e very word business, though no less than four letters of my very
short surname are in it." The rest of the letter goes off in a wild
rollicking strain, inconsistent enough with his more serious thoughts.
But the part of it above given points to a very real reason for his
growing discontent with Ellisland.

By the beginning of 1790 the hopelessness of his farming prospects
pressed on him still more heavily, and formed one ingredient in the
mental depression with which he saw a new year dawn. Whether he did
wisely in attempting the Excise business, who shall now say? In (p. 116)
one respect it seemed a substantial gain. But this gain was accompanied
by counterbalancing disadvantages. The new duties more and more
withdrew him from the farm, which, in order to give it any chance of
paying, required not only the aid of the master's hand, but the
undivided oversight of the master's eye. In fact, farming to profit
and Excise-work were incompatible, and a very few months' trial must
have convinced Burns of this. But besides rendering regular farm
industry impossible, the weekly absences from home, which his new
duties entailed, had other evil consequences. They brought with them
continual mental distraction, which forbade all sustained poetic
effort, and laid him perilously open to indulgences which were sure to
undermine regular habits and peace of mind. About this time (the
beginning of 1790), we begin to hear of frequent visits to Dumfries on
Excise business, and of protracted lingerings at a certain _howff_,
place of resort, called the Globe Tavern, which boded no good. There
were also intromissions with a certain company of players then
resident in Dumfries, and writings of such prologues for their
second-rate pieces, as many a penny-a-liner could have done to order
as well. Political ballads, too, came from his pen, siding with this
or that party in local elections, all which things as we read, we feel
as if we saw some noble high-bred racer harnessed to a dust-cart.

His letters during the first half of 1790 betoken the same restless,
unsatisfied spirit as those written towards the end of the previous
year. Only we must be on our guard against interpreting his real state
of mind too exclusively from his letters. For it seems to have been
his habit when writing to his friends to take one mood of mind, (p. 117)
which happened to be uppermost in him for the moment, and with which
he knew that his correspondent sympa