Will your poor narrow footpath o' a street, Where twa wheel-barrows tremble when they meet, Your ruin’d, formless bulk o’stane and lime Compare wi’bonie brigs o’modern time? Robert Burns, the Scottish Bard, wrote his atmospheric poem The Brigs of Ayr in the autumn of 1786 to celebrate the start of construction of the new bridge over the River Ayr, which was to replace the original medieval structure. The original gothic bridge had stood the test of time for over five hundred years but was regarded as dangerous by the project’s directors, Alexander Steven and John Ballantine, the Dean of Guild. The poet describes how, one bleak winter’s night, the old brig and its brash replacement appear to him as ghostly personifications in heated argument, reflecting the contemporary debate for and against progress. Auld Brig appear’d of ancient Pictish race, The very wrinkles Gothic in his face; He seem’d as he wi Time had warstl’d lang New Brig was buskit in a braw new coat, That he, at Lon’on, frae ane Adams got; In’s hand five taper staves as smooth’s a bead … Eyre Crowe’s interpretation of The Brigs of Ayr is a haunting vision of the ice-cold winter’s river disturbed by ghostly apparitions, the Auld and New Brigs, bathed in silvery tones of moonlight. All else was hush’d as Nature’s closed e’e; The silent moon shone high o’er tower and tree The chilly frost, beneath the silver beam, Crept, gently-crusting, o’er the glittering stream - When, lo! On either hand the list’ning Bard … …The clanging such of whistling wings is heard; Two dusky forms dart through the midnight air; Swift as the gos drives on the whelling hare; Ane on th’ Auld Brig his airy shaepe uprears, The other flutters o’er the rising piers; … In Eyre Crowe’s composition, a ghostly cold breath of winter frost represents the Auld Brig, whilst the New is a fashionably dressed sea captain who is attempting to wheel a small barrow across the ancient mediaeval access. The first line of the verse is inscribed on the reverse: Will your poor, narrow foot-path of a street, Where twa wheel-barrows tremble when they meet, Your ruin’d, formless bulk o’stane and lime, Compare wi’bonie brigs o’modern time? In 1877, the New Brig collapsed after heavy floods, breathing new significance into Robert Burn’s words written nearly a hundred year before: Ill be a brig when you’re a shapeless cairn. Eyre Crowe’s painting was almost certainly a response to this incident.
Sotheby's London, 26th September 1930
London, Royal Academy, 1894, number 415