Thomas Tunnock Ltd., President Robert W. M. Stewart 34 Old Mill Road, Uddingston G71 7HH Tel: 01698 813551 Fax: 01698 815691 Email: [email protected] www.tunnock.co.uk Burns Chronicle Winter 2012 Message From The President My first act in my tenure as your new President must be to express my thanks and highest regards to our Immediate Past-President, Jim Shields, to the Board of Directors, to the members of the Executive Committees and, to our C.E.O. Alison C. Tait for all the support and guidance I have received from them during my recent periods of service as J.V.P. and S.V.P. At all Board and Executive Meetings, I was truly impressed by the professionalism and dedication of the people mentioned and, above all, their commitment to the on-going business of the Robert Burns World Federation. There is a saying - “that it’s better to be lucky than good”. In this respect, I consider myself very lucky to be your President and I can only say what an extraordinary honour and humbling privilege it is to serve you in this role. The R.B.W.F. must be seen as an outward looking and progressive organisation for all Burnsians, and other people, around the world. In this, as President, I consider and believe my main duties and aims to be threefold and I will grasp every opportunity to achieve these: Firstly, to enhance and publicise the benefits of membership and so raise the profile and increase the world wide membership of the Federation; Secondly, to improve the way in which we engage and communicate with our members around the UK and the world; And last, but by no means the least, to continue to support the endeavours of the Board and C.E.O. Alison with, as required, advice from Shirley Bell, to get our organisation onto a sound and enduring financial footing. It should be noted that, in this latter context, and in the current economic situation of the Federation, an increase in the annual subscriptions (though regretted, is likely to be unavoidable) may well have to be addressed, as was mooted at the recent A.G.M. held at the Conference in Harrogate. It really doesn’t need saying but I’ll say it anyway, that all of us are glad of the contributions and support our Editor- Bill Dawson, and Webmaster- Cameron Goodall, make towards the above three aims which I have stated. May I take this opportunity to thank all of you for the kind messages of support, congratulatory cards and good wishes received at Conference and later by post. It was indeed heart-warming to receive these and makes one proud to be a member of the Burnsian family. From my perspective, the President must serve as an ambassador and, as such, my talents (what I have of them!) and my time, are there for engagement. Robert W.M. Stewart

1 Burns Chronicle Winter 2012 The Robert Burns World Federation Office Bearers, Directors and Conveners PRESIDENT SENIOR VICE-PRESIDENT JUNIOR VICE-PRESIDENT

Jane Brown James Thomson The Globe Inn, Robert Stewart 6 Glebe Court 56 High Street, ‘Strathisla’, 24 Court Kilmarnock KA1 3BD Dumfries, DG1 2JA Hillock Gardens, Kirriemuir, [email protected] [email protected] Angus DD8 4JZ [email protected] 01575 572267 IPP & FINANCE SCHOOLS HERITAGE Jim Shields Isa Hanley Walter N Watson 62-1 Dundee Terrace 24 Kirklands Road, Heathhall 7 John Street Edinburgh EH11 1EF Dumfries DG1 3RN Biggar ML12 6AE [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] 0131 337 0312 01387 255182 01899 220708

CONFERENCE MARKETING LITERATURE B David Baird Murdo Morrison Mike Duguid 3 Urquhart Court, Calside Craigellachie, 108/110 Campbell Braeside, 51 Main Street Dumfries DG1 4XE Street, Wishaw, ML2 8HU Twinholm DG6 4NL [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] 01387 267794 01698 372638 01557 860040

USA CANADA PACIFIC RIM May Crawley Jim O’Lone 5 Pine St 14 Marine Terrace St Catherines Fremantle Ontario L2N 4TS Western Australia 61060 [email protected] [email protected] 08-9335. 7303 (001) 905-932-9169

Leslie Strachan ARCHIVIST WEBMASTER 630 Mountain Ave John F Haining Cameron Goodall Bedford, VA 24523 115 Ralston Avenue [email protected] [email protected] Paisley PA1 3BY 540 586 4446 [email protected] EDITOR 0141 883 2059 Bill Dawson [email protected] INTERIM CHIEF EXECUTIVE Alison Tait The Dower House, Dean Castle Country Park, Kilmarnock KA3 1XB [email protected] 01563 572469

2 Burns Chronicle Winter 2012 WINTER 2012 Contents A Message from the President, Robert Stewart...... 1 Directors of The Federation...... 2 Burns Inscriptions on Windows...... 4 An Early Printing of the Patriach Letter, Dr Patrick Scott...... 7 Dates on Burns Letters...... 11 News from around the Burns World...... 13 2012 Conference, Harrogate, pictures and report...... 24 Our new Directors...... 27 The Advantages of Membership, John Skilling...... 30 Life is all a Variorum, Thoughts on a new Burns Edition, Patrick Scott ...... 31 Future Conferences and seminar ...... 32 Glasgow University Kilmarnock Edition Seminar...... 33 Reviews...... 34 Reading the Bumps of Genius, the Phrenology of Burns, Dr Megan Coyer...... 41

Contributions should be emailed to [email protected]. They should be in a “word” document or similar format, as an attachment to the email, not embedded within, in a simple clear format, cased and capitalised as appropriate, please check spelling, punctuation and spacing. Pictures should be sent separately, not embedded in the feature, jpegs or similar, in as high definition as possible. If you cannot email, mail on a DVD, USB stick, flashcard or similar common medium to the Federation office, The Dower House, Dean Castle Country Park, Kilmarnock KA3 1XB. Copy deadline for the Spring 2013 edition is Friday 16th February 2013 If anyone has problems in complying with these requirements contact the Editor. Appraise the Editor of anything you have in mind to submit, even before the event or function. [email protected] The Robert Burns World Federation Ltd does not accept any responsibility for statements made or opinions expressed in the Burns Chronicle, contributors are responsible for articles signed by them; the Editor is responsible for articles initialled or signed by him and for those unsigned. All communications should be addressed to the Federation office, The Dower House, Dean Castle Country Park, Kilmarnock KA3 1XB. Copyright rests with The Robert Burns World Federation Ltd unless otherwise stated.

3 Burns Chronicle Winter 2012 Cover Story; The Stirling Lines The cover of this edition of the Burns Chronicle has an illustration of the replica of the “Stirling Lines” written by Burns on a window of Wingates Inn, now the Golden Lion Hotel, Stirling, overnight 26-27th August 1787 while on his Highland Tour with William Nicol “Here Stewarts once in glory reign’d, And laws for Scotland’s weal ordain’d; But now unroof’d their palace stands, Their sceptre fallen to other hands; Fallen indeed, and to the earth, Whence grovelling reptiles take their birth. The injured Stewart line is gone, A race outlandish fills their throne: An idiot race, to honour lost – Who know them best despise them most.” This replica is in the Smith Gallery and Museum in Stirling along with a number of other interesting historical artefacts. The gallery has established a walk around the various Burns associations within the Burgh, and in 2009 very proudly produced a pamphlet “Burns and Stirling – an anniversary guide for visitors”. Staff are always very willing to advise visitors on the numerous sights worthy of visiting around the gallery and Burgh. The gallery has recently launched a new website. Burns Inscriptions On Windows. Part 1; Inscriptions on the Tours. Burns friend and patron, James Cunningham, 14th Earl of Glencairn, gave Burns a diamond stylus, which he used to good effect at several locations on his tours and during the following years. A tool supposed to be the stylus is in the South Ayrshire museum at Rozelle. It is a cylindrical, hollow wooden handle with a metal protrusion at one end and a wooden one at the other. There is a diamond in the tip of the metal piece and it was this that was used to mark the glass. On the Highland Tour with Nicol, Burns is credited with writing on several windows, some quite spurious. A pane allegedly from the Inn at Kirkliston was exhibited in the Strathbock Inn at Broxburn around the end of the 19thC, there is no further word on this pane, it is not known what was allegedly written and there is no mention in Burns Journal of his stopping at Kirkliston, only about an hour into his tour after leaving Edinburgh, he simply notes from Corstorphine by Kirkliston and Winchburgh without any suggestion that he stopped for whatever reason or gave himself an opportunity to exercise his newly acquired diamond. There is more strength attaching to a pane which many deem spurious,

4 Burns Chronicle Winter 2012 supposedly from Burns overnight stay at the Cross Keys Inn, Falkirk on the night of 25th August 1787. Certainly, local lore in years after Burns death was strong in voicing the authenticity of the verse Burns is supposed to have inscribed; “Sound be his sleep and blythe his morn That never did a lassie wrang; Who poverty ne’er held in scorn – For misery ever tholed a pang 25th Aug. 1787” The lines were never acknowledged by the Bard, a Mr Boyack of Falkirk contributed these to Robert Chambers who admitted the poem with some reservation, later editors also included the verse but Henley and Henderson did not. The verse was available to be seen at the Inn for some time but migrated with the family of the proprietors to Sydney, Australia where last it was heard of around 1939. Burns experts of the time, who saw a photograph of the inscription, declared that it was certainly not written by Burns. James Mackay listed it in his appendix B of dubious and spurious works with the caveat that there was strong local argument for the authenticity. There was perhaps a further piece from the Cross Keys. Two of the public apartments on the ground floor were separated by a partially glazed partition and subsequent to the poet’s visit these screens were boarded over, during alteration the boarding was removed and a signature purported to be that of the poet came to light. Although the then proprietor was doubtful, a local enthusiast, deciding it was genuine, bought it at what was reported to be “a high price”. Certainly, even more strength can be given to the lines inscribed on the window of the Carron Inn subsequent to Burns being refused entry to the Carron Works; “We cam na here to view your warks In hopes to be mair wise, But only, lest we gang to Hell, It may be nay surprise. But when we tirled at your door Your porter dought na bear us: Sae may, should we to Hell’s yetts come, Your billy Satan sair us. Though these lines also have been lost, they were copied at the time by Alexander Benson of the Carron Company and he supposedly penned a reply and a couple of versions of that circulated in the local Burns community. Burns lines were published in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 5th October 1789 signed RB Ayrshire. The lines remained in the window of the Carron Inn for a number of years until one stormy night the window

5 Burns Chronicle Winter 2012 blew in and the pane smashed. Even more infamous are the lines Burns inscribed on the widow of Wingate’s Inn in Stirling, irate at the dilapidated condition of Stirling Castle, Burns took out his stylus and wrote the lines; “Here Stewarts once in glory reign’d, And laws for Scotland’s weal ordain’d; But now unroof’d their palace stands, Their sceptre fallen to other hands; Fallen indeed, and to the earth, Whence grovelling reptiles take their birth. The injured Stewart line is gone, A race outlandish fills their throne: An idiot race, to honour lost – Who know them best despise them most.” Some say that Willie Nicol, Burns travelling companion, noticed the lines and chided Burns causing him to write further on the window “Rash mortal, and slanderous poet, thy name Shall no longer appear in the reords of Fame! Dost not know that old Mansfield, who writes like the Bible, Says, the more’tis a truth, Sir, the more ‘tis a libel? 19th C writers had the latter lines added to the originals by Burns after he had been criticised by Nicol for imprudence. The first of the lines are copied into the Glenriddell MS, while the latter four lines of rejoinder are not acknowledged, in the Glenriddell MS however Burns does copy in Rev George Hamilton’s few lines of admonition with his responses to those. After his first visit to Stirling, Burns carried on his Highland Tour with William Nicol. There are one or two instances where Burns improvised for a surface to compose on, such as the lines written in pencil at Kenmore. There are no more writings on glass of poetic consequence but there are supposed signatures and inscriptions on windows which have been attributed to the poet. The National Museum of Scotland have four panes which their examinations and investigations lead them to believe are utterly spurious, The Birthplace Museum also has four panes but these are later and will be addressed in part two. Most notable spurious piece from the Highland Tour period is the pane that Burns allegedly inscribed on a window in the Gardenstone Arms, in Burns time The Boars Head, in Laurencekirk. The pane is inscribed; “the lovely Miss Betsy Robinson, Banff, 27th Dec. 1779” Robert Burns spent one night in The Boars Head in September 1787, no- one can identify Miss Betsy Robinson, Burns’ Tour Journal has the briefest mention of Banff in the entry of Saturday 8th September “Breakfast at Banff

6 Burns Chronicle Winter 2012 --- improvements over this part of the country --- plenty turnips, wheat, house- hold kail, cabbage &c.” Burns and Nicol took breakfast with the headmaster of Banff Grammar School with whom Nicol had previously been acquainted. No mention of a Miss Betsy. The date on the inscription also causes one to puzzle, Burns tour is almost eight years after the date! This broken pane caught some attention in the Burns world some time ago, it had been taken to Canada with a former proprietor’s family in 1950 and was brought back by one of them in 1976, and local enthusiasts led by Lawrence Burness caused it to be exhibited in Arbroath Library and later the Meffan Institute, Forfar. When a further descendant visited in 2007 and found it had been taken off display he repossessed it and it has returned to Canada. Current expertise in the area concludes “The inscription, although attributed to Burns, was not signed and the writing was not established as the hand of the Bard, The reference was to “the lovely Miss Betsy Robinson” and although many have made assumptions as to who she was, a valid connection to Burns has never been established.” The Burns Exhibition of 1896 had a window, “with writing by Burns” but there is no further detail to identify what was written. This would not be verse or it would have been picked up by some editor over time, nor does it say it is a signature so we are left to guess what it was or indeed if it were genuine. There are as many spurious panes out there as there are real ones. Part two will look at some glass inscriptions from the period after 1787. Bill Dawson

An Unrecorded Early Printing of Robert Burns’s Patriarch Letter Patrick Scott Robert Burns’s only letter to his uncle Samuel Brown (Letters, ed. Roy, I:278: letter 240, May 4th, 1788) has been of special interest to biographers. Some have fixed on the word-play about his renewed sexual relationship with Jean Armour the previous autumn and the twins that resulted (“I engaged in the smuggling Trade and God knows if ever any poor man experienced better returns—two for one”); others, more respectably, on its notable concluding sentence about his marriage and his leasing of the farm at Ellisland: I have taken a farm on the Banks of the Nith and in imitation of the old Patriarchs get Men servants and Maid servants—Flocks and herds and beget sons and daughters. The extended smuggling metaphor, and the jauntiness about extramarital pregnancy, might be thought especially appropriate to the uncle, who was

7 Burns Chronicle Winter 2012 twice involved in smuggling cases and had himself been admonished for premarital relations with his future wife (Mackay 57-58). The concluding patriarch passage oddly prefigures very similar language used by Mrs. Dunlop in a letter she wrote to Burns six months later, shortly after the birth of her only child: You who increase like the patriarch Jacob will despise our poor single, long-looked-for production. Lord bless you and your wife, your sons and your daughters, your man and your maid servant, your ox and your ass, and all that is yours (Wallace 104; but cf. also Roy I 298, letter 257). Moreover there is a stubborn problem about the date that editors report the letter as carrying in the sources they report having transcribed. The letter provides an instructive example of the sheer slipperiness of the textual evidence with which Burns editors have had to deal. No manuscript survives in Burns’s hand, and it was nearly forty years after his death when the letter was first included among his writings, in one of the later, additional volumes of Allan Cunningham’s edition (Works, 1834, VII: 141). This immediately raises a red flag: nearly eighty years ago, F. B. Snyder described Cunningham as “absolutely unreliable,” adding “nothing he says should be believed without corroborating testimony” (Snyder 489). Yet corroboration was slow in coming, and for another century Cunningham’s text was reprinted faute de mieux in other Burns editions. When J. DeLancey Ferguson edited his Oxford edition of the letters in 1931, the original manuscript was still untraced, but he was able to make “a number of highly probable minor corrections” to Cunningham’s version from “a MS. copy in the possession of Mr. George Shirley, Dumfries” (Ferguson I: 221). The minor corrections are in fact all matters of punctuation, spelling or capitalization, not of actual wording, so what Ferguson was using might have been the version Cunningham had used, or a copy he had made, or even a copy from Cunningham’s printed text. Cunningham had printed the letter as dating from 4th May 1789 (though commenting that Burns took a year to write to his uncle about his marriage); as editors from Robert Chambers onwards recognized, the references to Burns’s marriage and leasing of Ellisland make this date clearly wrong (Chambers 3: 175; Waddell 2: 216; Scott Douglas 5: 124). Ferguson follows this correction without comment, reading 1788, but the error must surely cast doubt either on Cunningham’s accuracy or on the trustworthiness of his source. A few years later, too late for Ferguson to use, J. C. Ewing produced a slightly longer, though once again misdated, text of the letter with more substantive variants (Ewing 8), based, he wrote, on “a copy of the original in the possession of Mrs. Munro, Glasgow” (Ewing 6). Ewing’s stated provenance has perhaps a calculated ambiguity, leaving it uncertain

8 Burns Chronicle Winter 2012 whether Mrs. Munro of Glasgow owned the original letter, which had been copied for Ewing, or whether what she owned was itself a copy. Whichever Ewing meant to be the case, Ewing’s text shows up the prudishness of Cunningham’s version, which had cut out Burns’s reference to his uncle’s and aunt’s shared enjoyment of their “good old ordinary,” and dropped Burns’s reference to his relationship with Jean proving “D—md dear.” But Ewing’s text has its own problems: it is addressed from “Masgiel” (a form not otherwise known in Burns), not Mossgiel as in Burns’s other letters, it retains the incorrect date of 1789, rather than 1788, and like Cunningham’s text it is based on an original (or maybe copy) that no other scholar has seen. When Ross Roy tackled the patriarch letter for his 1985 Clarendon edition, Burns’s original manuscript was still untraced, and neither the copy used by Ferguson nor the manuscript used by Ewing were available for examination; he had to break his general practice of recollating each letter against manuscript, and make do with the text as Ewing had printed it, including the heading Masgiel. His source note describes Ewing’s version as “from a privately-owned copy of the letter in another hand,” suggesting some further source of information, perhaps from Ferguson having made enquiry at the time of Ewing’s article. In dating the letter “1789 [1788],” he comments tartly that “both sources [Cunningham and Ewing] accept the 1789 date which is impossible” (Roy I: 278n). In short, for this letter, neither of the major modern scholarly editors could base their work on firsthand examination of an unimpeachable early source (though both were scrupulous in documenting the nature of the sources with which they had had to work). It comes as something of a relief, therefore, to discover that there is indeed a much earlier source for the patriarch letter, and that it closely parallels Ewing’s text of 1939. In the G. Ross Roy Collection at the University of South Carolina, there is a single volume from a short-lived Ayrshire magazine, The Kilmarnock Mirror and Literary Gleaner, donated by Professor Roy in 2001 shortly after he had purchased it from a dealer. In June 1819, in the first number of its second volume, this magazine printed the full text under the heading “Original Letter of Burns,” with this introduction: The following letter seems to have been written by the poet, after the birth of his twin children; and immediately before his marriage with Miss Armour. The part of the country in which his uncle resided, was notorious for smuggling—and it is “on this hint he speaks.” The Kilmarnock Mirror letter is the substantially the same as Ewing’s version, except in punctuation and capitalization. Despite the introductory headnote, and its reference to the birth of the twins in March 1788 and

9 Burns Chronicle Winter 2012 Burns’s marriage in April 1788, it retains the incorrect date 1789. Rather than omitting “D----md” as Cunningham seems to have done, it substitutes a row of asterisks. It follows the conventional spelling for Mossgiel. More interestingly, it adds an address below the signature that appears neither in Cunningham nor Ewing: “To Mr. Samuel Brown, Ballochniel Miln” (that is, mill). While Samuel Brown is often described as “of Kirkoswald” (where Burns went to study surveying and lodged with the Browns), Samuel and his wife lived at Ballochniel, about a mile further down the road, where Margaret’s father Robert Niven had a farm and mill (Lindsay 36-37; Crawford 69-70). While the other variants might have been made by the Kilmarnock Mirror’s editor or printer, it seems unlikely that either would add an address that was not in the manuscript from which he was working, so either Ewing missed off this line from the manuscript or copy he was printing or the version in the Mirror derives from yet another source. This early printing does not significantly alter the text any future editor must use (which must be either Ewing’s or the Mirror’s), but it does provide reassurance in utilizing the text that Ewing printed. The puzzle remains, of course: what has happened to the manuscript owned in 1939 by Mrs. Munro of Glasgow? and was it “the original manuscript” or indeed (as Ross Roy had been informed) “a copy in another hand”?

Notes 1 For earlier and subsequent patriarch references in Burns, see “The Cottar’s Saturday Night,” line 101 (Kinsley I: 149, poem 72), verses quoted from Ramsay in a 1787 letter to ‘Clarinda’ (Roy I: 186, letter 163), and a song from The Merry Muses (Kinsley II 899, poem 609).

Works Cited Chambers, Robert, ed. Life and Works of Robert Burns. 4 vols. Edinburgh: W. and R. Chambers, 1851-52. Crawford, Robert. The Bard. Robert Burns, A Biography. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2009. Cunningham, Allan, ed. The Works of Robert Burns; with his Life. 8 vols. London: Cochrane and McCrone, 1834. E[wing]., J.C. “Letters of Robert Burns.” Burns Chronicle 2nd series 14 (1939): 6-10. Ferguson, J. DeLancey, ed. The Letters of Robert Burns. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1931. Kinsley, James, ed. The Poems and Songs of Robert Burns. 3 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968. Lindsay, Maurice. The Burns Encyclopaedia. Third edition. London: Robert Hale, 1980. Mackay, James. RB: A Biography of Robert Burns. Edinburgh: Mainstream, 1992. “Original Letter of Robert Burns,” Kilmarnock Mirror and Literary Gleaner 2:1 (June 1819): 18. Roy, G. Ross, ed. The Letters of Robert Burns. Second edition. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985. Scott Douglas, William, ed. The Works of Robert Burns. Six volumes. Edinburgh: William Patterson, 1879. Snyder, Franklyn Bliss. The Life of Robert Burns. New York: Macmillan, 1932. Waddell, P. Hately, ed. Life and Works of Robert Burns. 2 vols. Glasgow: David Wilson, 1867. Wallace, William, ed. Robert Burns and Mrs. Dunlop: Correspondence now published in full for the first time.London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1898.

10 Burns Chronicle Winter 2012 Dates on Burns’ Letters There are currently known over 840 letters of Robert Burns, the first to William Niven dated 29th July 1780 and the last almost 16 years later to his father-in-law James Armour dated 18th July 1796. Of these letters around half, just over 440, are dated by Burns, and almost 130 more are given dates by the Editor (of the edition) from evidence gathered. There are letters written on each of the seven days of the week and a simple logic would be to assume that more or less an even number of letters would originate on each day of the week, a supposed average of around 80 letters for each of the seven days and at first glance this would appear to be the distribution of the 570 letters dated or with dates deduced. This however is not the case if one is to look at the 440 letters which Burns actually applied a date to. One could expect an average of around 63 letters per day and it would not be beyond a reasonable mind to speculate that Burns may write more on a Sunday, the only day of rest and leisure during most of his life, and therefore expect a bias of more letters dated on a Sunday. But this is most definitely not the case on the evidence of the letters in this survey. Rather, instead of a significantly larger number of Sunday letters, the total is below par but significantly, for the theory of this paper, letters dated on a Monday are greater than 30% more numerous that might be expected at over 80 with nearly 20 further letters given a Monday date by the scholars. The following theory for this imbalance is offered; Scottish observance of the Sabbath would discourage anything that may be seen as endeavour and many would perhaps regard letter writing as an inappropriate practice for the day of rest. Even in present day Scotland it is quite normal for letters written on a Sunday to be dated Monday, and certainly many Scots will be familiar with the common practice while dealing with family chores and accounts on a Sunday to date cheques for the Monday. So it may have been with Robert Burns, while he would take the opportunity of the time and ease which a Sunday gave him to catch up on his correspondence there were some of the addressees whose sensibilities may have been affected by a letter openly composed on the day of rest. If the Sunday letters are examined it is simple to identify that it is to bosom cronies and close friends that Burns puts a Sabbath date on but business correspondence and letters to people with whom he was not perhaps so familiar may have been written on a Sunday but carry the Monday date. Of the near 60 letters dated on a Sunday all are to those

11 Burns Chronicle Winter 2012 with whom Burns was on familiar terms, Robert Ainslie (4), James Armour, John Ballantine, Richard Brown (2), Samuel Brown, Gilbert Burns, James Clarke, Robert Cleghorn, William Creech (2), Alexander Cunningham (4), Lady Henrietta Don, Mrs Frances Dunlop (12), David Erskine Earl of Buchan, Gavin Hamilton, Peter Hill, James Johnson (2), Jessie Lewars (gift inscription in a book), Agnes McLehose (2), John McMurdo, Patrick Miller (2), Dr John Moore (2), Robert Muir, William Nicol (2), Thomas Orr, John Richmond (3), Maria Riddell, Mrs Elizabeth Rose, George Thomson (5). The letters dated Monday, over 80, are about 30% above expectations for a normal weekday and it is a reasonable theory that many were written on Sunday and post-dated to maintain the decorum of Sabbath observance. Several can be found that obviously have had time spent crafting them at leisure. The first Sunday dated letter to Mrs Dunlop, 15th April 1787, is the fourth in the extensive correspondence, the pattern of the friendship was established by that time and it may have been a slip of the pen as Burns became confident in his confidant to date this on the day written as later letters to Mrs Dunlop dated on a Monday have a similar feel of having had time spent on them at leisure on a Sunday, rather than having been written in the middle of a busy working day. In some Monday letters there is evidence that these are in fact written on Sunday, for instance in the last dated letter we have, to James Armour dated Monday 18th July 1796, Burns writes “I have returned from sea-bathing quarters today” when much other evidence leads us to believe his return to Dumfries from Brow was on Sunday as he writes on Saturday to John Clark asking to borrow his gig for his return to town, and having written to Jean on the previous Thursday (14th July) “I will see you Sunday”. This theory is therefore offered for further discussion, asking if we can rely on the day that is first indicated on a letter, particularly if that is a Monday, and suggesting that references in a Monday letter to “yesterday” in fact refer to Saturday rather than Sunday. Of course we may only be looking at a fraction of Burns correspondence and therefore cannot use simple numerical analysis to determine anything of value, but it would be a little incongruous to suggest “Monday Letters” simply had a better survival rate in the face of other evidence that suggests they may have been written on Sunday. Another suggestion has been made that an obvious reference to a Saturday as “yesterday” in a “Monday” letter could imply that Sunday did not count as it was recognised as the Lord’s Day, but that is a completely different theory for another discussion. Bill Dawson.

12 Burns Chronicle Winter 2012 Long Service Presentation to John Gardiner, Whiteadder Burns Club. The present Chairman of the Whiteadder Burns Club, John Gardiner got a pleasant surprise on the 30th July 2012. As well as being this year’s Chairman, John has held the post of Secretary of the Whiteadder Burns Club for the last quarter of a century. In recognition of this long and faithful service to his club, Jim Shields, then President of The Robert Burns World Federation, sent a certificate signed by himself and the Chief Executive of the Federation marking John’s twenty five years of dedicated service. It was presented to John in Berwick-upon-Tweed by Ian Buick, Past President of the Borders Association of Burns Clubs.

Chairmen of the Whiteadder Burns Club have come and gone but the lynch pin, the steadying hand of the very successful Whiteadder Burns Club, has for a Quarter of a century been John Gardiner

New Plaque Unveiled at Carron

Left to right, Billy Buchanan, Pat Reid, Brian Watters and Ian Scott. On Saturday 25th August 1787, Robert Burns and his fellow traveller William Nicol left Edinburgh in a chaise on their highland tour arriving to spend the first night in Falkirk. The following day of Sunday 26th, they presented themselves at the gates of Carron ironworks near Falkirk, famous for the manufacture of the artillery pieces known as the Carronade, and were disappointingly unable to gain admission. This prompted Burns to inscribe the following verse on a window at the Carron Inn.

13 Burns Chronicle Winter 2012 “We cam’ na here to view your warks, In hopes to be mair wise, But only, lest we gang to hell, It may be nae surprise: But when we tirl’d at your door, Your porter dought na hear us; Say may, shou’d we to hell’s yetts come, Your billy Satan sair us!”

So the situation remained until Sunday 26th August 2012, when a group of seventy enthusiasts, members of Falkirk and Denny Burns clubs, councillors and neighbours, led by Falkirk Provost Pat Reid and local councillor Billy Buchanan, and including the author of the story of Carron Works, “ Where Iron Runs Like Water “ Brian Watters. The group affixed a commemorative plaque to the gatehouse at what is now the Carron Phoenix Company and after the ceremonial unveiling, the group retired to the local Inn where refreshments and sandwiches were enjoyed. Falkirk historian Ian Scott and his fellow musicians then treated the group to an afternoon of Burns songs and recitations. Councillor Buchanan commissioned the manufacture of the plaque following a visit to the Burns birthplace museum with his wife and family earlier this year. Burns was at that time a previously little researched subject for Billy and he was so impressed by the bard’s appeal, humanity and universality that he felt the visit to Falkirk those many years ago was deserving of recognition, and realising that this year is the 225th anniversary of that day in 1787, he determined to commemorate the event with a memorial. The entire expenses of this commemoration including the refreshments on the day were funded entirely personally by Councillor Buchanan. Contributed.

Stirling Commemorate the Visit On the driegh afternoon of Sunday 26th August, Stirling Burnsians gathered at the statue of Robert Burns to mark the 225th Anniversary of his first visit to the burgh on Sunday 26th August 1787. After a few words and the laying of a floral tribute, the party retreated from the whipping showers to the Golden Lion Hotel, (Wingate’s Inn of Burns’ day) for warming drams and further talks and discussions on Burns visits and his many

14 Burns Chronicle Winter 2012 associations with the Burgh. Wingate’s was the site of the famous Stirling Lines which Burns inscribed on a window with his newly acquired diamond pen on his first visit, and took the opportunity to erase by breaking the window on his return around the beginning of October 1787 as these had given some offence. An interesting theory was aired to the company of a further visit or visits by Burns to the area beyond his known second visit in October 1787, citing a passage from the book Robert Burns in Stirlingshire by William Harvey and other related details. Archive Photo The bronze statue of Burns commands a plot at the junction of Corn Exchange with the Dumbarton Road. It is popularly regarded as a particularly fine example of Burns, sculpted by Albert Hodge. It was gifted to the Burgh by Provost David Bayne and unveiled on 23rd September 1914. The heroic bronze stands on a 3.5metre high granite pedestal adorned by four bronze bas relief panels showing Burns at the plough, and scenes from The Cotter’s Saturday Night, Tam o’ Shanter and The Vision. Bob McCutcheon. Burns Visit to Harvieston Commemorated A group of enthusiasts from around Clackmannanshire met at the Harvieston Cairn on 6th October to commemorate Burns stay at Harvieston House in October 1787. A wreath was laid here and as the party adjourned to a nearby hostelry some stopped briefly a few hundred yards along the road and laid a wreath at the eponymous Tait’s Tomb in memory of Burns host for the stay. After refreshments the company were addressed on Robert Burns long and close friendship with Margaret Chalmers whom he met with at Harvieston and which he sustained Archive Photo

15 Burns Chronicle Winter 2012 until his death in 1796 D Walker. Editor’s Note; The Harvieston Cairn was erected by The Stirling Clackmannan and West Perthshire Association of Burns Clubs, and unveiled on 26th August 1973. The building work having been executed by Tom Love of Tillicoultry with stone taken from the recently demolished Harvieston Castle and Alex Cook, Honorary President of the Burns Federation, laid the base with the stones gathered from the River Devon. A time capsule is incorporated in the cairn containing among other items a Burns Chronicle of 1973, a Burns Federation badge and a pocket diploma. The bronze plaque carries the opening two lines from The Banks of the Devon which were composed on Charlotte Hamilton who married James Adair, Burns travelling companion on that visit. The Harvieston House that Burns stayed in was considerably remodelled by Crauford Tait, son of John Tait. It is this remodelled and rebuilt house that is popularly illustrated in books concerning Burns visits and was probably the 1973 source of the stone for this cairn. New Plaque at Glenbervie The Glenbervie Burns Memorial Association has worked since 1948 to preserve and promote the important sites in North Angus and Aberdeenshire associated with Robert Burns and his forbears. This year a new plaque (incorporating a “QR” codemark) was placed at the Hillside memorial site, and on 30th September 2012 World Federation President Bob Stewart was on hand for one of his first official duties of his year of office at the unveiling.

Pipe Major Davey Duncan, Dr Tom Brighton, President, Montrose Burns Club, Alan Mowatt, Arbroath, Dr Rusty Smith, President Arbroath Burns Club, Dave Ramsay, President of the Glenbervie Memorials Association, The Rev Linda Broadley, Hillside and Dun, Bill Howatson, Chair of NHS Grampian, The Rev Catherine Hepburn, Glenbervie, Robert Stewart, President of The Robert Burns World Federation.

16 Burns Chronicle Winter 2012 Centenary of Montrose Burns Statue Montrose is the sculpture capital of Angus, boasting many historical and contemporary works of important persons and works of art around the town. Justifiably they are proud of their statue to Robert Burns in Panmure Gardens on the Mid Links sculpted in stone by the renowned William Birnie Rhind, elder brother of J Massey Rhind (noted for many sculptures in North America including that of Burns in Vermont). The statue is carved from two blocks of stone and stands 2.7 metres high on a 3.6 metre pedestal. In the Poet’s right hand is a pencil and in his left a sheet of paper, he is wearing a knee-length coat over a long waistcoat and knee-breeches. A portion of the plough and a sheaf of corn Archive Photo are artistically placed behind the poet and lend support to the figure. On each side of the plinth there is a scene from Burns. There was a long period between the proposal for the statue and its eventual erection and unveiling as funds were collected by fund-raising bazaars and public subscription. One of the principal subscribers was Andrew Carnegie who unveiled the statue on 7th August 1912 and gave a tribute to Burns which included topics such as Burns as a Religious Teacher, as a Social Force and of the Worldwide Brotherhood and Appreciation, as well as his proposals for the Just Taxation of Millionaires. The whole of the speech and a full report on the extensive celebrations were in the Burns Chronicle of 1913. Montrose President A large crowd assembled in the gardens on Tom Brighton looks on the afternoon of 11th August 2012 to mark the as World Federation Senior VP Bob Stewart centenary of the unveiling organised by Montrose delivers his address. Burns Club. The town band had played at the

17 Burns Chronicle Winter 2012 original ceremony and it was fitting that they should also be in attendance on the centenary day to entertain with a selection of appropriate Burns pieces. Club President Tom Brighton welcomed all and gave a speech highlighting the importance of Burns family connections in the town and his other associations with the area and Andrew Carnegie’s speech of the time with numerous quotations. Club Members Doc Masson and John Gordon sang and recited, Dr Rusty Smith, President of Arbroath Burns Club, paid tribute to Montrose Club and Bob Stewart of the Robert Burns World Federation gave a stirring address and unveiled a plaque to mark the centenary. The programme was interspersed by the town band playing beautiful selections under the baton of Jim Easton. On conclusion of the formalities guests of the Club were entertained in the adjacent hostelry.

Montrose Town Band under Bob Easton returned to entertain at the Centenary having played at the 1912 unveiling.

Thornhill Club Enjoy Reid Kerr Drama On Thursday 6th September in Thornhill community centre, the Thornhill and District Burns Club presented the acclaimed production of ‘Love and Memories’ of Robert Burns, written and performed by BA Honours drama students from the Reid Kerr Academy of Arts. The play focuses on three of the women in Robert Burn’s life and the influence he had on them. It was cleverly told as a series of interviews by one of the cast acting as a newspaper reporter. The sets were simple and effective, the background music and lighting creating an intimate atmosphere. The reporter was played by Gordon Macnaughton, Lyndsey Ferguson played Peggy Chalmers, Susan Massie as Nancy Mclehose and Sara-Jane Downs, Jean Armour. Music was provided by Dave Grant on guitar. Helen Morrison started the programme with a short selection of fun poems. The ladies of the committee supplied tea and coffee with a finger buffet and Jim Shields finished the evening with an excellent medley of some Burns songs. Rev. Ella Pennington gave the vote of thanks

18 Burns Chronicle Winter 2012 Edinburgh Association’s Celebration Day On the 28th July 2012 Edinburgh and District Burns Club Association played host to a Celebration of the life of Robert Burns and held a Poetry Competition for the Tom McIlwraith Trophy, The all-day event started at 10.30 am with a bus full of Burns enthusiasts leaving Lodge Liberton in Edinburgh for the Burns Monument on Regent Road in Edinburgh. There they met up with more Burnsians including Edinburgh’s new Lord Provost Donald Wilson. Ian Chisholm Chairman of the EDBCA welcomed all to this day of Celebration and introduced the entertainment. Jim Weatherston’s band started with the song “Killiecrankie”, followed by William Horne reciting “Address to the Unco Guid”. Ralph Balfour Treasurer of EDBCA, then gave an interesting and informative history of the Burns Monument. Further songs and poetry were given by Jim Weatherston, Gordon Jamieson, Ian Buick, Cameron Goodall, Margaret Anderson and Jim Shields. The company were to be treated to the wonderful singing of Anna Keenan, winner of Secondary Schools Singing Competition in Aberdeen this year, with “Afton Water” and “A Fond Kiss”. Lord Provost Donald Wilson thanked the EDBCA. for their hospitality and assured the Association and the Burns World Federation that as a Burns fan he was impressed with the talent he had seen and was happy to continue to support the Edinburgh Association. The Company was to sing “A Mans a Man”, before returning to Liberton. After a light lunch, the company gathered for the poetry competition and were treated to a terrific selection “Death and Dr. Hornbook”, “Address to the Deil”, “Elegy on Captain Matthew Henderson”, “Epistle to a Young Friend”, “Holy Willie’s Prayer” and “Epistle to Rev. John McMath”. Judges were Past President John Haining, Junior VP Jane Brown and Will Horne, and when they retired to deliberate, the guests were treated to songs and poems from Jim Weatherston, Jim Shields, Cameron Goodall, Ian Buick and Gordon Jamieson. The competition was won by Bobby Jess representing SSCBA reciting Address to the Deil, second was Will Kirk, representing West Lothian, with Holy Willies Prayer, and third was David Sibbald for Glasgow, giving the Epistle to Rev. John McMath. Ian Chisholm President of the EDBCA. presented Bobby Jess with the winner’s quaiche and certificates to first, second and third. After a break the company gathered, John Hutchison from the Ayrshire Association addressed the haggis and the company then tucked into the traditional fair of Haggis, Neaps and Tatties. The nicht drave on wi sangs an clatter and concluded with Auld Lang Syne. Gordon Jamieson

19 Burns Chronicle Winter 2012 But, to our Tale- As close a competition for many years at this year’s Tam o’ Shanter World Championship, held by Dumfries Ladies No1 Burns Club in the Globe Inn on Tuesday 18th September. A field of six performers travelled great distances to compete at the Globe for the prestigious title of World Champion. After six stirring performances the judges led by Federation President Bob Stewart retired to consider, returning after much deliberation to declare the worthy winner.

2012 World Champion Langholm’s Billy Young reccieves his trophy from SSCBA President Jane Brown, World Federation President Bob Stewart looks on. I Sing of a Whistle, a Whistle of Worth. Thornhill and District Burns Club held the annual competition on Saturday 13th October at Ellisland Farm, seeking the best recitation of ‘The Whistle, a Ballad’ by Robert Burns. As a warm up, the five contestants, Ian Buick, Les Byres, Jimmy Law, William Waugh and Bobby Jess, recited a poem of their own choice which the audience thoroughly enjoyed, thereafter each returned to give their delivery of ‘The Whistle’. Following the performances a buffet was served while the Mike Duguid, (Literature Convener of the Robert Burns World Federation), Isa Hanley, (Schools Convener) and Cameron Goodall, (who has won this competition in the previous two years) retired to consider their verdict. President Ronnie Cairns gave an explanation of the original contest prior to the verdict delivered by Mike Duguid as spokesman for the judges who said it had been a very difficult decision and proclaimed Ian Buick from Berwick on Tweed the winner. A Delighted Ian Ian was then presented with the trophy in the form of a Buick with his trophy whistle and a bottle of whisky especially produced for after his maiden the event. performance of R Cairns. “The Whistle” 20 Burns Chronicle Winter 2012 Camperdown Burns Festival Just eight months after the project to repair and conserve the statue of Robert Burns was completed in December 2011 and seven months after its unveiling by Victorian premier, Ted Baillieu, Corangamite Council hosted its inaugural Robert Burns Festival in Camperdown. The three-day event, held over the last weekend of August, was the culmination of months of planning and hard work. Corangamite Council invited Len Murray as keynote speaker. Speaking to the local press, Len said, “Robert Burns was the first international poet with a message that is just as relevant today as it was all those years ago. It was a message of brotherhood and a love for fellow man.” The main part of the festival began with an evening civic reception at which the mayor, Cr Matt Makin, welcomed Len Murray, Gordon Ashley and representatives of the Robert Burns Association of the Pacific Rim (RBAPR). Two hours later, in temperatures that would do justice to a Scottish winter, the Deerstalkers Ball began in Camperdown’s historic Theatre Royal with attendees welcomed, as one local paper put it, “to the stirring sound of bagpipes”. Two hectic days followed, each beginning with a bagpipe wake-up call from the top of the town’s famous clock tower – on which the saltire proudly slapped in cold winds throughout the festival. Saturday events included a Burns’ golf day; open-house folk-music concerts by John MacAuslan and Neil Adam; fiddle, flute, whistle and pipes workshops; RBAPR’s AGM; the Victorian Piping Association solo competition; Scottish stories for the wee ones at the library; whisky tasting; morning and afternoon heritage walk-and-talk tours; afternoon lectures by Len Murray and Gordon Ashley; and an evening ceilidh which was remarkable for the number of families who participated – from toddlers to grandparents. Sunday events included a kilter dash and hill run; a heritage bus tour; a moving account of Burns’ life by Len Murray at the statue interwoven with a dozen of the poet’s most memorable songs presented by local musicians Don

21 Burns Chronicle Winter 2012 Grieve and Angela Preiss; a finale concert featuring the brilliant Melbourne Scottish Fiddle Club; and an evening get-together in nearby Noorat. “It’s wonderful that such a small place in rural Australia should put on a festival offering as much as this,” an amazed Len Murray confessed to the Camperdown Chronicle. Gordon Ashley stressed that, although in its infancy, Camperdown’s Burns Festival was unique in the world. “There’s definitely nothing mounted by a single village or small town that comes close to comparing with this weekend,” he told the Chronicle. The festival’s stunning success thrilled the mayor and the organising committee, and has infused the Camperdown community with the confidence to believe that, in coming years, its Robert Burns Festival will reach out beyond Australia and establish itself as a truly international event. Gordon Ashley Open Days at Edinburgh’s Burns Monument On Saturday and Sunday 22 &23rd September 2012 Edinburgh Burns monument was open as part of the city’s open day’s event, with entertainment provided to visitors by various local enthusiasts. On Saturday, Jim Weatherston with Ragged Glory folk band, later Stewart Davie, Jim Shields all sang a range of songs, Gordon Jamieson recited Burns Poems, Cammy Goodall performed songs and poems, Ralph Balfour gave talks on the history of the Burns Monument. The Sunday started with two members of Ragged Glory Folk Band, Charlie and Jim playing and singing and Gordon was joined with Ian Buick to provide Poems. Ralph Balfour again gave his talks. Later Stewart Davie on guitar brought Jim Wilson with his accordion for songs and Jim Shields came to sing. The open days were a great success with 720 visitors over the two days. Paul McAuley Conservation Officer for the City of Edinburgh Council was pleased with the success of the Monument’s open days. Gordon Jamieson. Friends of The Fountain Gardens, Paisley In 1830 Thomas Coats and his brother Peter took over the now world famous thread makers J. and P. Coats. The family were major social benefactors, Thomas’s best known gifts to Paisley were the Observatory which is still enthralling the public and the Fountain Gardens. The land where the Fountain Gardens stand was originally the site of the Hope temple gardens purchased by Coats at auction on the 26th July 1866.

22 Burns Chronicle Winter 2012 For two years landscape architect James Niven worked on Coats’ dream and on 26th June 1868 the Fountain Gardens were opened for the enjoyment and recreation of the inhabitants. Designed by the Sun iron foundry and within the ornate railings were a spectacular large central fountain and four smaller fountains, provost lamps, keeper house, waiting rooms and forcing houses. From Caledonia street a veranda overlooked the gardens. In September 1896 large numbers of Robert Burn’s enthusiasts gathered in the gardens for the unveiling of one of the world’s finest statues of the poet sculpted by Frederick W Pomeroy. The money to fund this addition to the gardens was supplied by the Glen Concert Choir who over a period of 13 years gave nine concerts .Thousands of Paisley’s men and women made the yearly trip to the Gleniffer Braes and raised the required £1,400. The resplendent fountain gardens were a show case for superior talent and master craftsmanship enhanced by a variety of carefully selected shrubs plants and trees. Referred to as the lungs of Paisley people came visit this extravagant creation. The care of the Gardens passed to the Local council and over time the gardens have fallen into disrepair. The four smaller fountains, bandstand, greenhouses, provost lights and other ornate additions have been removed and the main fountain has lost many of its original features. Renfrew District Council is seeking funding to repair the main fountain. Friends of the Fountain Gardens aim to raise funds to reinstate the greenhouses and bandstand, replace current lighting with provost lamps and upgrade information stands. We also want to place a plaque near the Burns statue, commemorating the efforts made by the Gleniffer choir which was, in the main, mill girls. There is a lack of general knowledge of the history of the gardens. Through updated information stands, a new website and a proposed social history film we hope to make the far and recent past more accessible to the future. We believe that the fountain gardens can again become one of the gems in Paisley’s crown. George Grant If you wish more information on Fountain Gardens or are interested in becoming a Friend please contact one of the following; Chairman George Grant, Secretary Violet Rosike, Treasurer Margaret Fulton-Cook 9 Caledonia Street Paisley PA32JG

23 Burns Chronicle Winter 2012 2013 Conference Harrogate A.G.M. Dinner

Top Table prepare for Business CEO addresses Meeting The company welcome top table VIP’s and Guests

The Editor expands on his printed report Webmaster Cammy Goodall cheerily explains Jane Brown bestows the JVP regalia Bob Stewart similarly favours Jane on Jim Thomson

Canadian Director May Crawley Mac Irvin’s last report for USA Newly installed President JVP Jim’s maiden address reports on activities in Canada as Director Robert W M Stewart

Heritage Convener Walter Watson Nellie Waddell is honoured for over40 years President Bob Stewart Toasts The Harrogate Mayor Robert Windass entertains as always service to her Club and the Federation Robert Burns World Federation addresses the Federation. Photographs: George Grant. 24 Burns Chronicle Winter 2012 2013 Conference Harrogate A.G.M. Dinner

Top Table prepare for Business CEO addresses Meeting The company welcome top table VIP’s and Guests

The Editor expands on his printed report Webmaster Cammy Goodall cheerily explains Jane Brown bestows the JVP regalia Bob Stewart similarly favours Jane on Jim Thomson

Canadian Director May Crawley Mac Irvin’s last report for USA Newly installed President JVP Jim’s maiden address reports on activities in Canada as Director Robert W M Stewart

Heritage Convener Walter Watson Nellie Waddell is honoured for over40 years President Bob Stewart Toasts The Harrogate Mayor Robert Windass entertains as always service to her Club and the Federation Robert Burns World Federation addresses the Federation. Photographs: George Grant. 25 Burns Chronicle Winter 2012 2012 Conference, Harrogate Around 180 delegates met for the 2012 Annual Conference and AGM of the Robert Burns World Federation Ltd, in The Cairn Hotel, Harrogate. An enjoyable dinner on Friday evening was followed by a ceilidh compered by John Caskie. At the AGM on Saturday morning President Jim Shields welcomed all attending with a special welcome for those from overseas. Jim began with a focus on the Federation’s financial position and the efforts being made to address this. Ideas from the floor were called and PP John Skilling rose and gave some thoughts from the Past Presidents Association on the need to substantially raise subscription income. The President then went on to remark on his year of office and the numerous events he had attended. Possible changes to Board and management structure had been considered and laid aside. Following Jim, Chief Executive Alison Tait gave her report with some cheering news about membership numbers to offset the gloomy words about finance. In turn the several Conveners gave their reports, along with those of the Archivist, Webmaster and Editor. Mac Irvin gave his retiring address as Director for USA, and May Crawley reported for Canadian matters with particular references to the sterling work being put in to Schools competitions, particularly in Ontario. With no office being contested all candidates were returned by acclaim, notably Bob Stewart becoming President, Jane Brown rising to Senior Vice-President, and Jim Thomson joining the Board in his role as Junior VP. Mac Irvin stood down after many years of service to the Federation and it is fortunate that we have a very able successor in Leslie Strachan of Bedford, Virginia. All Conveners were also unopposed and returned by consent. Positions of Archivist, Webmaster and Editor remain with the incumbents. As the meeting concluded, Mac Irving was elevated to Honorary Life Membership for his sterling work for the Federation and a certificate presented to Nellie Waddell for many years of service to Burns. Finally President Jim Shields mentioned that the Board wished the articles of association to be adjusted to clarify the removal from membership of anyone who they felt had brought the Federation into disrepute, and to alter the minimum requirements for a quorum from two to five, for both AGM and Board Meetings. The afternoon seminar opened with Dr Fred Freeman talking enthusiastically about Burns the original folksinger, punctuating his enthralling lecture with numerous extracts from his seminal 12 volume cd production “The Complete Songs of Robert Burns”. The second seminar paper was from Professor David Purdie who captivated the audience as always with an outstanding resume of the work now nearing completion, the revised Burns Encyclopaedia, which is in the last throws of pre-production and will be published in February. He further tantalised the audience by showing a portrait of Burns, which has been in private

26 Burns Chronicle Winter 2012 hands for most of its existence bearing the artist’s signature Nasmyth, with the strong probability that this is Mary Nasmyth the famous artist’s daughter. New Directors Newly elected to the Board at Conference was Jim Thomson, who was introduced to Chronicle readers in his profile, published in the last edition. Jim is active at Club, Association and Federation levels along with his personal pursuit of detailed investigations into aspects of Burns Life and Works. Rising from his fascination with the background of Burns epic narrative he has published a book “In and Out of Tam o’ Shanter” and is currently pursuing several lines on enquiry into specific details of Burns lore. In business life he has gained a wealth of experience in various senior management roles and his commercial assiduity this will be of great benefit to the Board in their critical discussions. Following the retirement of Mac Irvin, Leslie Strachan has been elected Director for USA. Leslie is relatively well known to many on both sides of the Atlantic, but for those who may not be so acquaint a few details follow. Les was born and raised in Kilmarnock, Scotland and on leaving school at the age of 15 enlisted in the Army. On discharge from the Army, Les moved to the USA where he married Nancy and they have lived in Bedford Virginia since 1974. Nancy and Les have operated their own businesses for over twenty years allowing them to travel and pursue other interests which they find far more interesting and fulfilling. A student of the Life and Works Rober Burns for most of his life, Les has presented at Burns dinners and spoken to school, college and civic groups for the past twenty five years. Les presently serves as US Director of the Robert Burns Association of North America (R.B.A.N.A.) and when not searching for an undiscovered Kilmarnock Edition or studying the Life and Works, can be found in the rough searching for an errant golf ball or following Scottish Rugby. Following Conference IPP Jim Shields now sports the title of Finance Director, this of course is a key role in these trying times and we look forward to his proposals to secure the future of this great organisation. Editorial I was advised recently that there have been a number of complaints received regarding the size of the print in recent Chronicles and the Board have instructed that the font has to be increased significantly. The current edition has therefore been so modified, this has resulted in a number of planned features and items not appearing, and I apologise to those who submitted in the good faith that these would be carried. Bill Dawson, Editor.

27 Burns Chronicle Winter 2012

Hand-crafted Scottish Gifts from the Land of Burns

Can be customised with your own text/ logo/crest Attractive choice of displays

Lightweight & portable

Ideal fundraising opportunity, corporate gifts, retail sales etc

[email protected] www.caringkeepsakes.co.uk 01563 570308 The Glenriddell Burns Manuscripts The two volumes known as the Glenriddell Manuscripts contain transcripts of poems and letters, written partly by Burns and partly by an amanuensis at the request of his friend and Patron Robert Riddell of Glenriddell. After Riddell’s death in 1794 the one volume that had been completed was returned to Burns at his request and it remained with the other volume in his possession until his death. The volumes went to James Currie in Liverpool along with other Burns material and were retained by him following the completion of his Life and Works, passing through his family until they were gifted to the Liverpool Athenaeum around 1853. There they remained until the Athenaeum put them up for sale and despite a strong movement in Scotland for their return they were sold and conveyed to America. The Album There they were offered to Mr John Gribbel of Philadelphia, presented by a renowned collector, who immediately realised their the Burns importance to Burnsians and presented them as a gift to Federation to Mr the people of Scotland. In recognition of this magnificent John Gribbel, generosity, the Burns Federation inscribed the album shown recently displayed by the Gribbel and presented it to Mr Gribbel as a token of thanks from the family on facebook. people of Scotland.

28 Burns Chronicle Winter 2012 Entertain, Educate and Enlighten Your Guests! NEW Laminated Placemats Now Available Enhance your Burns Supper or when entertaining guests at home featuring scenes depicting

“Tam o’ Shanter”

“To a Mouse”

“Robert Burns and Jean Armour”

“Burns Suppers”

Interesting, informative, entertaining and lightweight Singly £1.20 each, or four £1.10 each (=£4.40), or for ten £1.00 each (=£10.00) plus post and packaging Order by email, letter, phone or fax specifying quantity of each design required, from the Federation Office, Dower House, Dean Castle Country Park, Kilmarnock KA3 1XB, [email protected] , 01563 572469 PS – you might wish to order extras in case your guests take them home.

29 Burns Chronicle Winter 2012 In Answer to the Question What do I get for my RBWF subscription? Past-President John Skilling suggests these are some of the answers; 1. Cordial company at Club level extended to Clubs nationwide and worldwide. 2. A greater knowledge of the life and works of Robert Burns, in which my interest lies, and my pleasure of passing this knowledge on to like- minded Burnsians and to children and adults who visit Ayrshire from home and abroad. 3. The pleasure of working with the schools committee who promote the works of Burns vigorously to over 150,000 children in Scotland and also to many in USA, Canada and Russia. 4. Knowing that the RBWF headquarters either answers or fields and disseminates questions from the general public as well as Federation members, fulfilling our main purpose of advancing and promoting knowledge of Robert Burns’s life and works. 5. Our free in-house publication, the Burns Chronicle, which keeps us up- to-date with world-wide club activities and provides us with academic articles which adds to our knowledge and can be included in our talks and writings. 6. Finally, without our subscriptions to the RBWF knowledge of and interest in Burns and his works would wither and die without a core driving force. We would become fragmented; clubs would lose their anchor. Someone would have to invent a Federation of world-wide Burns Clubs. John Skilling

CHRONICLES WANTED

Hardback editions for the following years;- 1927,1928, 1930, 1931, 1936,1937 and 1940. Also Paperback and hardback editions from 1892 to 1925. Contact Gordon on 01875 811 561

30 Burns Chronicle Winter 2012 Thoughts on Burns and a New Burns Edition What would Burns himself have thought about the plans for a new multivolume collected edition of his work, edited from Glasgow University and to be published by Oxford? He seized the chance in 1786 to try his work “in guid black print” in the Kilmarnock edition, but the word ‘edition’ never crops up in his poetry, except in the title of a poem, when he’s writing an inscription into a printed book. When William Creech started planning the last major expanded edition of Burns’s poetry, the two-volume edition in 1793, Burns had hoped to be his own editor and revise all his poems, sheet by sheet, as it went through the press, though it’s doubtful he actually did so Those great editorial words “amend” and “collate” and “annotate” do crop up in Burns’s letters, but not in connection with his own work: he writes to Mrs. Dunlop he’s been annotating John Moore’s novel Zeluco and he agrees with Thomson that he will amend and collate Scottish songs for the Select Collection. Even for the this, though, Burns remained more author than editor. The one editing word in Burns that perhaps retains its full force is in the least proper or academic of his major works,The Jolly Beggars, where the concluding chorus asserts: “Life is all a variorum”. Maybe it seems natural that Burns should liken existence to the most learned kind of scholarly editing, an editioncum notis variorum, with the opinions of the various crirics, not just with the textual variants. But would even a well-read twenty-four-year Ayrshire farmer in 1785 have encountered an editioncum notis variorum? As my father used to warn me, quoting another Scottish poet whom Burns had read, “the commentators each dark passage shun, and hold their farthing candle to the sun,” and none of them, from Kinsley down, provide much help. The first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, edited by a Scotsman, definedvariorum only as a scholarly edition, though the recent revision allows that Burns reused the term metaphorically, the example being this line. The Scottish National Dictionary notes variorum as used in Burns’s time to mean simply a miscellany or hodge-podge. That’s closer to the way the word is used by Burns’s contemporary John Skinner, in his song “Tullochgorum,” where he disdains the fancy-variorum style of Italian music for the honesty of Scottish song, but perhaps Skinner chose the word because there are precious few rhyme-words for Tullochgorum, and he’d already used jorum. But in The Jolly Beggars Burns uses variorum, not disdainfully but positively, and I prefer to think that he did indeed have in mind the original sense and asserted that in life comment comes at us from many different directions. But whichever Burns meant when he wrote “Life is all a variorum” for the next decade or more, for Gerry and his co-editors, Life will indeed BE all a Variorum in the strictest sense, and we wish him and them well in this great undertaking. Patrick Scott

31 Burns Chronicle Winter 2012 The University of Glasgow Annual Robert Burns Conference January 2013

The traditions of the Glasgow Conference continue next January 12th with some truly international

ROBERT BURNS: AT HOME AND ABROAD highlights in a very strong programme entitled “Robert Burns: At Home and Abroad” with papers by some of the best Burns authorities around. A new feature this year and set to become a tradition is the “Burns Scotland” lecture, to be given this year by Pauline Mackay on the subject “Robert Burns and Clarinda: The Objects of the Affair”.  12 JANUARY 2013 Other speakers in the morning sessions are Alan A One-Day Conference Hosted by the Centre for Robert Burns Studies Western Infirmary Lecture Theatre Reid on Burns time at Mossgiel, Peter Kormylo University of Glasgow 9.00am – 5.30pm http://www.gla.ac.uk/robertburnsstudies with Hanna Dyka will explain their translations Image: Burns Cottage in Atlanta, Georgia. Reproduced with kind permission of Mr Frank Shaw. © Frank Shaw. of Burns into Ukranian, and David Purdie will tell all about the impending revised edition of the Burns Encyclopedia. The afternoon is quite international with Frank Shaw giving the History of Atlanta Burns Club, and Michael Morris informing the audience about Burns and the Caribbean. The last session leads with Chris Rollie’s paper on the recently discovered material in the Scott Douglas manuscripts and the final speaker is Nigel Leask on his specialist subject Burns Prose in the new Oxford edition, before an opportunity for the audience to pose questions to the speakers. The day starts with welcoming refreshments at 9.00am, an hour for lunch mid-way through and refreshments splitting the programme morning and afternoon with an expected conclusion around 5.15pm. An occasion not to be missed for the serious Burns enthusiast. 2013 RBANA Conference. The 33rd AGM and Conference of the Robert Burns Association of North America (RBANA) is to be held over the weekend April 19th - 21st, 2013 at the Four Points by Sheraton Fallsview Hotel, Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada. Conference Registration Fee $195.00 (Can) Per Person, to reserve rooms call 1-800-363-3255 requesting Robert Burns Association of North America block of rooms, rate per room $89.00 Sunday to Friday. $119.00 Saturday, April 19th both (Can) + Taxes. For Conference Registration or other enquires contact Jim Cunningham, [email protected] or Telephone 519-894-6366. Plans are advancing for the 2014 RBANA Conference in Columbia SC with The Burns Club of Atlanta playing a major role in hosting the gathering. Glasgow for 2013 Federation Conference As announced at Harrogate, plans are well in hand for the next Conference, planned for Glasgow, 6th – 8th September in the Central Hotel.

32 Burns Chronicle Winter 2012 2013 Lasses Lunch Lanarkshire Association of Burns Clubs have the honour of hosting the next RBWF Lasses Lunch at the Shawlands Park Hotel 3 Ayr Road Shawsburn, Larkhall ML9 2TZ on Sunday 12 May 2013. The guest speaker will be Scots Makar, Liz Lochhead who was born and grew up in Lanarkshire. As the National Poet of Scotland, one of her first duties was to officially open the Robert Burns Museum at Alloway. She has also recorded several of the Bard’s poems for the BBC Scotland web site. We are delighted that Liz will be speaking at next year’s Lasses Lunch especially as our area will be recognising the achievements of its sons and daughters through Supercounty’s Celebrating Lanarkshire 2013 initiative and Ms. Lochhead has been recruited as one of their Champions. Further information regarding the event will be in the next edition of the Chronicle, or contact me at [email protected] or our secretary Kay Blair at [email protected]. Patricia Leslie, President, Lanarkshire Association of Burns Clubs Glasgow University Kilmarnock Edition Seminar 19th October 2012. This seminar was gathered principally to mark the generosity of Professor and Mrs Craig Sharp in gifting to the Centre for Robert Burns Studies of a Kilmarnock edition of Poems Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect. Dr Gerard Carruthers paid tribute to Dr Sharp and thanked him for his generous gift, highlighting how useful it would be in the study for the new Oxford edition. In the fine accommodations of the Senate Room and adjacent Melville Room of the University, the gathering heard an outstanding programme of papers presented in two parts with refreshments and a drinks reception following. The first part was introduced by Dr Gerard Carruthers and the papers commenced with Dr Ken Simpson presenting “Wraiths, Rhetoric, and “the Sin of Rhyme” the shaping of “Poet Burns”. This was followed by John Burnett (late of National Museum of Scotland) giving insight into “Burns first printer, John Wilson of Kilmarnock” Ending the first session, Dr Rhona Brown gave an outstanding paper with great details on her researches in “The early reviews of the Kilmarnock edition” At the restart Dr Pauline Mackay announced to the audience that the online edition of the correspondence of Dr James Currie was about to go live on the Centre website. Edited principally by Dr Gerard Carruthers and Dr Kenneth Simpson these 150+ letters help understanding of some of the editing decisions of Dr Currie for his edition of 1800. Dr Craig Sharp, in response to the hospitality of the day, presented the Centre

33 Burns Chronicle Winter 2012 with a miniature Kilmarnock edition beautifully bound in blue leather. It had been speculated that Dr Kirsteen McCue’s paper on “Songs from the Kilmarnock edition” would be naturally brief, but with Dr McCue’s usual detail study, the paper was very informative and illuminating, with her singing to illustrate her points. There followed a superb half hour performance of the “Songs from the Kilmarnock edition and First Commonplace book” by the accomplished Bill Adair which had the audience quite spellbound. Professor Nigel Leask gave a great concluding paper “Burns Commonplace Book and the Kilmarnock edition” reflecting his recent researches which will come to the public shortly in the first edition of the new Oxford edition. Reviews The Edinburgh History of the Book in Scotland, volume 2; Enlightenment and Expansion, 1707-1800. Edinburgh University Press, 2012. Stephen Brown and Warren McDougall, eds.. Hardback, £150/$240 (ISBN 978 0 7846 1912 2). “Book history” has been a growth industry over the past few decades, and this big book provides an authoritative survey of recent research into how the books of Burns’s era were manufactured, financed, and distributed. Only a few sections are directly about Burns’s own books, most notably the two short chapters by G. Ross Roy on Burns and his publishers (pp. 570-582), and on the publication of The Merry Muses (pp. 583-585). But chapters such as those on music publishing, or on the development of the provincial Scottish book trade outside the major cities, of Scottish publishing in London, or of Scottish lending and subscription libraries, all provide interesting information relevant to Burns’s life and writing career. The book tells an extraordinary story, as the early-18th century traditionally- oriented shops of James Watson and Thomas Ruddiman gave way to an international book trade, where gentleman-publishers like William Creech in Edinburgh or Alexander Strahan in London spread modern Scottish writing far beyond Scotland. The volume is divided into six major sections. Part 1, on the Emergence of the Modern Book Trade, opening with an excellent chapter by Warren McDougall on copyright, charts the business and technical changes that let the small printing-shops of 1700 mutate into the diversified trades in paper, binding, printing, engraving and binding, of 1800. Of Burnsian interest here is Stephen Brown’s chapter on Burns’s fellow-Crochallan Fencible, William Smellie (pp. 52-60). Part 2, Developing a Market-Place for Books, with separate chapters on Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, and

34 Burns Chronicle Winter 2012 London, covers the economics and organization of the Scottish book trade, with important new archival research in chapters by Richard Ovendon and William Zachs. Part 3, on the role of the Scottish book-trade in promoting international awareness of Scottish thought and Scottish books, provides separate chapters on e.g. the Netherlands, Germany, France, Italy, and America. Part 4, on The Popular Press, covers not only textbooks, and libraries, and newspapers, but cookery books and children’s books. The heart of the book lies in the 120-page Part 5, Publishing the Enlightenment, with chapters by Mark Towsey, Richard Sher (on Adam Smith), Peter Garside, and the two editors (on the original Encyclopaedia Britannica). Of special interest here is David Shuttleton’s chapter on Burns’s mentor Dr.Thomas Blacklock (pp. 528-537). By comparison, the 70-page Part 6, on Scottishness and the Book Trade, with Ross Roy’s chapters, but also covering the revival of early Scottish literature, pre-Burns poets such as Ramsay and Fergusson, and Gaelic secular writing, will perhaps seem a little truncated. Overall, however, one is amazed by the number and variety of the topics covered, and the skill with which so many distinguished researchers have been cajoled into providing brief introductions to complex topics. Scattered through the volume are wonderful short case studies of key books or representative figures. The mammoth scale (and price) of the book mean that few Burnsians will choose to buy their own copy, but it provides the most authoritative and up-to-date gateway to recent research on a range of Burnsian topics. Patrick Scott

Pippa’s Bum Book In the rush for the Christmas best seller list, we find Pippa Middleton entering the fray (purely on her own merits as a party planner and author) with a glossy book called “Celebrate”. To be fair, it has some awfully pretty pictures, but when it strays into advice about Burns Suppers it is simply awful. Fundamentally, it is the sheer banality of the content: simply speaking, any Burns supper should be pure enjoyment. I wrote my “Ultimate Burns Supper Book” a few years ago to dispel the fusty idea that every Burns Supper had to be a rigidly stuffy tartan night where the absence of women was compensated for by the consumption

35 Burns Chronicle Winter 2012 of heroic quantities of malt whisky. Alas, Pippa Middleton’s twee view of four people around a table winding up the evening playing “a game of cards with a whisky” pushes my ‘it’s up to you’ belief’ well beyond its limits. When she puts the Immortal Memory down the running order to nearly the end of the evening, or reduces that often witty and always heartfelt toast to what Pippa calls a “best man’s speech” (whether by Prince Harry or not) you wonder how many Burns Nights she has attended, while the clumsiness of suggesting that the toast to the Lassies today is to thank them for cooking our manly tea can hardly be believed. She remains on shaky ground by inviting people to “link arms” for Auld Lang Syne and so the combination of a poor grasp of the facts and a vapid prose style succeeds in what I would have thought was impossible - it stifles the life out of the concept - and Burns is all about life! Like Burns’s life and works (as Pippa calls them “lovely stories”), the Burns Supper can be many things to many folk, but please not the bland recipe (even if festooned with home-made pom-pom thistles) that Pippa inflicts upon us. So the only bit of the book I agree with is her opening line “A Burns Night chapter may seem to be an unusual addition to this book.” Aye. I hope she’ll spend some of her reported £400,000 advance in buying a ticket for the Burns Club of London’s bash and find out for real why over ten million people join in this unique party every year! Clark McGinn Clark McGinn is President of the Dublin Burns Club and a Past-President of the Burns Club of London. His book ‘The Ultimate Burns Supper Book’ is published by Luath Press.

Tam o’ Shanter – The Musical Communiucado Theatre Company, with Horsecross Arts and Assembly Festival. Created and Directed by Gerry Mulgrew. Seldom has the Chronicle been overwhelmed by reviews of a theatre production, but Tam o’ Shanter – The Musical produced a positive flood of raves from a’ the airts. When this production originally showed in Perth Theatre a couple of seasons ago the Burns enthusiasts of the Fair City put the good word out on the outstanding show and pressured for further opportunities for this to be staged. The wider Burns world is fortunate that this year’s Edinburgh Festival gave it a stage once again and post festival to tour to half a dozen venues throughout Scotland. It may well be the most compelling Burns production seen for many years; it is a milestone in our

36 Burns Chronicle Winter 2012 view of Burnsiana. It should perhaps have been titled differently, as some may wonder how the famous poem that takes some 20 minutes to recite could be extended to fill a 90 minute production. If you gave it a miss on these grounds then you have seriously missed yourself. Not only did we get the whole poem spread throughout the piece, we got scenes depicting the poet’s early farming and raucle social life. The tale is set in a sometimes anachronistic Burns’ world; with over 20 other songs and poems, to music that switched between traditional and contemporary with ease, the players depicted work, life, courtship, entertainment, ritual, and death in sets with a strong visual style and with an exact choreography that was executed with an ease that defied the precision. Simple props and scenery were moved and switched into multiple functions as the tale unfolded at pace. Characters also were switched by the versatile cast to emerge in another identity to portray yet another episode in the tale that was so much more than a simple or even complex rendition of Tam. A diverse range from the Burns canon was portrayed, the audience delighting in some pieces rarely heard in performance, and the Burnsians cheered by the sheer quality with which every work was performed. If a highlight had to be picked, then the Jolly Beggars must be a favourite, the Soldiers song will live in my memory for a long time, as will the magical interpretation of The Vision, and the hilarious deliveries of the epitaphs, all adding to the pacy rhythm of Gerry Mulgrew’s masterful script, with an inventive choreography, clever adaptions of the set and versatile props. All brought together by the very gifted company who are the best Scottish actors, dancers and musicians. It was a raucous rumbustious production, with song dance and spoken word interspersed in a gallimaufry of sound and light, In the finale Pauline Knowles in a voluminous plaid costume was an hilarious Meg with Sandy Nelson behind as the heroic Tam, Courtenay Collins was an as athletic and bewitching Nannie and Malcolm Shields a compelling Auld Nick but to name-check those few is to short measure the rest of the cast. The music, as with much of Burns, is hugely important and a trio of Jon Beales, Duncan Black and David Colvin gave us a superb blend of fiddle, accordion, guitar, drums and Northumbrian pipes to accompany the frenetic action. The company’s flier said “this show may be nuts and contain laughter in excessive doses” that certainly and also some of the very best performances I have seen of Burns. The company are to be applauded in the highest, and

37 Burns Chronicle Winter 2012 the Burns world would do well to put whatever pressure it can bring to bear to have the production reprised for a larger audience. Compiled from several submitted reviews

Robert Burns Lives! Publishes its 150th Chapter www.electricscotland.com/familytree/frank/burns.htm When Frank Shaw started his column, Robert Burns Lives! (always with the exclamation mark) it was printed in “The Family Tree”, a publication out of Moultrie, Georgia with a circulation of just over 75,000. He set out his aim “It will be an Introduction to Robert Burns 101” and he has not lost that view on his readership. Albeit there have been a few significant changes: Firstly “The Family Tree” ceased publication, a tragedy for all of us who love the printed page, but an opportunity for Frank as he transferred his column to the website “Electric Scotland”. I knew about Electric Scotland long before I knew Frank, it is aimed mainly at expat Scots or those of Scots descent outwith Scotland, but it has long had a following at home in Scotland for those who love the traditions of being Scottish. It was therefore a natural home for Frank and “Robert Burns Lives!” and provided the benefit of a vastly increased circulation and ease of further outside access. The second influence on RBL! was the fortunate involvement of Prof G Ross Roy, contributing from the earliest stages with an article in chapter 6. I say this is a fortunate involvement, but it is no great surprise that Frank had quickly found Ross and appreciated that he could make valuable contributions to his column. From there he could see what value can be added to a site such as RBL! by those working at the more academic edge of Robert Burns. That is very typical of Frank’s astute and sharp perception of what it is all about, he can see what the big picture is and he knows who to go to in order to get the fine brush strokes defined. That is not to say that he does not have a discerning eye himself, his introductory paragraphs to his various chapters often have a similarly valuable take on the subject under examination, but he is so much the southern gentleman that one might take him for a simple layman as he described himself in chapter one. Gentleman he certainly is, but it is also certain he knows how to get the job done and he has built his site on effort that he has applied on a daily basis, chasing every slight lead that may give him a chapter, and not being afraid to approach anyone who has published seek their contribution to RBL! or an opinion for a future chapter. This drive has enabled his column to number among its contributors all the best

38 Burns Chronicle Winter 2012 brains and thoughts working on Burns today. RBL! is probably the premier exchange of fresh thinking in the Burns world today, certainly if there is a bright idea, it will not be long before Frank publishes it. He credits this to the input of Prof G Ross Roy, and no doubt he has been the catalyst that has propelled Frank up to the level of Burns expertise that few reach in their lifetime. It is therefore exceptionally fitting that the 150th chapter in “Robert Burns Lives!” is written by the Chairman of the Bard, Prof G Ross Roy. Franks list of correspondents and contributors may have moved on beyond his initial concept for his column, but his growing readership is still very much with him and appreciate his approach to giving us all the benefit of the “Burns 101” and the extra benefit of the best Burns research of the day, and as soon as it is published. We all look forward to RBL! achieving further milestones in its development. I have the very good fortune to count Frank and Susan as sincere friends, On more than one occasion I have enjoyed their company and hospitality, I look forward to our ongoing friendship. I enjoy visiting Robert Burns Lives! although I admit not as often as I might, and I encourage all enthusiasts to keep an eye on the site as this is where the really good stuff sees the light. As Editor of a hardcopy four-monthly periodical I am quite envious of the medium of putting articles of quality in front of the readership at the click of the mouse ( RBL! has now published chapter 157) Best wishes to Frank, Susan and Robert Burns Lives! for a further 150 chapters Bill Dawson, Editor, The Burns Chronicle

Studies in Scottish Literature Revives For nearly fifty years Ross Roy’s journal Studies in Scottish Literature was been an essential resource, not only on Robert Burns but on the whole range of Scottish writers. A lot of people were saddened when he announced a huge double volume in 2008 birthday that it was to be the last full volume, to be followed only by a cumulative index to the 36 volumes he had edited since founding the journal in 1963. “At that time,” he writes in a preface to this new volume, “I truly believed that the journal, which I had nursed from its infancy, was to end.” The new volume includes four items of direct Burns interest. An important full-length article by Stephen Brown argues that the original printer of The Merry Muses of Caledonia was Alexander Smellie, son of Burns’s friend William Smellie, and supports the argument by including photos of the watermarks in the paper of the Merry Muses and of another book Smellie

39 Burns Chronicle Winter 2012 printed at the same time. An article by Marvin McAlister discusses the way Burns’s poem Scots Wha Hae, with its call for resistance to slavery, was used on the African-American stage in Harlem in the 1820s. Ross Roy contributes commentary on the poem Burns addressed to his first-born child, to introduce a full facsimile of a previously-unrecorded manuscript of the poem in Burns’s hand. Because it is online, you can enlarge the facsimile to examine Burns’s handwriting close up. With the facsimile, I’ve provided details on the history of the manuscript, which was acquired for the Roy Collection last year. When Ross transferred the journal, he also donated rights in past volumes to the University of South Carolina Libraries. The journal site now also includes free searchable access to earlier volumes; currently available are volumes 13-34 (1977-2004), and further volumes will be added over time. This part of the site was launched about a month ago and is already proving useful to a lot of users who haven’t had easy access to the older volumes. Many smaller college libraries have never had the journal. It also makes a fantastic on-line resource for Scottish high school students, who now have to answer a question about Scottish literature in their leaving exams. Plans are already underway for next year’s volume, which will include at least one further Burns discovery, and a symposium on the special issues in editing Scottish literary texts, The purpose and scope of the journal, however, remain the ones that Ross Roy laid out nearly fifty years ago: Studies in Scottish Literature was founded with the idea of creating a common meeting ground for work embracing all aspects of the great Scottish literary heritage. It is not the organ of any school or faction; it welcomes all shades of opinion. . . . As a journal devoted to a vigorous living literature it will carry articles on contemporary authors (SSL vol. 1, p. 3). What has changed is that now, in addition to the print volumes in libraries worldwide, we can also make the journal accessible in so many new ways as well and to so many new readers. Patrick Scott. From Greenock Advertiser Saturday March 6th 1875 “ORIGINAL EDITION OF BURNS POEMS.--- We understand that Mr McKie, Kilmarnock, on Wednesday disposed of a copy of the original edition of Burns’ poems, printed at Kilmarnock, for the sum of £20. This is the largest amount yet received for any edition of that now very rare book. Mr McKie procured it, we believe, from a gentleman in Ayr, and the purchaser is a resident of Greenock. --- Ayr Advertiser.

40 Burns Chronicle Winter 2012 The Poet’s Skull: Reading the Bumps of Genius1 Megan Coyer, University of Glasgow On the 8th of November 1830, Dr. Disney Alexander, physician to the General Dispensary and the Pauper Lunatic Asylum in Wakefield, read an essay before the Glasgow Phrenological Society. The paper was on the phrenological development of the poet Robert Burns, and Dr. Alexander illustrated ‘his opinions with the incidents of his life, and numerous passages from his writings.’2 This analysis predates the postmortem phrenological examination of Burns’s skull by nearly four years. No record of the content of this essay has survived, but the fact that such an analysis took place emphasises, first, the high level of phrenological interest excited by the poet, and, second, the dominant role of biography and literary criticism in informing the evaluation. Burns was a character very much alive in the public imagination, and the vividness of this public image made him a fascinating and strategically useful character to the phrenologists as they sought to confirm the basic tenets of their new empirical science of the mind. Scotland was the stronghold of the phrenologists in the nineteenth century, and perhaps no character was so well known to the Scots as Burns.3 However, the heavy reliance on narrative evidence, including biography, letters, and poetry, in reading the Burnsian bumps, reveals the phrenological analysis to be, in fact, an exercise in literary empiricism.4 Dr. Alexander again appeared before the 1 An extended version of this essay was originally published in The Drouth (Winter 2008), 69-77. With thanks to the editor, Johnny Rodger, for allowing re-publication of this revised version. 2 ‘Proceedings of the Glasgow Phrenological Society’, Phrenological Journal and Miscellany of Edinburgh (henceforth, Phrenological Journal), 7 (1831-2), 191. 3 Some foundational articles on Scotland and phrenology include: G.N. Cantor, ‘The Edinburgh Phrenology Debate, 1803-1828’, Ann. Sci. 32 (1975), 195-218; Steven Shapin, ‘Phrenological knowledge and the social structure of early nineteenth-century Edinburgh’, Ann. Sci. 32 (1975), 219-43; G.N. Cantor, ‘A critique of Shapin’s social interpretation of the Edinburgh phrenology debate’, Ann. Sci. 33 (1975), 245-56. 4 The Phrenological Journal contains many examples of phrenological literary criticism. For just a few examples, see: ‘Application of Phrenology to Criticism’, 1 (1823-24), 92-116; George Lyon, ‘Shakspeare’s Iago’, 1 (1823-24), 402-22; ‘St Ronan’s Well’, 1 (1823-24), 442-54; Rev. Robert Buchanon, ‘Othello’, 1 (1823-24), 512-32. Dr. Alexander himself had a particular pension for Shakespearean phrenological character studies (See, Disney Alexander, ‘A Lecture on Phrenology, as Illustrative of the Moral and Intellectual Capacities of Man’ (London: Baldwin, Cradock and Joy; Edinburgh: John Anderson; Wakefield: J. Stanfield, 1826)). On this practice more generally, see Ilana Kurshan, ‘Mind

41 Burns Chronicle Winter 2012 Glasgow Phrenology Society on December 17th 1834 to read an essay “On the Moral Character and Cerebral Development of Robert Burns”, and during this session, Mr. Andrew Rutherglen donated a cast of the poet to the society.5 We may safely assume that his evaluation of the cast was presented as a confirmation of his prior observations based solely upon narrative evidence. Phrenology was based upon the correlation between the size of external protrusions, or ‘bumps’, of the skull and the power of specialized organs of the brain, and each organ corresponded to a specific mental faculty (See Figure 1). The essential tenets of phrenology as exposed by George Combe (1788-1858), the most important populariser of phrenological doctrines in Britain, were: (1) the brain is the organ through which the mind is manifested during life; (2) the brain is not a singular organ, but rather consists of multiple organs with distinct functions; (3) the power of an organ can be estimated from its size; and (4) the size of each organ can be ascertained by an examination of the skull. The latter two tenets were the most controversial, and, in their defense, Combe appealed to the continual collection of data – external measurements as well as biographical data to evidence the manifestation of specific mental faculties in the subject’s personal character.6 Executed criminals were often examined, as their skulls were readily obtainable and their personal history and moral constitution established before a court of law. Burns had one crucial thing in common with the convicted criminal – his personal history and moral constitution were well-traversed territory in the public imagination. However, the immortal bard’s skull was not quite so easily transformed into scientific commodity. In 1830 John McDiarmid, president of the Dumfries Burns Club and editor of the Dumfries Courier, retrospectively reports upon the events surrounding the first exhumation of Burns’s body on 19 September 1815. In a well-known tale, the body was disinterred from its original plot, which had been marked by a modest monument, and moved to the site of new grand mausoleum, still within the walls of St. Michael’s Churchyard. McDiarmid laments: Phrenology, at that time, had not become fashionable, or rather was

Reading: Literature in the Discourse of Early Victorian Phrenology and Mesmerism’, in Victorian Literary Mesmerism, ed. by Martin Willis and Catherine Wynne (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2006), 17-37. 5 ‘Miscellaneous Notes’, Phrenological Journal, 9 (1834-6), 475. 6 On Combe, see the recent biography by David Stack, Queen Victoria’s Skull: George Combe and the Mid-Victorian Mind (London: Hambledon Continuum, 2008).

42 Burns Chronicle Winter 2012 cultivated under a different name, and as no such opportunity can occur again, it is perhaps to be regretted that no cast was taken of the head for the benefit of the admirers of that science.7 But it was only a matter of time until just such an opportunity did arise, and it was McDiarmid, along with Adam Rankin and James Kerr, who was to play a key role in the macabre transactions that continue to fascinate Burnsians today.8 On the 31st of March 1834, following the death of Mrs. Jean Burns, the mausoleum was re-opened, and Burns’s body was once again exhumed with the express purpose of obtaining a cast of the skull. The circumstances surrounding the exhumation were reported in the Dumfries Courier by the surgeon, Dr. Archibald Blacklock, who was responsible for the professional handling of the skull. In a letter to Combe, McDiarmid expresses his concerns over an article published in The Spectator, which he perceived as slanderous, and he defends an apparent post-mortem dress-up session as ‘it was not until Dr. Blacklock had tried the skull in his own hat that any one else presumed to act on it.’9 Regardless of the surrounding controversy, Combe was profuse in his appreciation for McDiarmid’s actions, and in a statement revealing his faith in the future propagation and ultimate vindication of his brain-based science of mind, he writes: You & Sir Henry Jardins, who preserved for us a cast of King Robert Bruce’s skull will be honoured hereafter for your enlightened contributions to the philosophy of mind, in these relics, while a just indignation will be dealt out to the memory of the men who buried Sir Walter Scott’s skull without permitting a cast to be taken, & who spread unfortunate reports that his brain was small.10 7 John McDiarmid, ‘St. Michael’s Church-Yard – Disinterment of Burns’, in Sketches from Nature (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd; London: Simpkin & Marshall, 1830), 367-80, (p. 377). 8 For a detailed historical account, see Mark Fraser, ‘The Phrenologists and Robert Burns’, Burns Chronicle (1996), 215-21. See also, R.B. Longmore and D.W. Purdie, ‘A Strange Compound: The Cast of the Skull of Robert Burns’, Burns Chronicle (1999), 121-37; Carol McGuirk, ‘Burns and Nostalgia’, in Burns Now, ed. by Kenneth Simpson (Canongate Academic, 1994), 31-69; Robert J. Merson, ‘Resurrecting Rabbie?’, Burns Chronicle (1998), 40-53; Nicholas Roe, ‘Authenticating Robert Burns’, in Robert Burns and Cultural Authority, ed. by Robert Crawford (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1996), 159-79. 9 Letter from John McDiarmid to George Combe, dated 23 April 1834, NLS MS 7233, ff. 1-2. All quoted manuscripts are from the Combe collection in the National Library of Scotland (NLS). Many thanks to the Trustees of the National Library of Scotland for permission to quote from these sources, and many thanks to the British Association for Romantic Studies for funding my work at the NLS with the Stephen Copley Postgraduate Research Award in 2008. 10 Letter from George Combe to John McDiarmid, dated 5 April 1834, NLS MS 7386, f. 117.

43 Burns Chronicle Winter 2012 This extract also points towards an anxiety that the phrenological readings of well- known figures match-up to their characterisation in the public imagination. Even an article in the Manchester Times & Gazette, reporting on the recent acquisition of the Burnsian casts, presents the phrenological assessment of the poet as inherently risky: Casts from the skull of the poet Burns have afforded phrenologists and the Public an opportunity of testing the truth or falsity of Phrenology. The mental character of the poet are so strongly marked, and the outlines so broadly defined, that we should at once expect either a very striking accordance or discordance with his cerebral organization.11 The existence of phrenological estimations, such as that of Dr. Alexander, formulated purely upon an analysis of the life and works, would not have been particularly helpful to the phrenological cause if the bumps did not match-up. Combe’s nephew, Robert Cox, also claims to have presented an essay before the Edinburgh Ethical Society in the winter of 1833, which contained a phrenological evaluation of the poet based entirely upon biographical and literary analysis.12 These speculative evaluations may have led to the anti-phrenological accusations contradicted in a footnote to Cox’s essay: A report has been widely circulated, that, long before the present cast was obtained, the phrenologists had made an imaginary bust of Burns, and adduced it in support of their doctrines. Nothing can be more unfounded.13 Cox refers to his previous analysis to show that the physical evaluation of the cast is consistent with a phrenological analysis based solely on narrative evidence, and thus, indicates the foundation of phrenology in nature. Burns’s bumps are victoriously declared ‘a striking and valuable confirmation of the truth of Phrenology.’14 The copyright of the cast was legally conferred to McDiarmid, and, initially, he was cautious to the point of paranoia in preventing the creation of pirated copies of the relic, which were clearly in high demand. He writes to Combe: I have had applications from Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow, Ayr, &, for Casts; but I will take time for due deliberation. The letter from Glasgow 11 ‘Phrenological Development of Robert Burns’, Manchester Times & Gazette, 12 July 1834, Issue 298. 12 Robert Cox, ‘An Essay on the Character and Cerebral Development of Robert Burns’, Phrenological Journal, 9 (1834-6), 52-74, (p. 57). 13 Ibid., 53. 14 Ibid., 74.

44 Burns Chronicle Winter 2012 struck me as suspicious, &, though a handsome bribe was sent, I declined the offer.15 On the morning of the 20th of April, Combe received the first two copies of the cast, one for personal use and one to forward to the Edinburgh Phrenological Society. He wasted no time in forming his estimates of the sizes of the cerebral organs, writing to McDiarmid the same morning that: the size is great, so you have stated; the organs of the animal propensities are very strongly indicated, but there is an agreeably powerful development of the sentiments of Benevolence, Ideality, Wonder, & Imitation; considerable Veneration; & average Conscientiousness; so that the higher qualities were combined in burns in great vigour with the lower. The intellect is highly respectable but inferior to the feelings. He had the elements of all that is bad & good powerful, & an intellect not quite adequate to their proper control, but very nearly so. All this is the language of the cast, & I think it conformable to with his history.16 This initial evaluation is characteristic of the numerous evaluations that follow, as the brain of the bard is posited as a site of intense psychological warfare – his powerful animal propensities and moral sentiments struggling for dominance in well-documented and poetically rendered battles. The following month, in a letter to Richard Whately, Archbishop of Dublin, Combe appeals to ‘A Prayer in the Prospect of Death’ to evidence that his poetry and biography, ‘can scarcely be understood by those who do not know phrenology’: Thou know’st that Thou hast formed me, With Passions wild and strong; And list’ning to their witching voice Has often led me wrong. After ‘re-perusing the life of Burns’, Combe finds that ‘it is impossible to look on the great mass of the organs of the propensities without feeling that [blot] verse evidences a literal truth.’17 An official evaluation by Combe is published in the Phrenological Journal in June 1834, and this is followed in the next number by Cox’s more illustrative analysis, which takes Burns’s poetry fully into account. Not surprisingly, Burns’s well-known proclivities towards the opposite sex are of keen interest to the phrenologists. It may, however,

15 Letter from John McDiarmid to George Combe, dated 23 April 1834, NLS MS 7233, ff. 1-2. 16 Letter from George Combe to John McDiarmid, dated 20 April 1834, NLS MS 7386, f. 120. 17 Letter from George Combe to Archbishop of Dublin, dated 5 May 1834, NLS 7386, f. 131-2.

45 Burns Chronicle Winter 2012 be striking that ‘Amativeness’, the organ of sexual passion, is found to be comparatively small in relation to Burns’s other very large animal propensities. It is estimated to be only ‘rather large’ and receives 16 out of 20 in the numerical ranking scale (the average rank for a Burnsian animal propensity being 18.25). Cox particularly notes the incongruence, stating that ‘[i]t may be thought that the grossness of Burns’s unpublished correspondence indicates a still greater development of Amativeness than that which appears from the skull’.18 Fortunately for the phrenologists, the organ of ‘Adhesiveness’, which is found to be very large (20 out of 20) in Burns, was identified as the seat of true affection in a previous article, and the phrenologists sustained this argument in subsequent publications. For example, the Glaswegian surgeon and phrenologist, Robert Macnish, later writes that an abuse of the organ of ‘Adhesiveness’ leads to a proneness to form ‘absurd and romantic attachments’, and ‘unless there are eminent moral qualities to ensure permanence, the feeling is seldom of long duration.’19 Combined with Burns’s large organs of ‘Ideality’, ‘Love of Approbation’, and ‘Secretiveness’, this is said to account for the poet’s attachment to the feminine sex.20 While the power of individual organs might be read from particular poems (“To a Mouse”, for example, is said to evidence ‘Benevolence’ and ‘Philoprogenitiveness’, while ‘every line’ of “For a’ that and a’ that” is read as ‘an ebullition of Self-esteem’), it is rather the overall size and power of Burns’s brain that is read as indicative of his poetic genius.21 According to Cox, the relatively large size of all the organs of the brain combined with a naturally powerful and active temperament, led to a conglomeration of powerful mental faculties, confirming the philosopher Dugald Stewart’s evaluation that all the faculties of Burns’s mind were, as far as I could judge, equally vigorous; and his predilection for poetry was rather the result of his enthusiastic and impassioned temper, than of genius exclusively adapted to that species of composition. From his conversation, I should have pronounced him to be fitted to excel in whatever walk of ambition he had chosen to exert his abilities.22 This reading had lasting currency. In December 1864, John Williams

18 Cox, ‘An Essay on the Character and Cerebral Development of Robert Burns’, 61. 19 Robert Macnish, An Introduction to Phrenology (Glasgow: John Reid & Co., 1836), 27-8. 20 Cox, ‘An Essay on the Character and Cerebral Development of Robert Burns’, 59-61. 21 Ibid., 67, 65. 22 Ibid., 59.

46 Burns Chronicle Winter 2012 Jackson, a popular lecturer on phrenology and mesmerism, harked upon the overall size and vigour of Burns’s brain, in this case, to justify the bard’s universal appeal, as ‘Burns, indeed, stood above the ordinary range of men of genius and poets, in virtue of the fact that he was not merely a literary man but a universal man.’ Jackson critically locates both male and female, animal and human, within the universal bard who is thus ascribed the Shakespearean ability to faithfully delineate characters from nature: He was possessed of the passions and impulses of the most powerful man, and yet at the same time was endowed with the delicacy and intensity of the most refined woman, while he also had highly elevated moral principles and superior intellectual faculties. Burns, in fact, was the most thoroughly universal man who had appeared since the days of Shakespeare.23 Burns’s understanding of human nature is viewed as rooted in his own experience with the vicissitudes of emotion, and, another phrenological lecturer, Frederick Bridges uses ‘The Bard’s Epitaph’ to illustrate the dizzying range of active faculties in Burns: “Owre fast for thought, owre hot for rule,” running “life’s mad career wild as the wave,” refers to his large and very active propensities. His large self- esteem and love of approbation are shown - “Owre blate (too modest) to seek, owre proud to snool.” His large social and domestic feelings, which “keenly felt the friendly glow and softer flame.” We have his moral feeling and mental powers indicated - “Can others teach their course to steer” - “quick to learn and wise to know.” The warning in the concluding stanza - “Know, prudent, cautious self-control is wisdom’s root” - shows great benevolence, and consciousness of low firmness, which his skull indicates.24 Clearly the continual appeal to poetry to confirm the cranial measurements can lead to a reductive reading of Burns’s work, but, at the same time, and perhaps most overtly in Jackson’s evaluation, Keats’s notion of ‘the cameleon art’ of poetry is very much alive, as through his strong endowment of all the mental faculties, Burns could presumably step into the proverbial shoes of the other with natural ease. The numerous phrenological evaluations of Burns throughout the nineteenth century were enabled by the mass-production of the cast and its inclusion in phrenological lecture sets sold by Anthony O’Neil (despite

23 ‘Lecture on Robert Burns the Poet’, The Caledonian Mercury, 8 December 1864, Issue 23537. 24 ‘The Phrenological Characteristics of Robert Burns, the Poet’, Liverpool Mercury, 27 January 1859, Issue 3416.

47 Burns Chronicle Winter 2012 McDiarmid’s initial protectiveness).25 Later analyses appear to devolve into entertaining spectacles. For example, Jackson’s 1864 lecture ‘was further enhanced by the singing at intervals of some of Burns’s songs, which were very effectively rendered by Mr. G. D. Bishop’, and at the close of the lecture, Jackson performed phrenological analyses on audience members. Combe believed such blatant showmanship degraded the scientific authority of phrenology, but the public appetite for cultural iconography and strange feats of science made the phrenological lecture innately interesting. Despite Combe’s confidence in his new science of mind, today, phrenology is relegated to the lower divisions of the history of science, valuable only as a prompt to more legitimate modern studies of cerebral localisation and embarrassingly associated with scientific racism. Burns himself was even included as a racial comparator more than once (See Figure 2).26 However, the phrenological analyses of Burns stand out as representative of the importance of literary analysis in what must be deemed early neuroscientific thought.27 Rather than simply providing a scientifically informed character study of a man who happened to be a poet, the first analyses by Cox and Combe sought to utilise the strength of the public image of Burns to forward the Figure 2: George Combe, Elements authority of the foundational tenets of Phrenology, 7th edn (Edinburgh: of their celebrated new science of the Maclachlan and Stewart; London: mind. But in this case, the solidity of Simpkin, Marshall, & Co; Longman & Co., 1850), 66. the skull was read through, rather than against, the vivid spectre of Robert Burns.

25 An uncatalogued advertisement for the cast maker, Anthony O’Neil of 16 West Register Street, Edinburgh, can be found within a bound volume of phrenological pamphlets held by the National Library of Scotland (NLS Combe. 5(5)). Examples of additional later phrenological analyses include: Lorenzo Fowler, ‘Robert Burns. A Phrenological Estimate, Taken from a Cast of his Head’, The Phrenological Magazine (January 1881), 20-22; Nicolas Morgan, ‘The Scottish National Poet’, The Alderman, 4:97 (26 January 1878), 3-7. Many thanks to Kathleen Struck of the Heckman Library, Calvin College for providing me with a copy of the latter article. 26 See also, Phrenology Physiologically and Philosophically Considered: with Reason for its Study, and Directions for its Successful Prosecution. Illustrated with Woodcuts. Reprinted from No. XVII. of the British and Foreign Medical Review: edited by John Forbes, M.D. F.R.S. (London: John Churchill, 1840). On phrenology and race in the Scottish context, see Colin Kidd, ‘Race, Empire, and the Limits of Nineteenth-Century Scottish Nationhood’, The Historical Journal, 46.4 (2003), 873-92. 27 Donald Simpson, ‘Phrenology and the Neurosciences: Contributions of F. J. Gall and J. G. Spurzheim’, Anz. J. Surg., 75 (2005), 475-82.

48 Over half a century ago people said that our new chocolate biscuit was unbeatable

so we haven’t changed them. The nineteen fifties saw the introduction of lots of very interesting ideas. One of them was the Tunnock’s Caramel Wafer. With food rationing only recently ended this big biscuit was especially welcome with its layers of wafer and caramel and the generous milk chocolate coating. It quickly became and remains a favourite here and all over the world. Today it’s exactly the same and just as popular because the only thing different is the dark chocolate alternative.

Thomas Tunnock Ltd., President Robert W. M. Stewart 34 Old Mill Road, Uddingston G71 7HH Tel: 01698 813551 Fax: 01698 815691 Email: [email protected] www.tunnock.co.uk Burns Chronicle Winter 2012 Printers, Dumfries. Tel: 01387 262960 Tel: the Printers, Dumfries. Solway Offset