Although Wilhelmina never actually spoke to Robert Burns, on the site where the poet first saw his 'Bonnie Lass o' Ballochmyle' a
Fog House was built in his honour and to the occasion of his first seeing her one July day. In surviving photographs the two support poles at the front of the building appear to be cut fir trees, however they were actually made of iron. The roof is thatched and the flimsy walls appear to be made of heather. It was located on one of the many woodland walks, approached from one of the driveways or from the top of the Jacob's Ladders steps that once overlooked the
River Ayr. The Ballochmyle estate lies near
Mauchline and Robert Burns'
Gilbert Burns' Mossgiel Farm where Robert lived for a time. Whilst on an evening walk through the private estate he encountered Wilhelmina Alexander, sister of the owner, walking alone and this inspired him to compose a romantic song. Wilhelmina had quickly left the scene upon this unexpected tryst in the early evening on her brother's lands. Burns wrote to her on 18 November 1786, enclosing a copy of the song, seeking her permission to allow him to publish it in his second edition of his
'Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect'. She was not named in the song however her identity as the main figure was clear for all to see. Burns had started his letter: "
Madam, Poets are outre Beings, so much the children on wayward Fancy and capricious Whim, that I believe the world generally allows them a larger latitude in the rules of Propriety, than the sober Sons of Judgement and Prudence ..." Wilhelmina was at least 30 years old at the time and no great beauty, so thinking that Robert was teasing her and after becoming aware of his reputation and after seeking advice from her brother she decided that the lack of a reply would be the best option. Burns begged Mrs Stewart of Stair to use her influence on Wilhelmina to no effect.
Aftermath Robert Burns When in Edinburgh, Burns expressed his frustration to his friend Gavin Hamilton writing "
My two songs on Miss Alexander and Miss Peggy Kennedy were tried by a jury of literati, and found defamatory libels against the fastidious powers of Poesy and Taste, and the author forbidden to print them under pain of forfeiture of character." He added "
I cannot help shedding a tear to the memory of two songs that had cost me some pains, and that I valued a good deal; but I must submit. My poor unfortunate songs come again across my memory. Damn the pedant, frigid soul of criticism for ever and ever." Some years after the event Burns wrote in the
Glenriddell Manuscript: "
Well, Mr Burns and did the lady give you the desired permission? No! She was too fine a lady to notice so plain a compliment." He went on: "''As to her great brothers, whom I have since met in life, on more equal terms of respectability, why should I quarrel their want of attention to me? - When Fate swore that their purses should be full, Nature was equally positive that their heads should be empty. - 'Men of another fashion were incapable of being unpolite?' - Ye canna mak a silk-purse o' a sow's lug.''" At the time of writing the song he was basking in the fame generated through the first 1786 edition of his poems and the flattery of Mrs Dunlop, clearly the refusal and perceived attitude of Wilhelmina deeply and permanently dented both his pride and his new found confidence. A local acquaintance,
Saunders Tait, did little to improve Burns' feelings when this 'village laureate' was invited to Ballochmyle to sing in person a song that he written about Mrs Alexander. '
Sawney' added insult to injury by becoming a privileged frequenter of Ballochmyle and by being given a reward for his locally popular song. The song was finally published, long after the poets death, in 1802.
Wilhelmina Alexander The correspondence from Burns was however in later life one of her most prized possessions which accompanied with her wherever she went, including her move to Glasgow from Ballochmyle, despite her relations attempts to keep them at the mansion house and, as stated, the
Ballochmyle Fog House was built in honour of the occasion. Poems, Wilhelmina is buried in the Alexander family lair in the Old
Inchinnan churchyard in Renfrewshire. These verses were hung on the walls of the Ballochmyle
Fog House. The song is also known as
Song on Miss Wilhelmina Alexander. ''The Lass o'Ballochmyle'' Douglas refers to the fog house as a rustic grotto and states that the two verses were recorded on a tablet. Cuthbertson visited in the 1940s and comments on the winding mossy paths by which the 'heather house' was reached, confirming that it was built on the site where the poet, leaning against a tree, first espied Wilhelmina Alexander. He goes on to mention the rarely visited 'Poet's Seat', a vantage point where Burns would sit and think over his poems and songs. The seat was the branch of an oak that grew horizontally at this point. ==See also==