Page:Life of Robert Burns.pdf/16

 16 ring part of the intervening months he had been occasionally in Edinburgh, as he says, to adjust matters with his bookseller, although it is pretty clear that a visit to some of his old jovial compa- nions was the true cause, After a good deal of time lost between the arranging of his lease at Dalswinton and settling with his bookseller, a pe- riod which from different causes he seems to have spent rather uneasily, his affairs came at last to assume something like a definite shape. The set- tlement of accounts with the bookseller put him in possession of £500 or £600,- and the terms of agreement at Dalswinton being finally arranged, he left Edinburgh for his new possession, having also in his pocket an excise commission, as a fur- ther resource should be come to need it, which he had procured through the friendship of Mr Graham of Fintry, one of the Commissioners. At Whitsunday 1788, Burns entered nun his new farm, and in the following November brought home Jean Armour, now Mrs Burns, whom he had married some time previously, and for a time matters went on pretty smoothly. In several of his letters he speaks with much affection of his wife, and of her admirable qualities. Many of his best pieces were composed here; and, on the whole, the poet seemed in a fair way of obtain- ing competence and such reasonable share of hap- piness as man may look for. But the burning vehemence of his temperament, the keenness of his sensibility, and a constitutional melancholy to which he had through all his life been subject, were often to hit the source of uneasiness and disquiet : Thus exhibiting to us how little to be coveted is the possession of lofty talents and high genius, even with all the fame and distinction they