e on another side, point-blank within
reach of their heaviest metal. This is the unfortunate story alluded to
in my printed poem _The Lament_. 'Twas a shocking affair, which I cannot
yet bear to recollect, and it had very nearly given me one or two of the
principal qualifications for a place with those who have lost the chart
and mistaken the reckoning of rationality.'

Throughout the year 1785 Burns had been acquainted with Jean Armour, the
daughter of a master mason in Mauchline. Her name, besides being
mentioned in his _Epistle to Davie_, is mentioned in _The Vision_, and
we know from a verse on the six belles of Mauchline that 'Armour was the
jewel o' them a'.' From the depressing cares and anxieties of that
gloomy season the poet had turned to seek solace in song, but he had
also found comfort and consolation in love.

'When heart-corroding care and grief
Deprive my soul of rest,
Her dear idea brings relief
And solace to my breast.'

Now in the spring of 1786 Burns as a man of honour must acknowledge Jean
as his wife. The lovers had imprudently anticipated the Church's
sanction to marriage, and it was his duty, speaking in the homely phrase
of the Scottish peasantry, to make an honest woman of his Bonnie Jean.
But, unfortunately, matters had been going from bad to worse on the farm
of Mossgiel, and about this time the brothers had come to a final
decision to quit the farm. Robert, as Gilbert informs us, durst not then
engage with a family in his poor, unsettled state, but was anxious to
shield his partner by every means in his power from the consequences of
their imprudence. It was agreed, therefore, between them, that they
should make a legal acknowledgment of marriage, that he should go to
Jamaica to push his fortune, and that she should remain with her father
till it should please Providence to put the means of supporting a family
in his power. He was willing even to work as a common labourer so that
he might do his duty by the woman he had already made his wife. But
Jean's father, whatever were his reasons, would allow her to have
nothing whatever to do with a man like Burns. A husband in Jamaica was,
in his judgment, no husband at all. What inducement he held out, or what
arguments he used, we may not know, but he prevailed on Jean to
surrender to him the paper acknowledging the irregular marriage. This he
deposited with Mr. Aitken of Ayr, who, as Burns heard, deleted the
names, thus re