At
home Burns had been an enthusiastic freemason, and it was through a
masonic friend, Mr. James Dalrymple of Orangefield, near Ayr, that he
was introduced to Edinburgh society. A decade or two earlier, that
society, under the leadership of men like Adam Smith and David Hume
had reached a high degree of intellectual distinction. A decade or two
later, under Sir Walter Scott and the Reviewers it was again to be in
some measure, if for the last time, a rival to London as a literary
center. But when Burns visited it there was a kind of interregnum,
and, little though he or they guessed it, none of the celebrities he
met possessed genius comparable to his own. In a very few weeks it was
evident that he was to be the lion of the season. By December
thirteenth he is writing to a friend at Ayr:
"I have found a worthy warm friend in Mr. Dalrymple, of
Orangefield, who introduced me to Lord Glencairn, a man whose
worth and brotherly kindness to me I shall remember when time
shall be no more. By his interest it is passed in the Caledonian
Hunt, and entered in their books, that they are to take each a
copy of the second edition [of the poems], for which they are to
pay one guinea. I have been introduced to a good many of the
Noblesse, but my avowed patrons and patronesses are the Duchess of
Gordon, the Countess of Glencairn, with my Lord and Lady
Betty--the Dean of Faculty [Honorable Henry Erskine]--Sir John
Whitefoord.
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