And then we sever

The
Scottish
Reviewers
Barbara Millar

From Clarinda – the musical

The 25th of January may have passed, but 2009 also marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns' most celebrated muse – Clarinda – perhaps the only woman he loved but never bedded.
     Agnes Craig was born in Glasgow on 20 April 1759 (although some have suggested she may have been born in 1758 but knocked a year off her age, to appear younger than Burns). Her father was Andrew Craig, son of a Glasgow merchant, who had been elected to the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons in Glasgow in 1745 and, in 1746, was made town surgeon on a salary of £10 a year, supplemented by lucrative private patients. Craig and his wife lived in the Saltmarket. Agnes was their fifth child and, with her sister Margaret, the only ones to survive infancy. Agnes was also the great-niece of celebrated Scottish mathematician Colin MacLaurin (who until recently held the record as the world's youngest professor).
     Andrew Craig was the uncle of William Craig, rector of Glasgow University from 1801-1803, who later became an advocate and then was raised to the Court of Session in 1792, with the title Lord Craig. He became an important benefactor to Agnes after the death of her father in 1782. Lord Craig was the son of the Reverend William Craig, minister of St Andrews in the Square in Glasgow, where Agnes was married on 1 July 1776, at the tender age of 17 years.
     Her father had vehemently opposed the match with James McLehose, a Glasgow law agent, often described as 'dissolute', 'drunken', 'a wastrel' and 'brutish', and forbade the young man to enter his house. But McLehose determined to pursue Agnes and, on one occasion, when he knew Agnes would be travelling from Glasgow to Edinburgh, bought up all the other seats in the coach, so that he would be her sole travelling companion.
     In the end her father did give her away in marriage and she had four children by McLehose in four years, one of the babies dying in infancy. In 1780, terrorised by a turbulent, violent marriage during which she was regularly beaten, Agnes fled to her father's home while McLehose set sail for Jamaica, although the couple never divorced. Two years later her father, who had been in ill health for some time, died, leaving Agnes with the rents on some property in Glasgow, which were sold to provide her with an annuity, and £50 in the bank. Craig stipulated in his will that none of his effects should ever come into the hands of James McLehose.
     Agnes McLehose, often also known by the diminutive 'Nancy', moved to Edinburgh to 'a desolate-looking court of ancient buildings' in Potterrow, in the Old Town. The court was known as the General's Entry and it was claimed the accommodation had once been assigned to General Monk, while commanding in Scotland, though there was little evidence to support this. The buildings were erected by James Dalrymple, afterwards the first Earl of Stair, and Monk was a frequent visitor to his friend – which may have been how the rumour that Monk lived there began. Nancy moved in to 'a little parlour, bedroom and kitchen' in the court, living on her annuity which was supplemented, from time to time, by gifts from her cousin, Lord Craig.

On 4 December 1787 Nancy met Robert Burns at a tea party in the house of Miss Erskine Nimmo in Alison Square, Edinburgh. Nancy had been urging Miss Nimmo to effect an introduction to the celebrated young poet for some time as a letter to Burns after the tea party reveals: 'Miss Nimmo can tell you how earnestly I had long impressed her to make us acquainted. I had a presentiment that we should derive pleasure from the company of each other'.
     Burns and Nancy were instantly attracted to each other and Nancy went home and penned a note, inviting him to tea the following week. He was unable to make that day but offered to come two days later. However, in the intervening period, the actions of a drunken coachman caused Burns to fall from a coach and sustain 'a good, serious, agonising, damn'd, hard knock on the knee'. His doctor would not allow him to move, he was confined to his lodging. Thus began his correspondence with Nancy.
     '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.' Nancy replied in kind: 'I perfectly comprehend…'
     She then sent him some of her verse, which he praised as: 'poetry, and good poetry', and at Christmas they exchanged further poems. By this time they had decided to give themselves pseudonyms – she was 'Clarinda', Burns 'Sylvander' – but the correspondence was taking an amorous turn, which Nancy could ill-afford to indulge. Her Calvinistic spiritual adviser, Rev John Kemp of the Tolbooth Kirk, and her benefactor, Lord Craig, would scarcely have approved of a married woman exchanging flirtatious missives and she urged Burns: 'I entreat you not to mention our corresponding to anyone on earth. Though I've conscious innocence, my situation is a delicate one.'
     On 5 January 1788, Burns was able to visit Nancy in a sedan chair. There followed a further five visits during the month. After his visit on 12 January, she wrote: 'I will not deny it, Sylvander, last night was one of the most exquisite I ever experienced. Few such fall to the lot of mortals! Few, extremely few, are formed to relish such refined enjoyment. But though our enjoyment did not lead beyond the limits of virtue, yet today's reflections have not been altogether unmixed with regret.' Burns reassured her: 'I would not purchase the dearest gratification on earth, if it must be at your expense in worldly censure; far less, inward peace.'
     She clearly was uncomfortable following further meetings, writing: 'I am neither well nor happy. My heart reproaches me of last night. If you wish Clarinda to regain her peace, determine against everything but what the strictest delicacy warrants.' 'Clarinda, my life, you have wounded my soul,' responded Burns and, shortly afterwards, the relationship began to decline.
     Burns had an affair with a servant girl (possibly Nancy's own servant) Jenny Clow, who later bore him a son. Just before he left Edinburgh in February 1788, heading via Glasgow, Paisley and Kilmarnock, to Mossgiel and, ultimately, a marriage to the patient Jean Armour, there was a further exchange of letters between the two, with Burns apologising for the 'injury' Sylvander had caused Clarinda's reputation.
     They corresponded a little during 1790 and met, for the last time, in Edinburgh on 6 December 1791. On 27 December Burns sent Nancy the bitter-sweet love poem 'Ae Fond Kiss'. The next month she boarded a ship for Jamaica, to attempt a reconciliation with her husband, only to discover that he had replaced her with a mistress who had borne him a daughter. She returned to Scotland three months later and, although a few friendly letters were exchanged with Burns, his passion for her was extinguished. His final letter was sent on 25 June 1794.
     Thirty five years later, on the anniversary of his death, Nancy wrote in her diary: 'This day I can never forget. Parted with Burns in the year 1791, never more to meet in this world. Oh, may we meet in Heaven!' Nancy McLehose died in 1841, aged 82 years. Her correspondence with Burns – some 80 letters between Sylvander and Clarinda – were valued at £25 at her death. She was buried in the Canongate Kirkyard in Edinburgh, where a celebrated bronze sculpture to her 'voluptuous loveliness' stands against the eastern wall.

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