songs, and when these were impossible, by providing new words for the
melodies. The work finally extended to six volumes; and before it was
finished a more ambitious undertaking, managed by a Mr. George
Thomson, was set on foot. Burns was invited to cooperate in this also,
and entered into it with such enthusiasm that he was Thomson's main
support. In both of these publications the poet worked purely with
patriotic motives and for the love of song, and had no pecuniary
interest in either. Once Thomson sent him a present of five pounds
and endangered their relations thereby; later, when Burns was in his
last illness, he asked and received from Thomson an advance of the
same amount. Apart from these sums Burns never made or sought to make
a penny from his writings after the publication of the first Edinburgh
edition. Twice he declined journalistic work for a London paper.
Poetry was the great consolation of his life, and even in his severest
financial straits he refused to consider the possibility of writing
for money, regarding it as a kind of prostitution.

By the autumn of 1795 signs began to appear that the poet's
constitution was breaking down. The death of his daughter Elizabeth
and a severe attack of rheumatism plunged him into deep melancholy and
checked for a time his song-writing; and though for a time he
recovered, his disease returned early in the next year. It seems
clear, too, that though the change from Ellisland to Dumfries relieved
him of much of the severer physical exertion, other factors more than
counterbalanced this relief. Burns had never been a slave to drink for
its own sake; it had always been the accompaniment--in those days an
almost inevitable accompaniment--of sociability. Some of his
wealthier friends in the vicinity were in this respect rather
excessive in their hospitality; in Dumfries the taverns were always at
hand; and as Burns came to realize the comparative failure of his