ht with the weapons he could wield with effect.
Nor are his ballads always to be taken as representing his political
principles; these he expressed in song that did not owe its inspiration
to the excitement of elections. Burns was not a party man; he had in
politics, as in religion, some broad general principles, but he had 'the
warmest veneration for individuals of both parties.' The most important
verse in his _Epistle to Graham of Fintry_ is the last:

'For your poor friend, the Bard, afar
He hears and only hears the war,
A cool spectator purely:
So, when the storm the forest rends,
The robin in the hedge descends,
And sober chirps securely.'

Burns's life was, therefore, quite full at Ellisland, too full indeed;
for, towards the end of 1791, we find him disposing of the farm, and
looking to the Excise alone for a livelihood. In the farm he had sunk
the greater part of the profits of his Edinburgh Edition; and now it was
painfully evident that the money was lost. He had worked hard enough,
but he was frequently absent, and a farm thrives only under the eye of a
master. On Excise business he was accustomed to ride at least two
hundred miles every week, and so could have little time to give to his
fields. Besides this, the soil of Ellisland had been utterly exhausted
before he entered on his lease, and consequently made a miserable return
for the labour expended on it. The friendly relations that had existed
between him and his landlord were broken off before now; and towards the
close of his stay at Ellisland Burns spoke rather bitterly of Mr.
Miller's selfish kindness. Miller was, in fact, too much of a lord and
master, exacting submission as well as rent from his tenants; while
Burns was of too haughty a spirit to beck and bow to any man. 'The life
of a farmer is,' he wrote to Mrs. Dunlop, 'as a farmer paying a dear,
unconscionable rent, a cursed life.... Devil take the life of reaping
the fruits that others must eat!'

The poet, too, had been overworking himself, and was again subject to
his attacks of hypochondria. 'I feel that horrid hypochondria pervading
every atom of both body and soul. This farm has undone my enjoyment of
myself. It is a ruinous affair on all hands.' In the midst of his
troubles and vexations with his farm, he began to look more hopefully to
the Excise, and to see in the future a life of literary ease, when he
could devote himself wholly to