aNCHOR CLOSE
the CROCHALLAN FENCIBLES
Burns was becoming very much accepted within the higher echelons of Edinburgh and was certainly capable of holding his own but he was also drawn to the rougher, seedier parts of Edinburgh society.
Anchor Close held much interest to the poet with Daniel Douglas's Tavern and William Smellie's printshop there. It was also the site of a convivial club which Burns would become a member of called The Crochallan Fencibles.
The Crochallan Fencibles were of a bawdry nature and Burns produced a compilation of rude and rural rhymes called 'The Merry Muses of Caledonia'. There is a sign in Anchor Close today remembering the club.
Through The Fencibles, Burns would meet the music engraver Johnson who he would go on to create and edit 'The Scots Musical Museum' with. Burns was passionate about this project and toured the country to find Scottish tunes.
Within Edinburgh's 'Poems Chiefly In The Scottish Dialect' only two poems were written in the city so it seems Burns was occupied in other ways! Address to a Haggis is one of the poems, still recited worldwide at Burns Suppers.
Anchor Close sounds like a place Burns did not require grandeur and could be himself amongst fellow Crochallan Fencibles ...
O enviable early days when dancing
thoughtless pleasure's maze
To care, to guilt unknown!
How ill exchang'd for riper times
To feel the follies, or the crimes
Of others, or my own! ...
Despondency, An Ode
ANCHOR CLOSE
THE CROCHALLAN FENCIBLES
