in the immediate village, and is as ugly a place as mortal man could
contrive to make, or to render uglier through a succession of untidy
generations. The fashion of paving the village-street, and patching
one shabby house on the gable-end of another, quite shuts out all
verdure and pleasantness; but, I presume, we are not likely to see a
more genuine old Scotch village, such as they used to be in Burns's
time, and long before, than this of Mauchline. The church stands about
midway up the street, and is built of red freestone, very simple in
its architecture, with a square tower and pinnacles. In this sacred
edifice, and its churchyard, was the scene of one of Burns's most
characteristic productions,--"The Holy Fair."

Almost directly opposite its gate, across the village-street, stands
Posie Nansie's inn, where the "Jolly Beggars" congregated. The latter
is a two-story, redstone, thatched house, looking old, but by no means
venerable, like a drunken patriarch. It has small, old-fashioned
windows, and may well have stood for centuries,--though, seventy or
eighty years ago, when Burns was conversant with it, I should fancy it
might have been something better than a beggars' alehouse. The whole
town of Mauchline looks rusty and time-worn,--even the newer houses,
of which there are several, being shadowed and darkened by the general
aspect of the place. When we arrived, all the wretched little
dwellings seemed to have belched forth their inhabitants into the warm
summer evening; everybody was chatting with everybody, on the most
familiar terms; the bare-legged children gambolled or quarrelled
uproariously, and came freely, moreover, and looked into the window of
our parlor. When we ventured out, we were followed by the gaze of the
whole town: people standing in their door-ways, old women popping
their heads from the chamber-windows, and stalwart men--idle on
Saturday at e'en, after their week's hard labor--clustering at the