The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-01-25
rnr nuRNs 4NxIYERsARY

Tonight in the Hyperion Calls Forth Thoughts of the Poets Wife, "Bonnie Jean"
 Inseparably joined with the immortal ity of Robert Burns is the name of plain. patient Jean Armour. It was after a settlement with his Edinburgh pub fishers. with f5OO in his purse in the heydey oe his popularity, in the latter part of April, 1788, that the famous lyric was welded to Bonnie Jean" and for the short and troubled remainder of his life she was the partner, not of his joys, but Of his sorrows, for joys there were none. About month previous to his marriage the poet took lease of the farm of Ellisland in Dumfrieshire, but as there was no fit ha'bitation con nected with it he left his bride with her parents in Ayrshire pending the build ing of a suitable home on the newly acquired farm. During this separation he wrote and sent on to her the incom- parable songs 70 a the airts the wind cam blow" and 70, were on Parnassus Hill," the former closing with
 There's not a bonnie flower that
 springs
 By fountain, shaw or green,
 There's not a bonnie bird that sings
 But minds me O my Jean."
 And the latter with the assurance that
 '"Tho' I were doomed to wander on Beyond the sea. beyond the sun, Till my last weary sand were run. Till then-and then I'd love thee"
 Both of them Hove letters." the like of which few women have the privilege of receiving.
 In December of that year the poet brought his wife home to the com pleted farm house of Ellisland, and well comed her as follows;
 ''She is a winsome. wee thing
 She is handsome wee thing,
 She is a bonnie wee thing,
 This sweet wee wife O mine,
 The worlds wrack we share o't,
 The warstle and the care o't,
 With her I'll blithely bear it,
 And think my lot divine"
 Doubtless in their reunion they both thought their 'lot divine" but
 Pleasures are like peoples spread, You seize the flower, its bloom is shed; Or like the snow falls in the river, A moment white, then melts foreyeri Or like the borealis race
 That fits ere you can point their place, Or like the rainboW's lovely form,
 Vanishing amid the storm"
 And so it was with Jean Armour and Robert Burns, although in his estima- tion she always remained
 "When all the fairest maids were met, The fairest maid was bonnie Jean."
 The farm refused to be remunerative, his salary as exciseman was called upon to meet it's deficits and soon he was compelled to abandon his rural home for second floor rooms in the | third rate Scottish town" of Dum- fries It was at this time, when for saken by his friends, forgotten by his country and goaded by passions that | his better nature hardly kept in check, | that Jean appears assthe heroine, who upheld his wavering hands, dispelled his despondency and again sent his muse freely flowing from his pen. The world has yet to realize how much | it owes through Scotia's bard to home | ly. loyal hearted Bonnie Jean"-Bon- nie only in the eyes of Robert Burns.
 In that last year of their union, when | he was continually racked by rheuma- | tism and a growing weakness warned him of the surely approaching end when the black curly locks became pre- maturely gray and the flashing dark | eyes sodden and dull he still remained | the hero to Jean, and during her long | widowhood of almost forty years she never lost faith in one of his last state l ments to her that fin hundred years he 1 would be famous" She saw this pro phesy in process of fulilment wher | George W headed a subscription witt 1 fifty guineas to have the remains of hel l poet removed from the obscure corner l where they were first inferred to 2 place of prominence in a mausoleum And 1t was well that Jean lived to set | her efforts in soothing his irritabilities checking his impulsiveness, cheering hi' | despondency and cheerfully bearing l with him the burden of cankering care result in ever increasing fame and pop
 ularity, which like an Alpine avalanche continues to grow as roll the years til
 now the celebration of his birthday il perhaps the most generally observed oc casion among the English speaking peo
 pie Tn our own city tonight the Fly
 perion theater will be utilized for 8 ser
 vice of sweet song that will be in ac
 cord with Scotland's great singer.
 4 GREAT ARMY OF ELKS.