was resumed, and such was the force and
versatility of the bard's genius, that he made the tears run down Mr.
Stewart's cheeks, albeit unused to the poetic strain. From that time
we met no more, and I was grieved at the reports of him afterwards.
Poor Burns! we shall hardly ever see his like again. He was, in truth,
a sort of comet in literature, irregular in its motions, which did (p. 120)
no good, proportioned to the blaze of light it displayed."

It seems that during this autumn there came a momentary blink in
Burns's clouded sky, a blink which alas never brightened into full
sunshine. He had been but a year in the Excise employment, when,
through the renewed kindness of Mr. Graham of Fintray, there seemed a
near prospect of his being promoted to a supervisorship, which would
have given him an income of 200_l._ a year. So probable at the time
did it seem, that his friend Nicol wrote to Ainslie expressing some
fears that the poet might turn his back on his old friends when to the
pride of applauded genius was added the pride of office and income.
This may have been ironical on Nicol's part, but he might have spared
his irony on his friend, for the promotion never came.

But what had Burns been doing for the last year in poetic production?
In this respect--the whole interval between the composition of the
lines _To Mary in Heaven_, in October, 1789, and the autumn of the
succeeding year, is almost a blank. Three electioneering ballads,
besides a few trivial pieces, make up the whole. There is not a line
written by him during this year which, if it were deleted from his
works, would anyway impair his poetic fame. But this long barrenness
was atoned for by a burst of inspiration which came on him, in the
fall of 1790, and struck off at one heat the matchless _Tale of Tam o'
Shanter_. It was to the meeting already noticed of Burns with Captain
Grose, the antiquary, at Friars Carse, that we owe this wonderful
poem. The poet and the antiquary suited each other exactly, and they
soon became

Unco pack and thick thegither.

Burns asked his friend when he reached Ayrshire to make a drawing (p. 121)
of Alloway kirk, and include it in his sketches, for it was dear to
him because it was the resting-place of his father, and there he
himself might some day lay his bones. To induce Grose to do this,
Burns told him that Alloway kirk was the scene of many witch stories
and weird sights. The antiquary replied, "Write