page_title: Agnes Maclehose
section_title: Association with Robert Burns
hierarchical_section_title: Agnes Maclehose / Life and character / Association with Robert Burns
caption_attribution_description: English: The Correspondence of Burns and Clarinda. 1843. With a Memoir of Mrs McLehose (Clarinda)
context_page_description: Agnes Maclehose, or Agnes Craig, known to her friends as 'Nancy' and to Robert Burns followers as Clarinda, was a Scotswoman who had an unconsummated affair with Burns during 1787-88, on which he based the song, "Ae Fond Kiss". The pseudonyms of her 'Clarinda' to his 'Sylvander' were adopted by the pair for confidential correspondence purposes. Maclehose has been various styled, including 'McLehose' and 'MacLehose'.
context_section_description: When Robert Burns came to Edinburgh, still unmarried, for the second time in 1787, Agnes was in her 29th year and separated from her husband for seven years. A competent poet, she was determined to meet him and finally did so on 4 December at a tea-party given by Miss Erskine Nimmo, a friend of Margaret Chalmers, at the house of Mr Nimmo, a revenue officer. Agnes was attracted to him and upon her return home she wrote Burns a note inviting him to drink tea with her the following Thursday at Potterrow. He accepted the invitation. However, the actions of a coachman, probably drunk, caused the poet to fall from a coach and injure his knee, and his doctor insisted that he refrain from walking.
  Sir Walter Scott referred to the resulting love letters that passed between Burns and Maclehose as "the most extraordinary mixture of sense and nonsense, and of love human and divine, that was ever exposed to the eye of the world."
  On or around 8 December he wrote to her to explain his misfortune and pay her compliments, saying: "I can say with truth, Madam, that I never met with a person in my life whom I more anxiously wished to meet again than yourself... I know not how to account for it. I am strangely taken with some people; nor am I often mistaken, You are a stranger to me; but I am an odd being: some yet unnamed feelings; things, not principles, but better than whims, carry me farther than boasted reason ever did a Philosopher."
  To this epistle Agnes quickly replied: "I perfectly comprehend.... Perhaps instinct comes nearer their description than either "Principles" or "Whims". Think ye they have any connection with that 'heavenly light which leads astray'? One thing I know, that they have a powerful effect on me, and are delightful when under the check of reason and religion.... Pardon any little freedoms I take with you."
  This strange mixture of encouragement and restraint led to his response to some verses sent by Agnes: "Your lines, I maintain it, are poetry, and good poetry.... Friendship... had I been so blest as to have met with you in time, might have led me — God of love only knows where." The use of the word 'love' resulted in a reminder, namely "Do you remember that she whom you address is a married woman?"
  At Christmas, they exchanged verse, Agnes's poem revealing her feelings about her unhappy marriage, whilst at the same time reminding Burns about the ultimate barriers which could not be crossed:
  Burns matched these verses to the tune, "The Borders of Spey" for the Scots Musical Museum publication.
  At this point Burns agreed to Agnes's suggestion of using the Arcadian names of 'Sylvander' and 'Clarinder'. Another mention of love brought an objection and a reproof from Burns: "I do love you if possible still better for having so fine a taste and turn for Poesy. I have again gone wrong in my usual unguarded way, but you may erase the word and put esteem, respect, or any other tame Dutch expression you please in its place."
  Her guilty feelings however show in the lines: "I entreat you not to mention our corresponding to anyone on earth. Though I've conscious innocence, my situation is a delicate one." The Reverend John Kemp of the sternly Calvinistic congregation of the Tolbooth Kirk, was her spiritual adviser and would certainly not have approved, nor would Lord Craig, whose generosity was essential to her.
  On 30 December 1787, Burns wrote to a close confidant, Captain Richard Brown at Irvine: "Almighty Love still 'reigns and revels' in my bosom; and I am at this moment ready to hang myself for a young Edinr. Widow, who has wit and beauty more murderously fatal than the assassinating stiletto of the Sicilian banditti, or the poisoned arrow of the savage African." Burns was able to visit Nancy in a sedan chair on 5 January, the first of six visits that month. The love letters and visits continued, the most telling being after they had been together again on the evening of 23 January, Agnes wrote: "I am neither well nor happy. My heart reproaches me of last night. If you wish Clarinda to regain her peace, determine aga
caption: The Correspondence of Burns and Clarinda. 1843.
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