That one pound one, I sairly want it;
If wi' the hizzie down ye sent it,
It would be kind;
And while my heart wi' life-blood dunted,
I'd bear't in mind.

* * * * *

_POSTSCRIPT._

Ye've heard this while how I've been licket
And by fell death was nearly nicket:
Grim loun! he gat me by the fecket,
And sair me sheuk;
But by gude luck I lap a wicket,
And turn'd a neuk.

But by that health, I've got a share o't,
And by that life, I'm promised mair o't,
My heal and weel I'll take a care o't
A tentier way;
Then fareweel folly, hide and hair o't,
For ance and aye.

It was, alas! too late now to bid farewell to folly, even if he (p. 176)
could have done so indeed. With the opening of the year 1796, he
somewhat revived, and the prudent resolve of his sickness disappeared
with the first prospect of returning health. Chambers thus records a
fact which the local tradition of Dumfries confirms:--"Early in the
month of January, when his health was in the course of improvement,
Burns tarried to a late hour at a jovial party in the Globe tavern.
Before returning home, he unluckily remained for some time in the open
air, and, overpowered by the effects of the liquor he had drunk, fell
asleep.... A fatal chill penetrated his bones; he reached home with
the seeds of a rheumatic fever already in possession of his weakened
frame. In this little accident, and not in the pressure of poverty or
disrepute, or wounded feelings or a broken heart, truly lay the
determining cause of the sadly shortened days of our national poet."

How long this new access of extreme illness confined him seems
uncertain. Currie says for about a week; Chambers surmises a longer
time. Mr. Scott Douglas says, that from the close of January till the
month of April, he seems to have moved about with some hope of
permanent improvement. But if he had such a hope, it was destined not
to be fulfilled. Writing on the 31st of January, 1796, to Mrs. Dunlop,
the trusted friend of so many confidences, this is the account he
gives of himself:--

"I have lately drunk deep of the cup of affliction. The autumn robbed
me of my