P7\ 
 
 TO 
 
 CAPTAIN GRAHAM MOORE, 
 
 OF THE ROYAL NAVY. 
 
 When you were stationed on our coast 
 about twelve years ago, you first recommended 
 to my particular notice the poems of the Ayr- 
 shire ploughman, whose works, published for 
 the benefit of his widow and children, I now 
 present to you. In a distant region of the world, 
 whither the service of your country has carried 
 you, you will, I know, receive with kindness 
 this proof of my regard ; not perhaps without 
 some surprise on finding that I have been engaged 
 in editing these volumes, nor without some cu- 
 riosity to know how I was qualified for such an 
 undertaking. These points I will briefly explain. 
 
 Having occasion to make an excursion to the 
 county of Dumfries, in the summer of 1792, 
 I had there an opportunity of seeing and con- 
 versing with Burns. It has been my fortune to 
 
 vol. I. b know
 
 Ti DEDICATION. 
 
 know some men of high reputation in literature, 
 as well as in public life ; but never to meet any- 
 one who, in the course of a single interview, 
 communicated to me so strong an impression of 
 the force and versatility of his talents. After 
 this I read the poems then published with greater 
 interest and attention, and with a full convic- 
 tion that, extraordinary as they are, they afford 
 but an inadequate proof of the powers of their 
 unfortunate author. 
 
 Four years afterwards, Burns terminated his 
 career. Among those whom the charms of his 
 genius had attached to him, was one with whom 
 I have been bound in the ties of friendship from 
 early life Mr. John Syme, of Ryedale. This 
 gentleman after the death of Burns, promoted 
 with the utmost zeal a subscription for the sup- 
 port of the widow and children, to which their 
 relief from immediate distress is to be ascribed; 
 and in conjunction with other friends of this 
 virtuous and destitute family, he projected the 
 publication of these volumes for their benefit, 
 by which the return of want might be prevented 
 or prolonged. 
 
 To this last undertaking an editor and bio- 
 grapher was wanting, and Mr. Syme's modesty 
 opposed a barrier to his assuming an office, for 
 which he was in other respects peculiarly quali- 
 fied.
 
 DEDICATION. vii 
 
 fied. On this subject he consulted me ; and with 
 the hope of surmounting his objections, I offered 
 him my assistance, but in vain. Endeavours were 
 used to procure an editor in other quarters with- 
 out effect. The task was beset with considerable 
 difficulties, and men of established reputation 
 naturally declined an undertaking, to the per- 
 formance of which, it was scarcely to be hoped, 
 that general approbation could be obtained by 
 any exertion of judgment or temper. 
 
 To such an office, my place of residence, my 
 accustomed studies, and my occupations, were 
 certainly little suited ; but the partiality of Mr. 
 Syme thought me in other respects not unquali- 
 fied ; and his solicitations, joined to those of 
 our excellent friend and relation, Mrs. Dunlop, 
 and of other friends of the family of the poet, I 
 have not been able to resist. To remove diffi- 
 culties which would otherwise have been insur- 
 mountable, Mr. Syme and Mr. Gilbert Burns 
 made a journey to Liverpool, where they ex- 
 plained and arranged the manuscripts, and se- 
 lected such as seemed worthy of the press. 
 From this visit I derived a degree of pleasure 
 which has compensated much of my labour. I 
 had the satisfaction of renewing my personal 
 intercourse with a much valued friend, and of 
 forming an acquaintance with a man, closely 
 allied to Burns in talents as well as in blood, in 
 
 whose
 
 Via DEDICATION. 
 
 whose future fortunes the friends of virtue will 
 not, I trust, be uninterested. 
 
 The publication of these volumes has been 
 delayed by obstacles which these gentlemen 
 could neither remove nor foresee, and which it 
 would be tedious to enumerate. At length the 
 task is finished. If the part which I have taken 
 shall serve the interests of the family, and re- 
 ceive the approbation of good men, I shall have 
 my recompense. The errors into which I have 
 fallen are not, I hope, very important, and they 
 will be easily accounted for by those who know 
 the circumstances under which this undertaking 
 has been performed. Generous minds will re- 
 ceive the posthumous works of Burns with can- 
 dour, and even partiality, as the remains of an 
 unfortunate man of genius, published for the 
 benefit of his family as the stay of the widow 
 and the hope of the fatherless. 
 
 To secure the suffrages of such minds, all 
 topics are omitted in the writings, and avoided 
 in the life of Burns, that have a tendency to 
 awake the animosity of party. In perusing the 
 following volumes no offence will be received, 
 except by those to whom even the natural erect 
 aspect of genius is offensive; characters that 
 will scarcely be found among those who are 
 educated to the profession of arms. Such men 
 
 do
 
 DEDICATION. IX 
 
 do not court situations of danger, or tread in 
 the paths of glory. They will not be found in 
 your service, which, in our own days, emulates 
 on another element the superior fame pf the 
 Macedonian phalanx, or of the Roman legion, 
 and which has lately made the shores of Europe 
 and of Africa resound with the shouts of victory, 
 from the Texel to the Tagus, and from the 
 Tagus to the Nile ! 
 
 The works of Burns will be received favour- 
 ably by one who stands in the foremost rank of 
 this noble service, and who deserves his station. 
 On the land or on the sea, I know no man more 
 capable of judging of the character or of the 
 writings of this original genius. Homer, and 
 Shakespeare, and Ossian, cannot always occupy 
 your leisure. These volumes may sometimes 
 engage your attention, while the steady breezes 
 of the tropics swell your, sails, and in another 
 quarter of the earth charm you with the strains 
 of nature, or awake in your memory the scenes 
 of your early days. Suffer me to hope that they 
 may sometimes recal to your mind the friend 
 who addresses you, and who bids you most 
 affectionately-r-adieu ! 
 
 J. CURRIE. 
 
 Liverpool, 1st May, 1800.
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 IF the Editor has not mentioned by name the various persons 
 who subscribed to the former Editions, or who promoted the 
 subscription for the support of the Widow and Children of 
 Burns, this has arisen from his not being in possession of the 
 necessary documents. Mr. Alexander Cunningham ought, 
 however, to have been more particularly distinguished : He was 
 indefatigably zealous in promoting the interest of the Widow and 
 her Children, at a period when such services were highly import- 
 ant, and not a little difficult. The Editor is happy in an oppor- 
 tunity of doing this justice, tardy and imperfect though it be, to 
 en old friend, of the generous qualities of whose heart he retains 
 a just and lasting impression.
 
 ( si ) 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 
 
 PREFATORY REMARKS ON THE CHARACTER AND 
 CONDITION OF THE SCOTTISH PEASANTRY. 
 
 Page. 
 Effects of the legal establishment of parochial 
 schools of the church establishment of the 
 absence of poor laws of the Scottish music and 
 national songs of the laws respecting marriage 
 and incontinence Observations on the domes- 
 tic and national attachments of the Scots ... 1 
 
 LIFE OF BURNS. 
 
 Narrative of his infancy and youth, by him- 
 self Narrative on the same subject, by his bro- 
 ther, and by Mr. Murdoch, of London, his 
 teacher Other particulars of Burns while resi- 
 dent in Ayrshire History of Burns while resi- 
 dent in Edinburgh, including letters to the Edi- 
 tor from Mr. Stewart and Dr. Adair History of 
 Burns while on the farm of Ellisland, in Dum- 
 fries-shire History of Burns while resident in 
 Dumfries his last illness death and character 
 with general reflections 33 
 
 Memoir respecting Burns, by a Lady . . . 251 
 
 Criticism on the Writings of Burns, including 
 observations on poetry in the Scottish dialect, and 
 some remarks on Scottish literature 264
 
 Xii CONTENTS. 
 
 Page. 
 Tributary Verses on the Death of Burns, by 
 Mr. Roscoe 337 
 
 Appendix, No. 1 345 
 
 Appendix, No. II. including an extract of a 
 Poem addressed to Burns, by Mr. Telford, 357 
 
 Appendix, No. III. Letter from Mr. Gilbert 
 Burns to the Editor, approving his Life of his 
 Brother; with observations on the effects of 
 refinement of taste on the labouring classes of 
 men 375 
 
 INDEX TO THE POETRY 
 
 in this volume. 
 
 The Lass o' Ballochmyle 122 
 
 To Mary in Heaven 125 
 
 Poem on meeting with Lord Daer 134 
 
 On a young Lady residing on the Banks of the Devon . 175 
 
 On Gordon Castle 184 
 
 On the Birth-day of Prince Charles Edward . . . .186 
 
 Soliloquy on the Author's Marriage 195 
 
 The Song of Death , 216
 
 LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 
 
 PREFATORY REMARKS. 
 
 Though the dialect, in which many of 
 the happiest effusions of Robert Burns are com- 
 posed, be peculiar to Scotland, yet his reputa- 
 tion has extended itself beyond the limits of 
 that country, and his poetry has been admired 
 as the offspring of original genius, by persons of 
 taste in every part of the sister islands. The 
 interest excited by his early death, and the dis- 
 tress of his infant family, have been felt in a 
 remarkable manner wherever his writings have 
 been known : and these posthumous volumes, 
 which give to the world his Works complete, 
 and which, it is hoped, may raise his Widow 
 and Children from penury, are printed and pub- 
 VOL. I. B lished
 
 2 PREFATORY REMARKS. 
 
 lished in England. It seems proper, therefore, 
 to write the memoirs of his life, not with the 
 view of their being read by Scotchmen only, 
 but also by natives of England, and of other 
 countries where the English language is spoken 
 or understood. 
 
 Robert Burns was, in reality, what he has been 
 represented to be, a Scottish peasant. To ren- 
 der the incidents of his humble story generally 
 intelligible, it seems, therefore, advisable to pre- 
 fix some observations on the character and situa- 
 tion of the order to which he belonged a class 
 of men distinguished by many peculiarities: by 
 this means we shall form a more correct notion 
 of the advantages with which he started, and of 
 the obstacles which he surmounted. A few ob- 
 servations on the Scottish peasantry will not, 
 perhaps, be found unworthy of attention in 
 other respects : and the subject is, in a great 
 measure, new. Scotland has produced persons 
 of high distinction in every branch of philoso- 
 phy and literature; and her history, while a 
 separate and independent nation, has been suc- 
 cessfully explored. But the present character 
 of the people was not then formed ; the nation 
 then presented features similar to those which 
 the feudal system and the catholic religion had 
 diffused over Europe, modified, indeed, by the 
 peculiar nature of her territory and climate. 
 
 The
 
 PREFATORY REMARKS. 3 
 
 The Reformation, by which such important 
 changes were produced on the national charac- 
 ter, was speedily followed by the Accession of 
 the Scottish monarchs to the English throne j 
 and the period which elapsed from that Acces- 
 sion to the Union has been rendered memorable, 
 chiefly, by those bloody convulsions in which 
 both divisions of the island were involved, and 
 which, in a considerable degree, concealed from 
 the eye of the historian the domestic history 
 of the people, and the gradual variations in 
 their condition and manners. Since the Union, 
 Scotland, though the seat of two unsuccessful 
 attempts to restore the House of Stuart to the 
 throne, has enjoyed a comparative tranquillity ; 
 and it is since this period that the present cha- 
 racter of her peasantry has been in a great mea- 
 sure formed, though the political causes affect- 
 ing it are to be traced to the previous acts of her 
 separate legislature. 
 
 A slight acquaintance with the peasantry of 
 Scotland will serve to convince an unprejudiced 
 observer, that they possess a degree of intelli- 
 gence not generally found among the same class 
 of men in the other countries of Europe. In the 
 very humblest condition of the Scottish pea- 
 sants, every one can read, and most persons are 
 more or less skilled in writing and arithmetic ; 
 and, under the disguise of their uncouth appear- 
 
 B 2 ance,
 
 4 PREFATORY REMARKS. 
 
 ance, and of their peculiar manners and dialect, 
 a stranger will discover that they possess a curio- 
 sity, and have obtained a degree of information, 
 corresponding to these acquirements. 
 
 These advantages they owe to the legal pro- 
 vision made by the parliament of Scotland in 
 1646, for the establishment of a school in every 
 parish throughout the kingdom, for the express 
 purpose of educating the poor ; a law which 
 may challenge comparison with any act of legis- 
 lation to be found in the records of history, whe- 
 ther we consider the wisdom of the ends in view, 
 the simplicity of the means employed, or the 
 provisions made to render these means effectual 
 to their purpose. This excellent statute was re- 
 pealed on the accession of Charles II. in 1660, 
 together with all the other laws passed during 
 the commonwealth, as not being sanctioned by 
 the royal assent. It slept during the reigns of 
 Charles and James, but was re-enacted precisely 
 in the same terms, by the Scottish parliament, 
 after the Revolution in 1696; and this is the 
 last provision on the subject. Its effects on the 
 national character may be considered to have 
 commenced about the period of the Union ; and 
 doubtless it co-operated with the peace and se- 
 curity arising from that happy event, in pro- 
 ducing the extraordinary change in favour of 
 industry and good morals, which the character 
 
 of
 
 PREFATORY REMARKS. 5 
 
 of the common people of Scotland has since un- 
 dergone.* 
 
 The church-establishment of Scotland hap* 
 pily coincides with the institution just men- 
 tioned, which may be called its school-establish- 
 ment. The clergyman, being every where resi- 
 dent in his particular parish, becomes the na- 
 tural patron and superintendent of the parish- 
 school, and is enabled in various ways to pro- 
 mote the comfort of the teacher, and the profi- 
 ciency of the scholars. The teacher himself is 
 often a candidate for holy orders, who, during 
 the long course of study and probation required 
 in the Scottish church, renders the time which 
 can be spared from his professional studies, use- 
 ful to others as well as to himself, by assuming 
 the respectable character of a schoolmaster. It 
 is common for the established schools, even in 
 the country parishes of Scotland, to enjoy the 
 means of classical instruction ; and many of 
 the farmers, and some even of the cottagers, 
 submit to much privation, that they may ob- 
 tain, for one of their sons at least, the preca- 
 rious advantage of a learned education. The 
 difficulty to be surmounted arises, indeed, not 
 from the expense of instructing their children, 
 but from the charge of supporting them. In 
 the country parish-schools, the English lan- 
 guage 
 
 * See Appendix, No. I. Note A.
 
 6 PREFATORY REMARKS. 
 
 guage, writing, and accounts, are generally 
 taught at the rate of six shillings, and Latin at 
 the rate of ten or twelve shillings, per annum. 
 In the towns the prices are somewhat higher. 
 
 It would be improper in this place to inquire 
 minutely into the degree of instruction received 
 at these seminaries, or to attempt any precise 
 estimate of its effects, either on the individuals 
 who are the subjects of this instruction, or on 
 the community to which they belong. That it 
 is on the whole favourable to industry and mo- 
 rals, though doubtless with some individual ex- 
 ceptions, seems to be proved by the most strik- 
 ing and decisive appearance; and it is equally 
 clear, that it is the cause of that spirit of emi- 
 gration and of adventure so prevalent among 
 the Scotch. Knowledge has, by Lord Verulam, 
 been denominated power ; by others it has, with 
 less propriety, been denominated virtue or hap- 
 piness : we may with confidence consider it has 
 motion. A human being, in proportion as he 
 is informed, has his wishes enlarged, as well as 
 the means of gratifying those wishes. He may 
 be considered as taking within the sphere of his 
 vision a large portion of the globe on which we 
 tread, and discovering advantage at a greater 
 distance on its surface. His desires or ambi- 
 tion, once excited, are stimulated by his ima- 
 gination y and distant and uncertain objects, 
 giving freer scope to the operation of this fa- 
 cutty,
 
 PREFATORY REMARKS. 7 
 
 culty, often acquire, in the mind of the youth- 
 ful adventurer, an attraction from their very 
 distance and uncertainty. If, therefore, a 
 greater degree of instruction be given to the 
 peasantry of a country comparatively poor, in 
 the neighbourhood of other countries rich in 
 natural and acquired advantages ; and if the 
 barriers be removed that kept them separate ; 
 emigration from the former to the latter will 
 take place to a certain extent, by laws nearly 
 as uniform as those by which heat diffuses it- 
 self among surrounding bodies, or water finds 
 its level when left to its natural course. By the 
 articles of the Union, the barrier was broken 
 down which divided the two British nations, 
 and knowledge and poverty poured the adven- 
 turous natives of the north over the fertile 
 plains of England, and more especially, over 
 the colonies which she had settled in the east 
 and in the west. The stream of population 
 continues to flow from the north to the south ; 
 for the causes that originally impelled it, conti- 
 nue to operate ; and the richer country is con- 
 stantly invigorated by the accession of an in- 
 formed and hardy race of men, educated in po- 
 verty, and prepared for hardship and danger, 
 patient of labour, and prodigal of life.* 
 
 The 
 * See Appendix, No, I, Note B.
 
 8 PREFATORY REMARKS. 
 
 The preachers of the Reformation in Scotland 
 were disciples of Calvin, and brought with them, 
 the temper as well as the tenets of that cele- 
 brated heresiarch. The presbyterian form of 
 worship and of church government was en- 
 deared to the people, from its being established 
 by themselves. It was endeared to them, also, 
 by the struggle it had to maintain with the Ca- 
 tholic and the Protestant episcopal churches, 
 over both of which, after a hundred years of 
 fierce, and sometimes bloody contention, it 
 finally triumphed, receiving the countenance 
 of government, and the sanction of law. Dur- 
 ing this long period of contention and of suf- 
 fering, the temper of the people became more 
 and more obstinate and bigoted ; and the nation 
 received that deep tinge of fanaticism, which 
 coloured their public transactions as well as 
 their private virtues, and of which evident 
 traces may be found in our own times. When 
 the public schools were established, the instruc- 
 tion communicated in them partook of the reli- 
 gious character of the people. The Catechism 
 of the Westminster Divines was the universal 
 school-book, and was put into the hands of the 
 young peasant as soon as he had acquired a 
 knowledge of his alphabet; and his first exer- 
 cise in the art of reading introduced him to the 
 most mysterious doctrines of the Christian faith. 
 This practice is continued in our own times. 
 After the Assembly's Catechism, the Proverbs of 
 
 Solomon,
 
 PREFATORY REMARKS. 9 
 
 Solomon, and the New and Old Testament, fol- 
 low in regular succession -, and the scholar de- 
 parts, gifted with the knowledge of the sacred 
 writings, and receiving their doctrines accord- 
 ing to the interpretation of the Westminster 
 Confession of Faith. Thus, with the instruction 
 of infancy in the schools of Scotland, are blended 
 the dogmas of the national church ; and hence 
 the first and most constant exercise of inge- 
 nuity among the peasantry of Scotland, is dis- 
 played in religious disputation. With a strong 
 attachment to the national creed, is conjoined a 
 bigoted preference of certain forms of worship ; 
 the source of which would be often altogether 
 obscure, if we did not recollect that the cere- 
 monies of the Scottish Church were framed in 
 direct opposition, in every point, to those of the 
 Church of Rome. 
 
 The eccentricities of conduct, and singula- 
 rities of opinion and manners, which character- 
 ized the English sectaries in the last century, 
 afforded a subject for the comic muse of Butler, 
 whose pictures lose their interest, since their 
 archetypes are lost. Some of the peculiarities 
 common among the more rigid disciples of Cal- 
 vinism in Scotland, in the present times, have 
 given scope to the ridicule of Burns, whose hu- 
 mour is equal to Butler's, and whose drawings 
 from living manners are singularly expressive 
 
 and
 
 10 PREFATORY REMARKS. 
 
 and exact. Unfortunately the correctness of 
 his taste did not always correspond with the 
 strength of his genius ; and hence some of the 
 most exquisite of his comic productions are ren- 
 dered unfit for the light.* 
 
 The information and the religious education 
 of the peasantry of Scotland, promote sedate- 
 ness of conduct, and habits of thought and re- 
 flection. These good qualities are not counter- 
 acted by the establishment of poor laws, which, 
 while they reflect credit on the benevolence, de- 
 tract from the wisdom of the English legisla- 
 ture. To make a legal provision for the inevi- 
 table distresses of the poor, who by age or dis- 
 ease are rendered incapable of labour, may in- 
 deed seem an indispensable duty of society ; and 
 if, in the execution of a plan for this purpose, 
 a distinction could be introduced, so as to ex- 
 clude from its benefits those whose sufferings 
 are produced by idleness or profligacy, such an 
 institution would perhaps be as rational as hu- 
 mane. But to lay a general tax on property for 
 the support of poverty, from whatever cause 
 proceeding, is a measure full of danger. It 
 must operate in a considerable degree as an in- 
 citement 
 
 * Holy Willie's Prayer, Rob the Rhymer's Welcome 
 to his Bastard Child, Epistle to J. Gowdie, the Holy 
 Tulzie, fyc.
 
 PREFATORY REMARKS. 11 
 
 citement to idleness, and a discouragement to 
 industry. It takes away from vice and indo- 
 lence the prospect of their most dreaded conse- 
 quences, and from virtue and industry their pe- 
 culiar sanctions. In many cases it must ren- 
 der the rise in the price of labour, not a bless- 
 ing, but a curse to the labourer ; who, if there 
 be an excess in what he earns beyond his im- 
 mediate necessities, may be expected to devote 
 this excess to his present gratification ; trusting 
 to the provision made by law for his own and 
 his family's support, should disease suspend, or 
 death terminate his labours. Happily in Scot- 
 land, the same legislature which established a 
 system of instruction for the poor, resisted the 
 introduction of a legal provision for the support 
 of poverty ; the establishment of the first, and 
 the rejection of the last, were equally favour- 
 able to industry and good morals ; and hence it 
 will not appear surprising, if the Scottish pea- 
 santry have a more than usual share of prudence 
 and reflection, if they approach nearer than per- 
 sons of their order usually do, to the definition 
 of a man, that of " a being that looks before 
 and after." These observations must indeed 
 be taken with many exceptions : the favourable 
 operation of the causes just mentioned is coun- 
 teracted by others of an opposite tendency ; and 
 the subject, if fully examined, would lead to 
 discussions of great extent. 
 
 When
 
 12 PREFATORY REMARKS. 
 
 When the Reformation was established in 
 Scotland, instrumental music was banished from 
 the churches, as savouring too much of " pro- 
 fane minstrelsy." Instead of being regulated 
 by an instrument, the voices of the congrega- 
 tion are led and directed by a person under the 
 name of a precentor - } and the people are all ex- 
 pected to join in the tune which he chooses for 
 the psalm which is to be sung. Church-music 
 is therefore a part of the education of the pea- 
 santry of Scotland, in which they are usually 
 instructed in the long winter-nights by the pa- 
 rish schoolmaster, who is generally the precen- 
 tor, or by itinerant teachers more celebrated for 
 their powers of voice. This branch of educa- 
 tion had, in the last reign, fallen into some neg- 
 lect, but was revived about thirty or forty 
 years ago, when the music itself was reformed 
 and improved. The Scottish system of psal- 
 mody is however radically bad. Destitute of 
 taste or harmony, it forms a striking contrast 
 with the delicacy and pathos of the profane 
 airs. Our poet, it will be found, was taught 
 church-music, in which, however, he made little 
 proficiency. 
 
 That dancing should also be very generally 
 a part of the education of the Scottish pea- 
 santry, will surprise those who have only seen 
 this description of menj and still more those 
 
 who
 
 PREFATORY REMARKS. 13 
 
 who reflect on the rigid spirit of Calvinism with 
 which the nation is so deeply affected, and to 
 which this recreation is so strongly abhorrent. 
 The winter is also the season when they acquire 
 dancing, and indeed almost all their other in- 
 struction. They are taught to dance by per- 
 sons generally of their own number, many of 
 whom work at daily labour during the summer 
 months. The school is usually a barn, and the 
 arena for the performers is generally a clay floor. 
 The dome is lighted by candles stuck in one 
 end of a cloven stick, the other end of which 
 is thrust into the wall. Reels, strathspeys, 
 country- dances, and hornpipes, are here prac- 
 tised. The jig, so much in favour among the 
 English peasantry, has no place among them. 
 The attachment of the people of Scotland of 
 every rank, and particularly of the peasantry, 
 to this amusement, is very great. After the la- 
 bours of the day are over, young men and wo- 
 men walk many miles, in the cold and dreary 
 nights of winter, to these country dancing- 
 schools ; and the instant that the violin sounds 
 a Scottish air, fatigue seems to vanish, the 
 toil-bent rustic becomes erect, his features 
 brighten with sympathy ; every nerve seems 
 to thrill with sensation, and every artery to 
 vibrate with life. These rustic performers 
 are indeed less to be admired for grace, than 
 for agility and animation, and their accurate 
 
 observance
 
 14 PREFATORY REMARKS. 
 
 observance of time. Their modes of dancing, 
 as well as their tunes, are common to every 
 rank in Scotland, and are now generally known. 
 In our own day they have penetrated into Eng- 
 land, and have established themselves even in 
 the circle of Royalty. In another generation 
 they will be naturalized in every part of the 
 island. 
 
 The prevalence of this taste, or rather passion 
 for dancing, among a people so deeply tinctured 
 with the spirit and doctrines of Calvin, is one 
 of those contradictions which the philosophic 
 observer so often finds in national character and 
 manners. It is probably to be ascribed to the 
 Scottish music, which, throughout all its varie- 
 ties, is so full of sensibility, and which, in its 
 livelier strains, awakes those vivid emotions that 
 find in dancing their natural solace and relief. 
 
 This triumph of the music of Scotland over 
 the spirit of the established religion, has not, 
 however, been obtained without long-continued 
 and obstinate struggles. The numerous secta- 
 ries who dissent from the establishment on ac- 
 count of the relaxation which they perceive, or 
 think they perceive, in the Church, from her 
 original doctrines and discipline, universally 
 condemn the practice of dancing, and the 
 schools where it is taught -, and the more el- 
 derly
 
 PREFATORY REMARKS. 15 
 
 derly and serious part of the people, of every"] 
 persuasion, tolerate rather than approve these 
 meetings of the young of both sexes, where 
 dancing is practised to their spirit-stirring music, 
 where care is dispelled, toil is forgotten, and 
 prudence itself is sometimes lulled to sleep. 
 
 The Reformation, which proved fatal to the 
 rise of the other fine arts in Scotland, probably 
 impeded, but could not obstruct, the progress 
 of its music ; a circumstance that will convince 
 the impartial inquirer, that this music not only 
 existed previously to that aera, but had taken a 
 firm hold of the nation ; thus affording a proof 
 of its antiquity, stronger than any produced by 
 the researches of our antiquaries. 
 
 The impression which the Scottish music has 
 made on the people, is deepened by its union 
 with the national songs, of which various col- 
 lections of unequal merit are before the public. 
 These songs, like those of other nations, are 
 many of them humorous, but they chiefly treat 
 of love, war, and drinking. Love is the sub- 
 ject of the greater proportion. Without dis- 
 playing the higher powers of the imagination, 
 they exhibit a perfect knowledge of the human 
 heart, and breathe a spirit of affection, and 
 sometimes of delicate and romantic tenderness, 
 not to be surpassed in modern poetry, and which 
 
 the
 
 16 PREFATORY REMARKS. 
 
 the more polished strains of antiquity have sel- 
 dom possessed. 
 
 The origin of this amatory character in the 
 rustic muse of Scotland, or of the greater num- 
 ber of these love-songs themselves, it would be 
 difficult to trace ; they have accumulated in the 
 silent lapse of time, and it is now perhaps im- 
 possible to give an arrangement of them in the 
 order of their date, valuable as such a record of 
 taste and manners would be. Their present in- 
 fluence on the character of the nation is, how- 
 ever, great and striking. To them we must at- 
 tribute, in a great measure, the romantic pas- 
 sion which so often characterizes the attach- 
 ments of the humblest of the people of Scot- 
 land, to a degree, that if we mistake not, is 
 seldom found in the same rank of society in 
 other countries. The pictures of love and hap- 
 piness exhibited in their rural songs, are early 
 impressed on the mind of the peasant, and are 
 rendered more attractive from the music with 
 which they are united. They associate them- 
 selves with his own youthful emotions ; they 
 elevate the object as well as the nature of his 
 attachment ; and give to the impressions of 
 sense the beautiful colours of imagination. 
 Hence in the course of his passion, a Scottish 
 peasant often exerts a spirit of adventure, of 
 which a Spanish cavalier need not be ashamed. 
 
 After
 
 PREFATORY REMARKS. 17 
 
 After the labours of the day are over, he sets 
 out for the habitation of his mistress, perhaps at 
 many miles distance, regardless of the length or 
 the dreariness of the way. He approaches her 
 in secresy, under the disguise of night. A sig- 
 nal at the door or window, perhaps agreed on, 
 and understood by none but her, gives informa- 
 tion of his arrival ; and sometimes it is repeated 
 again and again, before the capricious fair one 
 will obey the summons. But if she favours his 
 addresses, she escapes unobserved, and receives 
 the vows of her lover under the gloom of twi- 
 light, or the deeper shade of night. Interviews 
 of this kind are the subjects of many of the 
 Scottish songs, some of the most beautiful of 
 which Burns has imitated or improved. In the 
 art which they celebrate he was perfectly skilled ; 
 he knew and had practised all its mysteries. In- 
 tercourse of this sort is indeed universal even in 
 the humblest condition of man in every region 
 of the earth. But it is not unnatural to suppose 
 that it may exist in a greater degree, and 
 in a more romantic form, among the peasantry 
 of a country who are supposed to be more than 
 commonly instructed ; who find in their rural 
 songs expressions for their youthful emotions; 
 and in whom the embers of passion are conti- 
 nually fanned by the breathings of a music full 
 of tenderness and sensibility. The direct in- 
 fluence of physical causes on the attach menjt 
 VOL. I. C between
 
 18 PREFATORY REMARKS. 
 
 between the sexes is comparatively small, but it 
 is modified by moral causes beyond any other 
 affection of the mind. Of these, music and 
 poetry are the chief. Among the snows of 
 Lapland, and under the burning sun of Angola, 
 the savage is seen hastening to his mistress, and 
 every where he beguiles the weariness of his 
 journey with poetry and song.* 
 
 In appreciating the happiness and virtue of a 
 community, there is perhaps no single criterion 
 on which so much dependence may be placed, 
 as the state of the intercourse between the sexes. 
 Where this displays ardour of attachment, ac- 
 companied by purity of conduct, the character 
 and the influence of women rise in society, our 
 imperfect nature mounts in the scale of moral 
 excellence, and, from the source of this single 
 affection, a stream of felicity descends, which 
 branches into a thousand rivulets that enrich 
 and adorn the field of life. Where the attach- 
 ment between the sexes sinks into an appetite, 
 the heritage of our species is comparatively 
 
 poor, 
 
 * The North-American Indians, among whom the at- 
 tachment between the sexes is said to be weak, and love, in 
 the purer sense of the word, unknown, seem nearly unac- 
 quainted with the charms of poetry and music. See Weld's 
 Tour.
 
 PREFATORY REMARKS: 19 
 
 poor, and man approaches the condition of the 
 brutes that perish. " If we could with safety in- 
 dulge the pleasing supposition that Fingal lived 
 and that Ossian sung,"* Scotland, judging from 
 this criterion, might be considered as ranking 
 high in happiness and virtue in very remote 
 ages. To appreciate her situation by the same 
 criterion in our own times, would be a delicate 
 and a difficult undertaking. After considering 
 the probable influence of her popular songs and 
 her national music, and examining how far the 
 effects to be expected from these are supported 
 by facts, the inquirer would also have to ex- 
 amine the influence of other causes, and parti- 
 cularly of her civil and ecclesiastical institutions, 
 by which the character, and even the manners 
 of a people, though silently and slowly, are 
 often powerfully controlled. In the point of 
 view in which we are considering the subject, 
 the ecclesiastical establishments of Scotland may 
 be supposed peculiarly favourable to purity of 
 conduct. The dissoluteness of manners among: 
 the catholic clergy, which preceded, and in 
 some measure produced the reformation, led to 
 an extraordinary strictness on the part of the re- 
 formers, and especially in that particular in 
 which the licentiousness of the clergy had been 
 carried to its greatest height the intercourse 
 
 C 2 between 
 
 * Gibbon.
 
 20 PREFATORY REMARKS. 
 
 between the sexes. On this point, as on all 
 others connected with austerity of manners, the 
 disciples of Calvin assumed a greater severity than 
 those of the protestant episcopal church. The 
 punishment of illicit connexion between the 
 sexes was, throughout all Europe, a province 
 which the clergy assumed to themselves ; and 
 the church of Scotland, which at the reformation 
 renounced so many powers and privileges, at that 
 period took this crime under her more especial 
 jurisdiction.* AVhere pregnancy takes place 
 without marriage, the condition of the female 
 causes the discovery, and it is on her, therefore, 
 in the first instance, that the clergy and elders of 
 the church exercise their zeal. After examina- 
 tion before the kirk-session touching the circum- 
 stances! of her 1 guilt, she must endure a public 
 penance, and sustain a public rebuke from the 
 pulpit, for three Sabbaths successively, in the 
 face of the congregation to which she belongs, 
 and thus have her weakness exposed, and her 
 shame blazoned. The sentence is the same with 
 respect to the male j but how much lighter the 
 punishment ! It is well known that this dreadful 
 law, worthy of the iron minds of Calvin and of 
 Knox, has often led to consequences, at the very 
 mention of which human nature recoils. 
 
 While 
 
 * See Appendix, No. I. Note C.
 
 BEFATORY REMARKS. 21 
 
 While the punishment of incontinence pre- 
 scribed by the institutions of Scotland, is severe, 
 the culprits have an obvious method of avoiding 
 it, afforded them by the law respecting marriage, 
 the validity of which requires neither the cere- 
 monies of the church, nor any other ceremonies, 
 but simply the deliberate acknowledgment of 
 each other as husband and wife, made by the 
 parties before witnesses, or in any other way that 
 gives legal evidence of such an acknowledgment 
 having taken place. And as the parties them- 
 selves fix the date of their marriage, an oppor- 
 tunity is thus given to avoid the punishment, 
 and repair the consequences, of illicit gratifica- 
 tion. Such a degree of laxity respecting so se- 
 rious a contract might produce much confusion 
 in the descent of property, without a still farther 
 indulgence ; but the law of Scotland legitimating 
 all children born before wedlock, on the subse- 
 quent marriage of their parents, renders the actual 
 date of the marriage itself of little consequence.* 
 Marriages contracted in Scotland without the ce- 
 remonies of the church are considered as irregu- 
 lar, and the parties usually submit to a rebuke 
 for their conduct, in the face of their respective 
 congregations, which is not however necessary 
 t6 render the marriage valid. Burns, whose 
 
 marriage, 
 
 * See Appendix , No. 1. Note J).
 
 22 PREFATORY REMARKS. 
 
 marriage, it will appear, was irregular, does not 
 seem to have undergone this part of the disci- 
 pline of the church. 
 
 Thus, though the institutions of Scotland are 
 in many particulars favourable to a conduct 
 among the peasantry founded on foresight and 
 reflection, on the subject of marriage the reverse 
 of this is true. Irregular marriages, it may be 
 naturally supposed, are often improvident ones, 
 in whatever rank of society they occur. The 
 children of such marriages, poorly endowed by 
 their parents, find a certain degree of instruction 
 of easy acquisition ; but the comforts of life, 
 and the gratifications of ambition, they find of 
 more difficult attainment in their native soil ; 
 and thus the marriage laws of Scotland conspire 
 with other circumstances, to produce that habit 
 of emigration, and spirit of adventure, for which 
 the people are so remarkable. 
 
 The manners and appearance of the Scottish 
 peasantry do not bespeak to a stranger the degree 
 of their cultivation. In their own country, their 
 industry is inferior to that of the same descrip- 
 tion of men in the southern division of the 
 island. Industry and the useful arts reached 
 Scotland later than England ; and though their 
 advance has been rapid there, the effects pro- 
 duced are as yet far inferior both in reality and 
 
 in
 
 PREFATORY REMARKS. 23 
 
 in appearance. The Scottish farmers have in 
 general neither the opulence nor the comforts of 
 those of England, neither vest the same capital 
 in the soil, nor receive from it the same return. 
 Their clothing, their food, and their habita- 
 tions, are almost every where inferior.* Their 
 appearance in these respects corresponds with the 
 appearance of their country ; and under the 
 operation of patient industry, both are improv- 
 ing. Industry and the useful arts came later in- 
 to Scotland than into England, because the se- 
 curity of property came later. With causes of 
 internal agitation and warfare, similar to those 
 which occurred to the more southern nation, the 
 people of Scotland were exposed to more immi- 
 nent hazards, and more extensive and destructive 
 spoliation, from external war. Occupied in the 
 maintenance of their independence against their 
 more powerful neighbours, to this were necessa- 
 rily sacrificed the arts of peace, and at certain 
 periods, the flower of their population. And 
 when the union of the crowns produced a secu- 
 rity from national wars with England, for the 
 
 century 
 
 * These remarks are confined to the class of farmers j 
 the same corresponding inferiority will not be found in the 
 condition of the cottagers and labourers, at least in the ar- 
 ticle of food, as those who examine this subject impartially 
 will soon discover.
 
 24 PREFATORY REMARKS. 
 
 century succeeding, the civil wars common to 
 both divisions of the island, and the dependence, 
 perhaps the necessary dependence of the Scot- 
 tish councils on those of the more powerful 
 kingdom, counteracted this disadvantage. Even 
 the union of the British nations was not, from 
 obvious causes, immediately followed by all the 
 benefits which it was ultimately destined to pro- 
 duce. At length, however, these benefits are 
 distinctly felt, and generally acknowledged. Pro- 
 perty is secure ; manufactures and commerce 
 increasing, and agriculture is rapidly improving 
 in Scotland. As yet, indeed, the farmers are 
 not, in general, enabled to make improvements 
 out of their own capitals, as in England ; but 
 the landholders, who have seen and felt the ad- 
 vantages resulting from them, contribute towards 
 them with a liberal hand. Hence property, as 
 well as population, is accumulating rapidly on 
 the Scottish soil ; and the nation, enjoying a 
 great part of the blessings of Englishmen, and 
 retaining several of their own happy institutions, 
 might be considered, if confidence could be 
 placed in human foresight, to be as yet only in 
 an early stage of their progress. Yet there are 
 obstructions in their way. To the cultivation of 
 the soil are opposed the extent and the strictness 
 of the entails ; to the improvement of the people, 
 the rapidly increasing use of spirituous liquors, 
 a detestable practice, which includes in its con- 
 sequences
 
 PREFATORY REMARKS. 25 
 
 sequences almost every evil, physical and mo- 
 ral.* The peculiarly social disposition of the 
 Scottish peasantry exposes them to this practice. 
 This disposition, which is fostered by their na- 
 tional songs and music, is perhaps characteristic 
 of the nation at large. Though the source of 
 many pleasures, it counteracts by its conse- 
 quences the effects of their patience, industry, 
 and frugality, both at home and abroad, of which 
 those especially who have witnessed the progress 
 of Scotsmen in other countries, must have known 
 many striking instances. 
 
 Since the Union, the manners and language 
 of the people of Scotland have no longer a 
 standard among themselves, but are tried by the 
 standard of the nation to which they are united. 
 Though their habits are far from being flexi- 
 ble, yet it is evident that their manners and dia- 
 lect are undergoing a rapid change. Even the 
 farmers of the present day appear to have less of 
 the peculiarities of their country in their speech, 
 
 than 
 
 * The amount of the duty on spirits distilled in Scot- 
 land is now upwards of 250,0001. annually. In 1777, it 
 did not reach 8,0001. The rate of the duty has indeed been 
 raised, but, making every allowance, the increase of con- 
 sumption must be enormous. This is independent of the 
 duty on malt, &c, malt-liquor, imported spirits, and wine.
 
 26 PREFATORY REMARKS. 
 
 than the men of letters of the last generation. 
 Burns, who never left the island, nor penetrated 
 farther into England than Carlisle on the one 
 hand, or Newcastle on the other, had less 
 of the Scottish dialect than Hume, who lived 
 for many years in the best society of England 
 and France , or perhaps than Robertson, who 
 wrote the English language in a style of such 
 purity; and if he had been in other respects 
 fitted to take a lead in the British House of 
 Commons, his pronunciation would neither have 
 fettered his eloquence, nor deprived it of its due 
 effect. 
 
 A striking particular in the character of the 
 Scottish peasantry, is one which it is hoped will 
 not be lost the strength of their domestic at- 
 tachments. The privations to which many pa- 
 rents submit for the good of their children, and 
 particularly to obtain for them instruction, 
 which they consider as the chief good, has al- 
 ready been noticed. If their children live and 
 prosper, they have their certain reward, not 
 merely as witnessing, but as sharing of their 
 prosperity. Even in the humblest ranks of the 
 peasantry, the earnings of the children may ge- 
 nerally be considered as at the disposal of their 
 parents; perhaps in no country is so large a por- 
 tion of the wages of labour applied to the sup- 
 port and comfort of those whose days of labour 
 
 are
 
 PREFATORY REMARKS. 27 
 
 are past. A similar strength of attachment ex- 
 tends through all the domestic relations. 
 
 Our poet partook largely of this amiable cha- 
 racteristic of his humble compeers ; he was also 
 strongly tinctured with another striking feature 
 which belongs to them, a partiality for his na- 
 tive country, of which many proofs may be 
 found in his writings. This, it must be confess- 
 ed, is a very strong and general sentiment among 
 the natives of Scotland, differing however in its 
 character, according to the character of the dif- 
 ferent minds in which it is found ; in some ap- 
 pearing a selfish prejudice, in others, a generous 
 affection. 
 
 An attachment to the land of their birth is, in- 
 deed, common to all men. It is found among 
 the inhabitants of every region of the earth, 
 from the arctic to the antarctic circle, in all the 
 vast variety of climate, of surface, and of civili- 
 zation. To analyze this general sentiment, to 
 trace it through the mazes of association up to 
 the primary affection in which it has its source, 
 would neither be a difficult nor an unpleasing 
 labour. On the first consideration of the sub- 
 ject, we should perhaps expect to find this at- 
 tachment strong in proportion to the physical 
 advantages of the soil ; but inquiry, far from 
 confirming this supposition, seems rather to lead 
 
 to
 
 28 PREFATORY REMARKS. 
 
 to an opposite conclusion In those fertile re- 
 gions where beneficent nature yields almost 
 spontaneously whatever is necessary to human 
 wants, patriotism, as well as every other gene- 
 rous sentiment, seems weak and languid. In 
 countries less richly endowed, where the com- 
 forts, and even necessaries of life, must be pur- 
 chased by patient toil, the affections of the mind, 
 as well as the faculties of the understanding, im- 
 prove under exertion, and patriotism flourishes 
 amidst its kindred virtues. Where it is neces- 
 sary to combine for mutual defence, as well as 
 for the supply of common wants, mutual good- 
 will springs from mutual difficulties and labours, 
 the social affections unfold themselves, and ex- 
 tend from the men with whom we live, to the 
 soil on which we tread. It will perhaps be 
 found, indeed, that our affections cannot be ori- 
 ginally called forth, but by objects capable, or 
 supposed capable, of feeling our sentiments, and 
 of returning them ; but when once excited, they 
 are strengthened by exercise, they are expanded 
 by the powers of imagination, and seize more 
 especially on those inanimate parts of creation, 
 which form the theatre on which we have first 
 felt the alternations of joy and sorrow, and first 
 tasted the sweets of sympathy and regard. If 
 this reasoning be just, the love of our country, 
 although modified, and even extinguished in in- 
 dividuals by the chances and changes of life, 
 
 may
 
 PREFATORY REMARKS, 29 
 
 may be presumed, in our general reasonings, to 
 be strong among a people, in proportion to their 
 social, and more especially to their domestic af- 
 fections. In free governments it is found more 
 active than in despotic ones, because, as the in- 
 dividual becomes of more consequence in the 
 community, the community becomes of more 
 consequence to him ; in small states it is gene- 
 rally more active than in large ones, for the same, 
 reason, and also because the independence of a 
 small community being maintained with diffi- 
 culty, and frequently endangered, sentiments of 
 patriotism are more frequently excited. In 
 mountainous countries it is generally found 
 more active than in plains, because there the 
 necessities of life often require a closer union of 
 the inhabitants ; and more especially because in 
 such countries, though less populous than plains, 
 the inhabitants, instead of being scattered equally 
 over the whole, are usually divided into small 
 communities on the sides of their separate val- 
 leys, and on the banks of their respective streams; 
 situations well calculated to call forth and to 
 concentrate the social affections, amidst scenery 
 that acts most powerfully on the sight, and makes 
 a lasting impression on the memory. It may 
 also be remarked that mountainous countries are 
 often peculiarly calculated to nourish sentiments 
 of national pride and independence, from the in- 
 fluence of history on the affections of the mind. 
 
 In
 
 SO PREFATORY REMARKS. 
 
 In such countries, from their natural strength, 
 inferior nations have maintained their independ- 
 ence against their more powerful neighbours, 
 and valour, in all ages, has made its most suc- 
 cessful efforts against oppression. Such coun- 
 tries present the fields of battle, where the tide 
 of invasion was rolled back, and where the ashes 
 of those rest, who have died in defence of their 
 nation ! 
 
 The operation of the various causes we have 
 mentioned is doubtless more general and more 
 permanent, where the scenery of a country, the 
 peculiar manners of its inhabitants, and the mar- 
 tial achievements of their ancestors are embodied 
 in national songs, and united to national music. 
 By this combination, the ties that attach men 
 to the land of their birth are multiplied and 
 strengthened; and the images of infancy, strongly 
 associating with the generous affections, resist 
 the influence of time, and of new impressions ; 
 they often survive in countries far distant, and 
 amidst far different scenes, to the latest periods 
 of life, to sooth the heart with the pleasures of 
 memory, when those of hope die away. 
 
 If this reasoning be just, it will explain to us 
 why, among the natives of Scotland, even of 
 cultivated minds, we so generally find a partial 
 attachment to the land of their birth, and why 
 
 this
 
 PREFATORY REMARKS. 31 
 
 this is so strongly discoverable in the writings of 
 Burns, who joined to the higher powers of the 
 understanding the most ardent affections. Let 
 not men of reflection think it a superfluous la- 
 bour to trace the rise and progress of a character 
 like his. Born in the condition of a peasant, he 
 rose by the force of his mind into distinction and 
 influence, and in his works has exhibited what 
 are so rarely found, the charms of original ge- 
 nius. With a deep insight into the human 
 heart, his poetry exhibits high powers of ima- 
 gination it displays, and as it were embalms, 
 the peculiar manners of his country ; and it may 
 be considered as a monument, not to his own 
 name only, but to the expiring genius of an an- 
 cient and once independent nation. In relating j 
 the incidents of his life, candour will prevent us 
 from dwelling invidiously on those failings 
 which justice forbids us to conceal; we will 
 tread lightly over his yet warm ashes, and respect 
 the laurels that shelter his untimely grave,
 
 THE LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 
 
 Robert Burns was, as is well known, 
 the son of a farmer in Ayrshire, and afterwards 
 himself a farmer there ; but, having been un- 
 successful, he was about to emigrate to Jamaica. 
 He had previously, however, attracted some 
 notice by his poetical talents in the vicinity 
 where he lived; and having published a small 
 volume of his poems at Kilmarnock, this drew 
 upon him more general attention. In conse- 
 quence of the encouragement he received, he 
 repaired to Edinburgh, and there published, by 
 subscription, an improved and enlarged edition 
 of his poems, which met with extraordinary suc- 
 cess. By the profits arising from the sale of 
 VOL. I. D this
 
 34 THE LIFE OF 
 
 this edition, he was enabled to enter on a farm 
 in Dumfries-shire; and having married a per- 
 son to whom he had been long attached, he re- 
 tired to devote the remainder of his life to 
 agriculture. He was again, however, unsuc- 
 cessful ; and, abandoning his farm, he removed 
 into the town of Dumfries, where he filled 
 an inferior office in the excise, and where he 
 terminated his life in July, 1796, in his thirty- 
 eighth year. 
 
 The strength and originality of his genius 
 procured him the notice of many persons dis- 
 tinguished in the republic of letters, and, among 
 others, that of Dr. Moore, well known for his 
 Views of Society and Manners on the Continent 
 of Europe, for his Zelnco, and various other 
 works. To this gentleman our poet addressed 
 a letter, after his first visit to Edinburgh, giv- 
 ing a history of his life, up to the period of his 
 writing. In a composition never intended to 
 see the light, elegance, or perfect correctness of 
 composition will not be expected. These, 
 however, will be compensated by the opportu- 
 nity of seeing our poet, as he gives the inci- 
 dents of his life, unfold the peculiarities of his 
 character with all the careless vigour and open 
 sincerity of his mind. 
 
 " Mauchlinc,
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 36 
 
 *' Mauchline, %d August, 1787. 
 
 Sir, 
 
 " x OR some months past I have been 
 rambling over the country ; but I am now 
 confined with some lingering complaints, ori- 
 ginating, as I take it, in the stomach. To di- 
 vert my spirits a little in this miserable fog of 
 ennui, I have taken a whim to give you a his- 
 tory of myself. My name has made some little 
 noise in this country ; you have done me the 
 honour to interest yourself very warmly in my 
 behalf j and I think a faithful account of what 
 character of a man I am, and how I came by 
 that character, may perhaps amuse you in an 
 idle moment, I will give you an honest narra- 
 tive j though I know it will be often at my own 
 expense ; for I assure you, Sir, I have, like 
 Solomon, whose character, excepting in the 
 trifling affair of zvisdom, I sometimes think I 
 resemble, I have, I say, like him, turned my 
 eyes to behold madness and folly y and, like him 
 too, frequently shaken hands with their intoxi- 
 cating friendship. * * * After you have 
 perused these pages, should you think them 
 trifling and impertinent, I only beg leave to tell 
 you, that the poor author wrote them under 
 D 2 some
 
 36 . THE LIFE OF 
 
 some twitching qualms of conscience, arising 
 from a suspicion that he was doing what he 
 ought not to do; a predicament he has more 
 than once been in before. 
 
 " I have not the most distant pretensions 
 to assume that character which the pye-coated 
 guardians of escutcheons call a Gentleman. 
 When at Edinburgh last winter, I got ac- 
 quainted in the Herald's Office ; and, looking 
 through that granary of honours, 1 there found 
 -almost every name in the kingdom ; but for me. 
 
 " My ancient but ignoble blood 
 Has crept thro' scoundrels ever since the flood." 
 
 Gules, Purpure, Argent, &c. quite disowned 
 me. 
 
 " My father was of the north of Scotland, 
 the son of a farmer, and was thrown by early 
 misfortunes on the world at large ; where, after 
 many years' wanderings and sojournings, he 
 picked up a pretty large quantity of observa- 
 tion and experience, to which I am indebted for 
 most of my little pretensions to wisdom. .1 
 have met with few who understood men, their 
 manners t and their xvays, equal to him ; but 
 stubborn, ungainly integrity, and headlong, 
 ungovernable irascibility, are disqualifying cir- 
 cumstances ;
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 37 
 
 cu instances ; consequently I was born a very 
 poor man's son. For the first six or seven years 
 of my life, my father was gardener to a worthy 
 gentleman of small estate in the neighbourhood 
 of Ayr. Had he continued in that station, I 
 must have marched off to be one of the little 
 underlings about a farm-house ; but it was his 
 dearest wish and prayer to have it in his power 
 to keep his children under his own eye till they 
 could discern between good and evil ; so, with 
 the assistance of his generous master, my father 
 ventured on a small farm on his estate. At 
 those years I was by no means a favourite with 
 any body. I was a good deal noted for a re- 
 tentive memory, a stubborn sturdy something 
 in my disposition, and an enthusiastic idiot* 
 piety. I say idiot piety, because I was then but 
 a child. Though it cost the schoolmaster some 
 thrashings, I made an excellent English scholar; 
 and by the time I was ten or eleven years of 
 age, I was a critic in substantives, verbs, and 
 particles. In my infant and bo}'ish days, too, 
 I owed much to an old woman who resided in 
 the family, remarkable for her ignorance, cre- 
 dulity and superstition. She had, I suppose, the 
 largest collection in the country of tales and 
 songs concerning devils, ghosts, fairies, brow- 
 nies, witches, warlocks, spunkies, kelpies, elf- 
 candles, 
 
 * Idiot Jo?' idiotic. 
 
 5 46-38
 
 38 THE LIFE OF 
 
 candles, dead-lights, wraiths, apparitions, can- 
 traips, giants, enchanted towers, dragons, and 
 other trumpery. This cultivated the latent 
 seeds of poetry ; but had so strong an effect on 
 my imagination, that to this hour, in my noc- 
 turnal rambles, I sometimes keep a sharp look- 
 out in suspicious places ; and though nobody 
 can be more sceptical than I am in such mat- 
 ters, yet it often takes an effort of philosophy 
 to shake off these idle terrors. The earliest 
 composition that I recollect taking pleasure in, 
 was The Vision of Mirza, and a hymn of Addi- 
 son's, beginning, How are thy Servants blest, O 
 Lord I I particularly remember one half-stanza 
 which was music to my boyish ear 
 
 " For though on dreadful whirls we hung 
 High on the broken wave " 
 
 I met with these pieces in Mason's English Col- 
 lection, one of my school-books. The two first 
 books I ever read in private, and which gave 
 me more pleasure than any two books I ever 
 read since, were, The Life of Hannibal, and The 
 History of Sir William Wallace. Hannibal gave 
 my young ideas such a turn, that I used to strut 
 in raptures up and down after the recruiting 
 drum and bag-pipe, and wish myself tall enough 
 to be a soldier ; while the story of Wallace 
 poured a Scottish prejudice into my veins, 
 
 which
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 39 
 
 which will boil along there till the flood-gates 
 of life shut in eternal rest. 
 
 " Polemical divinity about this time was put- 
 ting the country half-mad ; and I, ambitious of 
 shining in conversation parties on Sundays, be- 
 tween sermons, at funerals, &c. used, a few years 
 afterwards, to puzzle Calvinism with so much 
 heat and indiscretion, that I raised a hue and 
 cry of heresy against me, which has not ceased 
 to this hour. 
 
 " My vicinity to Ayr was of some advan- 
 tage to me. My social disposition, when not 
 checked by some modifications of spirited pride, 
 was, like our catechism-definition of infinitude, 
 without bounds or limits. I formed several con- 
 nexions with other younkers who possessed su- 
 perior advantages, the youngling actors, who 
 were busy in the rehearsal of parts in which they 
 were shortly to appear on the stage of life, 
 where, alas ! I was destined to drudge behind 
 the scenes. It is not commonly at this green 
 age that our young gentry have a just sense of 
 the immense distance between them and their 
 ragged play-fellows. It takes a few dashes into 
 the world, to give the young great man that 
 proper, decent, unnoticing disregard for the 
 poor insignificant, stupid devils, the mechanics 
 and peasantry around him, who were perhaps 
 
 born
 
 40 THE LIFE OF 
 
 born in the same village. My young superiors 
 never insulted the clouterly appearance of my 
 plough-boy carcase, the two extremes of which 
 were often exposed to all the inclemencies of 
 all the seasons. They would give me stray vo- 
 lumes of books : among them, even then, I 
 could pick up some observations ; and one, 
 whose heart I am sure not even the Munny Be- 
 gum scenes have tainted, helped me to a little 
 French. Parting with these my young friends 
 and benefactors, as they occasionally went off 
 for the East or West Indies, was often to me a 
 sore affliction; but I was soon called to more se- 
 rious evils. My father's generous master died ; 
 the farm proved a ruinous bargain ; and, to 
 clench .the misfortune, we fell into the hands of 
 a factor, who sat for the picture I have drawn 
 of one in my Tale of Twa Dogs. My father was 
 advanced in life when he married -, I was the 
 eldest of seven children ; and he, worn out by 
 early hardships, was unfit for labour. My fa- 
 ther's spirit was soon irritated, but not easily 
 broken. There was a freedom in his lease in 
 two years more ; and, to weather these two 
 years, we retrenched our expenses. We lived 
 very poorly : I was a dexterous ploughman, for 
 my age ; and the next eldest to me was a bro- 
 ther (Gilbert) who could drive the plough very 
 well, and help me to thrash the corn. A novel- 
 writer might perhaps have viewed these scenes 
 
 with
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 41 
 
 with some satisfaction ; but so did not I ; my 
 indignation yet boils at the recollection of the 
 
 s 1 factor's insolent threatening letters, which 
 
 used to set us all in tears. 
 
 <e This kind of life the cheerless gloom of 
 a hermit, with the unceasing moil of a galley- 
 slave, brought me to my sixteenth yearj a little 
 before which period I first committed the sin of 
 Rhyme. You know our country custom of 
 coupling a man and woman together as part- 
 ners in the labours of harvest. In my fifteenth 
 autumn my partner was a bewitching creature, 
 a year younger than myself. My scarcity of 
 English denies me the power of doing her jus- 
 tice in that language ; but you know the Scot- 
 tish idiom she was a bonnie, sweet, sonsie lass. 
 In short, she altogether, unwittingly to herself, 
 initiated me in that delicious passion, which, in 
 spite of acid disappointment, gin-horse pru- 
 dence, and book-worm philosophy, I hold to 
 be the first of human joys, our dearest blessing 
 here below ! How she caught the contagion, I 
 cannot tell : you medical people talK much of 
 infection from breathing the same air, the 
 touch, &c. ; but I never expressly said I loved 
 her. Indeed I did not know myself why I liked 
 so much to loiter behind with her, when re- 
 turning in the evening from our labours; why 
 the tones of her voice made my heart-strings 
 
 thrill
 
 42 THE LIFE OF 
 
 thrill like an jEolian harp ; and particularly 
 why my pulse beat such a furious ratan when I 
 looked and fingered over her little hand to pick 
 out the cruel nettle stings and thistles. Among 
 her other love-inspiring qualities, she sung 
 sweetly - 3 and it was her favourite reel, to which 
 I attempted giving an embodied vehicle in 
 rhyme. I was not so presumptuous as to ima- 
 gine that I could make verses like printed ones, 
 qomposed by men who had Greek and Latin - 3 
 but my girl sung a song, which was said to be 
 composed by a small country laird's son, on one 
 of his father's maids, with whom he was in 
 love ! and I saw no reason why I might not 
 rhyme as well as he; for, excepting that he 
 could smear sheep, and cast peats, his father 
 living in the moor-lands, he had no more scho- 
 lar-craft than myself.* 
 
 " Thus with me began love and poetry ; 
 which at times have been my only, and till 
 within the last twelve months, have been my 
 highest enjoyment. My father struggled on 
 till he reached the freedom in his lease, when he 
 entered on a larger farm, about ten miles far- 
 ther in the country. The nature of the bargain 
 he made was such as to throw a little ready 
 money into his hands at the commencement of 
 
 his 
 
 * See Appendix, No. II. Note A.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 43 
 
 his lease j otherwise the affair would have been 
 impracticable. For four years we lived com- 
 fortably here ; but a difference commencing be- 
 tween him and his landlord as to terms, after 
 three years tossing and whirling in the vortex of 
 litigation, my father was just saved from the 
 horrors of a jail by a consumption, which, after 
 two years' promises, kindly stepped in, and car- 
 ried him away, to where the wicked cease from 
 troubling, and the weary are at rest. 
 
 " It is during the time that we lived on this 
 farm that my little story is most eventful. I 
 was, at the beginning of this period, perhaps 
 the most ungainly, awkward boy in the parish- 
 no solitaire was less acquainted with the ways 
 of the world. What I knew of ancient story 
 was gathered from Salmon's and Guthrie's, geo- 
 graphical grammars ; and the ideas I had formed 
 of modern manners, of literature, and criticism, 
 I got from the Spectator. These, with Pope's 
 Works, some plays of Shakespeare, Tull and 
 Dickson on Agriculture, The Pantheon, Locke's 
 Essay on the Human Understanding, Stack- 
 house's History of the Bible, Justice's British 
 Gardener's Directory, Bayle's Lectures, Allan 
 Ramsay's Works, Taylor's Scripture Doctrine of 
 Original Sin, A Select Collection of English 
 Songs, and Hervey's Meditations, had formed 
 the whole of my reading. The collection of 
 
 songs
 
 44 THE LIFE OF 
 
 songs was my vade mecum. I pored over them 
 driving my cart, or walking to labour, song by 
 song, verse by verse ; carefully noting the true 
 tender, or sublime, from affectation and fustian. 
 I am convinced I owe to this practice much of 
 my critic craft, such as it is. 
 
 " In my seventeenth year, to give my man- 
 ners a brush, I went to a country dancing- 
 school. My father had an unaccountable anti- 
 pathy against these meetings ; and my going 
 was, what to this moment I repent, in opposi- 
 tion to his wishes. My father, as I said before, 
 was subject to strong passions; from that in- 
 stance of disobedience in me he took a sort of 
 dislike to me, which I believe was one cause of 
 the dissipation which marked my succeeding 
 years. I say dissipation, comparatively with the 
 strictness, and sobriety, and regularity of pres- 
 byterian country life; for though the Will-o'- 
 Wisp meteors of thoughtless whim were al- 
 most the sole lights of my path, yet early in- 
 grained piety and virtue kept me for several 
 years afterwards within the line of innocence. 
 The great misfortune of my life was to want an 
 aim. I had felt early some stirrings of ambi- 
 tion, but they were the blind gropings of Ho- 
 mer's Cyclops round the walls of his cave. I 
 saw my father's situation entailed on me perpe- 
 tual labour. The only two openings by which 
 
 I could
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 45 
 
 I could enter the temple of Fortune, was the 
 gate of niggardly economy, or the path of little 
 chicaning bargain-making. The first is so con- 
 tracted an aperture, I never could squeeze my- 
 self into it; the last I always hated there was 
 contamination in the very entrance ! Thus aban- 
 doned of aim or view in life, with a strong ap- 
 petite for sociability, as well from native hila- 
 rity, as from a pride of observation and remark ; 
 a constitutional melancholy or hypochondriasm 
 that made me fly solitude ; add to these incen- 
 tives to social life, my reputation for bookish 
 knowledge, a certain wild logical talent, and a 
 strength of thought, something like the rudi- 
 ments of good sense; and it will not seem sur- 
 prising that I was generally a welcome guest 
 where I visited, or any great wonder that, al- 
 ways where two or three met together, there 
 was I among them. But far beyond all other 
 impulses of my heart, was un penchant a V ado- 
 rable moitie clu genre humain. My heart was 
 completely tinder, and was eternally lighted up 
 by some goddess or other; and as in every 
 other warfare in this world my fortune was 
 various, sometimes I was received with favour, 
 and sometimes I was mortified with a repulse. 
 At the plough, scythe, or reap-hook, I feared 
 no competitor, and thus I set absolute want at 
 defiance ; and as I never cared farther for my 
 labours than while I was in actual exercise, I 
 
 spent
 
 46 THE LIFE OF 
 
 spent the evenings in the way after my own 
 heart. A country lad seldom carries on a love- 
 adventure without an assisting confidant. I 
 possessed a curiosity, zeal, and intrepid dexte- 
 rity, that recommended me as a proper second 
 on these occasions ; and I dare say, I felt as 
 much pleasure in being in the secret of half the 
 loves of the parish of Tarbolton, as ever did 
 statesman in knowing the intrigues of half the 
 courts of Europe. The very goose-feather in 
 my hand seems to know instinctively the well- 
 worn path of my imagination, the favourite 
 theme of my song; and is with difficulty re- 
 strained from giving you a couple of paragraphs 
 on the love-adventures of my compeers, the 
 humble inmates of the farm-house and cottage; 
 but the grave sons of science, ambition, or ava- 
 rice, baptize these things by the name of Fol- 
 lies. To the sons and daughters of labour and 
 poverty, they are matters of the most serious na- 
 ture; to them, the ardent hope, the stolen inter- 
 view, the tender farewell, are the greatest and 
 most delicious parts of their enjoyments. 
 
 " Another circumstance in my life which 
 made some alteration in my mind and manners, 
 was, that I spent my nineteenth summer on a 
 smuggling coast, a good distance from home, 
 at a noted school, to learn mensuration, survey- 
 ing, dialling, &c, in which I made a pretty 
 
 good
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 47 
 
 good progress. But I made a greater progress 
 in the knowledge of mankind. The contraband 
 trade was at that time very successful, and it 
 sometimes happened to me to fall in with those 
 who carried it on. Scenes of swaggering riot 
 and roaring dissipation were till this time new 
 to me j but I was no enemy to social life. 
 Here, though I learnt to fill my glass, and to 
 mix without fear in a drunken squabble, yet I 
 went on with a high hand with my geometry, 
 till the sun entered Virgo, a month which is al- 
 ways a carnival in my bosom, when a charming 
 filette who lived next door to the school, over- 
 set my trigonometry, and set me off at a tangent 
 from the sphere of my studies. I, however, 
 struggled on with my sines and co-sines for a few 
 days more ; but, stepping into the garden one 
 charming noon to take the sun's altitude, there 
 I met my angel, 
 
 " Like Proserpine, gathering flowers, 
 Herself a fairer flower " 
 
 " It was in vain to think of doing any more 
 good at school. The remaining week I staid, I 
 did nothing but craze the faculties of my soul 
 about her, or steal out to meet her ; and the 
 two last nights of my stay in the country, had 
 sleep been a mortal sin, the image of this mo- 
 dest and innocent girl had kept me guiltless. 
 
 " I returned
 
 48 THE LIFE OF 
 
 " I returned home very considerably im- 
 proved. My reading was enlarged with the 
 very important addition of Thomson's and Shen- 
 stone's Works; I had seen human nature in a 
 new phasis ; and I engaged several of my 
 school-fellows to keep up a literary correspond- 
 ence with me. This improved me in composi- 
 tion. I had met with a collection of letters by 
 the wits of Queen Anne's reign, and I pored 
 over them most devoutly ; I kept copies of any 
 of my own letters that pleased me; and a com- 
 parison between them and the composition of 
 most of my correspondents flattered my vanity. 
 I carried this whim so far, that though I had 
 not three farthings' worth of business in the 
 world, yet almost every post brought me as 
 many letters as if I had been a broad plodding 
 son of day-book and ledger. 
 
 " My life flowed on much in the same course 
 till my twenty-third year. Vive V amour, et vive 
 la bagatelle, were my sole principles of action. 
 The addition of two more authors to my library 
 gave me great pleasure; Sterne and M'Kenzie 
 Tristram Shandy and The Man of Feeling 
 were my bosom favourites. Poesy was still a 
 darling walk for my mind ; but it was only in- 
 dulged in according to the humour of the hour. 
 I had usually half a dozen or more pieces on 
 hand ; I took up one or other, as it suited the 
 
 momentary
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 49 
 
 momentary tone of the mind, and dismissed the 
 work as it bordered on fatigue. My passions, 
 when once lighted up, raged like so many de- 
 vils, till they got vent in rhyme ; and then the 
 conning over my verses, like a spell, soothed all 
 into quiet ! None of the rhymes of those days 
 are in print, except Winter, a Dirge,* the eldest 
 of my printed pieces ; the Death of Poor Maillie^ 
 John Barleycorn,% and songs, first, second, and 
 third. Song second was the ebullition of that 
 passion which ended the forementioned school- 
 business. 
 
 * c My twenty-third year was to me an im- 
 portant aera. Partly through whim, and partly 
 that I wished to set about doing something in 
 life, I joined a flax-dresser in a neighbouring 
 town (Irwin) to learn his trade. This was an 
 unlucky affair. My *** and, to finish the 
 whole, as we were giving a welcome carousal 
 to the new year, the shop took fire, and burnt 
 to ashes ; and I was left, like a true poet, not 
 worth a sixpence. 
 
 " I was obliged to give up this scheme : 
 
 the clouds of misfortune were gathering thick 
 
 VOL. I. E round 
 
 * See vol. iii. p. 171. See vol. iii. pp. 271. 
 
 *t See vol. iii. p. 77. 274. 277. 
 
 % See vol. iii. p. 261.
 
 SO THE LIFE OF 
 
 round my father's head; and what was worst 
 of all, he was visibly far gone in a consump- 
 tion ; and, to crown my distresses, a belle Jille 
 whom I adored, and who had pledged her soul 
 to meet me in the field of matrimony, jilted me, 
 with peculiar circumstances of mortification. 
 The finishing evil that brought up the rear of 
 this infernal file, was, my constitutional melan- 
 choly, being increased to such a degree, that 
 for three months I was in a state of mind 
 scarcely to be envied by the hopeless wretches 
 who have got their mittimus Depart from me 
 ye accursed ! 
 
 " From this adventure I learned something 
 of a town life ; but the principal thing which 
 gave my mind a turn, was a friendship I formed 
 with a young fellow, a very noble character, 
 but a hapless son of misfortune. He was the 
 son of a simple mechanic ; but a great man in 
 the neighbourhood taking him under his patron- 
 age, gave him a genteel education, with a view 
 of bettering his situation in life. The patron 
 dying just as he was ready to launch out into 
 the world, the poor fellow in despair went to 
 sea; where, after a variety of good and ill for- 
 tune, a little before I was acquainted with him, 
 he had been set on shore by an American pri- 
 vateer, on the wild coast of Connaught, strip- 
 ped of every thing. I cannot quit this poor 
 
 fellow's
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 51 
 
 fellow's story without adding, that he is at this 
 time master of a large West-Indiaman belonging 
 to the Thames. 
 
 " His mind was fraught with independence, 
 magnanimity, and every manly virtue. I loved 
 and admired him to a degree of enthusiasm, and 
 of course strove to imitate him. In some mea- 
 sure I succeeded j I had pride before, but he 
 taught it to flow in proper channels. His know- 
 ledge of the world was vastly superior to mine, 
 and I was all attention to learn. He was the 
 only man I ever saw who was a greater fool 1/ 
 than myself, where woman was the presiding 
 star; but he spoke of illicit love with the levity 
 of a sailor, which hitherto I had regarded with 
 horror. Here his friendship did me a mischief; 
 and the consequence was, that soon after I 
 resumed the plough, I wrote the Poet's Wel- 
 come** My reading only increased, while in 
 this town, by two stray volumes of Pamela, and 
 one of Ferdinand Count Fathom, which gave me 
 some idea of novels. Rhyme, except some re- 
 ligious pieces that are in print, I had given up ; 
 but meeting with Fergusson's Scottish Poems, 
 I strung anew my wildly-sounding lyre with 
 emulating vigour. When my father died, his 
 all went among the hell-hounds that prowl in 
 
 E 2 the 
 
 * Rob the Rhymer's Welcome to his Bastard Child.
 
 32 THE LIFE OF 
 
 the kennel of justice; but we made a shift to 
 collect a little money in the family amongst us, 
 with which, to keep us together, my brother 
 and I took a neighbouring farm. My brother 
 wanted my hair-brained imagination, as well as 
 my social and amorous madness : but, in good 
 sense, and every sober qualification, he was far 
 my superior. 
 
 " I entered on this farm with a full resolu- 
 tion, Come, go to, I will be wise ! I read farm- 
 ing books ; I calculated crops ; I attended mar- 
 kets; and, in short, inspite of the devil, and 
 the world, and the Jlesh, I believe I should have 
 been a wise man ; but the first year, from unfor- 
 tunately buying bad seed, the second, from a 
 late harvest, we lost half our crops. This over- 
 set all my wisdom, and I returned, like the dog 
 to his vomit, and the sozv that was washed, to her 
 wallowing in the mire.* 
 
 " I now began to be known in the neigh- 
 bourhood as a maker of rhymes. The first of 
 my poetic offspring that saw the light, was a 
 burlesque lamentation on a quarrel between two 
 reverend Calvinists, both of them dramatis per- 
 sona in my Holy Fair. I had a notion myself, 
 that the piece had some merit ; but to prevent 
 
 the 
 
 * See Jppendix, No. II. Note B.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 53 
 
 the worst, I gave a copy of it to a friend who 
 was very fond of such things, and told him that 
 I could not guess who was the author of it, but 
 that I thought it pretty clever. With a cer- 
 tain description of the clergy, as well as laity, 
 it met with a roar of applause. Holy Willie 's 
 Prayer next made its appearance, and alarmed 
 the kirk-session so much, that they held seve- 
 ral meetings to look over their spiritual artil- 
 lery, if haply any of it might be pointed against 
 profane rhymers. Unluckily for me, my wan- 
 derings led me on another side, within point- 
 blank shot of their heaviest metal. This is the 
 unfortunate story that gave rise to my printed 
 poem, The Lament. This was a most melan- 
 choly affair, which I cannot yet bear to reflect 
 on, and had very nearly given me one or two of 
 the principal qualifications for a place among 
 those who have lost the chart, and mistaken the 
 reckoning of Rationality.* I gave up my part 
 of the farm to my brother ; in truth it was only 
 nominally mine; and made what little prepara- 
 tion was in my power for Jamaica. But, be- 
 fore leaving my native country for ever, I re- 
 solved to publish my poems. I weighed my 
 productions as impartially as was in my power : 
 I thought they had merit; and it was a deli- 
 cious idea that I should be called a clever fellow, 
 
 even 
 
 * An explanation of this will be found hereafter.
 
 54 THE LIFE OF 
 
 even though it should never reach my ears 
 a poor negro-driver, or perhaps a victim to 
 that inhospitable clime, and gone to the world 
 of spirits ! I can truly say, that pauvre inconnu 
 as I then was, I had pretty nearly as high an 
 idea of myself and of my works as I have at this 
 moment, when the public has decided in their 
 favour. It ever was my opinion, that the mis- 
 takes and blunders, both in a rational and reli- 
 gious point of view, of which we see thousands 
 daily guilty, are owing to their ignorance of 
 themselves. To know myself, had been all 
 "along my constant study. I weighed myself 
 alone; I balanced myself with others; I watched 
 every means of information, to see how much 
 ground I occupied as a man and as a poet : I 
 studied assiduously Nature's design in my forma- 
 tion where the lights and shades in my cha- 
 racter were intended. I was pretty confident 
 my poems would meet with some applause : but, 
 at the worsts the roar of the Atlantic would 
 deafen the voice of censure, and the novelty of 
 West-Indian scenes make me forget neglect. 
 I threw off six hundred copies, of which I had 
 got subscriptions for about three hundred and 
 fifty. My vanity was highly gratified by the 
 reception I met with from the public ; and be- 
 sides I pocketed, all expenses deducted, nearly 
 twenty pounds. This sum came very season- 
 ably, as I was thinking of indenting myself, for 
 
 want
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 55 
 
 want of money to procure my passage. As soon 
 as I was master of nine guineas, the price of 
 wafting me to the torrid zone, I took a steerage- 
 passage in the first ship that was to sail from the 
 Clyde ; for 
 
 " Hungry ruin had me in the wind/ 7 
 
 " I had been for some days sculking from 
 covert to covert, under all the terrors of a jail; 
 as some ill-advised people had uncoupled the 
 merciless pack of the law at my heels. I had 
 taken the last farewell of my few friends ; my 
 chest was on the road to Greenock ; I had com- 
 posed the last song I should ever measure in 
 Caledonia. The gloomy night is gathering fast,* 
 when a letter from Dr. Blacklock, to a friend of 
 mine, overthrew all my schemes, by opening 
 new prospects to my poetic ambition. f The 
 doctor belonged to a set of critics, for whose 
 applause I had not dared to hope. His opinion 
 that I would meet with encouragement in Edin- 
 burgh for a second edition, fired me so much, 
 that away I posted for that city, without a 
 single acquaintance, or a single letter of intro- 
 duction. The baneful star that had so long 
 shed its blasting influence in my zenith for 
 once made a revolution to the nadir; and a 
 
 kind 
 
 * See vol. iii. p. 287. t See vol ii. p. 29.
 
 56 THE LIFE OF 
 
 kind Providence placed me under the patronage 
 of one of the noblest of men, the Earl of Glen- 
 cairn. Oublie moiy Grand Dieu, si jamais je 
 Uoublie ! 
 
 " I need relate no farther. At Edinburgh I 
 was in a new world ; I mingled among many 
 classes of men, but all of them new to me, and 
 I was all attention to catch the characters and 
 the manners living as they rise. Whether I have 
 profited, time will shew. 
 
 ******** 
 
 * c My most respectful compliments to Miss 
 W. Her very elegant and friendly letter I 
 cannot answer at present, as my presence is 
 requisite in Edinburgh, and I set out to-mor- 
 row."* 
 
 At the period of our poet's death, his bro- 
 ther, Gilbert Burns, was ignorant that he had 
 
 himself 
 
 * There are various copies of this letter, in the 
 author's hand -writing ; and one of these, evidently cor- 
 rected, is in the book in which he had copied several 
 of his letters. This has been used for the press, with 
 some omissions, and one slight alteration suggested by 
 Gilbert Burns.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 5? 
 
 himself written the foregoing narrative of his 
 life while in Ayrshire ; and having been applied 
 to by Mrs. Dunlop for some memoirs of his 
 brother, he complied with her request in a letter, 
 from which the following narrative is chiefly ex- 
 tracted. When Gilbert Burns afterwards saw 
 the letter of our poet to Dr. Moore, he made 
 some annotations upon it, which shall be noticed 
 as we proceed. 
 
 Robert Burns was born on the 25th day of 
 January, 1759, in a small house about two miles 
 from the town of Ayr, and within a few hun- 
 dred yards of Alloway Church, which his poem 
 of Tarn o' Shanter has rendered immortal.* The 
 name, which the poet and his brother modern- 
 ized into Burns, was originally Burnes or Burn- 
 ess. Their father, William Burnes, was the son 
 of a farmer in Kincardineshire, and had received 
 the education common in Scotland to persons in 
 his condition of life ; he could read and write, 
 and had some knowledge of arithmetic. His 
 
 family 
 
 * This house is on the right-hand side of the road 
 from Ayr to Maybole, which forms a part of the road 
 from Glasgow to Port-Patrick. When the poet's father 
 afterwards removed to Tarbolton parish, he sold his 
 leasehold right in this house, and a few acres of land 
 adjoining, to the corporation of shoemakers in Ayr. It 
 is now a country ale-house.
 
 58 THE LIFE OF 
 
 family having fallen into reduced circumstances, 
 he was compelled to leave his home in his nine- 
 teenth year, and turned his steps towards the 
 south in quest of a livelihood. The same ne- 
 cessity attended his elder brother Robert. " I 
 have often heard my father," says Gilbert Burns, 
 in his letter to Mrs. Dunlop, " describe the an- 
 guish of mind he felt when they parted on the 
 top of a bill on the confines of their native 
 place, each going off his several way in search 
 of new adventures, and scarcely knowing whi- 
 ther he went. My father undertook to act as 
 a gardener, and shaped his course to Edinburgh, 
 where he wrought hard when he could get work, 
 passing through a variety of difficulties. Still, 
 however, he endeavoured to spare something for 
 the support of his aged parent; and I recollect 
 hearing him mention his having sent a bank- 
 note for this purpose, when money of that kind 
 was so scarce in Kincardineshire, that they scarce- 
 ly knew how to employ it when it arrived." From 
 Edinburgh, William Burnes passed westward into 
 the county of Ayr, where he engaged himself 
 as a gardener to the laird of Fairly, with whom 
 he lived two years -, then changing his service 
 for that of Crawford of Doonside. At length, 
 being desirous of settling in life, he took a per- 
 petual lease of seven acres of land from Dr. 
 Campbell, physician in Ayr, with the view of 
 commencing nurseryman and public gardener ; 
 
 and,
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 59 
 
 and, having built a house upon it with his own 
 hands, married in December 1757, Agnes Brown, 
 the mother of our poet, who still survives. The 
 first fruit of this marriage was Robert, the sub- 
 ject of these memoirs, born on the 25th of Ja- 
 nuary, 1759, as has already been mentioned. 
 Before William Burnes had made much progress 
 in preparing his nursery, he was withdrawn from 
 that undertaking by Mr. Ferguson, who pur- 
 chased the estate of Doonholm, in the imme- 
 diate neighbourhood, and engaged him as his 
 gardener and overseer ; and this was his situa- 
 tion when our poet was born. Though in the 
 service of Mr. Ferguson, he lived in his own 
 house, his wife managing her family and her 
 kittle dairy, which consisted sometimes of two, 
 sometimes of three milch cows ; and this state 
 of unambitious content continued till the year 
 1766. His son Robert was sent by him in his 
 sixth year to a school at Alloway Miln, about a 
 mile distant, taught by a person of the name of 
 Campbell ; but this teacher being in a few months 
 appointed master of the workhouse at Ayr, Wil- 
 liam Burnes, in conjunction with some other 
 heads of families, engaged John Murdoch in 
 his stead. The education of our poet, and of 
 his brother Gilbert, was in common; and of their 
 proficiency under Mr. Murdoch we have the 
 following account : " With him we learnt to 
 
 read
 
 60 THE LIFE OF 
 
 read English tolerably well,* and to write a 
 little. He taught us, too, the English grammar. 
 I was too young to profit much from his lessons 
 in grammar ; but Robert made some proficiency 
 in it a circumstance of considerable weight in 
 the unfolding of his genius and character; as 
 he soon became remarkable for the fluency and 
 correctness of his expression, and read the few 
 books that came in his way with much pleasure 
 and improvement ; for even then he was a reader 
 when he could get a book. Murdoch, whose 
 library at that time had no great variety in it, 
 lent him The Life of Hannibal, which was the 
 first book he read (the school-books excepted), 
 and almost the only one he had an opportunity 
 of reading while he was at school ; for The Life 
 of Wallace, which he classes with it in one of his 
 letters to you, he did not see for some years 
 afterwards, when he borrowed it from the black- 
 smith who shod our horses. 
 
 It appears that William Burnes approved 
 himself greatly in the service of Mr. Ferguson, 
 by his intelligence, industry, and integrity. In 
 consequence of this, with a view of promoting 
 his interest, Mr. Ferguson leased him a farm, of 
 which we have the following account : 
 
 " The 
 
 * Letter from Gilbert Burns to Mrs. Dunlop.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 61 
 
 '" The farm was upwards of seventy acres* 
 (between eighty and ninety, English statute mea- 
 sure), the rent of which was to be forty pounds 
 annually for the first six years, and afterwards 
 forty-five pounds. My father endeavoured to sell 
 his leasehold property, for the purpose of stock- 
 ing this farm, but at that time was unable, and 
 Mr.Ferguson lent him a hundred pounds for that 
 purpose. He removed to his new situation at 
 Whitsuntide, 1766. It was, I think, not above 
 two years after this, that Murdoch, our tutor 
 and friend, left this part of the country ; and 
 there being no school near us, and our little ser- 
 vices being useful on the farm, my father un- 
 dertook to teach us arithmetic in the winter 
 evenings, by candle-light ; and in this way my 
 two eldest sisters got all the education they re- 
 ceived. I remember a circumstance that hap- 
 pened at this time, which, though trifling in it- 
 self, is fresh in my memory, and may serve to 
 illustrate the early character of my brother. 
 Murdoch came to spend a night with us, and to 
 take his leave when he was about to go into 
 Carrick. He brought us, as a present and me- 
 morial of him, a small compendium of English 
 Grammar, and the tragedy of Titus Andronicus; 
 and by way of passing the evening, he began to 
 
 read 
 
 * Letter of Gilbert Burns to Mrs. Duirfop. The name 
 of this farm is Mount Oliphant, in Ayr parish.
 
 62 THE LIFE OF 
 
 read the play aloud. "We were all attention for 
 some time, till presently the whole party was 
 dissolved in tears. A female in the play (I have 
 but a confused remembrance of it) had her hands 
 chopt off, and her tongue cut out, and then was 
 insultingly desired to call for water to wash her 
 hands. At this, in an agony of distress, we with 
 one voice desired he would read no more. Mv 
 father observed, that if we would not hear it 
 out, it would be needless to leave the play with 
 us. Robert replied, that if it was left he would 
 burn it. My father was going to chide him for 
 this ungrateful return to his tutor's kindness ; 
 but Murdoch interfered, declaring that he liked 
 to see so much sensibility ; and he left The School 
 for Love, a comedy, (translated I think from the 
 French,) in its place."* 
 
 " Nothing," continues Gilbert Burns, " could 
 be more retired than our general manner of living 
 at Mount Oliphant j we rarely saw any body 
 but the members of our own family. There were 
 
 no 
 
 * It is to be remembered that the poet was only nine 
 years of age, and the relater of this incident under eight, 
 at the time it happened. The effect was very natural in 
 children of sensibility at their age. At a more mature 
 period of the judgment, such absurd representations 
 are calculated rather to produce disgust or laughter, 
 
 than
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 63 
 
 no boys of our own age, or near it, in the neigh- 
 bourhood. Indeed the greatest part of the land 
 in the vicinity was at that time possessed by 
 shopkeepers, and people of that stamp, who had 
 retired from business, or who kept their farm in 
 the country, at the same time that they followed 
 business in town. My father was for some time 
 almost the only companion we had. He con- 
 versed familiarly on all subjects with us, as if we 
 had been men ; and was at great pains, while we 
 accompanied him in the labours of the farm, to 
 lead the conversation to such subjects as might 
 tend to increase our knowledge, or confirm us 
 in virtuous habits. He borrowed Salmon's Geo- 
 graphical Grammar for us, and endeavoured to 
 
 make 
 
 than tears. The scene to which Gilbert Burns alludes, 
 opens thus : 
 
 Titus Andronicus, Act II. Scene 5. 
 
 Enter Demetrius and Chiron, with Lavinia ravished, her 
 hands cut of, and her tongue cut out. 
 
 Why is this silly play still printed as Shakespear's 
 against the opinion of all the best critics ? The bard of 
 Avon was guilty of many extravagancies, but he always 
 performed what he intended to perform. That he ever 
 excited in a British mind (for the French critics must be 
 set aside) disgust or ridicule, where he meant to have 
 awakened pity or horror, is what will not be imputed to 
 that master of the passions, E.
 
 6"4 THE LIFE OF 
 
 make us acquainted with the situation and history 
 of the different countries in the world j while, 
 from a book-society in Ayr, he procured for us 
 the reading of Derham's Physico and Astro- 
 Theology, and Ray's Wisdom of God in the Crea- 
 tion, to give us some idea of astronomy and 
 natural history. Robert read all these books 
 with an avidity and industry scarcely to be 
 equalled. My father had been a subscriber to 
 Stackhouse's History of the Bible, then lately 
 published by James Meuros in Kilmarnock : 
 from this Robert collected a competent know- 
 ledge of ancient history; for no book was so 
 voluminous as to slacken his industry, or so an- 
 tiquated as to damp his researches. A brother 
 of my mother, who had lived with us some time, 
 and had learnt some arithmetic by our winter 
 evening's candle, went into a bookseller's shop 
 in Ayr, to purchase The Ready Reckoner, or 
 Tradesman *s sure Guide, and a book to teach 
 him to write letters. Luckily, in place of The 
 Complete Letter- Writer, he got by mistake a 
 small collection of letters by the most eminent 
 writers, with a few sensible directions for attain- 
 ing an easy epistolary style. This book was to 
 Robert of the greatest consequence. It inspired 
 him with a strong desire to excel in letter- 
 writing, while it furnished him with models by 
 some of the first writers in our language. 
 
 " My
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 65 
 
 *' My brother was about thirteen or fourteen, 
 when my father, regretting that we wrote so ill, 
 sent us, week about, during a summer quarter, 
 to the parish school of Dalrymple, which, 
 though between two and three miles distant, 
 was the nearest to us, that we might have an 
 opportunity of remedying this defect. About 
 this time a bookish acquaintance of my father's 
 procured us a reading of two volumes of Ri- 
 chardson's Pamela, which was the first novel 
 we read, and the only part of Richardson's works 
 my brother was acquainted with till towards the 
 period of his commencing author. Till that time 
 too he remained Unacquainted with Fielding, 
 with Smollet, (two volumes of Ferdinand Count 
 Fathom, and two volumes of Peregrine Pickle 
 excepted,) with Hume, with Robertson, and 
 almost all our authors of eminence of the later 
 times. I recollect indeed my father borrowed a 
 volume of English history from Mr. Hamilton 
 of Bourtree-hill's gardener. It treated of the 
 reign of James the First, and his unfortunate son, 
 Charles, but I do not know who was the author ; 
 all that I remember of it is something of Charles's 
 conversation with his children. About this time 
 Murdoch, our former teacher, after having been 
 in different places in the country, and having 
 taught a school some time in Dumfries, came to 
 be the established teacher of the English lan- 
 guage in Ayr, a circumstance of considerable 
 
 VOL. I. F consequence
 
 66 THE LIFE OF 
 
 consequence to us. The remembrance of my 
 father's former friendship, and his attachment 
 to my brother, made him do every thing in his 
 power for our improvement. He sent us Pope's 
 works, and some other poetry, the first that we 
 had an opportunity of reading, excepting what 
 is contained in The English Collection, and in the 
 volume of The Edinburgh Magazine for 1772 ; 
 excepting also those excellent nezv songs that are 
 hawked about the country in baskets, or exposed 
 on stalls in the streets. 
 
 " The summer after we had been at Dal- 
 rymple school, my father sent Robert to Ayr, to 
 revise his English grammar, with his former 
 teacher. He had been there only one week, 
 when he was obliged to return, to assist at the 
 harvest. When the harvest was over, he went 
 back to school, where he remained two weeks ; 
 and this completes the account of his school 
 education, excepting one summer quarter, some 
 time afterwards, that he attended the parish 
 school of Kirk-Oswald, (where he lived with a 
 brother of my mother's) to learn surveying. 
 
 " During the two last weeks that he was with 
 Murdoch, he himself was engaged in learning 
 French, and he communicated the instructions 
 he received to my brother, who, when he return- 
 ed, brought home with him a French dictionary 
 
 and
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 67 
 
 and grammar, and the Adventures of Telemachus 
 in the original. In a little while, by the assist- 
 ance of these books, he had acquired such a 
 knowledge of the language, as to read and un- 
 derstand any French author in prose. This was 
 considered as a sort of prodigy, and, through 
 the medium of Murdoch, procured him the ac- 
 quaintance of several lads in Ayr, who were at 
 that time gabbling French, and the notice of 
 some families, particularly that of Dr. Malcolm, 
 where a knowledge of French was a recommend- 
 ation. 
 
 " Observing the facility with which he had 
 acquired the French language, Mr. Robinson, 
 the established writing-master in Ayr, and Mr. 
 Murdoch's particular friend, having himself ac- 
 quired a considerable knowledge of the Latin 
 language by his own industry, without ever hav- 
 ing learnt it at school, advised Robert to make 
 the same attempt, promising him every assist- 
 ance in his power. Agreeably to this advice, he 
 purchased The Rudiments of the Latin Tongue, 
 but finding this study dry and uninteresting, it 
 was quickly laid aside. He frequently returned 
 to his Rudiments on any little chagrin or disap- 
 pointment, particularly in his love affairs ; but 
 the Latin seldom predominated more than a day 
 or two at a time, or a week at most. Observing 
 himself the ridicule that would attach to this 
 
 F 2 sort
 
 68 THE LIFE OF 
 
 sort of conduct if it were known, he made two 
 or three humorous stanzas on the subject, which 
 I cannot now recollect, but they all ended, 
 
 * Sa I'll to my Latin again.' 
 
 " Thus you see Mr. Murdoch was a principal 
 means of my brother's improvement. Worthy 
 man ! though foreign to my present purpose, I 
 cannot take leave of him without tracing his fu- 
 ture history. He continued for some years a 
 respected and useful teacher at Ayr, till one 
 evening that he had been overtaken in liquor, 
 he happened to speak somewhat disrespectfully 
 of Dr. Dalrymple, the parish minister, who had 
 not paid him that attention to which he thought 
 himself entitled. In Ayr he might as well have 
 spoken blasphemy. He found it proper to give 
 up his appointment. He went to London, where 
 he still lives, a private teacher of French. He 
 has been a considerable time married, and keeps 
 a shop of stationery wares. 
 
 " The father of Dr. Paterson, now physician 
 at Ayr, was, I believe, a native of Aberdeen- 
 shire, and was one of the established teachers in 
 Ayr when my father settled in the neighbour- 
 hood. He early recognised my father as a fel- 
 low native of the north of Scotland, and a cer- 
 tain degree of intimacy subsisted between them 
 during Mr. Paterson's life. After his death, 
 
 his
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 69 
 
 his widow, who is a very genteel woman, and of 
 great worth, delighted in doing what she thought 
 her husband would have wished to have done, 
 and assiduously kept up her attentions to all his 
 acquaintance. She kept alive the intimacy with 
 our family, by frequently inviting my father and 
 mother to her house on Sundays, when she -net 
 them at church. 
 
 " When she came to know my brother's pas- 
 sion for books, she kindly offered us the use of 
 her husband's library, and from her we got the 
 Spectator, Pope's Translation of Homer, and seve- 
 ral other books that were of use to us. Mount 
 Oliphant, the farm my father possessed in the 
 parish of Ayr, is almost the very poorest soil I 
 know of in a state of cultivation. A stronger 
 proof of this I cannot give, than that, notwith- 
 standing the extraordinary rise in the value of 
 lands in Scotland, it was, after a considerable 
 sum laid out in improving it by the proprietor, 
 let a few years ago five pounds per annum 
 lower than the rent paid for it by my father 
 thirty years ago. My father, in consequence of 
 this, soon came into difficulties, which were in- 
 creased by the loss of several of his cattle by ac- 
 cidents and disease. To the bufferings of mis- 
 fortune, we could only oppose hard labour and 
 the most rigid economy. We lived very sparing- 
 ly. For several years butcher's meat was a 
 
 stranger
 
 70 THE LIFE OF 
 
 stranger in the house, while all the members of 
 the family exerted themselves to the utmost of 
 their strength, and rather beyond it, in the la- 
 bours of the farm. My brother, at the age of 
 thirteen, assisted in threshing the crop of corn, 
 and at fifteen was the principal labourer on the 
 farm, for we had no hired servant, male or fe- 
 male. The anguish of mind we felt at our ten- 
 der years, under these straits and difficulties, was 
 very great. To think of our father growing old 
 (for he was now above fifty) broken down with 
 the long continued fatigues of his life, with a wife 
 and five other children, and in a declining state 
 of circumstances, these reflections produced in 
 my brother's mind and mine sensations of the 
 deepest distress. I doubt not but the hard la- 
 bour and sorrow of this period of his life, was in 
 a great measure the cause of that depression of 
 spirits with which Robert was so often afflicted 
 through his whole life afterwards. At this time 
 he was almost constantly afflicted in the even- 
 ings with a dull head-ach, which, at a future 
 period of his life, was exchanged for a palpitation 
 of the heart, and a threatening of fainting an4 
 suffocation in his bed, in the night-time. 
 
 " By a stipulation in my father's lease, he had 
 a right to throw it up, if he thought proper, at 
 the end of every sixth year. He attempted to fix 
 himself in a better farm at the end of the first six 
 
 years,
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 71 
 
 years, but foiling in that attempt, he continued 
 where he was for six years more. He then took 
 the farm of Lochlea, of 130 acres, at the rent 
 of twenty shillings an acre, in the parish of 
 Tarbolton, of Mr. - , then a mer- 
 chant in Ayr, and now (1797) a merchant in 
 Liverpool. He removed to 4;his farm at Whit- 
 Sunday, 1777, and possessed it only seven years. 
 No writing had ever been made out of the con- 
 ditions of the lease; a misunderstanding took 
 place respecting them; the subjects in dispute 
 were submitted to arbitration, and the decision 
 involved my father's affairs in ruin. He lived 
 to know of this decision, but not to see any exe- 
 cution in consequence of it. He died on the 
 J3th of February, 1784. 
 
 <f The seven years we lived in Tarbolton 
 parish (extending from the seventeenth to the 
 twenty-fourth of my brother's age), were not 
 marked by much literary improvement; but, 
 during this time, the foundation was laid of 
 certain habits in my brother's character, which 
 afterwards became but too prominent, and which 
 malice and envy have taken delight to enlarge 
 on. Though when young he was bashful and 
 awkward in his intercourse with women, yet 
 when he approached manhood, his attachment 
 to their society became very strong, and he was 
 constantly the victim of some fair enslaver. 
 
 The
 
 72 THE LIFE OF 
 
 The symptoms of his passion were often such as 
 nearly to equal those of the celebrated Sappho. 
 I never indeed knew that he fainted, sunk, and 
 died away ; but the agitations of his mind and 
 body exceeded any thing of the kind I ever knew 
 in real life. He had always a particular jealousy 
 of people who were richer than himself, or who 
 had more consequence in life. His love, there- 
 fore, rarely settled on persons of this descrip- 
 tion. When he selected any one out of the 
 sovereignty of his good pleasure to whom he 
 should pay his particular attention, she was 
 instantly invested with a sufficient stock of 
 charms, out of the plentiful stores of his own 
 imagination ; and there was often a great dis- 
 similitude between his fair captivator ? as she 
 appeared to others, and as she seemed when in- 
 vested with the attributes he gave her. One 
 generally reigned paramount in his affections - 3 
 but as Yorick's affections flowed out toward 
 Madame de L at the remise door, while the 
 eternal vows of Eliza were upon him, so Robert 
 was frequently encountering other attractions, 
 which formed so many under-plots in the drama 
 of his love. As these connexions were governed 
 by the strictest rules of virtue and modesty 
 (from which he never deviated till he reached 
 his 23d year), he became anxious to be in a 
 situation to marry. This was not likely to be 
 soon the case while he remained a farmer, as 
 
 the
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 73 
 
 the stocking of a farm required a sum of mo- 
 ney he had no probability of being master of 
 for a great while. He began, therefore, to 
 think of trying some other line of life. He 
 and I had for several years taken land of my 
 father for the purpose of raising flax on our own 
 account. In the course of selling it, Robert 
 began to think of turning flax-dresser, both as 
 being suitable to his grand view of settling in 
 life, and as subservient to the flax raising. He 
 accordingly wrought at the business of a flax- 
 dresser in Irvine for six months, but abandoned 
 it at that period, as neither agreeing with his 
 health nor inclination. In Irvine he had con- 
 tracted some acquaintance of a freer manner of 
 thinking and living than he had been used to, 
 whose society prepared him for overleaping the 
 bounds of rigid virtue which had hitherto re- 
 strained him. Towards the end of the period 
 under review (in his 24th year), and soon after 
 his father's death, he was furnished with the 
 subject of his epistle to John Rankin. During 
 this period also he became a freemason, which 
 was his first introduction to the life of a boon 
 companion. Yet, notwithstanding these cir- 
 cumstances, and the praise he has bestowed on 
 Scotch drink (which seems to have misled his 
 historians), I do not recollect, during these se- 
 ven years, nor till towards the end of his com- 
 mencing author (when his growing celebrity 
 
 occasioned
 
 74 THE LIFE OF 
 
 occasioned his being often in company), to 
 have ever seen him intoxicated -, nor was he at 
 all given to drinking. A stronger proof of the 
 general sobriety of his conduct need not be re- 
 quired than what I am about to give. During 
 the whole of the time we lived in the farm of 
 Lochlea with my father, he allowed my brother 
 and me such wages for our labour as he gave to 
 other labourers, as a part of which, every arti- 
 cle of our clothing manufactured in the family 
 was regularly accounted for. When my father's 
 affairs drew near a crisis, Robert and I took 
 the farm of Mossgiel, consisting of 118 acres, 
 at the rent of 901. per annum (the farm on 
 which I live at present), from Mr. Gavin Ha- 
 milton, as an asylum for the family in case of 
 the worst. It was stocked by the property and 
 individual savings of the whole family, and was 
 a joint concern among us. Every member of 
 the family was allowed ordinary wages for the 
 labour he performed on the farm. My bro- 
 ther's allowance and mine was seven pounds per 
 annum each. And during the whole time this 
 family-concern lasted, which was four years, 
 as well as during the preceding period at Loch- 
 lea, his expenses never in any one year exceeded 
 his slender income. As I was intrusted with 
 the keeping of the family accounts, it is not 
 possible that there can be any fallacy in this 
 statement in my brother's favour. His tem- 
 perance
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 15 
 
 perance and frugality were every thing that 
 could be wished. 
 
 '' The farm of Mossgiel lies very high, and 
 mostly on a cold wet bottom. The first four 
 years that we were on the farm were very frosty, 
 and the spring was very late. Our crops in con- 
 sequence were very unprofitable j and, notwith- 
 standing our utmost diligence and economy, we 
 found ourselves obliged to give up our bargain, 
 with the loss of a considerable part of our ori- 
 ginal stock. It was during these four years 
 that Robert formed his connexion with Jean 
 Armour, afterwards Mrs. Burns. This con- 
 nexion could no longer be concealed, about the 
 time we came to a final determination to quit 
 the farm. Robert durst not engage with a fa- 
 mily in his poor unsettled state, but was anxious 
 to shield his partner by every means in his power 
 from the consequences of their imprudence. It 
 was agreed therefore between them, that they 
 should make a legal acknowledgment of an ir- 
 regular and private marriage ; that he should 
 go to Jamaica to push his fortune ; and that she 
 should remain with her father till it might please 
 Providence to put the means of supporting a 
 family in his power. 
 
 :" Mrs. Burns was a great favourite of her 
 father's. The intimation of a marriage was the 
 
 first
 
 7$ THE LIFE OF 
 
 first suggestion he received of her real situation. 
 He was in the greatest distress, and fainted 
 away. The marriage did not appear to him to 
 make the matter better. A husband in Ja- 
 maica appeared to him and his wife little bet- 
 ter than none, and an effectual bar to any other 
 prospects of a settlement in life that their 
 daughter might have. They therefore ex- 
 pressed a wish to her, that the written papers 
 which respected the marriage should be can- 
 celled, and thus the marriage rendered void. In 
 her melancholy state she felt the deepest re- 
 morse at having brought such heavy affliction 
 on parents that loved her so tenderly, and sub- 
 mitted to their entreaties. Their wish was men- 
 tioned to Robert. He felt the deepest anguish 
 of mind. He offered to stay at home and pro- 
 vide for his wife and family in the best manner 
 that his daily labours could provide for them; 
 that being the only means in his power. Even 
 this offer they did not approve of; for humble 
 as Miss Armour's station was, and great though 
 her imprudence had been, she still in the eyes 
 of her partial parents, might look to a better 
 connexion than that with my friendless and 
 unhappy brother, at that time without house or 
 biding-place. Robert at length consented to 
 their wishes ; but his feelings on this occasion 
 were of the most distracting nature; and the 
 impression of sorrow was not effaced, till by a 
 
 regular
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 77 
 
 regular marriage they were indissolubly united. 
 In the state of mind which this separation pro- 
 duced, he wished to leave the country as soon 
 as possible, and agreed with Dr. Douglas to go 
 out to Jamaica as an assistant overseer, or, as I 
 believe it is called, a book-keeper, on his estate. 
 As he had not sufficient money to pay his pas- 
 sage, and the vessel in which Dr. Douglas was 
 to procure a passage for him was not expected 
 to sail for some time, Mr. Hamilton advised him 
 to publish his poems in the mean time by sub- 
 scription, as a likely way of getting a little 
 money to provide him more liberally in neces- 
 saries for Jamaica. Agreeably to this advice, 
 subscription-bills were printed immediately, and 
 the printing was commenced at Kilmarnock, his 
 preparations going on at the same time for his 
 voyage. The reception, however, which his 
 poems met with in the world, and the friends 
 they procured him, made him change his resolu- 
 tion of going to Jamaica, and he was advised to 
 go to Edinburgh to publish a second edition. On 
 his return, in happier circumstances, he renewed 
 his connexion with Mrs. Burns, and rendered it 
 permanent by an union for life. 
 
 " Thus, Madam, have I endeavoured to give 
 you a simple narrative of the leading circum- 
 stances in my brother's early life. The remain- 
 ing part he spent in Edinburgh, or in Dumfries- 
 shire,
 
 78 THE LIFE OF 
 
 shire, and its incidents are as well known to you 
 as to me. His genius having procured him your 
 patronage and friendship, this gave rise to 
 the correspondence between you, in which, I 
 believe, his sentiments were delivered with the 
 most respectful, but most unreserved confidence, 
 and which only terminated with the last days of 
 his life." 
 
 This narrative of Gilbert Burns may serve as 
 a commentary on the preceding sketch of our 
 poet's life by himself. It will be seen that the 
 distraction of mind which he mentions (p. 53), 
 arose from the distress and sorrow in which he 
 had involved his future wife. The whole cir- 
 cumstances attending this connexion are cer- 
 tainly of a very singular nature.* 
 
 The reader will perceive, from the foregoing- 
 narrative, how much the children of William 
 Burnes were indebted to their father, who was 
 certainly a man of uncommon talents; though 
 
 it 
 
 * In page 55, the Poet mentions his " skulking from 
 covert to covert, under the terror of a jail." The " pack 
 of the law" were " uncoupled at his heels," to oblige him 
 to find security for the maintenance of his twin-children, 
 whom he was not permitted to legitimate by a marriage 
 with their mother.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 79 
 
 it does not appear that he possessed any portion 
 of that vivid imagination for which the subject 
 of these memoirs was distinguished. In page 44, 
 it is observed by our poet, that his father had an 
 unaccountable antipathy to dancing-schools, and 
 that his attending one of these brought on him 
 his displeasure, and even dislike. On this ob- 
 servation Gilbert has made the following re- 
 mark, which seems entitled to implicit credit : 
 " I wonder how Robert could attribute to our 
 father that lasting resentment of his going to a 
 dancing-school against his will, of which he 
 was incapable. I believe the truth was, that 
 he, about this time began to see the dangerous 
 impetuosity of my brother's passions, as well as 
 his not being amenable to counsel, which often 
 irritated my father ; and which he would na- 
 turally think a dancing-school was not likely 
 to correct. But he was proud of Robert's ge- 
 nius, which he bestowed more expense in cul- 
 tivating than on the rest of the family, in the 
 instances of sending him to Ayr and Kirk- 
 Oswald schools; and he was greatly delighted 
 with his warmth of heart, and his conversa- 
 tional powers. He had indeed that dislike of 
 dancing-schools which Robert mentions ; but 
 so far overcame it during Robert's first month 
 of attendance, that he allowed all the rest of 
 the family that were fit for it to accompany him 
 during the second month. Robert excelled in 
 
 dancing,
 
 80 THE LIFE OF 
 
 dancing, and was for some time distractedly fond 
 of it." 
 
 In the original letter to Dr. Moore, our poet 
 described his ancestors as " renting lands of the 
 noble Keiths of Marischal, and as having had 
 the honour of sharing their fate." " I do not," 
 continues he, " use the word honour with any 
 reference to political principles ; loyal and dis- 
 loyal, I take to be merely relative terms, in 
 that ancient and formidable court, known in 
 this country by the name of Club-law, where the 
 right is always with the strongest. But those 
 who dare welcome ruin, and shake hands with 
 infamy, for what they sincerely believe to be 
 the cause of their God, or their king, are, as 
 Mark Antony says in Shakespeare, of Brutus 
 and Cassius, honourable men. I mention this 
 circumstance, because it threw my father on the 
 world at large." 
 
 This paragraph has been omitted in printing 
 the letter, at the desire of Gilbert Burns ; and 
 it would have been unnecessary to have noticed 
 it on the present occasion, had not several ma- 
 nuscript copies of that letter been in circulation. 
 " I do not know," observes Gilbert Burns, 
 " how my brother could be misled in the ac- 
 count he has given of the Jacobitism of his an- 
 cestors. I believe the Earl Marischal forfeited 
 
 his
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 81 
 
 his title and estate in 1715, before my father 
 was born j and among a collection of parish- 
 certificates in his possession, I have read one, 
 stating that the bearer had no concern in the 
 late wicked rebellion" On the information of 
 one who knew William Burnes soon after he 
 arrived in the county of Ayr, it may be men- 
 tioned, that a report did prevail, that he had 
 taken the field with the young Chevalier; a re- 
 port which the certificate mentioned by his son 
 was, perhaps, intended to counteract. Strangers 
 fiom the North, settling in the low country of 
 Scotland, were in those days liable to suspicions, 
 of having been, in the familiar phrase of the coun- 
 try, "Out in the forty-five," (1745), especially 
 when they had any stateliness or reserve about 
 them, as was the case with William Burnes. It 
 may easily be conceived, that our poet would 
 cherish the belief of his father's having been 
 engaged in the daring enterprise of Prince 
 Charles Edward. The generous attachment, 
 the heroic valour, and the final misfortunes of 
 the adherents of the house of Stuart, touched 
 with sympathy his youthful and ardent mind, 
 and influenced his original political opinions.* 
 
 The 
 
 Y There is another observation of Gilbert Burns on 
 
 his brother's narrative, in which some persons will be 
 
 interested. It refers to pages 39 and 40, where the poet 
 
 speaks of his youthful friends. " My brother," says 
 
 vol. i. g Gilbert
 
 82 THE LIFE OF 
 
 The father of our poet is described by one 
 who knew him towards the latter end of his life, 
 as above the common stature, thin, and bent 
 with labour. His countenance was serious and 
 expressive, and the scanty locks on his head 
 
 were 
 
 Gilbert Burns, " seems to set off his early companions in 
 too consequential a manner. The principal acquaintance 
 we had in Ayr, while boys, were four sons of Mr. 
 Andrew M'Culloch, a distant relation of my mother's, 
 who kept a tea-shop, and had made a little money in the 
 contraband trade, very common at that time. He died* 
 while the boys were young, and my father was nominated 
 one of the tutors. The two eldest were bred shopkeepers, 
 the third a surgeon, and the youngest, the only surviving 
 one, was bred in a counting-house in Glasgow, where he 
 is now a respectable merchant. I believe all these boys 
 went to the West Indies. Then there were two sons of 
 Dr. Malcolm, whom 1 have mentioned in my letter to 
 Mrs. Dunlop. The eldest, a very worthy young man, 
 went to the East Indies, where he had a commission in the 
 army ; he is the person whose heart my brother says the 
 Munny Begum scenes could not corrupt. The other, by 
 the interest of Lady Wallace, got an ensigncy in a regiment 
 raised by the Duke of Hamilton, during the American war. 
 I believe neither of them are now (1797) alive. We also 
 knew the present Dr. Paterson of Ayr, and a younger 
 brother of his now in Jamaica, who were much younger 
 than us. I had almost forgot to mention Dr. Charles of 
 Ayr, who was a little older than my brother, and with 
 whom we had a longer and closer intimacy than with any of 
 the others, which did not, however, continue in after life."
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 83 
 
 were grey. He was of a religious turn of mind, 
 and, as is usual among the Scottish peasantry, a 
 good deal conversant in speculative theology. 
 There is in Gilbert's hands a little manual of re- 
 ligious belief, in the form of a dialogue between 
 a father and his son, composed by him for the 
 use of his children, in which the benevolence of 
 his heart seems to have led him to soften the 
 rigid Calvinism of the Scottish church, into 
 something approaching to Arminianism. He was 
 a devout man, and in the practice of calling his 
 family together to join in prayer. It is known 
 that the following exquisite picture, in the Cot- 
 ter's Saturday Night, represents William Burnes 
 and his family at their evening devotions. 
 
 The cheerful supper done, with serious face, 
 
 They, round the ingle,* form a circle wide ; 
 The sire turns o'er, with patriarchal grace, 
 
 The big ^a//-Bible, once his father's pride : 
 His bonnet rev'rently is laid aside, 
 
 His lyart haffets-f* wearing thin and bare ; 
 Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide, 
 
 He walesj a portion with judicious care ; 
 And " Let us worship God /" he says with solemn air. 
 
 They chant their artless notes in simple guise ; 
 
 They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim : 
 Perhaps Dundee's^ wild warbling measures rise, 
 
 Or plaintive Martyrs^ worthy of the name ; 
 
 g 2 Or 
 
 * Fire. t Grey temples. i Chooses. 
 
 Names of tunes in Scottish psalmody. The tunes mentioned in this 
 poem are the three which were used by William Burnes, who had no 
 greater variety.
 
 84 THE LIFE OF 
 
 Or noble Elgin beets* the heavenly flame, 
 
 The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays ; 
 Compar'd with these, Italian trills are tame ; 
 
 The tickled ears no heart-felt raptures raise ; 
 No unison have they with our Creator's praise. 
 
 The priest-like father reads the sacred page,-f 
 
 How Abram was the friend of God on high ; 
 Or, Moses bade eternal warfare wage 
 
 With Amalek's ungracious progeny ; 
 Or how- the royal bard did groaning lie, 
 
 Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire ; 
 Or, Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry ; 
 
 Or, rapt Isaiah's wild seraphic fire ; 
 Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre. 
 
 Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme, 
 
 How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed ; 
 How he, who bore in heaven the second name, 
 
 Had not on earth whereon to lay his head ; 
 How his first followers and servants sped ; 
 
 The precepts sage, they wrote to many a land ; 
 How he, who lone in Patmos banished, 
 
 Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand ; 
 And heard great Babylon's doom pronounced, by Heaven's 
 command ! 
 
 Then kneeling down, to Heaven's eternal King, 
 The saint, the father, and the husband, prays ; 
 
 Hope springs exulting on triumphant wing, 
 That thus they all shall meet in future days ; 
 
 There 
 
 * Adds fuel to. 
 
 t The course of family dcvotiou among the Scots is, first to sing a 
 psalm, then to read a portion of scripture, and lastly to kneel down in 
 prayer.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 85 
 
 There ever bask in uncreated rays, 
 
 No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear, 
 Together hymning their Creator's praise, 
 In such society, yet still more dear ; 
 While circling time moves round in an eternal sphere. 
 
 JF ^ 5?F w IF * *n* *JF 
 
 Then homeward all take off their several way ; 
 
 The youngling cottagers retire to rest : 
 The parent pair their secret homage pay, 
 
 And offer up to Heaven the warm request, 
 That he who stills the raven's clam'rous nest, 
 
 And decks the lily fair in flowery pride, 
 Would, in the way his wisdom sees the best, 
 
 For them and for their little ones provide ; 
 But chiefly, in their hearts, with grace divine preside ! 
 
 Of a family so interesting as that which inha- 
 bited the cottage of William Burnes, and parti- 
 cularly of the father of the family, the reader 
 will perhaps be willing to listen to some farther 
 account. What follows is given by one already 
 mentioned with so much honour, in the narra- 
 tive of Gilbert Burns, Mr. Murdoch, the pre- 
 ceptor of our poet, who, in a letter to Joseph 
 Cooper Walker, Esq. of Dublin, author of the 
 Historical Memoirs of the Irish Bards, and of 
 the Historical Memoir of the Italian Tragedy, 
 thus expresses himself: 
 
 Sir,
 
 86 THE LIFE OF 
 
 " Sir, 
 
 " I was lately favoured with a letter 
 from our worthy friend, the Rev. Wm. Adair, 
 in which he requested me to communicate to 
 you whatever particulars I could recollect con- 
 cerning Robert Burns, the Ayrshire poet. My 
 business being at present multifarious and ha- 
 rassing, my attention is consequently so much 
 divided, and I am so little in the habit of ex- 
 pressing my thoughts on paper, that at this 
 distance of time I can give but a very imper- 
 fect sketch of the early part of the life of that 
 extraordinary genius, with which alone I am 
 acquainted. 
 
 <{ William Burnes, the father of the poet, 
 was born in the shire of Kincardine, and bred a 
 gardener. He had been settled in Ayrshire ten 
 or twelve years before I knew him, and had 
 been in the service of Mr. Crawford of Doon- 
 side. He was afterwards employed as a gardener 
 and overseer by Provost Ferguson of Doon- 
 holm, in the parish of Alloway, which is now 
 united with that of Ayr. In this parish, on the 
 road side, a Scotch mile and a half from the 
 town of Ayr, and half a mile from the bridge 
 of Doon, William Burnes took a piece of land, 
 consisting of about seven acres, part of which 
 he laid out in garden ground, and part of which 
 
 he
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 87 
 
 he kept to graze a cow, &c., still continuing in 
 the employ of Provost Ferguson. Upon this 
 little farm was erected a humble dwelling, of 
 which William Burnes was the architect. It was, 
 with the exception of a little straw, literally a 
 tabernacle of clay. In this mean cottage, of 
 which I myself was at times an inhabitant, I 
 really believe there dwelt a larger portion of con- 
 tent than in any palace in Europe. The Cot- 
 ter's Saturday Night will give some idea of the 
 temper and manners that prevailed there. 
 
 " In 1765, about the middle of March, Mr. 
 W. Burnes came to Ayr, and sent to the school 
 where I was improving in writing, under my 
 good friend Mr. Robinson, desiring that I would 
 come and speak to him at a certain inn, and 
 bring my writing-book with me. This was im- 
 mediately complied with. Having examined my 
 writing, he was pleased with it (you will 
 readily allow he was not difficult), and told me 
 that he had received very satisfactory informa- 
 tion of Mr. Tennant, the master of the English 
 school, concerning my improvement in English 
 and in his method of teaching. In the month of 
 May following, I was engaged by Mr. Burnes, 
 and four of his neighbours, to teach, and accord- 
 ingly began to teach the little school at Alloway, 
 which was situated a few yards from the argilla- 
 ceous fabric above-mentioned. My five em- 
 ployers
 
 S8 THE LIFE OF 
 
 ployers undertook to board me by turns, and to 
 make up a certain salary, at the end of the year, 
 provided my quarterly payments from the dif- 
 ferent pupils did not amount to that sum. 
 
 " My pupil, Robert Burns, was then between 
 six and seven years of age ; his preceptor about 
 eighteen. Robert, and his younger brother, 
 Gilbert, had been grounded a little in English 
 before they were put under my care. They both 
 made a rapid ^progress in reading, and a tole- 
 rable progress in writing. In reading, dividing 
 words into syllables by rule, spelling without 
 book, parsing sentences, &c, Robert and Gil- 
 bert were generally at the upper end of the 
 class, even when ranged with boys by far their 
 seniors. The books most commonly used in the 
 school were the Spelling Book, the New Testa- 
 ment, the Bible, Mason's Collection of Prose 
 and Verse, and Fisher's English Grammar. 
 They committed to memory the hymns, and 
 other poems of that collection, with uncommon 
 facility. This facility was partly owing to the 
 method pursued by their father and me in in- 
 structing them, which was, to make them tho- 
 roughly acquainted with the meaning of every 
 word in each sentence that was to be com- 
 mitted to memory. By the bye, this may be 
 easier done, and at an earlier period, than is 
 generally thought. As soon as they were capa- 
 ble
 
 ROBERTV BURNS. 89 
 
 ble of it, I taught them to turn verse into its 
 natural prose order ; sometimes to substitute 
 synonymous expressions for poetical words, and 
 to supply all the ellipses. These, you know, are 
 the means of knowing that the pupil understands 
 his author. These are excellent helps to the ar- 
 rangement of words in sentences, as well as to a 
 variety of expression. 
 
 " Gilbert always appeared to me to possess a 
 more lively imagination, and to be more of the 
 wit, than Robert. I attempted to teach them a 
 little church-music. Here they were left far 
 behind by all the rest of the school. Robert's 
 ear, in particular, was remarkably dull, and his 
 voice untunable. It was long before I could 
 get them to distinguish one tune from another. 
 Robert's countenance was generally grave, and 
 expressive of a serious, contemplative, and 
 thoughtful mind. Gilbert's face said, Mirth, 
 with thee I mean to lives and certainly, if any 
 person who knew the two boys, had been asked 
 which of them was the most likely to court the 
 muses, he would surely never have guessed that 
 Robert had a propensity of that kind. 
 
 " In the year 176?> Mr. Burnes quitted his 
 mud edifice, and took possession of a farm 
 (Mount Oliphant) of his own improving, while 
 in the service of Provost Ferguson. This farm 
 
 being
 
 90 THE LIFE OF 
 
 being at a considerable distance from the 
 school, the boys could not attend regularly; 
 and some changes taking place among the 
 other supporters of the school, I left it, having 
 continued to conduct it for nearly two years and 
 a half. 
 
 " In the year 1772, I was appointed (being 
 one of five candidates who were examined) 
 to teach the English school at Ayr ; and in 
 1773, Robert Burns came to board and lodge 
 with me, for the purpose of revising English 
 grammar, &c, that he might be better qualified 
 to instruct his brothers and sisters at home. 
 He was now with me day and night, in school, 
 at all meals, and in all my walks. At the end 
 of one week, I told him, that, as he was now 
 pretty much master of the parts of speech, &c, 
 I should like to teach him something of French 
 pronunciation, that when he should meet with 
 the name of a French town, ship, officer, or the 
 like, in the newspapers, he might be able to 
 pronounce it something like a French word. 
 Robert was glad to hear this proposal, and im- 
 mediately we attacked the French with great 
 courage. 
 
 " Now there was little else to be heard but 
 the declension of nouns, the conjugation of 
 verbs, &c. When walking together, and even 
 
 at
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 91 
 
 at meals, I was constantly telling him the 
 names of different objects, as they presented 
 themselves, in French ; so that he was hourly 
 laying in a stock of words, and sometimes little 
 phrases. In short, he took such pleasure in 
 learning, and I in teaching, that it was difficult 
 to say which of the two was most zealous in the 
 business ; and about the end of the second week 
 of our study of the French, we began to read a 
 little of the Adventures of Telemachus, in Fene- 
 lon's own words, 
 
 cc But now the plains of Mount Oliphant 
 began to whiten, and Robert was summoned to 
 relinquish the pleasing scenes that surrounded 
 the grotto of Calypso, and, armed with a sickle, 
 to seek glory by signalizing himself in the fields 
 of Ceres and so he did; for although but 
 about fifteen, I was told that he performed the 
 work of a man. 
 
 cc Thus was I deprived of my very apt pupil, 
 and consequently agreeable companion, at the 
 end of three weeks, one of which was spent 
 entirely in the study of English, and the other 
 two chiefly in that of French. I did not, how- 
 ever, lose sight of him ; but was a frequent visit- 
 ant at his father's house, when I had my half- 
 holiday, and very often went accompanied with 
 one or two persons more intelligent than my- 
 self,
 
 912 THE LIFE OF 
 
 self, that good William Burnes might enjoy a 
 mental feast. Then the labouring oar was 
 shifted to some other hand. The father and 
 the son sat down with us, when ^ve enjoyed a 
 conversation, wherein solid reasoning, sensible 
 remark, and a moderate seasoning of jocularity, 
 were so nicely blended as to render it palatable 
 to all parties. Robert had a hundred questions 
 to ask me about the French, &c.; and the father, 
 who had always rational information in view, 
 had still some question to propose to my more 
 learned friends, upon moral or natural philosophy, 
 or some such interesting subject. Mrs. Burnes 
 too was of the party as much as possible -, 
 
 ' But still the house affairs would draw her thence, 
 Which ever as she could with haste dispatch, 
 She'd come again, and with a greedy ear, 
 Devour up their discourse 1 
 
 and particularly that of her husband. At all 
 times, and in all companies, she listened to him 
 with a more marked attention than to any body 
 else. When under the necessity of being absent 
 while he was speaking, she seemed to regret, as 
 a real loss, that she had missed what the good 
 man had said. This worthy woman, Agnes 
 Brown, had the most thorough esteem for her 
 husband of any woman I ever knew. I can by 
 no means wonder that she highly esteemed him ; 
 for I myself have always considered William 
 
 Burnes
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 93 
 
 Burnes as by far the best of the human race that 
 ever I had the pleasure of being acquainted 
 with and many a worthy character I have 
 known. I can cheerfully join with Robert in 
 the last line of his epitaph (borrowed from 
 Goldsmith), 
 
 ' And ev'n his failings lean'd to virtue's side/ 
 
 u He was an excellent husband, if I may 
 judge from his assiduous attention to the ease 
 and comfort of his worthy partner, and from 
 her affectionate behaviour to him, as well as her 
 unwearied attention to the duties of a mother. 
 
 * c He was a tender and affectionate father ; 
 he took pleasure in leading his children in the 
 path of virtue ; not in driving them, as some 
 parents do, to the performance of duties to 
 which they themselves are averse. He took 
 care to find fault but very seldom ; and there- 
 fore, when he did rebuke, he was listened to 
 with a kind of reverential awe. A look of dis- 
 approbation was felt -, a reproof was severely so : 
 and a stripe with the tawz, even on the skirt of 
 the coat, gave heart-felt pain, produced a loud 
 lamentation, and brought forth a flood of tears. 
 
 " He had the art of gaining the esteem and 
 good-will of those that were labourers under 
 
 him.
 
 94 THE lF*E Of 
 
 him. I think I never saw him angry but twice : 
 the one time it was with the foreman of the 
 band, for not reaping the field as he was de- 
 sired ; and the other time, it was with an old 
 man, for using smutty innuendoes and doubles 
 entendres. Were every foul-mouth'd old man 
 to receive a seasonable check in this way, it 
 would be to the advantage of the rising genera- 
 tion. As he was at no time overbearing to infe- 
 riors, he was equally incapable of that passive, 
 pitiful, paltry spirit, that induces some people 
 to keep booing and booing in the presence of a 
 great man. He always treated superiors with a 
 becoming respect ; but he never gave the small- 
 est encouragement to aristocratical arrogance. 
 But I must not pretend to give you a descrip- 
 tion of all the manly qualities, the rational 
 and Christian virtues, of the venerable William 
 Burnes. Time would fail me. I shall only add, 
 that he carefully practised every known duty, 
 and avoided every thing that was criminal ; or, 
 in the apostle's words, Herein did he exercise 
 himself, in living a life void of offence towards 
 God and towards men. O for a world of men 
 of such dispositions ! We should then have no 
 wars. I have often wished, for the good of 
 mankind, that it were as customary to honour 
 and perpetuate the memory of those who excel 
 in moral rectitude, as it is to extol what are 
 called heroic actions : then would the mauso- 
 leum
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 95 
 
 leum of the friend of my youth overtop and 
 surpass most of the monuments I see in West- 
 minster Abbey. 
 
 " Although I cannot do justice to the cha- 
 racter of this worthy man, yet you will per- 
 ceive, from these few particulars, what kind of 
 person had the principal hand in the education 
 of our poet. He spoke the English language 
 with more propriety (both with respect to dic- 
 tion and pronunciation), than any man I ever 
 knew with no greater advantages. This had a 
 very good effect on the boys, who began to 
 talk, and reason like men, much sooner than 
 their neighbours. I do not recollect any of 
 their contemporaries, at my little seminary, who 
 afterwards made any great figure as literary 
 characters, except Dr. Tennant, who was chap- 
 lain to Colonel Fullarton's regiment, and who 
 is now in the East Indies. He is a man of ge- 
 nius and learning 5 yet affable, and free from 
 pedantry. 
 
 <e Mr. Burnes, in a short time, found that he 
 had over-rated Mount Oliphant, and that he 
 could not rear his numerous family upon it. 
 After being there some years, he removed to 
 Lochlea, in the parish of Tarbolton, where, I 
 believe, Robert wrote most of his poems. 
 
 But
 
 96 THE LIFE OP 
 
 " But here, Sir, you will permit me to 
 pause. I can tell you but little more relative to 
 our poet. I shall, however, in my next, send 
 you a copy of one of his letters to me, about 
 the year 1783.* I received one since, but it is 
 mislaid. Please remember me, in the best man- 
 ner, to my worthy friend Mr. Adair, when you 
 see him, or write to him. 
 
 " Hart-street, Bloomsbiiry-square, 
 London, Feb. 22, 1799." 
 
 As the narrative of Gilbert Burns was written 
 at a time when he was ignorant of the existence 
 of the preceding narrative of his brother, so this 
 letter of Mr. Murdoch was written without his 
 having any knowledge that either of his pupils 
 had been employed on the same subject. The 
 three relations serve, therefore, not merely to 
 illustrate, but to authenticate each other. Though 
 the information they convey might have been 
 presented within a shorter compass, by reducing 
 the whole into one unbroken narrative, it is 
 scarcely to be doubted, that the intelligent 
 reader will be far more gratified by a sight of 
 these original documents themselves. 
 
 Under 
 * Sec Vol. ii. p. 1.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 97 
 
 Under the humble roof of his parents, it ap- 
 pears indeed that our poet had great advan- 
 tages 5 but his opportunities of information at 
 school were more limited as to time than they 
 usually are among his countrymen, in his con- 
 dition of life j and the acquisitions which he 
 made, and the poetical talent which he exerted, 
 under the pressure of early and incessant toil, 
 and of inferior, and perhaps scanty nutriment, 
 testify at once the extraordinary force and acti- 
 vity of his mind. In his frame of body he rose 
 nearly to five feet ten inches, and assumed the 
 proportions that indicate agility as well as 
 strength. In the various labours of the farm he 
 excelled all his competitors. Gilbert Burns 
 declares, that in mowing, the exercise that tries 
 all the muscles most severely, Robert was the 
 only man that, at the end of a summer's day, 
 he was ever obliged to acknowledge as his mas- 
 ter. But though our poet gave the powers of 
 his body to the labours of the farm, he refused 
 to bestow on them his thoughts or his cares. 
 While the ploughshare under his guidance 
 passed through the sward, or the grass fell un- 
 der the sweep of his scythe, he was humming 
 the songs of his country, musing on the deeds 
 of ancient valour, or rapt in the illusions of 
 Fancy, as her enchantments rose on his view. 
 Happily the Sunday is yet a sabbath, on which 
 man and beast rest from their labours. On this 
 
 VOL. I. H day,
 
 98 THE LIFE OF 
 
 day, therefore, Burns could indulge in a freer 
 intercourse with the charms of nature. It was 
 his delight to wander alone on the banks of the 
 Ayr, whose stream is now immortal, and to 
 listen to the song of the blackbird at the close of 
 the summer's day. But still greater was his 
 pleasure, as he himself informs us, in walking 
 on the sheltered side of a wood, in a cloudy 
 winter-day, and hearing the storm rave among 
 the trees ; and more elevated still his delight, 
 to ascend some eminence during the agitations 
 of nature, to stride along its summit, while the 
 lightning flashed around him, and, amidst the 
 howlings of the tempest, to apostrophize the 
 spirit of the storm. Such situations he declares 
 most favourable to devotion " Rapt in enthu- 
 siasm, I seem to ascend towards Him who walks 
 on the wings of the wind /" If other proofs 
 were wanting of the character of his genius, 
 this might determine it. The heart of the poet 
 is peculiarly awake to every impression of beauty 
 and sublimity j but, with the higher order of 
 poets, the beautiful is less attractive than the 
 sublime. 
 
 The gaiety of many of Burns's writings, and 
 the lively, and even cheerful colouring with 
 which he has portrayed his own character, may 
 lead some persons to suppose, that the melan- 
 choly which hung over him towards the end of 
 
 his
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 99 
 
 his days, was not an original part of his consti- 
 tution. It is not to be doubted indeed, that this 
 melancholy acquired a 'darker hue in the pro- 
 gress of his life; but, independent of his own 
 and of his brother's testimony, evidence is to be 
 found among his papers, that he was subject 
 very early to those depressions of mind, which 
 are perhaps not wholly separable from the sensi- 
 bility of genius, but which in him arose to an 
 uncommon degree. The following letter, ad- 
 dressed to his father, will serve as a proof of 
 this observation. It was written at the time 
 when he was learning the business of a flax- 
 dresser, and is dated 
 
 Irvine, Dec. 27, 1781. 
 
 " HONOURED SIR* 
 
 " I HAVE purposely delayed writing, in 
 the hope that I should have the pleasure of see- 
 ing you on New-year's day j but work comes so 
 hard upon us, that I do not choose to be absent 
 on that account, as well as for some other little 
 reasons, which I shall tell you at meeting. My 
 health is nearly the same as when you were here, 
 only my sleep is a little sounder, and, on the 
 whole, I am rather better than otherwise, though 
 I mend by very slow degrees. The weakness of 
 my nerves has so debilitated my mind, that I 
 dare neither review past wants, nor look for- 
 
 H 2 ward
 
 100 THE LIFE OF 
 
 ward into futurity ; for the least anxiety or per- 
 turbation in my breast, produces most unhappy 
 effects on my whole frame. Sometimes, indeed, 
 when for an hour or two my spirits are a little 
 lightened, I glimmer a little into futurity; but 
 my principal, and indeed my only pleasurable 
 employment, is looking backwards and forwards 
 in a moral and religious way. I am quite trans- 
 ported at the thought, that ere long, perhaps 
 very soon, I shall bid an eternal adieu to all the 
 pains and uneasinesses, and disquietudes of this 
 weary life ; for I assure you I am heartily tired 
 of it ; and, if I do not very much deceive my- 
 self, I could contentedly and gladly resign it. * 
 
 ' The soul, uneasy, and confin'd at home, 
 Rests and expatiates in a life to come/ 
 
 " It is for this reason I am more pleased with 
 the 1,5th, 16th, and 17th verses of the 7th chap- 
 ter of Revelations, than with any ten times as 
 many verses in the whole Bible, and would not 
 exchange the noble enthusiasm with which they 
 inspire me for all that this world has to offer.* 
 
 As 
 
 * The verses of Scripture here alluded to, are as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 15. Therefore are they before the throne of God, and 
 serve him day and night in his temple ; and he that sitteth 
 on the throne shall dwell among them. 
 
 16. They
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 101 
 
 As for this world, I despair of ever making a 
 figure in it. I am not formed for the bustle of 
 the busy, nor the flutter of the gay. I shall 
 never again be capable of entering into such 
 scenes. Indeed I am altogether unconcerned at 
 the thoughts of this life. I foresee that poverty 
 and obscurity probably await me, and I am in 
 some measure prepared, and daily preparing to 
 meet them. I have but just time and paper to 
 return you my grateful thanks for the lessons of 
 virtue and piety you have given me, which were 
 too much neglected at the time of giving them, 
 but which, I hope, have been remembered ere 
 it is yet too late. Present my dutiful respects to 
 my mother, and my compliments to Mr. and 
 Mrs. Muirj and, with wishing you a merry 
 New-year's-day, I shall conclude. 
 " I am, honoured Sir, 
 " Your dutiful son, 
 
 " Robert Burns. v 
 
 " P. S. My meal is nearly out j but I am go- 
 ing to borrow, till I get more." 
 
 This 
 
 16. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any 
 more ; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat, 
 
 17. For the Lamb that is in the midst of the throne 
 shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains 
 of waters; and God shall wipe away all tears from their 
 eyes.
 
 102 THE LIFE OF 
 
 This letter, written several years before the 
 publication of his poems, when his name was as 
 obscure as his condition was humble, displays 
 the philosophic melancholy which so generally 
 forms the poetical temperament, and that buoy- 
 ant and ambitious spirit which indicates a mind 
 conscious of its strength. At Irvine, Burns at 
 this time possessed a single room for his lodg- 
 ing, rented perhaps at the rate of a shilling 
 a-week. He passed his days in constant labour 
 as a flax-dresser, and his food consisted chiefly 
 of oatmeal sent to him from his father's family. 
 The store of this humble, though wholesome 
 nutriment, it appears was nearly exhausted, and 
 he was about to borrow till he should obtain a 
 supply. Yet even in this situation, his active 
 imagination had formed to itself pictures of 
 eminence and distinction. His despair of mak- 
 ing a figure in the world, shews how ardently 
 he wished for honourable fame; and his con- 
 tempt of life, founded on this despair, is the 
 genuine expression of a youthful and generous 
 mind. In such a state of reflection, and of 
 suffering, the imagination of Burns naturally 
 passed the dark boundaries of our earthly hori- 
 zon, and rested on those beautiful representa- 
 tions of a better world, where there is neither 
 thirst, nor hunger, nor sorrow, and where hap- 
 piness shall be in proportion to the capacity of 
 happiness. 
 
 Such
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 103 
 
 Such a disposition is far from being at vari- 
 ance with social enjoyments. Those who have 
 studied the affinities of mind, know that a me- 
 lancholy of this description, after a while, seeks 
 relief in the endearments of society, and that 
 it has no distant connexion with the flow of 
 cheerfulness, or even the extravagance of mirth. 
 It was a few days after the writing of this letter 
 that our poet, " in giving a welcoming carousal 
 to the new year, with his gay companions," suf- 
 fered his flax to catch fire, and his shop to be 
 consumed to ashes. 
 
 The energy of Burns's mind was not exhausted 
 by his daily labours, the^ effusions of his muse, 
 his social pleasures, or his solitary meditations. 
 Some time previous to his engagement as a flax- 
 dresser, having heard that a debating club had 
 been established in Ayr, he resolved to try how 
 such a meeting would succeed in the village of 
 Tarbolton. About the end of the year 1780, 
 our poet, his brother, and five other young pea- 
 sants of the neighbourhood, formed themselves 
 into a society of this sort, the declared objects 
 of which were to relax themselves after toil, to 
 promote sociality and friendship, and to im- 
 prove the mind. The laws and regulations 
 were furnished by Burns. The members were 
 to meet after the labours of the day were over, 
 once a week, in a small public-house in the 
 
 village -,
 
 104 THE LIFE OF 
 
 village ; where each should offer his opinion on 
 a given question or subject, supporting it by 
 such arguments as he thought proper. The de- 
 bate was to be conducted with orjder and deco- 
 rum; and after it was finished, the members 
 were to choose a subject for discussion at the 
 ensuing meeting. The sum expended by each 
 was not to exceed three-pence j and, with the 
 humble potation that this could procure, they 
 w r ere to toast their mistresses, and to cultivate 
 friendship with each other. This society conti- 
 nued its meetings regularly for some time j and 
 in the autumn of 1732, wishing to preserve some 
 account of their proceedings, they purchased 
 a book, into which their laws and regulations 
 were copied, with a preamble, containing a 
 short history of their transactions down to that 
 period. This curious document, which is evi- 
 dently the work of our poet, has been discovered, 
 and it deserves a place in his memoirs. 
 
 f( History of the Rise, Proceedings, and Regida* 
 tions of the Bachelor's Club. 
 
 ' Of birth or blood we do not boast, 
 Nor gentry does our club afford ; 
 But ploughmen and mechanics we 
 In Nature's simple dress record. 
 
 " As the great end of human society is to 
 become wiser and better, this ought therefore 
 
 - to
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 105 
 
 to be the principal view of every man in every 
 station of life. But as experience has taught 
 us, that such studies as inform the head and 
 mend the heart, when long continued, are apt 
 to exhaust the faculties of the mind, it has been 
 found proper to relieve and unbend the mind 
 by some employment or another, that may be 
 agreeable enough to keep its powers in exercise, 
 but at the same time not so serious as to exhaust 
 them. But, superadded to this, by far the greater 
 part of mankind are under the necessity of 
 earning the sustenance of human life by the labour 
 of their bodies, whereby, not only the faculties of 
 the mind, but the nerves and sinews of the body, 
 are so fatigued, that it is absolutely necessary to 
 have recourse to some amusement or diversion, 
 to relieve the wearied man, worn down with the 
 necessary labours of life, 
 
 " As the best of things, however, have been 
 perverted to the worst of purposes, so, under 
 the pretence of amusement and diversion, men 
 have plunged into all the madness of riot and 
 dissipation ; and, instead of attending to the 
 grand design of human life, they have begun 
 with extravagance and folly, and ended with 
 guilt and wretchedness. Impressed with these 
 considerations, we, the following lads in the 
 parish of Tarbolton, viz. Hugh Reid, Robert 
 Burns, Gilbert Burns, Alexander Brown, Walter 
 
 MitcheJ,
 
 106 THE LIFE OF 
 
 Mitchel, Thomas Wright, and William M'Ga- 
 vin, resolved, for our mutual entertainment, to 
 unite ourselves into a club or society, under 
 such rules and regulations, that while we should 
 forget our cares and labours in mirth and di- 
 version, we might not transgress the bounds of 
 innocence and decorum ; and after agreeing on 
 these, and some other regulations, we held our 
 first meeting at Tarbolton, in the house of John 
 Richard, upon the evening of the 11th of No- 
 vember, 1780, commonly called Hallowe'en, and 
 after choosing Robert Burns president for the 
 night, we proceeded to debate on this question 
 Suppose a young man, bred a farmer, but 
 without any fortune, has it in his power to marry 
 either of two women, the one a girl of large for- 
 tune, but neither handsome in person, nor agree- 
 able in conversation, but who can manage the 
 household affairs of a farm well enough ; the 
 other of them a girl every way agreeable, in 
 person, conversation, and behaviour, but without 
 any fortune : which of them shall he choose f 
 Finding ourselves very happy in our society, 
 we resolved to continue to meet once a month 
 in the same house, in the way and manner pro- 
 posed, and shortly thereafter we chose Robert 
 Ritchie for another member. In May, 1781, 
 we brought in David Sillar,* and in June, 
 
 Adam 
 
 * The person to whom Burns addressed his Epistle to 
 Davie, a brother poet.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 107 
 
 Adam Jamaison, as members. About the be- 
 ginning of the year 1782, we admitted Mat- 
 thew Patterson, and John Orr, and in June fol- 
 lowing we chose James Patterson as a proper 
 brother for such a society. The club being 
 thus increased, we resolved to meet at Tarbolton 
 on the race-night, the July following, and have 
 a dance in honour of our society. Accordingly 
 we did meet, each one with a partner, and spent 
 the evening in such innocence and merriment, 
 such cheerfulness and good humour, that every 
 brother will long remember it with pleasure and 
 delight." To this preamble are subjoined the 
 rules and regulations.* 
 
 The philosophical mind will dwell with inte- 
 rest and pleasure, on an institution that com- 
 bined so skilfully the means of instruction and 
 of happiness j and if grandeur look down with 
 a smile on these simple annals, let us trust that 
 it will be a smile of benevolence and approba- 
 tion. It is with regret that the sequel of the 
 history of the Bachelor's Club of Tarbolton 
 must be told. It survived several years after 
 our poet removed from Ayrshire, but no longer 
 sustained by his talents, or cemented by his so- 
 cial affections, its meetings lost much of their 
 attraction j and at length, in an evil hour, dis- 
 sension 
 
 * For which see Appendix, No. II. Note C.
 
 108 THE LIFE OF 
 
 sension arising amongst its members, the insti- 
 tution was given up, and the records committed 
 to the flames. Happily the preamble and the 
 regulations were spared ; and, as matter of in- 
 struction and of example, they are transmitted 
 to posterity. 
 
 After the family of our bard removed from 
 Tarbolton to the neighbourhood of Mauchline, 
 he and his brother were requested to assist in 
 forming a similar institution there. The regu- 
 lations of the club at Mauchline were nearly 
 the same as those of the club at Tarbolton ; but 
 one laudable alteration was made. The fines 
 for non-attendance had at Tarbolton been spent 
 in enlarging their scanty potations : at Mauch- 
 line it was fixed, that the money so arising, 
 should be set apart for the purchase of books, 
 and the first work procured in this manner was 
 the Mirror, the separate numbers of which were 
 at that time recently collected and published in 
 volumes. After it, followed a number of other 
 works, chiefly of the same nature, and among 
 these the Lounger. The society of Mauchline 
 still subsists, and appeared in the list of sub- 
 scribers to the first edition of the works of its 
 celebrated associate. 
 
 The members of these two societies were ori- 
 ginally all young men from the country, and 
 
 chiefly
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 109 
 
 chiefly sons of farmers ; a description of persons, 
 in the opinion of our poet, more agreeable in 
 their manners, more virtuous in their conduct, 
 and more susceptible of improvement, than 
 the self-sufficient mechanics of country-towns. 
 With deference to the Conversation-society of 
 Mauchline, it may be doubted, whether the 
 books which they purchased were of a kind best 
 adapted to promote the interest and happiness 
 of persons in this situation of life. The Mirror 
 and the Lounger, though works of great merit, 
 may be said, on a general view of their con- 
 tents, to be less calculated to increase the know- 
 ledge, than to refine the taste of those who 
 read them ; and to this last object their morality 
 itself, which is however always perfectly pure, 
 may be considered as subordinate. As works of 
 taste, they deserve great praise. They are, in- 
 deed, refined to a high degree of delicacy ; and 
 to this circumstance it is perhaps owing, that 
 they exhibit little or nothing of the peculiar 
 manners of the age or country in which they 
 were produced. But delicacy of taste, though 
 the source of many pleasures, is not without 
 some disadvantages ; and to render it desirable, 
 the possessor should perhaps in all cases be 
 raised above the necessity of bodily labour, un- 
 less indeed we should include under this term 
 the exercise of the imitative arts, over which 
 taste immediately presides. Delicacy of taste 
 
 may
 
 110 THE LIFE OF 
 
 may be a blessing to him who has the disposal 
 of his own time, and who can choose what book 
 he shall read, of what diversion he shall partake, 
 and what company he shall keep. To men so 
 situated, the cultivation of taste affords a grate- 
 ful occupation in itself, and opens a path to 
 many other gratifications. To men of genius, 
 in the possession of opulence and leisure, the 
 cultivation of the taste may be said to be essen- 
 tial ; since it affords employment to those fa- 
 culties, which without employment would de- 
 stroy the happiness of the possessor, and cor- 
 rects that morbid sensibility, or, to use the ex- 
 pression of Mr. Hume, that delicacy of passion, 
 which is the bane of the temperament of genius. 
 Happy had it been for our bard, after he 
 emerged from the condition of a peasant, had 
 the delicacy of his taste equalled the sensibility 
 of his passions, regulating all the effusions of 
 his muse, and presiding over all his social enjoy- 
 ments. But to the thousands who share the ori- 
 ginal condition of Burns, and who are doomed 
 to pass their lives in the station in which they 
 were born, delicacy of taste, were it even of 
 easy attainment, would, if not a positive evil, 
 be at least a doubtful blessing. Delicacy of 
 taste may make many necessary labours irksome 
 or disgusting ; and should it render the culti- 
 vator of the soil unhappy in his situation, it 
 presents no means by which that situation may 
 
 be
 
 ROBERT BURNS. Ill 
 
 be improved. Taste and literature, which dif- 
 fuse so many charms throughout society, which 
 sometimes secure to their votaries distinction 
 while living, and which still more frequently 
 obtain for them posthumous fame, seldom pro- 
 cure opulence, or even independence, when 
 cultivated with the utmost attention, and can 
 scarcely be pursued with advantage by the pea- 
 sant in the short intervals of leisure which his 
 occupations allow. Those who raise themselves 
 from the condition of daily labour, are usually 
 men who excel in the practice of some useful 
 art, or who join habits of industry and sobriety 
 to an acquaintance with some of the more com- 
 mon branches of knowledge. The penmanship 
 of Butterworth, and the arithmetic of Cocker, 
 may be studied by men in the humblest walks 
 of life ; and they will assist the peasant more in 
 the pursuit of independence, than the study of 
 Homer or of Shakespeare, though he could 
 comprehend, and even imitate, the beauties of 
 those immortal bards. 
 
 These observations are not offered without 
 some portion of doubt and hesitation. The 
 subject has many relations, and would justify an 
 ample discussion. It may be observed, on the 
 other hand, that the first step to improvement 
 is to awaken the desire of improvement, and 
 that this will be most effectually done by such 
 
 reading
 
 112 THE LIFE OF 
 
 reading as interests the heart and excites the 
 imagination. The greater part of the sacred 
 writings themselves, which in Scotland are more 
 especially the manual of the poor, come under 
 this description. It may be farther observed, 
 that every human being is the proper judge of 
 his own happiness, and within the path of in- 
 nocence, ought to be permitted to pursue it. 
 Since it is the taste of the Scottish peasantry to 
 give a preference to works of taste and of fan- 
 cy,* it may be presumed they find a superior 
 gratification in the perusal of such works ; and 
 it may be added, that it is of more consequence 
 they should be made happy in their original 
 condition, than furnished with the means, or 
 with the desire, of rising above it. Such con- 
 siderations are doubtless of much weight ; ne- 
 vertheless, the previous reflections may deserve 
 to be examined, and here we shall leave the 
 subject. 
 
 Though the records of the society at Tar- 
 bolton are lost, and those of the society at 
 Mauchline have not been transmitted, yet we 
 
 may 
 
 * In several lists of book-societies among the poorer 
 classes in Scotland which the Editor has seen, works of 
 this description form a great part. These societies are 
 by no means general, and it is not supposed that they are 
 increasing at present.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 113 
 
 may safely affirm, that our poet was a distin- 
 guished member of both these associations, 
 which were well calculated to excite and to de- 
 velope the powers of his mind. From seven to 
 twelve persons constituted the society of Tar- 
 bolton, and such a number is best suited to the 
 purposes of information. Where this is the ob- 
 ject of these societies, the number should be 
 such, that each person may have an opportunity 
 of imparting his sentiments, as well as of re- 
 ceiving those of others - 3 and the powers of pri- 
 vate conversation are to be employed, not those 
 of public debate. A limited society of this 
 kind, where the subject of conversation is fixed 
 beforehand, so that each member may revolve 
 it previously in his mind, is perhaps one of the 
 happiest contrivances hitherto discovered for 
 shortening the acquisition of knowledge, and 
 hastening the evolution of talents. Such an 
 association requires indeed somewhat more of 
 regulation than the rules of politeness establish 
 in common conversation ; or rather, perhaps, it 
 requires that the rules of politeness, which in 
 animated conversation are liable to perpetual 
 violation, should be vigorously enforced. The 
 order of speech established in the club at 
 Tarbolton, appears to have been more regular 
 than was required in so small a society $* where 
 VOL. I. I all 
 
 * See dppendix, No. II. Note C.
 
 114 THE LIFE OF" 
 
 all that is necessary seems to be, the fixing on a 
 member to whom every speaker shall address 
 himself, and who shall in return secure the 
 speaker from interruption. Conversation, which 
 among men whom intimacy and friendship have 
 relieved from reserve and restraint, is liable, 
 when left to itself, to so many inequalities, and 
 which, as it becomes rapid, so often diverges 
 into separate and collateral branches, in which it 
 is dissipated and lost, being kept within its chan- 
 nel by a simple limitation of this kind, which 
 practice renders easy and familiar, flows along 
 in one full stream, and becomes smoother, and 
 clearer, and deeper, as it flows. It may also be 
 observed, that in this way the acquisition of 
 knowledge becomes more pleasant and more 
 easy, from the gradual improvement of the fa- 
 culty employed to convey it. Though some at- 
 tention has been paid to the eloquence of the 
 senate and the bar, which in this, as in all other 
 free governments, is productive of so much in- 
 fluence to the few who excel in it, yet little re- 
 gard has been paid to the humbler exercise of 
 speech in private conversation, an art that is of 
 consequence to exery description of persons un- 
 der every form of government, and on which elo- 
 quence of every kind ought perhaps to be founded. 
 
 The first requisite of every kind of elocu- 
 tion, a distinct utterance, is the offspring of 
 
 much
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 115 
 
 much time, and of long practice. Children 
 are always defective in clear articulation, and 
 so are young people, though in a less degree. 
 What is called slurring in speech, prevails with 
 some persons through life, especially in those 
 who are taciturn. Articulation does not seem 
 to reach its utmost degree of distinctness in men 
 before the age of twenty, or upwards; in women 
 it reaches this point somewhat earlier. Female 
 occupations require much use of speech, because 
 they are duties in detail. Besides, their occupa- 
 tions being generally sedentary, the respira- 
 tion is left at liberty. Their nerves being more 
 delicate, their sensibility as well as fancy is more 
 lively; the natural consequence of which is, a 
 more frequent utterance of thought, a greater 
 fluency of speech, and a distinct articulation at 
 an earlier age. But in men who have not min- 
 gled early and familiarly with the world, though 
 rich perhaps in knowledge, and clear in appre- 
 hension, it is often painful to observe the diffi- 
 culty with which their ideas are communicated 
 by speech, through the want of those habits that 
 connect thoughts, words, and sounds together; 
 which, when established, seem as if they had 
 arisen spontaneously, but which, in truth, are 
 the result of long and painful practice, and when 
 analyzed, exhibit the phenomena of most curious 
 and complicated association. 
 
 I 2! Societies
 
 116 THE LIFE OF 
 
 Societies then, such as we have been describ- 
 ing, while they may be said to put each member 
 in possession of the knowledge of all the rest, 
 improve the powers of utterance, and by the 
 collision of opinion, excite the faculties of rea- 
 son and reflection. To those who wish to im- 
 prove their minds in such intervals of labour as 
 the condition of a peasant allows, this method 
 of abbreviating instruction, may, under proper 
 regulations, be highly useful. To the student, 
 whose opinions, springing out of solitary obser- 
 vation and meditation, are seldom in the first 
 instance correct, and which have notwithstand- 
 ing, while confined to himself, an increasing 
 tendency to assume in his own eye the character 
 of demonstrations, an association of this kind, 
 where they may be examined as they arise, is of 
 the utmost importance ; since it may prevent 
 those illusions of imagination, by which genius 
 being bewildered, science is often debased, and 
 error propagated through successive generations. 
 And to men who having cultivated letters, or 
 general science, in the course of their education, 
 are engaged in the active occupations of life, 
 and no longer able to devote to study or to 
 books the time requisite for improving or pre- 
 serving their acquisitions, associations of this 
 kind, where the mind may unbend from its usual 
 cares in discussions of literature or science, af- 
 ford
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 117 
 
 ford the most pleasing, the most useful, and the 
 most rational of gratifications.* 
 
 Whether in the humble societies of which he 
 was a member, Burns acquired much direct in- 
 formation, may perhaps be questioned. It can- 
 not however be doubted, that by collision, the 
 faculties of his mind would be excited, that by 
 practice, his habits of enunciation would be 
 established, and thus we have some explanation 
 of that early command of words and of ex- 
 pression which enabled him to pour forth his 
 thoughts in language not unworthy of his ge- 
 nius, and which, of all his endowments, seemed, 
 
 An 
 
 M. ' ' ' . - . .. _ . . 
 
 * When letters and philosophy were cultivated in 
 ancient Greece, the press had not multiplied the tablets 
 of learning and science, and necessity produced the 
 habit of studying as it were in common. Poets were 
 found reciting their own verses in public assemblies ; in 
 public schools only philosophers delivered their specu- 
 lations. The taste of the hearers, the ingenuity of the 
 scholars, were employed in appreciating and examining 
 the works of fancy and of speculation submitted to 
 their consideration, and the irrevocable words were not 
 given to the world before the composition, as well as 
 the sentiments, were again and again retouched and 
 improved. Death alone put the last seal on the labours 
 of genius. Hence, perhaps, may be in part explained 
 the extraordinary art and skill with which the monu- 
 ments of Grecian literature that remain to us, appear to 
 have been constructed.
 
 118 THE LIFE OF 
 
 on his appearance in Edinburgh, the most ex- 
 traordinary.* For associations of a literary 
 nature, our poet acquired a considerable relish ; 
 and happy had it been for him, after he emerged 
 from the condition of a peasant, if fortune had 
 permitted him to enjoy them in the degree of 
 which he was capable, so as to have fortified his 
 principles of virtue by the purification of his 
 taste, and given to the energies of his mind ha- 
 bits of exertion that might have excluded other 
 associations, in which it must be acknowledged 
 they were too often wasted, as well as debased. 
 
 The 
 
 * It appears that our Poet made more preparation 
 than might be supposed, for the discussions of the so- 
 ciety of Tarbolton. There were found some detached 
 memoranda, evidently prepared for these meetings ; 
 and, among others, the heads of a speech on the ques- 
 tion mentioned in p. 106, in which, as might be ex- 
 pected, he takes the imprudent side of the question. 
 The following may serve as a farther specimen of the 
 questions debated in the society at Tarbolton: Whether 
 do we derive more happiness from love or friendship t - 
 Whether between friends, who have no reason to doubt 
 each other's friendship, there should be any reserve'? 
 Whether is the savage man, or the peasant of a civilized 
 country, in the most happy situation? Whether is a 
 young man of the lower ranks of life likeliest to be happy, 
 who has got a good education, and his mind well informed, 
 or he who has just the education and information of those 
 around him ?
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 119 
 
 The whole course of the Ayr is fine; but the 
 banks of that river, as it bends to the eastward 
 above Mauchline, are singularly beautiful, and 
 they were frequented, as may be imagined, by 
 our poet in his solitary walks. Here the muse 
 often visited him. In one of these wanderings, 
 he met among the woods a celebrated Beauty 
 of the west of Scotland ; a lady, of whom it is 
 said, that the charms of her person correspond 
 with the character of her mind. This incident 
 gave rise, as might be expected, to a poem, of 
 which* an account will be found in the following 
 letter, in which he enclosed it to the object of 
 his inspiration : 
 
 To Miss . 
 
 Mossgiel, 18th Nov. 1786. 
 
 *' Madam, 
 
 " Poets are such outre beings, so much 
 the children of wayward fancy and capricious 
 whim, that I believe the world generally allows 
 them a larger latitude in the laws of propriety, 
 than the sober sons of judgment and prudence. 
 I mention this as an apology for the liberties 
 that a nameless stranger has taken with you in 
 the enclosed poem, which he begs leave to pre- 
 sent you with. "Whether it has poetical merit 
 
 any
 
 120 THE LIFE OF 
 
 any way worthy of the theme, I am not the pro- 
 per judge; but it is the best my abilities can 
 produce ; and, what to a good heart will perhaps 
 be a superior grace, it is equally sincere as fer- 
 vent. 
 
 " The scenery was nearly taken from real 
 life, though I dare say, Madam, you do not 
 recollect it, as I believe you scarcely noticed 
 the poetic reveur as he wandered by you. I 
 had roved out as chance directed, in the fa- 
 vourite haunts of my muse, on the banks of 
 the Ayr, to view nature in all the gaiety of the 
 vernal year. The evening sun was flaming over 
 the distant western hills ; not a breath stirred 
 the crimson opening blossom, or the verdant 
 spreading leaf. It was a golden moment for 
 a poetic heart. I listened to the feathered 
 warblers, pouring their harmony on every hand, 
 with a congenial kindred regard, and frequently 
 turned out of my path, lest I should disturb 
 their little songs, or frighten them to another 
 station. Surely, said I to myself, he must be a 
 wretch indeed, who, regardless of your harmo- 
 nious endeavour to please him, can eye your 
 elusive flights to discover your secret recesses, 
 and to rob you of all the property nature gives 
 you, your dearest comforts, your helpless nest- 
 lings. Even the hoary hawthorn twig that shot 
 across the way, what heart at such a time but 
 
 must
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 121 
 
 must have been interested in its welfare, and 
 wished it preserved from the rudely-browsing 
 cattle, or the withering eastern blast ? Such was 
 the scene and such the hour, when in a cor- 
 ner of my prospect, I spied one of the fairest 
 pieces of Nature's workmanship that ever crown- 
 ed a poetic landscape, or met a poet's eye, those 
 visionary bards excepted who hold commerce 
 with aerial beings ! Had Calumny and Villany 
 taken my walk, they had at that moment sworn 
 eternal peace with such an object. 
 
 " What an hour of inspiration for a poet ! 
 It would have raised plain, dull, historic prose 
 into metaphor and measure. 
 
 " The enclosed song was the work of my 
 return home; and perhaps it but poorly answers 
 what might have been expected from such a 
 scene. 
 
 3|g, 3 j| 3|g 3/f. j 3|( 
 
 " I have the honour to be, 
 " Madam, 
 <e Your most obedient, and very 
 " humble servant, 
 
 " Robert Burns." 
 'Twas
 
 122 THE LIFE OF 
 
 Twas even the dewy fields were green, 
 
 On every blade the pearls hang ;* 
 The Zephyr wanton'd round the bean, 
 
 And bore its fragrant sweets alang : 
 In every glen the mavis sang, 
 
 All nature listening seemed the while, 
 Except where green- wood echoes rang, 
 
 Amang the braes o' Ballochmyle. 
 
 With careless step I onward strayed, 
 
 My heart rejoiced in nature's joy, 
 When musing in a lonely glade, 
 
 A maiden fair I chanced to spy , 
 Her look was like the morning's eye, 
 
 Her air like nature's vernal smile, 
 Perfection whispered passing by, 
 
 Behold the lass o' Ballochmyle !-f- 
 
 Fair is the morn in flowery May, 
 
 And sweet is night in Autumn mild ; 
 When roving through the garden gay, 
 
 Or wandering in the lonely wild : 
 But woman, nature's darling child ! 
 
 There all her charms she does compile ; 
 Even there her other works are foil'd 
 
 By the bonny lass o' Ballochmyle. 
 
 O had she been a country maid, 
 And I the happy country swain, 
 
 Tho' sheltered in the lowest shed 
 That ever rose on Scotland's plain, 
 
 Thro' 
 
 Hang, Scotticism for hung. 
 t Variation, The lily's hue and rose's dye 
 
 Bespoke the lass o' Ballochmyle.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 123 
 
 Thro' weary winter's wind and rain, 
 With joy, with rapture, I would toil ; 
 
 And nightly to my bosom strain 
 The bonny lass o' Ballochmyle. 
 
 Then pride might climb the slippery steep, 
 
 Where fame and honours lofty shine ; 
 And thirst of gold might tempt the deep, 
 
 Or downward seek the Indian mine ; 
 Give me the cot below the pine, 
 
 To tend the flocks or till the soil, 
 And every day have joys divine, 
 
 With the bonny lass o'Ballochmyle. 
 
 In the manuscript book in which our poet 
 has recounted this incident, and into which the 
 letter and poem are copied, he complains that 
 the lady made no reply to his effusions, and this 
 appears to have wounded his self-love. It is not, 
 however, difficult to find an excuse for her si- 
 lence. Burns was at that time little known j 
 and where known at all, noted rather for the 
 wild strength of his humour, than for those 
 strains of tenderness in which he afterwards so 
 much excelled. To the lady herself his name 
 had perhaps never been mentioned, and of such 
 a poem she might not consider herself as the 
 proper judge. Her modesty might prevent her 
 from perceiving that the muse of Tibullus 
 breathed in this nameless poet, and that her 
 beauty was awakening strains destined to im- 
 mortality on the banks of the Ayr. It may be 
 
 conceived,
 
 124 THE LIFE OF 
 
 conceived, also, that supposing the verse duly 
 appreciated, delicacy might find it difficult to 
 express its acknowledgments. The fervent ima- 
 gination of the rustic bard possessed more of 
 tenderness than of respect. Instead of raising 
 himself to the condition of the object of his ad- 
 miration, he presumed to reduce her to his own, 
 and to strain this high-born beauty to his dar- 
 ing bosom. It js true, Burns might have found 
 precedents for such freedoms among the poets 
 of Greece and Rome, and indeed of every 
 country. And it is not to be denied, that lovely 
 women have generally submitted to this sort of 
 profanation with patience and even with good 
 humour. To what purpose is it to repine at a 
 misfortune which is the necessary consequence 
 of their own charms, or to remonstrate with a 
 description of men who are incapable of con- 
 trol ? 
 
 " The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, 
 Are of imagination all compact." 
 
 It may be easily presumed, that the beauti- 
 ful nymph of Ballochmyle, whoever she may 
 have been, did not reject with scorn the adora- 
 tions of our poet, though she received them 
 with silent modesty and dignified reserve. 
 
 The sensibility of our bard's temper, and the 
 force of his imagination, exposed him in a par- 
 ticular
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 125 
 
 ticular manner to the impressions of beauty ; 
 and these qualities, united to his impassioned 
 eloquence, gave him in turn a powerful influ- 
 ence over the female heart. The banks of the 
 Ayr formed the scene of youthful passions of a 
 still tenderer nature, the history of which it 
 would be improper to reveal, were it even in 
 our power, and the traces of which will soon 
 be discoverable only in those strains of nature 
 and sensibility to which they gave birth. The 
 song in vol. iv. p. 17, entitled Highland Mary, 
 is known to relate to one of these attach- 
 ments. " It was written," says our bard, " on 
 one of the most interesting passages of my 
 youthful days." The object of this passion died 
 early in life, and the impression left on the mind 
 of Burns seems to have been deep and lasting. 
 Several years afterwards, when he was removed 
 to Nithsdale, he gave vent to the sensibility of 
 his recollections in the following impassioned 
 lines. In the manuscript book from which we 
 extract them, they are addressed To Mary in 
 Heaven ! 
 
 Thou lingering star, with less'ning ray, 
 That lov'st to greet the early morn, 
 
 Again thou usher'st in the day 
 
 My Mary from my soul was torn. 
 
 O Mary ! dear departed shade ! 
 Where is thy place of blissful rest ? 
 
 Seest thou thy lover lowly laid ? 
 
 Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast ? 
 
 That
 
 126 THE LIFE OF 
 
 That sacred hour can I forget, 
 
 Can I forget the hallowed grove, 
 Where by the winding Ayr we met, 
 To live one day of parting love ! 
 Eternity will not efface 
 
 Those records dear of transports past ; 
 Thy image at our last embrace ; 
 
 Ah ! little thought we 'twas our last ! 
 Ayr gurgling kissed his pebbled shore, 
 
 O'erhung with wild woods, thick'ning, green ; 
 The fragrant birch, and hawthorn hoar, 
 
 Twin'd amorous round the raptured scene. 
 The flowers sprang wanton to be prest, 
 
 The birds sang love on every spray, 
 'Till too, too soon, the glowing west 
 
 Proclaim'd the speed of winged day. 
 Still o'er these scenes my mem'ry wakes, 
 
 And fondly broods with miser care ; 
 Time but the impression strouger makes, 
 As streams their channels deeper wear. 
 My Mary, dear departed shade ! 
 
 Where is thy place of blissful rest ? 
 Seest thou thy lover lowly laid ? 
 
 Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast. 
 To the delineations of the poet by himself, by 
 his brother, and by his tutor, these additions are 
 necessary, in order that the reader may see his cha- 
 racter in its various aspects, and may have an op- 
 portunity of forming a just noiion of the variety, 
 as well as of the power of his original genius.* 
 
 We 
 
 * The history of tlie poems formerly printed, will be 
 found in the Appendix to the third volume, in which 
 
 these
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 127 
 
 We have dwelt the longer on the early part of 
 his life, because it is the least known, and because 
 as has already been mentioned, this part of his 
 history is connected with some views of the con- 
 dition 
 
 these poems are contained. It is there inserted in the 
 words of Gilbert Burns, who, in a letter addressed to the 
 Editor, has given the following account of the friends 
 which Robert's talents procured him before he left Ayrshire, 
 or attracted the notice of the world. 
 
 " The farm of Mossgiel, at the time of our coming 
 to it, (Martinmas, ] 785,) was the property of the Earl of 
 Loudon, but was held in tack by Mr. Gavin Hamilton, 
 writer, in Mauchline, from whom we had our bargain ; 
 who had thus an opportunity of knowing, and shewing 
 a sincere regard for my brother, before he knew that he 
 was a poet. The poet's estimation of him, and the strong 
 outlines of his character, may be collected from the de- 
 dication to this gentleman. When the publication was 
 begun, Mr. H. entered very warmly into its interests, 
 and promoted the subscription very extensively. Mr. 
 Robert Aiken, writer in Ayr, is a man of worth and taste, 
 of warm affections, and connected with a most respect- 
 able circle of friends and relations. It is to this gentle- 
 man The Cotters Saturday Night is inscribed. The 
 poems of my brother which I have formerly mentioned, 
 no sooner came into his hands, than they were quickly 
 known, and well received in the extensive circle of Mr. 
 Aiken's friends, which gave them a sort of currency, ne- 
 cessary in this wise world, even for the good reception of 
 things valuable in themselves. But Mr, Aiken not only 
 
 admired
 
 128 THE LIFE OF 
 
 dition and manners of the humblest ranks of so- 
 ciety, hitherto little observed, and which will per- 
 haps be found neither useless nor uninteresting. 
 
 About 
 
 admired the poet ; as soon as he became acquainted with 
 him, he shewed the warmest regard for the man, and did 
 every thing in his power to forward his interest and respect- 
 ability. The Epistle to a young Friend was addressed to 
 this gentleman's son, Mr. A.H. Aiken, now of Liverpool. 
 He was the oldest of a young family, who were taught to 
 receive my brother with respect, as a man of genius, and 
 their father's friend. 
 
 " The Brigs of Ayr is inscribed to John Ballantine, 
 Esq. Banker in Ayr ; one of those gentlemen to whom 
 my brother was introduced by Mr. Aiken. He interested 
 himself very warmly in my brother's concerns, and con- 
 stantly shewed the greatest friendship and attachment 
 to him. When the Kilmarnock edition was all sold off, 
 and a considerable demand pointed out the propriety of 
 publishing a second edition, Mr. Wilson, who had print- 
 ed the first, was asked if he would print the second, 
 and take his chance of being paid from the first sale. 
 This he declined, and when this came to Mr. Ballan- 
 tine's knowledge, he generously offered to accommodate 
 Robert with what money he might need for that pur- 
 pose ; but advised him to go to Edinburgh, as the fittest 
 place for publishing. When he did go to Edinburgh, 
 his friends advised him to publish again by subscription, 
 so that he did not need to accept this offer. Mr. Wil- 
 liam Parker, merchant in Kilmarnock, was a subscriber 
 for thirty-five copies of the Kilmarnock edition. This 
 
 may
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 129 
 
 About the time of his leaving his native coun- 
 ty, his correspondence commences; and in the 
 series of letters now given to the world, the chief 
 
 incidents 
 
 may perhaps appear not deserving of notice here ; but if 
 the comparative obscurity of the poet, at this period, be 
 taken into consideration, it appears to me a greater effort of 
 generosity, than many things which appear more brilliant in 
 my brother's future history. 
 
 " Mr. Robert Muir, merchant, in Kilmarnock, was 
 one of those friends Robert's poetry had procured him, and 
 one who was dear to his heart. This gentleman had no 
 very great fortune, or long line of dignified ancestry ; but 
 what Robert says of Captain Matthew Henderson, might 
 be said of him with great propriety, that he held the patent 
 of his honours immediately from Almighty God. Nature 
 had indeed marked him a gentleman in the most legible 
 characters. He died while yet a young man, soon after 
 the publication of my brother's first Edinburgh edition. Sir 
 William Cunningham of Robertland, paid a very flattering 
 attention, and shewed a good deal of friendship for the 
 poet. Before his going to Edinburgh, as well as after, 
 Robert seemed peculiarly pleased with Professor Stewart's 
 friendship and conversation. 
 
 " But of all the friendships which Robert acquired 
 in Ayrshire and elsewhere, none seemed more agreeable 
 to him than that of Mrs. Dunlop, of Dunlop, nor any 
 which has been more uniformly and constantly exerted 
 in behalf of him and his family ; of which, were it pro- 
 per, I could give many instances. Robert Was on the 
 
 vol. i. k point
 
 130 THE LIFE OF 
 
 incidents of the remaining part of his life will be 
 found. This authentic, though melancholy re- 
 cord will supersede in future the necessity of any 
 extended narrative. 
 
 BURNS 
 
 point of setting out for Edinburgh before Mrs. Dunlop 
 had heard of him. About the time of my brother's pub- 
 lishing in Kilmarnock, she had been afflicted with a long 
 and severe illness, which had reduced her mind to the 
 most distressing state of depression. In this situation, a 
 copy of the printed poems was laid on her table by a 
 friend, and happening to open on The Cotter's Saturday 
 Night, she read it over with the greatest pleasure and 
 surprise ; the poet's description of the simple cottagers, 
 operating on her mind like the charm of a powerful 
 exorcist, expelling the demon ennui, and restoring her to 
 her wonted inward harmony and satisfaction. Mrs. Dun- 
 lop sent off a person express to Mossgiel, distant fifteen or 
 sixteen miles, with a very obliging letter to my brother, 
 desiring him to send her half a dozen copies of his poems, 
 if he had them to spare, and begging he would do her the 
 pleasure of calling at Dunlop House as soon as convenient. 
 This was the beginning of a correspondence which ended 
 only with the poet's life. The last use he made of his 
 pen was writing a short letter to this lady a few days before 
 his death. 
 
 " Col. Fullarton, who afterwards paid a very par- 
 ticular attention to the poet, was not in the country at 
 the time of his first commencing author. At this distance 
 of time, and in the hurry of a wet day, snatched from 
 laborious occupations, I may have forgot some persons 
 
 who
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 131 
 
 BURNS set out for Edinburgh in the month 
 of November, 17^6. He was furnished with a 
 letter of introduction to Dr. Blacklock, from the 
 gentleman to whom the Doctor had addressed 
 the letter which is represented by our bard as the 
 immediate cause of his visiting the Scottish me- 
 tropolis. He was acquainted with Mr. Stewart, 
 Professor of Moral Philosophy in the university, 
 and had been entertained by that gentleman at 
 Catrine, his estate in Ayrshire. He had been in- 
 troduced by Mr. Alexander Dalzel to the Earl of 
 Glencaim, who had expressed his high approba- 
 tion of his poetical talents. He had friends there- 
 fore who could introduce him into the circles of 
 literature as well as of fashion, and his own man- 
 ic 2 ners 
 
 who ought to have been mentioned on this occasion, for 
 which if it come to my knowledge I shall be heartily 
 sorry." 
 
 The friendship of Mrs. Dunlop was of particular value 
 to Burns. This lady, daughter and sole heiress to Sir 
 Thomas Wallace of Craigie, and lineal descendant of the 
 illustrious Wallace, the first of Scottish warriors, possesses 
 the qualities of mind suited to her high lineage. Preserving, 
 in the decline of life, the generous affections of youth ; her 
 admiration of the poet was soon accompanied by a sincere 
 friendship for the man ; which pursued him in after life 
 through good and evil report ; in poverty, in sickness, and 
 in sorrow ; and which is continued to his infant family, 
 now deprived of their parent.
 
 132 THE LIFE OF 
 
 ners and appearance exceeding every expectation 
 that could have been formed of them, he soon 
 became an object of general curiosity and admi- 
 ration. The following circumstance contributed 
 to this in a considerable degree. At the time 
 when Burns arrived in Edinburgh, the periodical 
 paper, entitled The Lounger, was publishing, 
 every Saturday producing a successive number. 
 His poems had attracted the notice of the gen- 
 tlemen engaged in that undertaking, and the 
 ninety-seventh number of those unequal, though 
 frequently beautiful essays, is devoted to An Ac- 
 count of Robert Burns, the Ayrshire ploughman, 
 with Extracts from his poems, written by the ele- 
 gant pen of Mr. Mackenzie.* The Lounger had 
 an extensive circulation among persons of taste 
 and literature, not in Scotland only, but in va- 
 rious parts of England, to whose acquaintance 
 therefore our bard was immediately introduced. 
 The paper of Mr. Mackenzie was calculated to 
 introduce him advantageously. The extracts are 
 well selected ; the criticisms and reflections are 
 judicious as well as generous; and in the style 
 and sentiments there is that happy delicacy, by 
 which the writings of the author are so eminently 
 
 distinguished. 
 
 * This paper has been attributed, but improperly, to 
 Lord Craig, one of the Scottish judges, author of the very 
 interesting account of Michael Bruce, in the 36th number 
 of the Mirror.
 
 JtOBERT BURNS. 1S3 
 
 distinguished. The extracts from Burns's poems 
 in the ninety-seventh number of The Lounger, 
 were copied into the London as well as into many 
 of the provincial papers, and the fame of our 
 bard spread throughout the island. Of the 
 manners, character, and conduct of Burns at 
 this period, the following account has been 
 given by Mr. Stewart, Professor of Moral Phi- 
 losophy in the University of Edinburgh, in a 
 letter to the editor, which he is particularly 
 happy to have obtained permission to insert in 
 these memoirs. 
 
 " The first time I saw Robert Burns 
 was on the 23d of October, 1786, when he dined 
 at my house in Ayrshire, together with our 
 common friend Mr. John Mackenzie, surgeon, 
 in Mauchline, to whom I am indebted for the 
 pleasure of his acquaintance. I am enabled to 
 mention the date particularly, by some verses 
 which Burns wrote after he returned home, and 
 in which the day of our meeting is recorded. 
 My excellent and much lamented friend, the 
 late Basil, Lord Daer, happened to arrive at 
 Catrine the same day, and by the kindness and 
 frankness of his manners, left an impression on 
 the mind of the poet, which never was effaced. 
 The verses I allude to are among the most im- 
 perfect of his pieces ; but a few stanzas may 
 perhaps be an object of curiosity to you, both 
 
 on
 
 134 THE LIFE OF 
 
 on account of the character to which they re- 
 late, and of the light which they throw on the 
 situation and feelings of the writer, before his 
 name was known to the public* 
 
 " I cannot 
 
 * This poem is as follows : 
 
 This wot ye all whom it concerns, 
 I, Rhymer Robin, alias Burns, 
 
 October twenty-third, 
 A ne'er-to-be-forgotten day, 
 Sae far I sprackledf up the brae, 
 
 I dinner'd wi' a Lord. 
 
 I've been at druken writers^ feasts, 
 Nay, been bitch-fou 'mang godly priests, 
 
 Wi' reverence be it spoken ; 
 I've even join'd the honour'd jorum, 
 When mighty Squireships of the quorum, 
 
 Their hydra drouth did sloken. 
 
 But wi' a Lord stand out my shin, 
 A Lord a Peer an Earl's son, 
 
 Up higher yet my bonnet ; 
 An sic a Lord lang Scotch ells twa, 
 Our Peerage he o'erlooks them a', 
 
 As I look o'er my sonnet. 
 
 But oh for Hogarth's magic pow'r ! 
 To show Sir Bardy's willyart glowr, 
 And how he star'd and stammer'd, 
 
 When 
 
 f Clambered. t Attorneys. 
 j Frighted stare Wild, strange, timid, stare. E.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 135 
 
 u I cannot positively say, at this distance of 
 time, whether, at the period of our first ac^- 
 
 quaintance, 
 
 When goavan,* as if led wi' branks/f* 
 An' stumpan on his ploughman shanks, 
 He in the parlour hammer'd. 
 
 I sidling shelter'd in a nook, 
 An' at his lordship steal't a look, 
 
 Like some portentous omen ; 
 Except good-sense and social glee, 
 An' (what surpris'd me) modesty, 
 
 I marked nought uncommon, 
 
 I watch'd the symptoms o' the Great, 
 The gentle pride, the lordly state, 
 
 The arrogant assuming ; 
 The feint a pride, nae pride had he, 
 Nor sauce, nor state that I could see, 
 
 Mair than an honest ploughman. 
 
 Then from his Lordship I shall learn, 
 Henceforth to meet with unconcern, 
 
 One rank as well's another ; 
 Nae honest worthy man need care, 
 To meet with noble youthful Daer, 
 
 For he but meets a brother. 
 
 These lines will be read with no common interest by 
 all who remember the unaffected simplicity of appearance, 
 the sweetness of countenance and manners, and the unsus- 
 pecting benevolence of heart, of Basil, Lord Daer. 
 
 # talking stupidly. Goavan-looking round with a strange inquiring gaze. 
 
 E. 
 t A kind of bridle.
 
 136 THE LIFE OF 
 
 quaintance, the Kilmarnock edition of his poems 
 had been just published, or was yet in the 
 press. I suspect that the latter was the case, as 
 I have still in my possession copies in his own 
 hand-writing, of some of his favourite per- 
 formances ; particularly of his verses " on turn- 
 ing up a Mouse with his plough ;" " on the 
 Mountain Daisy;" and "the Lament." On 
 my return to Edinburgh, I shewed the volume, 
 and mentioned what I knew of the author's his- 
 tory, to several of my friends, and, among others, 
 to Mr. Henry Mackenzie, who first recom^ 
 mended him to public notice in the 97th number 
 of The Lounger. 
 
 <{ At this time Burns's prospects in life were 
 so extremely gloomy, that he had seriously 
 formed a plan of going out to Jamaica in a very 
 humble situation, not however without lament- 
 ing, that his want of patronage should force 
 him to think of a project so repugnant to his 
 feelings, when his ambition aimed at no higher 
 an object than the station of an exciseman or 
 gauger in his own country. 
 
 cc His manners were then, as they continued 
 ever afterwards, simple, manly, and independ- 
 ent ; strongly expressive of conscious genius 
 and worth; but without any thing that indi- 
 cated forwardness, arrogance, or vanity. He 
 
 took
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 13? 
 
 took his share in conversation, but not more 
 than belonged to him ; and listened with appa- 
 rent attention and deference, on subjects where 
 his want of education deprived him of the means 
 of information. If there had been a little more 
 of gentleness and accommodation in his temper, 
 he would, I think, have been still more interest- 
 ing ; but he had been accustomed to give law in 
 the circle of his ordinary acquaintance ; and his 
 dread of any thing approaching to meanness or 
 servility, rendered his manner somewhat decided 
 and hard. Nothing, perhaps, was more re- 
 markable among his various attainments, than 
 the fluency, and precision, and originality of 
 Tits language, when he spoke in company; more 
 particularly as he aimed at purity in his turn of 
 expression, and avoided more successfully than 
 most Scotchmen, the peculiarities of Scottish 
 phraseology. 
 
 " He came to Edinburgh early in the winter 
 following, and remained there for several months. 
 By whose advice he took this step, I am unable 
 to say. Perhaps it was suggested only by his 
 own curiosity to see a little more of the world ; 
 but, I confess, I dreaded the consequences from 
 the first, and always wished that his pursuits and 
 habits should continue the same as in the former 
 part of life; with the addition of, what I con- 
 sidered as then completely within his reach, 
 
 a good
 
 138 THE LIFE OF 
 
 a good farm on moderate terms, in a part of the 
 country agreeable to his taste. 
 
 " The attentions he received during his stay in 
 town from all ranks and descriptions of persons, 
 were such as would have turned any head but 
 his own. I cannot say that I could perceive any 
 unfavourable effect which they left on his mind. 
 He retained the same simplicity of manners and 
 appearance which had struck me so forcibly 
 when I first saw him in the country ; nor did he 
 seem to feel any additional self-importance from 
 the number and rank of his new acquaintance. 
 His dress was perfectly suited to his station, 
 plain and unpretending, with a sufficient atten- 
 tion to neatness. If I recollect right he always 
 wore boots ; and, when on more than usual ce- 
 remony, buck-skin breeches. 
 
 " The variety of his engagements, while in 
 Edinburgh, prevented me from seeing him so 
 often as I could have wished. In the course of 
 the spring he called on me once or twice, at my 
 request, early in the morning, and walked with 
 me to Braid-Hills, in the neighbourhood of the 
 town, when he charmed me still more by his 
 private conversation, than he had ever done in 
 company. He was passionately fond of the 
 beauties of nature ; and I recollect once he told 
 me, when I was admiring a distant prospect in 
 
 one
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 139 
 
 one of our morning walks, that the sight of so 
 many smoking cottages gave a pleasure to his 
 mind, which none could understand who had 
 not witnessed, like himself, the happiness and 
 the worth which they contained. 
 
 " In his political principles he was then a Ja- 
 cobite ; which was perhaps owing partly to this, 
 that his father was originally from the estate of 
 Lord Mareschall. Indeed he did not appear to 
 have thought much on such subjects, nor very 
 consistently. He had a very strong sense of re- 
 ligion, and expressed deep regret at the levity 
 with which he had heard it treated occasionally 
 in some convivial meetings which he frequented. 
 I speak of him as he was in the winter of 1786-7 ; 
 for afterwards we met but seldom, and our con- 
 versations turned chiefly on his literary projects, 
 or his private affairs. 
 
 " I do not recollect whether it appears or not 
 from any of your letters to me, that you had ever 
 seen Burns.* If you have, it is superfluous for 
 me to add, that the idea which his conversation 
 conveyed of the powers of his mind, exceeded, 
 if possible, that which is suggested by his writ- 
 ings. Among the poets whom I have happened 
 to know, I have been struck, in more than one 
 
 instance, 
 
 * The Editor has seen and conversed with Burns.
 
 140 THE LIFE OF 
 
 instance, with the unaccountable disparity be- 
 tween their general talents, and the occasional 
 inspirations of their more favoured moments. 
 But all the faculties of Burns's mind were, as far 
 as I could judge, equally vigorous; and his pre- 
 dilection for poetry was rather the result of his 
 own enthusiastic and impassioned temper, than 
 of a genius exclusively adapted to that species 
 of composition. From his conversation I should 
 have pronounced him to be fitted to excel in 
 whatever walk of ambition he had chosen to ex- 
 ert his abilities. 
 
 " Among the subjects on which he was ac- 
 customed to dwell, the characters of the indi- 
 viduals with whom he happened to meet, was 
 plainly a favourite one. The remarks he made 
 on them were always shrewd and pointed, though 
 frequently inclining too much to sarcasm. His 
 praise of those he loved was sometimes indiscri- 
 minate and extravagant ; but this, I suspect, 
 proceeded rather from the caprice and humour 
 of the moment, than from the effects of attach- 
 ment in blinding his judgment. His wit was 
 ready, and always impressed with the marks of 
 a vigorous understanding; but, to my taste, not 
 often pleasing or happy. His attempts at epi- 
 gram, in his printed works, are the only per- 
 formances, perhaps, that he has produced, to- 
 tally unworthy of his genius. 
 
 " In
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 141 
 
 " In summer, 1787, I passed some weeks in 
 Ayrshire, and saw Burns occasionally. I think 
 that he made a pretty long excursion that season 
 to the Highlands, and that he also visited what 
 Beattie calls the Arcadian ground of Scotland, 
 upon the banks of the Tiviot and the Tweed. 
 
 " I should have mentioned before, that not- 
 withstanding various reports I heard during the 
 preceding winter, of Burns's predilection for con- 
 vivial, and not very select society, I should have 
 concluded in favour of his habits of sobriety, 
 from all of him that ever fell under my own ob- 
 servation. He told me indeed himself, that the 
 weakness of his stomach was such as to deprive 
 him entirely of any merit in his temperance. I 
 was however somewhat alarmed about the effect 
 of his now comparatively sedentary and luxuri- 
 ous life, when he confessed to me, the first night 
 he spent in my house after his winter's campaign 
 in town, that he had been much disturbed when 
 in bed, by a palpitation at his heart, which, he 
 said, was a complaint to which he had of late 
 become subject. 
 
 " In the course of the same season I was led 
 by curiosity to attend for an hour or two a Ma- 
 son-Lodge in Mauchline, where Burns presided. 
 He had occasion to make some short unpreme- 
 ditated compliments to different individuals from 
 
 whom
 
 142 THE LIFE OF 
 
 whom he had no reason to expect a visit, and 
 every thing he said was happily conceived, 
 and forcibly as well as fluently expressed. If I 
 am not mistaken, he told me, that in that vil- 
 lage, before going to Edinburgh, he had be- 
 longed to a small club of such of the inhabitants 
 as had a taste for books, when they used to con- 
 verse and debate on any interesting questions 
 that occurred to them in the course of their 
 reading. His manner of speaking in public 
 had evidently the marks of some practice in ex- 
 tempore elocution. 
 
 " I must not omit to mention, what I have 
 always considered as characteristical in a high 
 degree of true genius, the extreme facility and 
 good-nature of his taste, in judging of the com- 
 positions of others, where there was any real 
 ground for praise. I repeated to him many pas- 
 sages of English poetry with which he was unac- 
 quainted, and have more than once witnessed the 
 tears of admiration and rapture with which he 
 heard them. The collection of songs by Dr. 
 Aikin, which I first put into his hands, he read 
 with unmixed delight, notwithstanding his former 
 efforts in that very difficult species of writing; 
 and I have little doubt that it had some effect in 
 polishing his subsequent compositions. 
 
 " In judging of prose, I do not think his 
 
 taste
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 14S 
 
 taste was equally sound. I once read to him a 
 passage or two in Franklin's Works, which I 
 thought very happily executed, upon the model 
 of Addison ; but he did not appear to relish, or 
 to perceive the beauty which they derived from 
 their exquisite simplicity, and spoke of them 
 with indifference, when compared with the 
 point, and antithesis, and quaintness of Junius. 
 The influence of this taste is very perceptible 
 in his own prose compositions, although their 
 great and various excellences render some of 
 them scarcely less objects of wonder than his 
 poetical performances. The late Dr. Robertson 
 used to say, that considering his education, the 
 former seemed to him the more extraordinary of 
 the two. 
 
 " His memory was uncommonly retentive, at 
 least for poetry, of which he recited to me fre- 
 quently long compositions with the most minute 
 accuracy. They were chiefly ballads, and other 
 pieces in our Scottish dialect ; great part of them 
 (he told me) he had learned in his childhood, 
 from his mother, who delighted in such recita- 
 tions, and whose poetical taste, rude as it pro- 
 bably was, gave, it is presumable, the first di- 
 rection to her son's genius. 
 
 < Of the more polished verses which acci- 
 dentally fell into his hands in his early years, 
 
 he
 
 144 THE LIFE OF 
 
 he mentioned particularly the recommendatory 
 poems, by different authors, prefixed to Hervey's 
 Meditations ; a book which has always had a 
 very wide circulation among such of the country 
 people of Scotland, as affect to unite some de- 
 gree of taste with their religious studies. And 
 these poems (although they are certainly below 
 mediocrity) he continued to read with a degree 
 of rapture beyond expression. He took notice 
 of this fact himself, as a proof how much the 
 taste is liable to be influenced by accidental cir- 
 cumstances. 
 
 " His father appeared to me from the account 
 he gave of him, to have been a respectable and 
 worthy character, possessed of a mind superior 
 to what might have been expected from his sta- 
 tion in life. He ascribed much of his own prin- 
 ciples and feelings to the early impressions he 
 had received from his instructions and example. 
 I recollect that he once applied to him (and he 
 added, that the passage was a literal statement 
 of fact) the two last lines of the following pas- 
 sage in the Minstrel; the whole of which he re- 
 peated with great enthusiasm : 
 
 Shall 1 be left forgotten in the dust, 
 
 When fate, relenting, lets the flower revive ; 
 
 Shall nature's voice, to man alone unjust, 
 
 Bid him, though doom'd to perish, hope to live ? 
 
 Is
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 145 
 
 Is it for this fair virtue oft must strive, 
 With disappointment, penury, and pain ? 
 
 No ! Heaven's immortal spring shall yet arrive ; 
 And man's majestic beauty bloom again, 
 
 Bright thro' th' eternal year of love's triumphant reign. 
 
 Tfiis truth sublime, his simple sire had taught : 
 In sooth, 'twas almost all the shepherd knew. 
 
 u With respect to Burns's early education, I 
 cannot say any thing with certainty. He al- 
 ways spoke with respect and gratitude of the 
 schoolmaster who had taught him to read Eng- 
 lish ; and who, finding in his scholar a more 
 than ordinary ardour for knowledge, had been 
 at pains to instruct him in the grammatical prin- 
 ciples of the language. He began the study of 
 Latin, but dropped it before he had finished the 
 verbs. I have sometimes heard him quote a few 
 Latin words, such as omnia vincit amor, 8fc. but 
 they seemed to be such as he had caught from 
 conversation, and which he repeated by rote. I 
 think he had a project, after he came to Edin- 
 burgh, of prosecuting the study under his inti- 
 mate friend, the late Mr. Nichol, one of the 
 masters of the grammar-school here ; but I do 
 not know that he ever proceeded so far as to 
 make the attempt. 
 
 " He certainly possessed a smattering of 
 VOL. I. L French :
 
 146 THE LIFE OF 
 
 French ; and, if he had an affectation in any 
 thing, it was in introducing occasionally a word 
 or phrase from that language. It is possible that 
 his knowledge in this respect might be more ex- 
 tensive than I suppose it to be; but this you 
 can learn from his more intimate acquaintance. 
 It would be worth while to inquire, whether he 
 was able to read the French authors with such 
 facility as to receive from them any improve- 
 ment to his taste. For my own part, I doubt 
 it much nor would I believe it, but on very 
 strong and pointed evidence. 
 
 " If my memory does not fail me, he was 
 well instructed in arithmetic, and knew some- 
 thing of practical geometry, particularly of sur- 
 veying. All his other attainments were entirely 
 his own. 
 
 " The last time I saw him was during the 
 winter, 1788-89;* when he passed an evening 
 with me at Drumseugh, in the neighbourhood 
 of Edinburgh, where I was then living. My 
 friend Mr. Alison was the only other person in 
 company. I never saw him more agreeable or 
 
 interesting. 
 
 * Or rather 1789-90. I cannot speak with confidence 
 with respect to the particular year. Some of my other 
 dates may possibly require correction, as I keep no journal 
 of such occurrences.
 
 ROEERT BURNS. 147 
 
 interesting. A present which Mr. Alison sent 
 him afterwards of his Essays on Taste, drew from 
 Burns a letter of acknowledgment, which I re- 
 member to have read with some degree of sur- 
 prise at the distinct conception, he appeared 
 from it to have formed, of the general principles 
 of the doctrine of association. When I saw Mr. 
 Alison in Shropshire last autumn, I forgot to in- 
 quire if the letter be still in existence. If it is, 
 you may easily procure it, by means of our 
 friend Mr. Houlbrooke."* 
 
 The scene that opened on our bard in Edin- 
 burgh was altogether new, and in a variety of 
 other respects highly interesting, especially to 
 one of his disposition of mind. To use an ex- 
 pression of his own, he found himself, " sud- 
 denly translated from the veriest shades of life," 
 into the presence, and indeed, into the society 
 of a number of persons, previously known to 
 him by report as of the highest distinction in his 
 country, and whose characters it was natural for 
 him to examine with no common curiosity. 
 
 From the men of letters, in general, his re- 
 ception was particularly flattering. The late 
 
 L2 Dr. 
 
 * This letter will be found, Vol. ii. p. 353.
 
 148 THE LIFE OF 
 
 Dr. Robertson, Dr. Blair, Dr. Gregory, Mr. 
 Steward, Mr. Mackenzie, and Mr. Frazer Tyt- 
 ler, may be mentioned in the list of those who 
 perceived his uncommon talents, who acknow- 
 ledged more especially his powers in conversa- 
 tion, and who interested themselves in the cul- 
 tivation of his genius. In Edinburgh literary 
 and fashionable society are a good deal mixed. 
 Our bard was an acceptable guest in the gayest 
 and most elevated circles, and frequently re- 
 ceived from female beauty and elegance, those 
 attentions above all others most grateful to 
 him. At the table of Lord Monboddo he was 
 a frequent guest ; and while he enjoyed the so- 
 ciety, and partook of the hospitalities of the 
 venerable judge, he experienced the kindness 
 and condescension of his lovely and accomplish- 
 ed daughter. The singular beauty of this young 
 lady was illuminated by that happy expression 
 of countenance which results from the union of 
 cultivated taste and superior understanding, 
 with the finest affections of the mind. The in- 
 fluence of such attractions was not unfelt by 
 our poet. " There has not been any thing like 
 " Miss Burnet," said he in a letter to a friend, 
 " in all the combination of beauty, grace, and 
 <c goodness the Creator has formed, since Mil- 
 " ton's Eve on the first day of her existence."* 
 
 In 
 
 * See vol. ii. p. 85.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 
 
 In his Address to Edinburgh, she is celebrated in 
 a strain of still greater elevation : 
 
 " Fair Burnet strikes th' adoring eye, 
 
 Heaven's beauties on my fancy shine ; 
 I see the Sire of Love on high, 
 
 And own his work indeed divine !"* 
 
 This lovely woman died a few years afterwards 
 in the flower of youth. Our bard expressed his 
 sensibility on that occasion, in verses addressed 
 to her memory. f 
 
 Among the men of rank and fashion, Burns 
 was particularly distinguished by James Earl of 
 Glencairn. On the motion of this nobleman, 
 the Caledonian Hunt, an association of the prin- 
 cipal of the nobility and gentry of Scotland, 
 extended their patronage to our bard, and ad- 
 mitted him to their gay orgies. He repaid their 
 notice by a dedication of the enlarged and im- 
 proved edition of his poems, in which he has 
 celebrated their patriotism and independence in 
 very animated terms. 
 
 " I congratulate my country that the blood of 
 her ancient heroes runs uncontaminated ; and 
 that, from your courage, knowledge, and public 
 spirit, she may expect protection, wealth, and 
 
 liberty. 
 
 # See vol. iii. ^.-232. f See vol. ii. p. 323. 

 
 150 THE LIFE OF 
 
 liberty. ********* May 
 corruption shrink at your kindling indignant 
 glance ; and may tyranny in the ruler, and li- 
 centiousness in the people, equally find in you 
 an inexorable foe !"* 
 
 It is to be presumed that these generous sen- 
 timents, uttered at an aera singularly propitious 
 to independence of character and conduct, were 
 favourably received by the persons to whom they 
 were addressed, and that they were echoed from 
 every bosom, as well as from that of the Earl of 
 Glencairn. This accomplished nobleman, a 
 scholar, a man of taste and sensibility, died soon 
 afterwards. Had he lived, and had his power 
 equalled his wishes, Scotland might still have 
 exulted in the genius, instead of lamenting the 
 early fate of her favourite bard. 
 
 A taste for letters is not always conjoined 
 with habits of temperance and regularity; and 
 Edinburgh, at the period of which we speak, 
 contained perhaps an uncommon proportion of 
 men of considerable talents, devoted to social 
 excesses, in which their talents were wasted and 
 debased. 
 
 Burns 
 
 * See vol. iii. Dedication.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 151 
 
 Burns entered into several parties of this de- 
 scription, with the usual vehemence of his cha- 
 racter. His generous affections, his ardent elo- 
 quence, his brilliant and daring imagination, 
 fitted him to be the idol of such associations ; 
 and accustoming himself to conversation of un- 
 limited range, and to festive indulgences that 
 scorned restraint, he gradually lost some portion 
 of his relish for the more pure, but less poignant 
 pleasures, to be found in the circles of taste, ele- 
 gance, and literature. The sudden alteration in 
 his habits of life operated on him physically as 
 well as morally. The humble fare of an Ayrshire 
 peasant he had exchanged for the luxuries of the 
 Scottish metropolis, and the effects of this change 
 on his ardent constitution could not be inconsi- 
 derable. But whatever influence might be pro- 
 duced on his conduct, his excellent understand- 
 ing suffered no corresponding debasement. He 
 estimated his friends and associates of every de- 
 scription at their proper value, and appreciated 
 his own conduct with a precision that might 
 give scope to much curious and melancholy re- 
 flection. He saw his danger, and at times 
 formed resolutions to guard against it 5 but he 
 had embarked on the tide of dissipation, and was 
 borne along its stream. 
 
 Of the state of his mind at this time, an au- 
 thentic, though imperfect, document remains, in 
 
 a book
 
 152 THE LIFE OF 
 
 a book which he procured in the spring ofl787, 
 for the purpose, as he himself informs us, of re- 
 cording in it whatever seemed worthy of obser- 
 vation. The following extracts may serve as a 
 specimen : 
 
 Edinburgh, April 9, 1787. 
 
 " As I have seen a good deal of human 
 life in Edinburgh, a great many characters which 
 are new to one bred up in the shades of life as I 
 have been, I am determined to take down my 
 remarks on the spot. Gray observes, in a letter 
 to Mr. Palgrave, that, " half a word fixed, upon, 
 or near the spot, is worth a cart-load of recol- 
 lection." I don't know how it is with the world 
 in general, but with me, making my remarks is 
 by no means a solitary pleasure. I want some 
 one to laugh with me, some one to be grave 
 with me, some one to please me and help my 
 discrimination, with his or her own remark, and 
 at times, no doubt, to admire my acuteness, and 
 penetration. The world are so busied with self- 
 ish pursuits, ambition, vanity, interest, or plea- 
 sure, that very few think it worth their while to 
 make any observation on what passes around 
 them, except where that observation is a sucker, 
 or branch of the darling plant they are rearing 
 in their fancy. Nor am I sure, notwithstanding 
 all the sentimental flights of novel-writers, and 
 
 the
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 153 
 
 the sage philosophy of moralists, whether we 
 are capable of so intimate and cordial a coali- 
 tion of friendship, as that one man may pour 
 out his bosom, his every thought and floating 
 fancy, his very inmost soul, with unreserved 
 confidence to another, without hazard of losing 
 part of that respect which man deserves from 
 man ; or, from the unavoidable imperfections 
 attending human nature, of one day repenting 
 his confidence. 
 
 " For these reasons I am determined to make 
 these pages my confidant. I will sketch every 
 character that any way strikes me, to the best 
 of my power, with unshrinking justice. I will 
 insert anecdotes, and take down remarks, in the 
 old law phrase, without feud or favour. Where 
 I hit on any thing clever, my own applause 
 will, in some measure, feast my vanity ; and, 
 begging Patroclus' and Achates' pardon, I think 
 a lock and key a security, at least equal to the 
 bosom of any friend whatever. 
 
 " My own private story likewise, my love- 
 adventures, my rambles ; the frowns and smiles 
 of fortune on my hardship ; my poems and 
 fragments, that must never see the light, shall 
 be occasionally inserted. In short, never did 
 four shillings purchase so much friendship, since 
 
 confidence
 
 154 THE LIFE OF 
 
 confidence went first to market, or honesty was 
 set up to sale. 
 
 " To these seemingly invidious, but too just 
 ideas of human friendship, I would cheerfully 
 make one exception the connexion between 
 two persons of different sexes, when their in- 
 terests are united and absorbed by the tie of 
 love 
 
 When thought meets thought, ere from the lips it part, 
 And each warm wish springs mutual from the heart. 
 
 There confidence, confidence that exalts them 
 the more in one another's opinion, that endears 
 them the more to each other's hearts, unreserv- 
 edly " reigns and revels." But this is not my 
 lot ; and, in my situation, if I am wise (which 
 by the by I have no great chance of being), my 
 fate should be cast with the Psalmist's sparrow, 
 " to watch alone on the house-tops." Oh, the 
 pity! 
 
 j| 3| 3| 3|( 3| j| 
 
 " There are few of the sore evils under the 
 sun give me more uneasiness and chagrin than 
 the comparison how a man of genius, nay, of 
 avowed worth, is received every where, with the 
 reception which a mere ordinary character, de- 
 corated
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 155 
 
 corated with the trappings and futile distinctions 
 of fortune meets. I imagine a man of abilities, 
 his breast glowing with honest pride, conscious 
 that men are born equal, still giving honour to 
 whom honour is due j he meets at a great man's 
 table, a Squire something, or a Sir somebody ; 
 he knows the noble landlord, at heart, gives the 
 bard, or whatever he is, a share of his good 
 wishes, beyond, perhaps, any one at table; yet 
 how will it mortify him to see a fellow, whose 
 abilities would scarcely have made an eightpenny 
 tailor, and whose heart is not worth three far- 
 things, meet with attention and notice, that are 
 withheld from the son of genius and poverty? 
 
 " The noble Glencairn has wounded me to the 
 soul here, because I dearly esteem, respect, and 
 love him. He shewed so much attention, en- 
 grossing attention, one day, to the only block- 
 head at table (the whole company consisted of 
 his lordship, dunderpate, and myself), that I 
 was within half a point of throwing down my 
 gage of contemptuous defiance ; but he shook 
 my hand, and looked so benevolently good at 
 parting. God bless him ! though I should never 
 see him more, I shall love him until my dying 
 day ! I am pleased to think I am so capable of 
 the throes of gratitude, as I am miserably defi- 
 cient in some other virtues. 
 
 " With
 
 156 THE LIFE OF 
 
 " With Dr. Blair I am more at my ease. I 
 never respect him with humble veneration; but 
 when he kindly interests himself in my welfare, 
 or still more, when he descends from his pinna- 
 cle, and meets me on equal ground in conver- 
 sation, my heart overflows with what is called 
 liking. When he neglects me for the mere car- 
 cass of greatness, or when his eye measures the 
 difference of our points of elevation, I say to 
 myself with scarcely any emotion, what do I 
 care for him, or his pomp either ?" 
 
 j|t - 3|f 3|t 3 jk jk 
 
 The intentions of the poet in procuring this 
 book, so fully described by himself, were very 
 imperfectly executed. He has inserted in it 
 few or no incidents, but several observations 
 and reflections, of which the greater part that 
 are proper for the public eye, will be found in- 
 terwoven in the volume of his letters. The 
 most curious particulars in the book are the de- 
 lineations of the characters he met with. These 
 are not numerous ; but they are chiefly of per- 
 sons of distinction in the republic of letters, and 
 nothing but the delicacy and respect due to 
 living characters prevents us from committing 
 them to the press. Though it appears that in 
 his conversation he was sometimes disposed to 
 
 sarcastic
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 157 
 
 sarcastic remarks on the men with whom he 
 lived, nothing of this kind is discoverable in 
 these more deliberate efforts of his understand- 
 ing, which, while they exhibit great clearness 
 of discrimination, manifest also the wish, as 
 well as the power, to bestow high and generous 
 praise. 
 
 As a specimen of these delineations, we give 
 in this (fourth) edition, the character of Dr. 
 Blair, who has now paid the debt of nature, in 
 the full confidence that this freedom will not be 
 found inconsistent with the respect and venera- 
 tion due to that excellent man, the last star in 
 the literary constellation, by which the metro- 
 polis of Scotland was, in the earlier part of the 
 present reign so beautifully illuminated. 
 
 " It is not easy forming an exact judg- 
 ment of any one; but, in my opinion, Dr. Blair 
 is merely an astonishing proof what industry 
 and application can do. Natural parts like his 
 are frequently to be met with; his vanity is 
 proverbially known among his acquaintance ; 
 but he is justly at the head of what may be 
 called fine writing ; and a critic of the first, 
 the very first, rank in prose ; even in poetry, a 
 bard of Nature's making can only take the pas 
 of him. He has a heart? jaot of the very finest 
 water, but far from being an ordinary one. In 
 
 short,
 
 158 THE LIFE OF 
 
 short, he is truly a worthy, and most respect- 
 able character." 
 
 By the new edition of his poems, Burns ac- 
 quired a sum of money that enabled him not 
 only to partake of the pleasures of Edinburgh, 
 but to gratify a desire he had long entertained, of 
 visiting those parts of his native country, most 
 attractive by their beauty or their grandeur ; a 
 desire which the return of summer naturally re- 
 vived. The scenery on the banks of the Tweed, 
 and of its tributary streams, strongly interested 
 his fancy; and accordingly he left Edinburgh on 
 the 6th of May, 1787, on a tour through a 
 country so much celebrated in the rural songs of 
 Scotland. He travelled on horseback, and was 
 accompanied, during some part of his journey, 
 by Mr. Ainslie, now writer to the signet, a gen- 
 tleman who enjoyed much of his friendship and 
 of his confidence. Of this tour a journal re- 
 mains, which however contains only occasional 
 remarks on the scenery, and which is chiefly oc- 
 cupied with an account of the author's different 
 stages, and with his observations on the various 
 characters to whom he was introduced. In the 
 course of this tour he visited Mr. Ainslie of 
 Berry well, the father of his companion; Mr. 
 Brydone, the celebrated traveller, to whom he 
 carried a letter of introduction from Mr. Mac- 
 kenzie ;
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 159 
 
 kenzie ; the Rev. Dr. Somerville of Jedburgh, 
 the historian ; Mr. and Mrs. Scott of Wauchope ; 
 Dr. Elliot, a physician, retired to a romantic 
 spot on the banks of the Roole j Sir Alexander 
 Don ; Sir James Hall of Dunglass ; and a great 
 variety of other respectable characters. Every 
 where the fame of the poet had spread before 
 him, and every where he received the most hos- 
 pitable and flattering attentions. At Jedburgh 
 he continued several days, and was honoured by 
 the magistrates with the freedom of their borough. 
 The following may serve as a specimen of this 
 tour, which the perpetual reference to living 
 characters prevents our giving at large. 
 
 " Saturday, May 6th. Left Edinburgh Lam- 
 mer-muir-hills, miserably dreary in general, but 
 at times very picturesque. 
 
 < Lanson-edge, a glorious view of the Merse. 
 Reach Berry well. * * * The family-meeting 
 with my compagnon de voyage, very charming ; 
 particularly the sister. * * * 
 
 " Sunday. Went to church at Dunse. Heard 
 Dr. Bowmaker. * * * 
 
 " Monday. Coldstream glorious river Tweed 
 clear and majestic fine bridge dine at Cold- 
 stream
 
 160 THE LIFE OF 
 
 stream with Mr. Ainslie and Mr. Foreman. Beat 
 Mr. Foreman in a dispute about Voltaire. Drink 
 tea at Lenel-House with Mr. and Mrs. Brydone. 
 * * * Reception extremely flattering. Sleep 
 at Coldstream. 
 
 " Tuesday. Breakfast at Kelso charming 
 situation of the town fine bridge over the 
 Tweed. Enchanting views and prospects on 
 both sides of the river, especially on the Scotch 
 side. * * * Visit Roxburgh Palace fine si- 
 tuation of it. Ruins of Roxburgh Castle a 
 Holly-bush growing where James the Second 
 was accidentally killed by the bursting of a 
 cannon. A small old religious ruin, and a fine 
 old garden planted by the religious, rooted out 
 and destroyed by a Hottentot, a maitre aV hotel 
 of the Duke's ! Climate and soil of Berwick- 
 shire and even Roxburghshire, superior to Ayr- 
 shire bad roads turnip and sheep husbandry, 
 their great improvements. * * * Low mar- 
 kets, consequently low lands magnificence of 
 farmers and farm-houses. Come up the Tiviot, 
 and up the Jed to Jedburgh to lie, and so wish 
 myself good night. 
 
 " Wednesday. Breakfast with Mr. Fair. * * * 
 Charming romantic situation of Jedburgh, with 
 gardens and orchards, intermingled among the 
 
 houses
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 161 
 
 houses and the ruins of a once magnificent ca- 
 thedral. All the towns here have the appear- 
 ance of old rude grandeur, but extremely idle. 
 Jed, a fine romantic little river. Dined with 
 Capt. Rutherford, * * * return to Jedburgh. 
 Walk up the Jed with some ladies to be shewn 
 Love-lane, and Blackburn, two fairy scenes. 
 Introduced to Mr. Potts, writer, and to Mr. 
 Sommerville, the clergyman of the parish, a 
 man, and a gentleman, but sadly addicted to 
 punning. 
 
 " Jedburgh, Saturday. Was presented by the 
 magistrates with the freedom of the town. 
 
 " Took farewell of Jedburgh with some me- 
 lancholy sensations. 
 
 " Monday, May \kth, Kelso. Dine with the 
 farmers' club all gentlemen talking of high mat- 
 ters each of them keeps a hunter from 301. to 
 501. value, and attends the fox-hunting club in 
 the country. Go out with Mr. Ker, one of the 
 club, and a friend of Mr. Ainslie's, to sleep. In 
 his mind and manners, Mr. Ker is astonishingly 
 like my dear old friend Robert Muir Every 
 thing in his house elegant. He offers to accom- 
 pany me in my English tour. 
 
 VOL. I. M " Tuesday.
 
 162 THE LIFE OF 
 
 " Tuesday. Dine with Sir Alexander Don ; 
 a very wet day. * * * Sleep at Mr. Ker's again, 
 and set out next day for Melross visit Dry- 
 burgh, a fine old ruined abbey, by the way. 
 Cross the Leader, and come up the Tweed to 
 Melross. Dine there, and visit that far-famed 
 glorious ruin Come to Selkirk up the banks of 
 Ettrick. The whole country hereabouts, both 
 on Tweed and Ettrick, remarkably stony." 
 
 Having spent three weeks in exploring this 
 interesting scenery, Burns crossed over into 
 Northumberland. Mr. Ker, and Mr. Hood, two 
 gentlemen with whom he had become acquainted 
 in the course of his tour, accompanied him. He 
 visited Aln wick-Castle, the princely seat of the 
 Duke of Northumberland $ the hermitage and 
 old castle of Warksworth ; Morpeth, and New- 
 castle. In this last town he spent two days, and 
 then proceeded to the south-west by Hexham 
 and Ward rue, to Carlisle. After spending a 
 day at Carlisle with his friend Mr. Mitchel, he 
 returned into Scotland, and at Annan his jour- 
 nal terminates abruptly. 
 
 Of the various persons with whom he became 
 acquainted in the course of this journey, he has, 
 in general, given some account ; and almost al- 
 ways a favourable one. That on the banks of 
 
 the
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 163 
 
 the Tweed, and of the Tiviot, our bard should 
 find nymphs that were beautiful, is what might 
 be confidently presumed. Two of these are par- 
 ticularly described in his journal. But it does 
 not appear that the scenery, or its inhabitants, 
 produced any effort of his muse, as was to have 
 been wished and expected. From Annan, Burns 
 proceeded to Dumfries, and thence through 
 Sanquhar, to Mossgiel, near Mauchline, in Ayr- 
 shire, where he arrived about the 8th of June, 
 1787, after a long absence of six busy and 
 eventful months. It will easily be conceived 
 with what pleasure and pride he was received by 
 his mother, his brothers, and sisters. He had 
 left them poor, and comparatively friendless ; he 
 returned to them high in public estimation, and 
 easy in his circumstances. He returned to them 
 unchanged in his ardent affections, and ready 
 to share with them to the uttermost farthing, the 
 pittance that fortune had bestowed. 
 
 Having remained with them a few days, he 
 proceeded again to Edinburgh, and immediately 
 set out on a journey to the Highlands. Of this 
 tour no particulars have been found among his 
 manuscripts. A letter to his friend Mr. Ainslie, 
 dated Arrachas, near Crochairbas, by Lochleary, 
 June 28, 1787; commences as follows : 
 
 " I write you this on my tour through a 
 
 country where savage streams tumble over sa- 
 
 M 2 vage
 
 J 64 THE LIFE OF 
 
 vage mountains, thinly overspread with savage 
 flocks, which starvingly support as savage in- 
 habitants. My last stage was Inverary to-mor- 
 row night's stage, Dumbarton. I ought sooner 
 to have answered your kind letter, but you know 
 I am a man of many sins." 
 
 Part of a letter from our Bard to a friend, 
 giving some account of his journey, has been 
 communicated to the Editor since the publica- 
 tion of the last edition. The reader will be 
 amused with the following extract : 
 
 " On our return, at a Highland gentle- 
 man's hospitable mansion, we fell in with a merry 
 party, and danced till the ladies left us, at three 
 in the morning. Our dancing was none of the 
 French or English insipid formal movements ; 
 the ladies sung Scotch songs like angels, at in- 
 tervals ; then we flew at Bab at the bowster y 
 Tidlochgorum, Loch Erroch side,* &c. like 
 midges sporting in the mottie sun, or craws prog- 
 nosticating a storm in a hairst day. When the 
 dear lasses left us, we ranged round the bowl 
 till the good-fellow hour of six ; except a few 
 minutes that we went out to pay our devotions 
 to the glorious lamp of day peering over the 
 towering top of Benlomond. We all kneeled , 
 
 our 
 
 * Scotch tunes.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 165 
 
 our worthy landlord's son held the bowl ; each 
 man a full glass in his hand; and I, as priest, 
 repeated some rhyming nonsense, like Thomas- 
 a-Rhymer's prophecies I suppose. After a small 
 refreshment of the gifts of Somnus, we proceeded 
 to spend the day on Lochlomond, and reach 
 Dumbarton in the evening. We dined at an- 
 other good fellow's house, and consequently 
 push'd the bottle ; when we went out to mount 
 our horses, we found ourselves tc No vera fou 
 but gaylie yet." My two friends and I rode 
 soberly down the Loch side, till by came a High- 
 landman at the gallop, on a tolerably good 
 horse, but which had never known the orna- 
 ments of iron or leather. We scorned to be 
 out-galloped by a Highlandman, so off we start- 
 ed, whip and spur. My companions, though 
 seemingly gayly mounted, fell sadly astern; but 
 my old mare, Jenny Geddes, one of the Rosi- 
 nante family, she strained past the Highland- 
 man in spite of all his efforts, with the hair- 
 halter : just as I was passing him, Donald wheel- 
 ed his horse, as if to cross before me to mar my 
 progress, when down came his horse, and threw 
 his rider's breekless a e in a dipt hedge; and 
 down came Jenny Geddes over all, and my bard- 
 ship between her and the Highlandman's horse. 
 Jenny Geddes trode over me with such cautious 
 reverence, that matters were not so bad as might 
 well have been expected ; so I came off with a 
 
 few
 
 166 THE LIFE OF 
 
 few cuts and bruises, and a thorough resolution 
 to be a pattern of sobriety for the future. 
 
 <c I have yet fixed on nothing with respect 
 to the serious business of life. I am, just as 
 usual, a rhyming, mason-making, raking, aim- 
 less, idle fellow. However, I shall somewhere 
 have a farm soon. I was going to say, a wife 
 too ; but that must never be my blessed lot. I 
 am but a younger son of the house of Parnassus, 
 and like other younger sons of great families, I 
 may intrigue, if I choose to run all risks, but 
 must not marry. 
 
 *' I am afraid I have almost ruined one 
 source, the principal one indeed, of my former 
 happiness ; that eternal propensity I always had 
 to fall in love. My heart no more glows with 
 feverish rapture. I have no paradisical evening 
 interviews stolen from the restless cares and 
 prying inhabitants of this weary world. I have 
 only * * * *. This last is one of your distant 
 acquaintances, has a fine figure, and elegant 
 manners ; and in the train of some great folks 
 whom you know, has seen the politest quarters 
 in Europe. I do like her a good deal ; but 
 what piques me is her conduct at the commence- 
 ment of our acquaintance. I frequently visited 
 
 her when I was in , and after passing 
 
 regularly the intermediate degrees between the 
 
 distant
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 167 
 
 distant formal bow and the familiar grasp round 
 the waist, I ventured in my careless way to talk 
 of friendship in rather ambiguous terms ; and 
 
 after her return to , I wrote to her in 
 
 the same style. Miss, construing my words 
 farther I suppose than even I intended, flew off 
 in a tangent of female dignity and reserve, like 
 a mountain lark in an April morning; and 
 wrote me an answer which measured me out very 
 completely what an immense way I had to travel 
 before I could reach the climate of her favour. 
 But I am an old hawk at the sport ; and wrote 
 her such a cool, deliberate, prudent reply, as 
 brought my bird from her aerial towerings, pop, 
 down at my foot like corporal Trim's hat. 
 
 " As for the rest of my acts, and my wars, and 
 all my wise sayings, and why my mare was called 
 Jenny Geddes ; they shall be recorded in a few 
 weeks hence at Linlithgow, in the chronicles of 
 your memory, by 
 
 " Robert Burns." 
 
 From this journey Burns returned to his friends 
 in Ayrshire, with whom he spent the month of 
 July, renewing his friendships, and extending his 
 acquaintance throughout the county, where he 
 was now very generally known and admired. In 
 August he again visited Edinburgh, whence he 
 undertook another journey towards the middle of 
 
 this
 
 168 THE LIFE OF 
 
 this month, in company with Mr. M. Adair, now 
 Dr. Adair, of Harrowgate, of which this gentle- 
 man has favoured us with the following account : 
 
 " Burns and I left Edinburgh together in Au- 
 gust, 1787. We rode by Linlithgow and Carron, 
 to Stirling. We visited the iron-works at Carron, 
 with which the poet was forcibly struck. The 
 resemblance between that place, and its inhabit- 
 ants, to the cave of the Cyclops, which must 
 have occurred to every classical reader, present- 
 ed itself to Burns. At Stirling the prospects 
 from the castle strongly interested him ; in a 
 former visit to which, his national feelings had 
 been powerfully excited by the ruinous and roof- 
 less state of the hall in which the Scottish par- 
 liaments had frequently been held. His indig- 
 nation had vented itself in some imprudent, but 
 not unpoetical lines, which had given much of- 
 fence, and which he took this opportunity of 
 erasing, by breaking the pane of the window at 
 the inn on which they were written. 
 
 " At Stirling we met with a company of tra- 
 vellers from Edinburgh, among whom was a cha- 
 racter in many respects congenial with that of 
 Burns. This was Nicol, one of the teachers of 
 the High Grammar-School at Edinburgh the 
 same wit and power of conversation ; the same 
 fondness for convivial society, and thoughtless- 
 ness
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 169 
 
 ness of to-morrow, characterized both. Jacobiti- 
 cal principles in politics were common to both of 
 them ; and these have been suspected, since the 
 revolution of France, to have given place in each, 
 to opinions apparently opposite. I regret that I 
 have preserved no memorabilia of their conversa- 
 tion, either on this or on other occasions, when 
 I happened to meet them together. Many songs 
 were sung ; which I mention for the sake of ob- 
 serving, that when Burns was called on in his 
 turn, he was accustomed, instead of singing, to 
 recite one or other of his own shorter poems, 
 with a tone and emphasis, which though not 
 correct or harmonious, were impressive and pa- 
 thetic. This he did on the present occasion. 
 
 " From Stirling we went next morning through 
 the romantic and fertile vale of Devon to Har- 
 vieston, in Clackmannanshire, then inhabited by 
 Mrs. Hamilton, with the younger part of whose 
 family Burns had been previously acquainted. He 
 introduced me to the family, and there was form- 
 ed my first acquaintance with Mrs. Hamilton's 
 eldest daughter, to whom I have been married 
 for nine years. Thus was I indebted to Burns 
 for a connexion from which I have derived, and 
 expect further to derive, much happiness. 
 
 " During a residence of about ten days at 
 Harvieston, we made excursions to visit various 
 
 parts
 
 170 THE LIFE OP 
 
 parts of the surrounding scenery, inferior to none 
 in Scotland, in beauty, sublimity, and romantic 
 interest ; particularly Castle Campbell, the an- 
 cient seat of the family of Argylej and the fa- 
 mous cataract of the Devon, called the Caldron 
 Linn ; and the Rumbling Bridge, a single broad 
 arch, thrown by the Devil, if tradition is to be 
 believed, across the river, at about the height of 
 a hundred feet above its bed. I am surprised 
 that none of these scenes should have called forth 
 an exertion of Burns's muse. But I doubt if he 
 had much taste for the picturesque. I well re- 
 member, that the ladies at Harvieston, who ac- 
 companied us on this jaunt, expressed their dis- 
 appointment at his not expressing in more glow- 
 ing and fervid language, his impressions of the 
 Caldron Linn scene, certainly highly sublime, 
 and somewhat horrible. 
 
 " A visit to Mrs. Bruce of Clackmannan, a 
 lady above ninety, the lineal descendant of that 
 race which gave the Scottish throne its brightest 
 ornament, interested his feelings more powerful- 
 ly. This venerable dame, with characteristical 
 dignity, informed me, on my observing that I be- 
 lieved she was descended from the family of Ro- 
 bert Bruce, that Robert Bruce was sprung from 
 her family. Though almost deprived of speech by 
 a paralytic affection, she preserved her hospita- 
 lity and urbanity. She was in possession of the 
 
 hero's
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 171 
 
 hero's helmet and two-handed sword, with which 
 she conferred on Burns and myself the honour of 
 knighthood, remarking, that she had a better 
 right to confer that title than some people. * * 
 You will of course conclude that the old lady's 
 political tenets were as Jacobitical as the poet's, 
 a conformity which contributed not a little to 
 the cordiality of our reception and entertain- 
 ment. She gave as her first toast after dinner, 
 Awa* Uncos, or Away with the Strangers Who 
 these strangers were, you will readily understand. 
 Mrs. A. corrects me by saying it should be Hooi, 
 or Hoohi uncos, a sound used by shepherds to 
 direct their dogs to drive away the sheep. 
 
 " We returned to Edinburgh by Kinross (on 
 the shore of Lochleven) and Queen's ferry. I 
 am inclined to think Burns knew nothing of 
 poor Michael Bruce, who was then alive at Kin- 
 ross, or had died there a short while before. A 
 meeting between the bards, or a visit to the de- 
 serted cottage and early grave of poor Bruce, 
 would have been highly interesting.* 
 
 " At Dumfermline we visited the ruined ab- 
 bey, and the abbey-church, now consecrated to 
 Presbyterian worship. Here I mounted the cutty 
 stool, or stool of repentance, assuming the cha- 
 racter 
 
 * Bruce died some years before. E.
 
 172 THE LIFE OF 
 
 racter of a penitent for fornication; while Burns' 
 from the pulpit addressed to me a ludicrous re- 
 proof and exhortation, parodied from that which 
 had been delivered to himself in Ayrshire, where 
 he had, as he assured me, once been one of seven 
 who mounted the seat of shame together. 
 
 tf In the church-yard two broad flag-stones 
 marked the grave of Robert Bruce, for whose 
 memory Burns had more than common venera- 
 tion. He knelt and kissed the stone with sa- 
 cred fervour, and heartily (suits at mos eral) 
 execrated the worse than Gothic neglect of the 
 first of Scottish heroes."* 
 
 The surprise expressed by Dr. Adair, in his 
 excellent letter, that the romantic scenery of the 
 Devon should have failed to call forth any ex- 
 ertion of the poet's muse, is not in its nature 
 singular ; and the disappointment felt at his not 
 expressing in more glowing language his emo- 
 tions on the sight of the famous cataract of that 
 river, is similar to what was felt by the friends 
 of Burns on other occasions of the same nature. 
 Yet the inference that Dr. Adair seems inclined 
 to draw from it, that he had little taste for the 
 picturesque, might be questioned, even if it 
 
 stood 
 
 * Extracted from a letter of Dr. Adair to the Editor.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 173 
 
 stood uncontroverted by other evidence. The 
 muse of Burns was in a high degree capricious ; 
 she came uncalled, and often refused to attend 
 at his bidding. Of all the numerous subjects 
 suggested to him by his friends and correspond- 
 ents, there is scarcely one that he adopted. 
 The very expectation that a particular occasion 
 would excite the energies of fancy, if commu- 
 nicated to Burns, seemed in him, as in other 
 poets, destructive of the effect expected. Hence 
 perhaps may be explained, why the banks of 
 the Devon and of the Tweed form no part of the 
 subjects of his song. 
 
 A similar train of reasoning may perhaps ex- 
 plain the want of emotion with which he viewed 
 the Caldron Linn. Certainly there are no affec- 
 tions of the mind more deadened by the influ- 
 ence of previous expectation, than those arising 
 from the sight of natural objects, and more espe- 
 cially of objects of grandeur. Minute descrip- 
 tions of scenes, of a sublime nature, should never 
 be given to those who are about to view them, 
 particularly if they are persons of great strength 
 and sensibility of imagination. Language sel- 
 dom or never conveys an adequate idea of such 
 objects, but in the mind of a great poet it may 
 excite a picture that far transcends them. The 
 imagination of Burns might form a cataract, in 
 comparison with which the Caldron Linn should 
 
 seem
 
 174 THE LIFE OF 
 
 seem the purling of a rill, and even the mighty 
 falls of Niagara, a humble cascade.* 
 
 Whether these suggestions may assist in ex- 
 plaining our Bard's deficiency of impression on 
 the occasion referred to, or whether it ought 
 rather to be imputed to some pre-occupation, or 
 indisposition of mind, we presume not to decide ; 
 but that he was in general feelingly alive to the 
 beautiful or sublime in scenery, may be supported 
 by irresistible evidence. It is true this pleasure 
 was greatly heightened in his mind, as might be 
 expected, when combined with moral emotions 
 
 of 
 
 * This reasoning might be extended, with some mo- 
 difications, to objects of sight of every kind. To have 
 formed before-hand a distinct picture in the mind of any 
 interesting person or thing, generally lessens the plea- 
 sure of the first meeting with them. Though this pic- 
 ture be not superior, or even equal to the reality, still it 
 can never be expected to be an exact resemblance ; and 
 the disappointment felt at finding the object something 
 different from what was expected, interrupts and di- 
 minishes the emotions that would otherwise be produced. 
 In such cases the second or third interview gives more 
 pleasure than the first. See the Elements of the Philo- 
 sophy of the Human Mind, by Mr. Stewart, p. 484. Such 
 publications as The Guide to the Lakes, where every 
 scene is described in the most minute manner, and some- 
 times with considerable exaggeration of language, are in 
 this point of view objectionable.
 
 ROBERT BURtfS. 175 
 
 of a kind with which it happily unites. That 
 under this association Burns contemplated the 
 scenery of the Devon with the eye of a genuine 
 poet, the following lines written at this very 
 period, may bear witness. 
 
 On a Young Lady, residing on the banks of the small 
 river Devon, in Clackmannanshire, but whose infant 
 years were spent in Ayrshire. 
 
 How pleasant the banks of the clear-winding Devon, 
 "With green-spreading bushes, and flowers blooming fair ; 
 
 But the bonniest flower on the banks of the Devon 
 Was once a sweet bud on the braes of the Ayr. 
 
 Mild be the sun on this sweet blushing flower, 
 In the gay rosy morn as it bathes in the dew ! 
 
 And gentle the fall of the soft vernal shower, 
 That steals on the evening each leaf to renew. 
 
 O spare the dear blossom, ye orient breezes, 
 With chill hoary wing as ye usher the dawn ! 
 
 And far be thou distant, thou reptile that seizes 
 The verdure and pride of the garden and lawn ! 
 
 Let Bourbon exult in his gay gilded lilies, 
 
 And England triumphant display her proud rose ; 
 
 A fairer than either adorns the green valleys 
 
 Where Devon, sweet Devon, meandering flows. 
 
 The different journeys already mentioned 
 did not satisfy the curiosity of Burns. About 
 the beginning of September, he again set out 
 
 from
 
 176 THE LIFE OF 
 
 from Edinburgh on a more extended tour to the 
 Highlands, in company with Mr. Nicol, with 
 whom he had now contracted a particular inti- 
 macy, which lasted during the remainder of his 
 life. Mr. Nicol was of Dumfries-shire, of a 
 descent equally humble with our poet. Like 
 him he rose by the strength of his talents, and 
 fell by the strength of his passions. He died in 
 the summer of 1797. Having received the ele- 
 ments of a classical instruction at his parish 
 school, Mr. Nicol made a very rapid and singular 
 proficiency ; and by early undertaking the office 
 of an instructor himself, he acquired the means 
 of entering himself at the University of Edin- 
 burgh. There he was first a student of theolo- 
 gy, then a student of medicine, and was after- 
 wards employed in the assistance and instruction 
 of graduates in medicine, in those parts of their 
 exercises in which the Latin language is em- 
 ployed. In this situation he was the contem- 
 porary and rival of the celebrated Dr. Brown, 
 whom he resembled in the particulars of his 
 history, as well as in the leading features of his 
 character. The office of assistant-teacher in the 
 High-school being vacant, it was, as usual, filled 
 up by competition; and in the face of some 
 prejudices, and perhaps of some well-founded 
 objections, Mr. Nicol, by superior learning, 
 carried it from all the other candidates. This 
 office he filled at the period of which we speak. 
 
 It
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 177 
 
 It is to be lamented, that an acquaintance 
 with the writers of Greece and Rome does not 
 always supply an original want of taste and cor- 
 rectness in manners and conduct -, and where it 
 fails of this effect, it sometimes inflames the na- 
 tive pride of temper, which treats with disdain 
 those delicacies in which it has not learnt to 
 excel. It was thus with the fellow-traveller of 
 Burns. Formed by nature in a model of great 
 strength, neither his person nor his manners 
 had any tincture of taste or elegance -, and his 
 coarseness was not compensated by that roman- 
 tic sensibility, and those towering flights of ima- 
 gination, which distinguished the conversation 
 of Burns, in the blaze of whose genius all the 
 deficiencies of his manners were absorbed and 
 disappeared, 
 
 Mr. Nicol and our poet travelled in a post- 
 chaise, which they engaged for the journey, 
 and passing through the heart of the Highlands, 
 stretched northwards, about ten miles beyond 
 Inverness. There they bent their course east- 
 ward, across the island, and returned by the 
 shore of the German sea to Edinburgh. In the 
 course of this tour, some particulars of which 
 will be found in a letter of our bard, vol. ii. 
 p. 89, they visited a number of remarkable 
 scenes, and the imagination of Burns was con- 
 stantly excited by the wild and sublime scenery 
 
 VOL. I. N through
 
 178 THE LIFE OF 
 
 through which he passed. Of this several proofs 
 may be found in the poems formerly printed.* 
 Of the history of one of these poems, The 
 Humble Petition of Bruar Water (vol. iii. p. 353), 
 and of the bard's visit to Athole-house, some 
 particulars will be found in vol. ii. No. 29 ; 
 and by the favour of Mr. "Walker of Perth, then 
 residing in the family of the Duke of Athole, 
 we are enabled to give the following additional 
 account. 
 
 " On reaching Blair, he sent me notice 
 of his arrival (as I had been previously ac- 
 quainted with him), and I hastened to meet 
 him at the inn. The Duke, to whom he brought 
 a letter of introduction, was from home; but the 
 Duchess, being informed of his arrival, gave him 
 an invitation to sup and sleep at Athole-house. 
 He accepted the invitation j but, as the hour of 
 supper was at some distance, begged I would in 
 the interval be his guide through the grounds. 
 It was already growing dark ; yet the softened, 
 
 though 
 
 * See vol. iii. Lines on seeing some water-fowl in 
 Loch-Turit, a wild scene among the hills of Ochtertyre, 
 p. 358. Lines written with a Pencil over the Chimney- 
 piece, in the Inn at Kenmore Taymouth, p. 36 1. Lines 
 written with a pencil standing try the fall of Fyers, near 
 Lochness, p. 363.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 179 
 
 though faint and uncertain, view of their beau- 
 ties, which the moonlight afforded us, seemed 
 exactly suited to the state of his feelings at the 
 time. I had often, like others, experienced the 
 pleasures which arise from the sublime or 
 elegant landscape, but I never saw those feel- 
 ings so intense as in Burns. When we reached 
 a rustic hut on the river Tilt, where it is over- 
 hung by a woody precipice, from which there is 
 a noble water-fall, he threw himself on the 
 heathy seat, and gave himself up to a tender, 
 abstracted, and voluptuous enthusiasm of ima- 
 gination. I cannot help thinking it might have 
 been here that he conceived the idea of the fol- 
 lowing lines, which he afterwards introduced 
 into his poem on Bruar Water, when only fan- 
 cying such a combination of objects as were now 
 present to his eye. 
 
 Or, by the reaper's nightly beam, 
 
 Mild, chequering thro' the trees, 
 Rave to my darkly-dashing stream, 
 
 Hoarse-swelling on the breeze. 
 
 " It was with much difficulty I prevailed on 
 him to quit this spot, and to be introduced in 
 proper time to supper. 
 
 " My curiosity was great to see how he 
 would conduct himself in company so different 
 
 N 2 from
 
 l0 THE LIFE OF 
 
 from what he had been accustomed to.* His 
 manner was unembarrassed, plain, and firm. He 
 appeared to have complete reliance on his own 
 native good sense for directing his behaviour. 
 He seemed at once to perceive and to appreciate 
 what was due to the company and to himself, 
 and never to forget a proper respect for the sepa- 
 rate species of dignity belonging to each. He 
 did not arrogate conversation, but, when led into 
 it, he spoke with ease, propriety and manliness. 
 He tried to exert his abilities, because he knew 
 it was ability alone gave him a title to be there. 
 The Duke's fine young family attracted much of 
 his admiration ; he drank their healths as lionesL 
 men and bonnie lasses, an idea which was much 
 applauded by the company, and with which he 
 lias very felicitously closed his poem.f 
 
 " Next day I took a ride with him through 
 some of the most romantic parts of that neigh- 
 bourhood, and was highly gratified by his con- 
 versation. As a specimen of his happiness of 
 conception and strength of expression, I will 
 mention a remark which he made on his fellow- 
 traveller, 
 
 * In the preceding winter, Burns had been in company 
 of the highest rank in Edinburgh ; but this description of 
 his manners is perfectly applicable to his first appearance 
 in such society. E. 
 
 f See vol. iii. p. 357.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 181 
 
 traveller, who was walking at the time a few 
 paces before us. He was a man of a robust but 
 clumsy person; and while Burns was expressing 
 to me the value he entertained for him, on ac- 
 count of his vigorous talents, although they 
 were clouded at times by coarseness of manners; 
 " in short," he added, " his mind is like his 
 body, he has a confounded strong in-knee'd sort 
 of a soul. 
 
 " Much attention was paid to Burns both 
 before and after the Duke's return, of which he 
 was perfectly sensible, without being vain; and 
 at his departure I recommended to him, as the 
 most appropriate return he could make, to write 
 some descriptive verses on any of the scenes 
 with which he had been so much delighted. 
 After leaving Blair, he, by the Duke's advice, 
 visited the Falls of Bruar, and in a few days I 
 received a letter from Inverness, with the verses 
 enclosed."* 
 
 It appears that the impression made by our 
 poet on the noble family of Athole, was in a 
 high degree favourable; it is certain he was 
 
 charmed 
 
 * Extract of a letter from Mr. Walker to Mr. Cunning- 
 ham, dated Perth, 2.4th Oct. 1797. 
 
 The letter mentioned as written to Mr. Walker by Mr. 
 Burns, will be found in vol. ii.p. 87.
 
 182 THE LIFE OF 
 
 charmed with the reception he received from 
 them, and he often mentioned the two days he 
 spent at Athole-house as among the happiest of 
 his life. He was warmly invited to prolong his 
 stay, but sacrificed his inclinations to his en- 
 gagement with Mr. Nicolj which is the more to 
 be regretted, as he would otherwise have been 
 introduced to Mr. Dundas (then daily expected 
 on a visit to the Duke), a circumstance that 
 might have had a favourable influence on Burns's 
 future fortunes. At Athole-house he met, for 
 the first time, Mr. Graham, of Fintry, to whom 
 he was afterwards indebted for his office in the 
 excise. 
 
 The letters and poems which he addressed to 
 Mr. Graham, bear testimony of his sensibility, 
 and justify the supposition, that he would not 
 have been deficient in gratitude had he been ele- 
 vated to a situation better suited to his disposi- 
 tion and to his talents.* 
 
 A few days after leaving Blair of Athole, our 
 poet and his fellow-traveller arrived at Fochabers. 
 In the course of the preceding winter Burns had 
 been introduced to the Duchess of Gordon at 
 
 Edinburgh, 
 
 . I ill. ii i a, 
 
 # See the first Epistle to Air. Graham, soliciting an em- 
 ployment in the Excise, vol. ii. jp. 171 i and his second 
 Epistle, vol. iii. p. 3\5.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 183 
 
 Edinburgh* and presuming on this acquaint- 
 ance, he proceeded to Gordon-Castle, leaving 
 Mr. Nicol at the inn in the village. At the 
 castle our poet was received with the utmost 
 hospitality and kindness, and the family being 
 about to sit down to dinner, he was invited to 
 take his place at table as a matter of course. 
 This invitation he accepted, and after drinking a 
 few glasses of wine, he rose up, and proposed 
 to withdraw. On being pressed to stay, he 
 mentioned, for the first time, his engagement 
 with his fellow-traveller j and his noble host of- 
 fering to send a servant to conduct Mr. Nicol to 
 the castle, Burns insisted on undertaking that 
 office himself. He was, however, accompanied 
 by a gentleman, a particular acquaintance of the 
 Duke, by whom the invitation was delivered in 
 all the forms of politeness. The invitation came 
 too late ; the pride of Nicol was inflamed into 
 a high degree of passion, by the neglect 
 which he had already suffered. He had ordered 
 the horses to be put to the carnage, being de- 
 termined to proceed on his journey alone ; and 
 they found him parading the streets of Fochabers, 
 before the door of the inn, venting his anger on 
 the postillion, for the slowness with which he 
 obeyed his commands. As no explanation nor 
 entreaty could change the purpose of his fellowr 
 traveller, our poet was reduced to the necessity 
 of separating from him entirely, or of instantly 
 
 proceeding
 
 184 THE LIFE OF 
 
 proceeding with him on their journey. He chose 
 the last of these alternatives ; and seating him- 
 self beside Nicol in the post-chaise, with morti- 
 fication and regret, he turned his back on Gor- 
 don-castle, where he had promised himself some 
 happy days. Sensible, however, of the great 
 kindness of the noble family, he made the best 
 return in his power, by the following poem.* 
 
 I. 
 
 Streams that glide in orient plains, 
 Never bound by winter's chains ; 
 Glowing here on golden sands, 
 There commix'd with foulest stains 
 [From tyranny's empurpled bands : 
 These, their richly gleaming waves, 
 I leave to tyrants and their slaves ; 
 Give me the stream that sweetly laves 
 The banks by Castle-Gordon. 
 
 II. 
 
 Spicy forests, ever gay, 
 Shading from the burning ray 
 Hapless wretches sold to toil, 
 Or the ruthless native's way, 
 Bent on slaughter, blood, and spoil : 
 Woods that ever verdant wave, 
 I leave the tyrant and the slave, 
 Give me the groves that lofty brave 
 The storms, by Castle-Gordon. 
 
 HI. 
 
 * This information is extracted from a letter of Dr. 
 Couper of Fochabers to the Editor.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 185 
 
 III. 
 
 Wildly here without control, 
 Nature reigns and rules the whole ; 
 In that sober pensive mood, 
 Dearest to the feeling soul, 
 She plants the forest, pours the flood ; 
 Life's poor day I'll musing rave, 
 And find at night a sheltering cave, 
 Where waters flow and wild woods wave, 
 By bonnie Castle-Gordon.* 
 
 Burns remained at Edinburgh during the 
 greater part of the winter, 1787-8, and again 
 entered into the society and dissipation of that 
 metropolis. It appears that on the 31st day of 
 December, he attended a meeting to celebrate 
 the birth-day of the lineal descendant of the 
 Scottish race of Kings, the late unfortunate 
 Prince Charles-Edward. Whatever might have 
 been the wish or purpose of the original insti- 
 tutors of this annual meeting, there is no reason 
 to suppose that the gentlemen of whom it was 
 at this time composed, were not perfectly loyal 
 to the King on the throne. It is not to be con- 
 ceived that they entertained any hope of, any 
 wish for, the restoration of the House of Stuart ; 
 but, over their sparkling wine, they indulged 
 
 the 
 
 * These verses our poet composed to be sung to Morag, 
 a Highland air of which he was extremely fond.
 
 186 THE LIFE OF 
 
 the generous feelings which the recollection of 
 fallen greatness is calculated to inspire ; and 
 commemorated the heroic valour which strove 
 to sustain it in vain valour worthy of a nobler 
 cause and of a happier fortune. On this occa- 
 sion our bard took upon himself the office of 
 poet-laureate, and produced an ode, which though 
 deficient in the complicated rhythm and polished 
 versification that such compositions require, 
 might on a fair competition, where energy of 
 feelings and of expression were alone in question, 
 have won the butt of Malmsey from the real lau- 
 reate of that day. 
 
 The following extracts may serve as a speci- 
 men : 
 
 # # # * * p # 
 
 False flatterer, Hope, away ! 
 Nor think to lure us as in days of yore : 
 
 We solemnize this sorrowing natal day, 
 To prove our loyal truth we can no more ; 
 
 And owning Heaven's mysterious sway, 
 Submissive, low, adore. 
 
 II. 
 
 Ye honoured mighty dead ! 
 Who nobly perish'd in the glorious cause, 
 Your King, your country, and her laws ! 
 
 From great Dundee, who smiling victory led, 
 And fell a martyr in her arms, 
 (What breast of northern ice but warms ?) 
 
 To
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 18? 
 
 Tb bold Balmerino's undying name, 
 Whose soul of fire, lighted at heav'n's high flame, 
 Deserves the proudest wreath departed heroes claim.* 
 
 III. 
 
 Not unreveug'd your fate shall be, 
 
 It only lags the fatal hour ; 
 Your blood shall with incessant cry 
 
 Awake at last th' unsparing power. 
 As from the cliff, with thundering course, 
 
 The snowy ruin smokes along, 
 With doubling speed and gathering force, 
 Till deep it crashing whelms the cottage in the vale ; 
 So vengeance * * * 
 
 In relating the incidents of our poet's life in 
 Edinburgh, we ought to have mentioned the 
 sentiments of respect and sympathy with which 
 he traced out the grave of his predecessor Fer- 
 gusson, over whose ashes, in the Canongate 
 church-yard, he obtained leave to erect an 
 humble monument, which will be viewed by re- 
 flecting 
 
 * In the first part of this ode there is some beautiful 
 imagery, which the poet afterwards interwove in a happier 
 manner, in the Chevalier's Lament, (See vol. ii. p. 135.) 
 But if there were no other reasons for omitting to print the 
 entire poem, the want of originality would be sufficient. 
 A considerable part of it is a kind of rant, for which indeed 
 precedent may be cited in various other birth-day odes, but 
 with which it is impossible to go along.
 
 188 THE LIFE OF 
 
 fleeting minds with no common interest, and 
 which will awake, in the bosom of kindred ge- 
 nius, many a high emotion.* Neither should 
 we pass over the continued friendship he experi- 
 enced from a poet then living, the amiable and 
 accomplished Blacklock. To his encouraging 
 advice it was owing (as has already appeared) 
 that Burns, instead of emigrating to the West 
 Indies, repaired to Edinburgh. He received 
 him there with all the ardour of affectionate ad- 
 miration -, he eagerly introduced him to the re- 
 spectable circle of his friends ; he consulted his 
 interest; he blazoned his fame; he lavished upon 
 him all the kindness of a generous and feeling 
 heart, into which nothing selfish or envious ever 
 found admittance. Among the friends to whom 
 he introduced Burns was Mr. Ramsay of Och- 
 tertyre, to whom our poet paid a visit in the au- 
 tumn of 1787, at his delightful retirement in 
 the neighbourhood of Stirling, and on the banks 
 of the Teith. Of this visit we have the follow- 
 ing particulars : 
 
 " I have been in the company of many men 
 of genius," says Mr. Ramsay, " some of them 
 poets, but never witnessed such flashes of intel- 
 lectual brightness as from him, the impulse of 
 
 the 
 
 * See voL ii. p. 60 63, where the Epitaph will be 
 found, &c.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 189 
 
 the moment, sparks of celestial fire ! I never 
 was more delighted, therefore, than with his 
 company for two days, tete-a-tete. In a mixed 
 company I should have made little of him ; for, 
 in the gamester's phrase, he did not always know 
 when to play off and when to play on. * * * 
 I not only proposed to him the writing of a play 
 similar to the Gentle Shepherd, qualem decet esse 
 sororem, but Scottish Georgics, a subject which 
 Thomson has by no means exhausted in his Sea- 
 sons. W hat beautiful landscapes of rural life and 
 manners might not have been expected from a 
 pencil so faithful and forcible as his, which could 
 have exhibited scenes as familiar and interesting 
 as those in the Gentle Shepherd, which every one 
 who knows our swains in their unadulterated 
 state, instantly recognises as true to nature. 
 But to have executed either of these plans, stea- 
 diness and abstraction from company were want- 
 ing, not talents. When I asked him whether 
 the Edinburgh Literati had mended his poems 
 by their criticisms, " Sir," said he, " these gen- 
 tlemen remind me of some spinsters in my coun- 
 try, who spin their thread so fine that it is neither 
 fit for weft nor woof." He said he had not 
 changed a word except one, to please Dr. Blair.* 
 
 Having 
 
 * Extract of a letter from Mr. Ramsay to the Editor. 
 41 This incorrigibility of Burns extended, however, only to 
 
 his
 
 190 THE LIFE Or 
 
 Having settled with his publisher, Mr. Creech, 
 in February, 1788, Burns found himself master 
 of nearly five hundred pounds, after discharging 
 all his expenses. Two hundred pounds he im- 
 mediately advanced to his brother Gilbert, who 
 had taken upon himself the support of their 
 aged mother, and was struggling with many 
 difficulties in the farm of Mossgiel. With the 
 remainder of this sum, and some farther eventual 
 profits from his poems, he determined on settling 
 himself for life in the occupation of agriculture, 
 and took from Mr. Miller, of Dalswinton, the 
 farm of Ellisland, on the banks of the river Nith, 
 six miles above Dumfries, on which he entered 
 at Whitsunday, 1?88. Having been previously 
 recommended to the Board of Excise, his name 
 had been put on the list of candidates for the 
 humble office of a gauger or exciseman ; and he 
 immediately applied to acquiring the information 
 necessary for filling that office, when the honour- 
 able Board might judge it proper to employ 
 him. He expected to be called into service in 
 the district in which his farm was situated, and 
 yainly hoped to unite with success the labours 
 
 of 
 
 his poems printed before he arrived in Edinburgh ; for, in 
 regard to his unpublished poems, he was amenable to criti- 
 cism, of which many proofs might be given." See some 
 remarks on this subject, vol. iii. Jppendix, p. 388. E.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 191 
 
 of the farmer with the duties of the excise- 
 man. 
 
 When Burns had in this manner arranged 
 his plans for futurity, his generous heart turned 
 to the object of his most ardent attachment, 
 and listening to no considerations but those of 
 honour and affection, he joined with her in a 
 public declaration of marriage, thus legalizing 
 their union, and rendering it permanent for 
 life.* 
 
 Before Burns was known in Edinburgh, a 
 specimen of his poetry had recommended him 
 to Mr. Miller of Dalswinton. Understanding 
 that he intended to resume the life of a farmer, 
 Mr. Miller had invited him, in the spring of 
 1787, to view his estate in Nithsdale, offering 
 him at the same time the choice of any of his 
 farms out of lease, at such a rent as Burns and 
 his friends might judge proper. It was not in 
 the nature of Burns to take an undue advantage 
 of the liberality of Mr. Miller. He proceeded 
 in this business, however, with more than usual 
 deliberation. Having made choice of the farm 
 of Ellisland, he employed two of his friends, 
 skilled in the value of land, to examine it, and 
 with their approbation offered a rent to Mr. 
 
 Miller, 
 
 * See p. 75-6-7 of this volume.
 
 192 THE LIFE OF 
 
 Miller, which was immediately accepted. It 
 was not convenient for Mrs. Burns to remove 
 immediately from Ayrshire, and our poet there- 
 fore took up his residence alone at Ellisland, to 
 prepare for the reception of his wife and child- 
 ren, who joined him towards the end of the 
 year. 
 
 The situation in which Burns now found him- 
 self was calculated to awaken reflection. The 
 different steps he had of late taken were in their 
 nature highly important, and might be said to 
 have, in some measure, fixed his destiny. He 
 had become a husband and a father; he had en- 
 gaged in the management of a considerable farm, 
 a difficult and laborious undertaking; in his suc- 
 cess the happiness of his family was involved ; 
 it was time, therefore, to abandon the gaiety 
 and dissipation of which he had been too much 
 enamoured; to ponder seriously on the past, and 
 to form virtuous resolutions respecting the future. 
 That such was actually the state of his mind, 
 the following extract from his common-place 
 book may bear witness : 
 
 Ellisland, Sunday, Uth June, 1788. 
 
 " This is now the third day that I have been 
 in this country. ' Lord, what is man !' What 
 a bustling little bundle of passions, appetites, 
 
 ideas,
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 193 
 
 ideas and fancies ! And what a capricious kind 
 of existence he has here ! * * * There is indeed 
 an elsewhere, where, as Thomson says, virtue 
 sole survives. 
 
 " Tell us, ye dead j 
 Will none of you in pity disclose the secret, 
 What 'tis you are, and we must shortly be ? 
 
 A little time 
 
 Will make us wise as you are, and as close." 
 
 <e I am such a coward in life, so tired of the 
 service, that I would almost at any time, with 
 Milton's Adam, f gladly lay me in my mother's 
 lap, and be at peace.' 
 
 " But a wife and children bind me to struggle 
 with the stream, till some sudden squall shall 
 overset the silly vessel, or in the listless return 
 of years, its own craziness reduce it to a 
 wreck. Farewell now to those giddy follies, 
 those varnished vices, which, though half-sanc- 
 tified by the bewitching levity of wit and hu- 
 mour, are at best but thriftless idling with the 
 precious current of existence ; nay, often poi- 
 soning the whole, that, like the plains of Jeri- 
 cho, the water is naught and the ground barren, 
 and nothing short of a supernaturally-giited 
 Elisha can ever after heal the evils. 
 
 VOL. I. o " Wedlock
 
 194 THE LIFE OF 
 
 " Wedlock, the circumstance that buckles 
 me hardest to care, if virtue and religion were 
 to be any thing with me but names, was what 
 in a few seasons I must have resolved on j in 
 my present situation it was absolutely neces- 
 sary. Humanity, generosity, honest pride of 
 character, justice to my own happiness for after 
 life, so far as it could depend (which it surely 
 will a great deal) on internal peace ; all these 
 joined their warmest suffrages, their most power- 
 ful solicitations, with a rooted attachment, to 
 urge the step I have taken. Nor have I any 
 reason on her part to repent it. I can fancy 
 how, but have never seen where, I could have 
 made a better choice. Come, then, let me act 
 up to my favourite motto, that glorious passage 
 in Young 
 
 " On reason build resolve, 
 That column of true majesty in man !" 
 
 Under the impulse of these reflections, Burns 
 immediately engaged in rebuilding the dwelling- 
 house on his farm, which, in the state he found 
 it, was inadequate to the accommodation of his 
 family. On this occasion, he himself resumed 
 at times the occupation of a labourer, and 
 found neither his strength nor his skill impaired. 
 Pleased with surveying the grounds he was 
 about to cultivate, and with the rearing of a 
 building that should give shelter to his wife and 
 
 children,
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 195 
 
 children, and, as he fondly hoped, to his own 
 grey hairs, sentiments of independence buoyed 
 up his mind, pictures of domestic content and 
 peace rose on his imagination ; and a few days 
 passed away, as he himself informs us, the most 
 tranquil, if not the happiest, which he had ever 
 experienced.* 
 
 2 It 
 
 * Animated sentiments of any kind, almost always gave 
 rise in our poet to some production of his muse. His sen- 
 timents on this occasion were in part expressed by the fol- 
 lowing vigorous and characteristic, though not very delicate 
 verses : they are in imitation of an old ballad, 
 
 I hae a wife o' my ain, 
 
 I'll partake wi' nae-body ; 
 I'll tak cuckold frae nane, 
 
 I'll gie cuckold to nae-body. 
 
 I hae a penny to spend, 
 
 There thanks to nae-body ; 
 
 I hae naething to lend, 
 I'll borrow frae nae-body. 
 
 I am nae-body's lord, 
 I'll be slave to nae-body ; 
 
 I hae a guid braid sword, 
 I'll tak dunts frae nae-body, 
 
 I'll be merry and free, 
 I'll be sad for nae-body ; 
 
 If nae-body care for me, 
 I'll care for nae-bodv. 

 
 196 THE LIFE OF 
 
 It is to be lamented that at this critical pe- 
 riod of his life, our poet was without the society 
 of his wife and children. A great change had 
 taken place in his situation ; his old habits were 
 broken; and the new circumstances in which 
 he was placed were calculated to give a new 
 direction to his thoughts and conduct.* But 
 his application to the cares and labours of his 
 farm was interrupted by several visits to his 
 family in Ayrshire; and as the distance was 
 too great for a single day's journey, he gene- 
 rally spent a night at an inn on the road. On 
 such occasions he sometimes fell into company, 
 and forgot the resolutions he had formed. In 
 a little while temptation assailed him nearer 
 home. 
 
 His fame naturally drew upon him the atten- 
 tion of his neighbours, and he soon formed a 
 general acquaintance in the district in which 
 he lived. The public voice had now pro- 
 nounced on the subject of his talents; the re- 
 ception he had met with in Edinburgh had 
 given him the currency which fashion bestows ; 
 he had surmounted the prejudices arising from 
 his humble birth, and he was received at the 
 table of the gentlemen of Nithsdale with wel- 
 come, 
 
 * Mrs. Burns was about to be confined in child-bed, 
 and the house at Ellisland was rebuilding.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 197 
 
 come, with kindness, and even with respect. 
 Their social parties too often seduced him from 
 his rustic labours and his rustic fare, overthrew 
 the unsteady fabric of his resolutions, and in- 
 flamed those propensities which temperance 
 might have weakened, and prudence ultimately 
 suppressed.* It was not long, therefore, before 
 Burns began to view his farm with dislike and 
 despondence, if not with disgust. 
 
 Unfortunately he had for several years looked 
 to an office in the Excise as a certain means of 
 livelihood, should his other expectations fail. 
 As has already been mentioned, he had been 
 recommended to the Board of Excise, and had 
 
 received 
 
 * The poem of The Whistle (vol. iii. p. 868) celebrates 
 a Bacchanalian contest among three gentlemen of Niths- 
 dale, where Burns appears as umpire. Mr. Riddell died 
 before our Bard, and some elegiac verses to his memory 
 will be found in vol. iv. p. 368. From him, and from all 
 the members of his family, Burns received not kindness 
 only, but friendship ; and the society he met in general at 
 Friar's Carse was calculated to improve his habits as well 
 as his manners. Mr. Ferguson of Craigdarroch, so well 
 known for his eloquence and social talents, died soon after 
 our poet. Sir Robert Laurie, the third person in the 
 drama, survives, and has since been engaged in contests of 
 a bloodier nature. Long may he live to fight the battles 
 of his country! (1799).
 
 198 THE LIFE OF 
 
 received the instruction necessary for such a si- 
 tuation. He now applied to be employed ; and 
 by the interest of Mr. Graham of Fintry, was 
 appointed exciseman, or, as it is vulgarly called, 
 gauger, of the district in which he lived. His 
 farm was after this, in a great measure, aban- 
 doned to servants, while he betook himself to the 
 duties of his new appointment. 
 
 He might, indeed, still be seen in the spring, 
 directing his plough, a labour in which he ex- 
 celled; or with a white sheet, containing his 
 seed-corn, slung across his shoulders, striding 
 with measured steps along his turned-up fur- 
 rows, and scattering the grain in the earth. 
 But his farm no longer occupied the principal 
 part of his care or his thoughts. It was not 
 at Ellisland that he was now in general to be 
 found. Mounted on horseback, this high-mind- 
 ed poet was pursuing the defaulters of the reve- 
 nue, among the hills and vales of Nithsdale, his 
 roving eye wandering over the charms of nature, 
 and muttering his wayward fancies as he moved 
 along. 
 
 " I had an adventure with him in the year 
 1790," says Mr. Ramsay, of Ochtertyre, in a 
 letter to the editor, " when passing through 
 Dumfries-shire, on a tour to the South, with Dr. 
 Steuart of Luss. Seeing him pass quickly, near 
 
 Closeburn,
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 199 
 
 Closeburn, I said to my companion, * that is 
 Burns.' On coming to the inn, the hostler told 
 us he would be back in a few hours to grant 
 permits j that where he met with any thing 
 seizable he was no better than any other 
 gauger; in every thing else, that he was per- 
 fectly a gentleman. After leaving a note to be 
 delivered to him on his return, I proceeded to 
 his house, being curious to see his Jean, &c. I 
 was much pleased with his uxor Sabina qualis, 
 and the poet's modest mansion, so unlike the 
 habitation of ordinary rustics. In the evening 
 he suddenly bounced in upon us, and said, as 
 he entered, I come, to use the words of Shake- 
 speare, stewed in haste. In fact he had ridden 
 incredibly fast after receiving my note. We 
 fell into conversation directly, and soon got 
 into the mare magnum of poetry. He told me 
 that he had now gotten a story for a Drama, 
 which he was to call Rob Macquechan's Elshon, 
 from a popular story of Robert Bruce being de- 
 feated on the water of Caern, when the heel of 
 his boot having loosened in his flight, he ap- 
 plied to Robert Macquechan to fit it ; who, to 
 make sure, ran his awl nine inches up the King's 
 heel. We were now going on at a great rate, 
 
 when Mr. S popped in his head ; which put 
 
 a stop to our discourse, which had become very 
 interesting. Yet in a little while it was re- 
 sumed 5 and such was the force and versatility 
 
 of
 
 200 . THE LIFE OF 
 
 of the bard's genius, that he made the tears run 
 
 down Mr. S 's cheeks, albeit unused to the 
 
 poetic strain. * * * From that time we met no 
 more, and I was grieved at the reports of him 
 afterwards. Poor Burns ! we shall hardly ever 
 see his like again. He was, in truth, a sort of 
 comet in literature, irregular in its motions, 
 which did not do good proportioned to the blaze 
 of light it displayed." 
 
 In the summer of 1791, two English gen- 
 tlemen, who had before met with him in Edin- 
 burgh, paid a visit to him at Ellisland. On 
 calling at the house, they were informed that 
 he had walked out on the banks of the river ; 
 and dismounting from their horses, they pro- 
 ceeded in search of him. On a rock that pro- 
 jected into the stream, they saw a man employ- 
 ed in angling, of a singular appearance. He 
 had a cap made of a fox's skin on his head, a 
 loose great coat fixed round him by a belt, 
 from which depended an enormous Highland 
 broadsword. It was Burns. He received them 
 with great cordiality, and asked them to share 
 his humble dinner an invitation which they 
 accepted. On the table they found boiled beef, 
 with vegetables, and barley broth, after the 
 manner of Scotland, of which they partook 
 heartily. After dinner, the bard told them in- 
 genuously that he had no wine to offer them, 
 
 nothing
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 201 
 
 nothing better than Highland whiskey, a bottle 
 of which Mrs. Burns set on the board. He 
 produced at the same time his punch-bowl made 
 of Inverary marble, and, mixing the spirit with 
 water and sugar, filled their glasses, and invited 
 them to drink.* The travellers were in haste, 
 and besides, the flavour of the whiskey to their 
 suthron palates was scarcely tolerable ; but the 
 generous poet offered them his best, and his 
 ardent hospitality they found it impossible to 
 resist. Burns was in his happiest mood, and 
 the charms of his conversation were altogether 
 fascinating. He ranged over a great variety of 
 topics, illuminating whatever he touched. He 
 related the tales of his infancy and of his youth ; 
 he recited some of the gayest and some of the 
 tenderest of his poems; in the wildest of his 
 strains of mirth, he threw in some touches of 
 melancholy, and spread around him the electric 
 emotions of his powerful mind. The Highland 
 whiskey improved in its flavour; the marble 
 bowl was again and again emptied and reple- 
 nished ; the guests of our poet forgot the flight 
 of time, and the dictates of prudence : at the 
 hour of midnight they lost their way in return- 
 
 insr 
 
 * This bowl was made of the stone of which Inverary- 
 house is built, the mansion of the family of Argyle. This 
 stone is the lapis ollaris.
 
 202 THE LIFE OF 
 
 ing to Dumfries, and could scarcely distinguish 
 it when assisted by the morning's dawn.* 
 
 Besides his duties in the excise and his social 
 pleasures, other circumstances interfered with 
 the attention of Burns to his farm. He engaged 
 in the formation of a society for purchasing 
 and circulating books among the farmers of his 
 neighbourhood, of which he undertook the ma- 
 nagement jf and he occupied himself occasion- 
 ally in composing songs for the musical work of 
 Mr. Johnson, then in the course of publica- 
 tion. These engagements, useful and honour- 
 able in themselves, contributed, no doubt, to the 
 abstraction of his thoughts from the business of 
 agriculture. 
 
 The consequences may be easily imagined. 
 Notwithstanding the uniform prudence and 
 good management of Mrs. Burns, and though 
 his rent was moderate and reasonable, our poet 
 found it convenient, if not necessary, to resign 
 his farm to Mr. Miller; after having occupied 
 it three years and a half. His office in the ex- 
 cise had originally produced about fifty pounds 
 per annum. Having acquitted himself to the 
 
 satisfaction 
 
 * Given from the information of one of the party. 
 f See vol. ii. p. 274.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 203 
 
 satisfaction of the board, he had been appointed 
 to a new district, the emoluments of which rose 
 to about seventy pounds per annum. Hoping to 
 support himself and his family on this humble 
 income till promotion should reach him, he dis- 
 posed of his stock and of his crop on Ellisland 
 by public auction, and removed to a small house 
 which he had taken in Dumfries, about the end 
 of the year 1791. 
 
 Hitherto Burns, though addicted to excess in 
 social parties, had abstained from the habitual 
 use of strong liquors, and his constitution had 
 not suffered any permanent injury from the irre- 
 gularities of his conduct. In Dumfries, temp- 
 tations to the sin that so easily beset him, con- 
 tinually presented themselves; and his irregu- 
 larities grew by degrees into habits. These 
 temptations unhappily occurred during his en- 
 gagements in the business of his office, as well 
 as during his hours of relaxation ; and though 
 he clearly foresaw the consequence of yielding 
 to them, his appetites and sensations, which 
 could not prevent the dictates of his judgment, 
 finally triumphed over the powers of his will. 
 Yet this victory was not obtained without many 
 obstinate struggles, and at times temperance 
 and virtue seemed to have obtained the mastery. 
 Besides his engagements in the excise, and the 
 society into which they led, many circumstances 
 
 contributed
 
 204 THE LIFE OF 
 
 contributed to the melancholy fate of Burns. 
 His great celebrity made him an object of in- 
 terest and curiosity to strangers, and few per- 
 sons of cultivated minds passed through Dum- 
 fries without attempting to see our poet, and to 
 enjoy the pleasure of his conversation. As he 
 could not receive them under his own humble 
 roof, these interviews passed at the inns of the 
 town, and often terminated in those excesses 
 which Burns sometimes provoked, and was sel- 
 dom able to resist. And among the inhabitants 
 of Dumfries and its vicinity, there were never 
 wanting persons to share his social pleasures ; to 
 lead or accompany him to the tavern ; to par- 
 take in the wildest sallies of his wit; to witness 
 the strength and the degradation of his genius. 
 
 Still, however, he cultivated the society of 
 persons of taste and of respectability, and in 
 their company could impose on himself the re- 
 straints of temperance and decorum. Nor was 
 his muse dormant. In the four years which he 
 lived in Dumfries, he produced many of his 
 beautiful lyrics, though it does not appear that 
 he attempted any poem of considerable length. 
 During this time he made several excursions 
 into the neighbouring country, of one of which, 
 through Galloway, an account is preserved in a 
 letter of Mr. Syme, written soon after; which, 
 as it gives an animated picture of him by a cor- 
 rect
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 205 
 
 rect and masterly hand, we shall present to the 
 reader. 
 
 " I got Burns a grey Highland shelty to 
 ride on. We dined the first day, 27th July, 
 1793, at Glendenwynes of Parton; a beautiful 
 situation on the banks of the Dee. In the even- 
 ing we walked out, and ascended a gentle emi- 
 nence, from which we had as fine a view of 
 Alpine scenery as can well be imagined. A de^ 
 lightful soft evening showed all its wilder as well 
 as its grander graces. Immediately opposite, 
 and within a mile of us, we saw Airds, a charm- 
 ing romantic place, where dwelt Low, the author 
 of Mary weep no more for me* This was clas- 
 sical ground for Burns. He viewed " the 
 highest hill which rises o'er the source of Dee ;" 
 and would have staid till " the passing spirit" 
 had appeared, had we not resolved to reach 
 Kenmore that night. We arrived as Mr. and 
 Mrs. Gordon were sitting down to supper. 
 
 " Here is a genuine baron's seat. The 
 
 castle, 
 
 * A beautiful and well-known ballad, which begins 
 thus : 
 
 The moon had climb'd the highest hill 
 Which rises o'er the source of Dee ; 
 And, from the eastern summit, shed 
 Its silver light on tower and tree.
 
 206 THE LIFE OF 
 
 castle, an old building, stands on a large natural 
 moat. In front, the river Ken winds for several 
 miles through the most fertile and beautiful 
 holm* till it expands into a lake twelve miles 
 long, the banks of which, on the south, present 
 a fine and soft landscape of green knolls, natural 
 wood, and here and there a grey rock. On the 
 north, the aspect is great, wild, and, I may say, 
 tremendous. In short, I can scarcely conceive 
 a scene more terribly romantic than the castle of 
 Kenmore. Burns thinks so highly of it, that he 
 meditates a description of it in poetry. Indeed, 
 I believe he has begun the work. We spent 
 three days with Mr. Gordon, whose polished 
 hospitality is of an original and endearing kind. 
 Mrs. Gordon's lap-dog, Echo, was dead. She 
 would have an epitaph for him. Several had 
 been made. Burns was asked for one. This 
 was setting Hercules to his distaff. He disliked 
 the subject; but, to please the lady, he would 
 try. Here is what he produced : 
 
 In wood and wild ye warbling throng 
 
 Your heavy loss deplore ; 
 
 Now half extinct your powers of song, 
 
 Sweet Echo is no more. 
 
 Ye 
 
 * The level low-ground on the banks of a river or 
 stream. This word should be adopted from the Scottish, 
 as, indeed, ought several others of the same nature. That 
 dialect is singularly copious and exact in the denominations 
 of natural objects. E.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 207 
 
 Ye jarring screeching things around, 
 
 Scream your discordant joys ; 
 Now half your din of tuneless sound 
 
 With Echo silent lies. 
 
 " We left Kenmore, and went to Gatehouse. 
 I took him the moor-road, where savage and 
 desolate regions extended wide around. The 
 sky was sympathetic with the wretchedness of 
 the soil ; it became lowering and dark. The hol- 
 low winds sighed, the lightnings gleamed, the 
 thunder rolled. The poet enjoyed the awful 
 scene he spoke not a word, but seemed rapt 
 in meditation. In a little while the rain began 
 to fall ; it poured in floods upon us. For three 
 hours did the wild elements rumble their belly- 
 full upon our defenceless heads. Oh, oh I 'twas 
 foul. We got utterly wet ; and to revenge our- 
 selves, Burns insisted at Gatehouse on our get- 
 ting utterly drunk. 
 
 " From Gatehouse, we went next day to 
 Kirkcudbright, through a fine country. But 
 here I must tell you that Burns had got a pair 
 of jemmy boots for the journey, which had been 
 thoroughly wet, and which had been dried in 
 such a manner that it was not possible to get 
 them on again. The brawny poet tried force, 
 and tore them to shreds. A whiffling vexation 
 of this sort is more trying to the temper than a 
 
 serious
 
 208 THE LIFE OF 
 
 serious calamity. We were going to Saint 
 Mary's Isle, the seat of the Earl of Selkirk, and 
 the forlorn Burns was discomfited at the thought 
 of his ruined boots. A sick stomach, and a 
 head-ache, lent their aid, and the man of verse 
 was quite accable. I attempted to reason with 
 him. Mercy on us, how he did fume and rage ! 
 Nothing could re-instate him in temper. I 
 tried various expedients, and at last hit on one 
 that succeeded. I showed him the house of 
 
 * * * *, across the bay of Wigton. Against 
 
 * * * * t with whom he was offended, he ex- 
 pectorated his spleen, and regained a most 
 agreeable temper. He was in a most epigram- 
 matic humour indeed ! He afterwards fell on 
 humbler game. There is one ****** whom 
 he does not love. He had a passing blow at 
 him. 
 
 When * * * * * * t deceased, to the devil went down, 
 'Twas nothing would serve him but Satan's own crown : 
 Thy fool's head, quoth Satan, that crown shall wear 
 
 never, 
 I grant thou'rt as wicked, but not quite so clever. 
 
 " Well, I am to bring you to Kirkcudbright 
 along with our poet, without boots. I carried 
 the torn ruins across my saddle in spite of his 
 fulminations, and in contempt of appearances; 
 and what is more, Lord Selkirk carried them in 
 
 his
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 209 
 
 his coach to Dumfries. He insisted they were 
 worth mending. 
 
 " We reached Kirkcudbright about one 
 o'clock. I had promised that we should dine 
 with one of the first men in our country, J. 
 Dalzell. But Burns was in a wild and obstrepe- 
 rous humour, and swore he would not dine where 
 he should be under the smallest restraint. We 
 prevailed, therefore, on Mr. Dalzell to dine with 
 us in the inn, and had a very agreeable party. 
 In the evening we set out for St. Mary's Isle. 
 Robert had not absolutely regained the milki- 
 ness of good temper, and it occurred once or 
 twice to him, as he rode along, that St. Mary's 
 Isle was the seat of a Lord ; yet that Lord was 
 not an aristocrat, at least in his sense of the 
 word. We arrived about eight o'clock, as the 
 family were at tea and coffee. St. Mary's Isle 
 is one of the most delightful places that can, in 
 my opinion, be formed by the assemblage of 
 every soft, but not tame object which consti- 
 tutes natural and cultivated beauty. But not 
 to dwell on its external graces, let me tell you 
 that we found all the ladies of the family (all 
 beautiful) at home, and some strangers ; and 
 among others, who but Urbani ! The Italian 
 sung us many Scottish songs, accompanied with 
 instrumental music. The two young ladies of 
 Selkirk sung also. We had the song of Lord 
 VOL. I. P Gregory,
 
 210 THE LIFE OP 
 
 Gregory, which I asked for, to have an oppor- 
 tunity of calling on Burns to recite his ballad 
 to that tune. He did recite it ; and such was 
 the effect, that a dead silence ensued. It was 
 such a silence as a mind of feeling naturally 
 preserves when it is touched with that enthusi- 
 asm which banishes every other thought but the 
 contemplation and indulgence of the sympathy 
 produced. Burns's Lord Gregory is, in my 
 opinion, a most beautiful and affecting ballad.* 
 The fastidious critic may perhaps say, some of 
 the sentiments and imagery are of too elevated 
 a kind for such a style of composition ; for in- 
 stance, " Thou bolt of Heaven that passest by $" 
 and, " Ye mustering thunder," &c. ; but this is a 
 cold-blooded objection, which will be said rather 
 than felt. 
 
 " We enjoyed a most happy evening at Lord 
 Selkirk's. We had, in every sense of the word, 
 a feast, in which our minds and our senses were 
 equally gratified. The poet was delighted with 
 his company, and acquitted himself to admira- 
 tion. The lion that had raged so violently in 
 the morning, was now as mild and gentle as a 
 lamb. Next day we returned to Dumfries, and 
 so ends our peregrination. I told you, that in 
 the midst of the storm, on the wilds of Ken- 
 more, 
 
 * See vol. iv. p. 38.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 211 
 
 more, Burns was rapt in meditation. What 
 do you think he was about ? He was charging 
 the English army, along with Bruce, at Ban- 
 nockburn. He was engaged in the same man- 
 ner on our ride home from St. Mary's Isle, and 
 I did not disturb him. Next day he produced 
 me the following address of Bruce to his troops, 
 and gave me a copy for Dalzell." 
 
 " Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled," &c. # 
 
 Burns had entertained hopes of promotion in 
 the excise j but circumstances occurred which 
 retarded their fulfilment, and which, in his own 
 mind, destroyed all expectation of their being 
 ever fulfilled. The extraordinary events which 
 ushered in the revolution of France, interested 
 the feelings, and excited the hopes of men in 
 every corner of Europe. Prejudice and tyranny 
 seemed about to disappear from among men, 
 and the day-star of reason to rise upon a be- 
 nighted world. In the dawn of this beautiful 
 morning, the genius of French freedom appeared 
 on our southern horizon with the countenance 
 of an angel, but speedily assumed the features 
 of a demon, and vanished in a shower of blood. 
 
 Though previously a Jacobite and a cavalier, 
 p 2 Burns 
 
 See vol. iv. p. 125.
 
 212 THE LIFE OF 
 
 Burns had shared in the original hopes enter- 
 tained of this astonishing revolution, by ardent 
 and benevolent minds. The novelty and the 
 hazard of the attempt meditated by the First, or 
 Constituent Assembly, served rather, it is pro- 
 bable, to recommend it to his daring temper ; 
 and the unfettered scope proposed to be given 
 to every kind of talents, was doubtless gratify- 
 ing to the feelings of conscious but indignant 
 genius. Burns foresaw not the mighty ruin 
 that was to be the immediate consequence of an 
 enterprise, which on its commencement, pro- 
 mised so much happiness to the human race. 
 And even after the career of guilt and of blood 
 commenced, he could not immediately, it may 
 be presumed, withdraw his partial gaze from a 
 people who had so lately breathed the senti- 
 ments of universal peace and benignity, or ob- 
 literate in his bosom the pictures of hope and of 
 happiness to which those sentiments had given 
 birth. Under these impressions, he did not al- 
 ways conduct himself with the circumspection 
 and prudence which his dependent situation 
 seemed to demand. He engaged indeed in no 
 popular associations, so common at the time of 
 which we speak ; but in company he did not 
 conceal his opinions of public measures, or of the 
 reforms required in the practice of our govern- 
 ment : and sometimes, in his social and un- 
 guarded
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 213 
 
 guarded moments, he uttered them with a wild 
 and unjustifiable vehemence. Information of 
 this was given to the Board of Excise, with the 
 exaggerations so general in such cases. A su- 
 perior officer in that department was authorized 
 to inquire into his conduct. Burns defended 
 himself in a letter addressed to one of the Board, 
 written with great independence of spirit, and 
 with more than his accustomed eloquence. The 
 officer appointed to inquire into his conduct 
 gave a favourable report. His steady friend, 
 Mr. Graham of Fintry, interposed his good of- 
 fices in his behalf; and the imprudent gauger 
 was suffered to retain his situation, but given to 
 understand that his promotion was deferred, and 
 must depend on his future behaviour. 
 
 This circumstance made a deep impression 
 on the mind of Burns. Fame exaggerated his 
 misconduct, and represented him as actually 
 dismissed from his office; and this report in- 
 duced a gentleman of much respectability to pro- 
 pose a subscription in his favour. The offer was 
 refused by our poet in a letter of great elevation 
 of sentiment, in which he gives an account of 
 the whole of this transaction, and defends him- 
 self from the imputation of disloyal sentiments 
 on the one hand, and on the other, from the 
 charge of having made submissions for the sake 
 of his office, unworthy of his character. 
 
 " The
 
 214 THE LIFE OF 
 
 " The partiality of my countrymen/' he ob- 
 serves, " has brought me forward as a man of 
 genius, and has given me a character to support. 
 In the poet I have avowed manly and independ- 
 ent sentiments, which I hope have been found 
 in the man. Reasons of no less weight than 
 the support of a wife and children, have pointed 
 out my present occupation as the only eligible 
 line of life within my reach. Still my honest 
 fame is my dearest concern, and a thousand 
 times have I trembled at the idea of the degrad- 
 ing epithets that malice or misrepresentation, 
 may affix to my name. Often in blasting anti- 
 cipation have I listened to some future hackney 
 scribbler, with the heavy malice of savage stu- 
 pidity, exultingly asserting that Burns, not- 
 withstanding the fanfaronade of independence 
 to be found in his works, and after having been 
 held up to public view, and to public estima- 
 tion, as a man of some genius, yet, quite desti- 
 tute of resources within himself to support his 
 borrowed dignity, dwindled into a paltry ex- 
 ciseman, and slunk out the rest of his insignifi- 
 cant existence in the meanest of pursuits, and 
 among the lowest of mankind. 
 
 " In your illustrious hands, Sir, permit me 
 to lodge my strong disavowal and defiance of 
 such slanderous falsehoods. Burns was a poor 
 man from his birth, and an exciseman by ne- 
 cessity :
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 215 
 
 cessity : but I will say it ! the sterling of his 
 honest worth, poverty could not debase, and his 
 independent British spirit, oppression might 
 bend, but could not subdue." 
 
 It was one of the last acts of his life to copy 
 this letter into his book of manuscripts, accom- 
 panied by some additional remarks on the same 
 subject. It is not surprising, that at a season 
 of universal alarm for the safety of the consti- 
 tution, the indiscreet expressions of a man so 
 powerful as Burns, should have attracted notice. 
 The times certainly required extraordinary vi- 
 gilance in those intrusted with the administra- 
 tion of the government, and to ensure the safety 
 of the constitution was doubtless their first 
 duty. Yet generous minds will lament that 
 their measures of precaution should have robbed 
 the imagination of our poet of the last prop on 
 which his hopes of independence rested, and by 
 embittering his peace, have aggravated those 
 excesses which were soon to conduct him to an 
 untimely grave. 
 
 Though the vehemence of Burns's temper, 
 increased as it often was by stimulating liquors, 
 might lead him into many improper and un- 
 guarded expressions, there seems no reason to 
 doubt of his attachment to our mixed form of 
 
 government.
 
 216 THE LIFE OF 
 
 government. In his common-place book, where 
 he could have no temptation to disguise, are the 
 following sentiments. " Whatever miirht be my 
 sentimenis of republics, ancient or modern, as to 
 Britain, I ever abjured the idea. A constitution, 
 "which in its original principles, experience has 
 proved to be every way fitted for our happiness, 
 it would be insanity to abandon for an untried 
 visionary theory." In conformity to these sen- 
 timents, when the pressing nature of public af- 
 fairs called in 1795 for a general arming of the 
 people, Burns appeared in the ranks of the Dum- 
 fries volunteers, and employed his poetical talents 
 in stimulating their patriotism ;* and at this sea- 
 son of alarm, he brought forward the following 
 hymn, worthy of the Grecian Muse, when Greece 
 was most conspicuous for genius and valour. 
 
 Scene A Field of B.ttle Time of die Day, 
 Evening the wounded and dying of the vic- 
 torious Army are supposed to join in the follow- 
 ing Sons 
 
 Farewell, thou fair day, thou green earth, and ye skies, 
 
 Now gay with the bri_ht setting sun ; 
 Farewell loves and friendships, ye dear tender ties, 
 
 Our race of existence is run ! 
 
 Thou 
 
 * See vol. iv. p. 384.
 
 ROBERT BURKS. 217 
 
 Thou grim king of terrors, thou life's gloomy foe, 
 
 Go, frighten the coward and slave ; 
 Go, teach them to tremble, fell tyrant ! but know, 
 
 No terrors hast thou to the brave ! 
 
 Thou strik'st the dull peasant, he sinks in the dark, 
 
 Nor saves e'en the wreck of a name ; 
 Thou strik'st the young hero a glorious mark ! 
 
 He falls in the blaze of his fame ! 
 
 In the field of proud honor our swords in our hands, 
 
 Our king and our country to save 
 While victory shines on life's last ebbing sands, 
 
 O ! who would not rest with the brave !* 
 
 Though by nature of an athletic form, Burns 
 had in his constitution the peculiarities and the 
 delicacies that belong to the temperament of 
 genius. He was liable, from a very early period 
 
 of 
 
 * This poem was written in 1 79 1 See vol. ii. 
 p. 335. It was printed in Johnsons Musical Museum. 
 The poet had an intention, in the latter part of his life, 
 of printing it separately, set to music, but was advised 
 against it, or at least discouraged from it. The martial 
 ardour which rose so high afterwards, on the threat- 
 ened invasion, had not then acquired the tone necessary 
 to give popularity to this noble poem ; which to the 
 editor, seems more calculated to invigorate the spirit of 
 defence, in a season of real and pressing danger, than any 
 production of modern times. It is here printed with 
 his last corrections, varied a little from the copy followed, 
 vol. ii. p. 385.
 
 218 THE LIFE OF 
 
 of life, to that interruption in the process of 
 digestion, which arises from deep and anxious 
 thought, and which is sometimes the effect, and 
 sometimes the cause of depression of spirits. 
 Connected with this disorder of the stomach, 
 there was a disposition to head-ache, affecting 
 more especially the temples and eye-balls, and 
 frequently accompanied by violent and irregu- 
 lar movements of the heart. Endowed by nature 
 with great sensibility of nerves, Burns was, in 
 his corporeal, as well as in his mental system, 
 liable to inordinate impressions ; to fever of 
 body as well as of mind. This predisposition to 
 disease, which strict temperance in diet, regular 
 exercise, and sound sleep, might have subdued, 
 habits of a very different nature strengthened and 
 inflamed. Perpetually stimulated by alcohol in 
 one or other of its various forms, the inordinate 
 actions of the circulating system became at 
 length habitual; the process of nutrition was 
 unable to supply the waste, and the powers of life 
 began to fail. Upwards of a year before his death, 
 there was an evident decline in our poet's personal 
 appearance, and though his appetite continued 
 unimpaired, he was himself sensible that his con- 
 stitution was sinking. In his moments of thought 
 he reflected with the deepest regret on his fatal 
 progress, clearly foreseeing the goal towards 
 which he was hastening, without the strength 
 of mind necessary to stop, or even to slacken his 
 
 course.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 219 
 
 course. His temper now became more irritable 
 and gloomy j he fled from himself into society, 
 often of the lowest kind. And in such company, 
 that part of the convivial scene, in which wine 
 increases sensibility and excites benevolence, was 
 hurried over, to reach the succeeding part, over 
 which uncontroled passion generally presided. 
 He who suffers the pollution of inebriation, how 
 shall he escape other pollution ? But let us re- 
 frain from the mention of errors over which de- 
 licacy and humanity draw the veil. 
 
 In the midst of all his wanderings, Burns met 
 nothing in his domestic circle but gentleness and 
 forgiveness, except in the gnawings of his own 
 remorse. He acknowledged his transgressions to 
 the wife of his bosom, promised amendment, and 
 again and again received pardon for his offences. 
 But as the strength of his body decayed, his 
 resolution became feebler, and habit acquired 
 predominating strength. 
 
 From October 1795, to- the January follow- 
 ing, an accidental complaint confined him to the 
 house. A few days after he began to go abroad, 
 he dined at a tavern, and returned home about 
 three o'clock in a very cold morning, benumbed 
 and intoxicated. This was followed by an attack 
 of rheumatism, which confined him about a week. 
 His appetite now began to fail ; his hand shook, 
 
 and
 
 220 THE LIFE OF 
 
 and his voice faltered on any exertion or emo- 
 tion. His pulse became weaker and more rapid, 
 and pain in the larger joints, and in the hands 
 and feet, deprived him of the enjoyment of re- 
 freshing sleep. Too much dejected in his spirits, 
 and too well aware of his real situation to enter- 
 tain hopes of recovery, he was ever musing on 
 the approaching desolation of his family, and 
 his spirits sunk into an uniform gloom. 
 
 It was hoped by some of his friends, that if 
 he could live through the months of spring, the 
 succeeding season might restore him. But they 
 were disappointed. The genial beams of the sun 
 infused no vigour into his languid frame ; the 
 summer wind blew upon him, but produced no 
 refreshment. About the latter end of June he 
 was advised to go into the country, and impatient 
 of medical advice, as well as of every species of 
 control, he determined for himself to try the 
 effects of bathing in the sea. For this purpose 
 he took up his residence at Brow, in Annandale, 
 about ten miles east of Dumfries, on the shore 
 of the Solway-Firth. 
 
 It happened that at that time a lady with 
 whom he had been connected in friendship by 
 the sympathies of kindred genius, was residing 
 in the immediate neighbourhood.* Being in- 
 formed 
 
 * For a character of this lady, see vol. ii. p. 380.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 1221 
 
 formed of his arrival, she invited him to dinner, 
 and sent her carriage for him to the cottage where 
 he lodged, as he was unable to walk. " I was 
 struck," says this lady (in a confidential letter 
 to a friend written soon after), " with his ap- 
 pearance on entering the room. The stamp of 
 death was imprinted on his features. He seemed 
 already touching the brink of eternity. His first 
 salutation was, " Well, Madam, have you any 
 commands for the other world ?" I replied, that 
 it seemed a doubtful case which of us should be 
 there soonest, and that I hoped he would yet 
 live to write my epitaph. (I was then in a bad 
 state of health). He looked in my face with an 
 air of great kindness, and expressed his concern 
 at seeing me look so ill, with his accustomed 
 sensibility. At table he ate little or nothing, and 
 he complained of having entirely lost the tone of 
 his stomach. We had a long and serious conver- 
 sation about his present situation, and the ap- 
 proaching termination of all his earthly prospects. 
 He spoke of his death without any of the osten- 
 tation of philosophy, but with firmness as well 
 as feeling as an event likely to happen very 
 soon, and which gave him concern chiefly from 
 leaving his four children so young and unpro- 
 tected, and his wife in so interesting a situa- 
 tion in hourly expectation of lying-in of a fifth. 
 He mentioned, with seeming pride and satisfac- 
 tion, the promising genius of his eldest son, and 
 
 the
 
 222 THE LIFE OP 
 
 the flattering marks of approbation he had re- 
 ceived from his teachers, and dwelt particularly 
 on his hopes of that boy's future conduct and 
 merit. His anxiety for his family seemed to 
 hang heavy upon him, and the more perhaps 
 from the reflection that he had not done them 
 all the justice he was so well qualified to do. 
 Passing from this subject, he shewed great con- 
 cern about the care of his literary fame, and 
 particularly the publication of his posthumous 
 works. He said he was well aware that his 
 death would occasion some noise, and that 
 every scrap of his writing would be revived 
 against him to the injury of his future reputa- 
 tion : that letters and verses written with un- 
 guarded and improper freedom, and which he 
 earnestly wished to have buried in oblivion, 
 would be handed about by idle vanity or male- 
 volence, when no dread of his resentment would 
 restrain them, or prevent the censures of shrill- 
 tongued malice, or the insidious sarcasms of 
 envy, from pouring forth all their venom to 
 blast his fame. 
 
 " He lamented that he had written many 
 epigrams on persons against whom he enter- 
 tained no enmity, and whose characters he 
 should be sorry to wound ; and many indiffer- 
 ent poetical pieces, which he feared would 
 now, with all their imperfections on their head, 
 
 be
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 223 
 
 be thrust upon the world. On this account he 
 deeply regretted having deferred to put his pa- 
 pers in a state of arrangement, as he was now 
 quite incapable of the exertion." -The lady goes 
 on to mention many other topics of a private 
 nature on which he spoke. " The conversa- 
 tion," she adds, <{ was kept up with great even- 
 ness and animation on his side. I had seldom 
 seen his mind greater or more collected. There 
 was frequently a considerable degree of vivacity 
 in his sallies, and they would probably have 
 had a greater share, had not the concern and 
 dejection I could not disguise, damped the spi- 
 rit of pleasantry he seemed not unwilling to in- 
 dulge. 
 
 " We parted about sun-set on the evening 
 of that day (the 5th of July, 1796) ; the next 
 day I saw him again, and we parted to meet no 
 more !" 
 
 At first Burns imagined bathing in the sea 
 had been of benefit to him : the pains in his 
 limbs were relieved ; but this was immediately 
 followed by a new attack of fever. When 
 brought back to his own house in Dumfries, 
 on the 18th of July, he was no longer able to 
 stand upright. At this time a tremor pervaded 
 his frame : his tongue was parched, and his 
 
 mind
 
 22 THE LIFE OF 
 
 mind sunk into delirium, when not roused by- 
 conversation. On the second and third day the 
 fever increased, and his strength diminished. 
 On the fourth, the sufferings of this great, but 
 ill-fated genius were terminated, and a life was 
 closed in which virtue and passion had been at 
 perpetual variance.* 
 
 The death of Burns made a strong and ge- 
 neral impression on all who had interested them- 
 selves in his character, and especially on the 
 inhabitants of the town and county in which he 
 had spent the latter years of his life. Flagrant 
 as his follies and errors had been, they had not 
 deprived him of the respect and regard enter- 
 tained for the extraordinary powers of his ge- 
 nius, and the generous qualities of his heart. 
 The Gentlemen-Volunteers of Dumfries deter- 
 mined to bury their illustrious associate with 
 military honours, and every preparation was 
 made to render this last service solemn and im- 
 pressive. The Fencible Infantry of Angus-shire, 
 and the regiment of cavalry of the Cinque Ports, 
 at that time quartered in Dumfries, offered their 
 assistance on this occasion ; the principal inha- 
 bitants of the town and neighbourhood deter- 
 mined 
 
 * The particulars respecting the illness and death of 
 Burns were obligingly furnished by Dr. Maxwell, the 
 physician who attended him.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 225 
 
 mined to walk in the funeral procession j and a 
 vast concourse of persons assembled, some of 
 them from a considerable distance, to witness 
 the obsequies of the Scottish Bard. On the 
 evening of the 25th of July, the remains of 
 Burns were removed from his house to the 
 Town-Hall, and the funeral took place on the 
 succeeding day. A party of the volunteers, 
 selected to perform the military duty in the 
 church-yard, stationed themselves in the front 
 of the procession, with their arms reversed; the 
 main body of the corps surrounded and sup- 
 ported the coffin, on which were placed the 
 hat and sword of their friend and fellow-soldier ; 
 the numerous body of attendants ranged them- 
 selves in the rear ; while the Fencible regiments 
 of infantry and cavalry lined the streets from the 
 Town-Hall to the burial-ground in the Southern 
 church-yard, a distance of more than half a mile. 
 The whole procession moved forward to that 
 sublime and affecting strain of music, the Dead 
 March in Saul : and three volleys fired over his 
 grave marked the return of Burns to his parent 
 earth ! The spectacle was in a high degree 
 grand and solemn, and accorded with the gene- 
 ral sentiments of sympathy and sorrow which the 
 occasion had called forth. 
 
 It was an affecting circumstance, that, on 
 
 the morning of the day of her husband's fune- 
 
 VOL. I. Q ral,
 
 226 THE LIFE OF 
 
 ral, Mrs. Burns was undergoing the pains of 
 labour, and that during the solemn service we 
 have just been describing, the posthumous son 
 of our poet was born. This infant boy, who re- 
 ceived the name of Maxwell, was not destined 
 to a long life. He has already become an inha- 
 bitant of the same grave with his celebrated 
 father. The four other children of our poet, all 
 sons (the eldest at that time about ten years of 
 age) yet survive, and give every promise of pru- 
 dence and virtue that can be expected from their 
 tender years. They remain under the care of 
 their affectionate mother in Dumfries, and are 
 enjoying the means of education which the ex- 
 cellent schools of that town afford ; the teachers 
 of which, in their conduct to the children of 
 Burns, do themselves great honour. On this 
 occasion, the name of Mr. Whyte deserves to be 
 particularly mentioned, himself a poet, as well 
 as a man of science.* 
 
 Burns died in great poverty ; but the inde- 
 pendence of his spirit, and the exemplary pru- 
 dence of his wife, had preserved him from debt. 
 He had received from his poems a clear profit of 
 about nine hundred pounds. Of this sum, the 
 part expended on his library (which was far 
 
 from 
 
 # Author of St. Guerdons Well, a poem ; and of A 
 Tribute to the Memory of Burns.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 227 
 
 from extensive) and in the humble furniture 
 of his house, remained ; and obligations were 
 found for two hundred pounds advanced by 
 him to the assistance of those to whom he was 
 united by the ties of blood, and still more by 
 those of esteem and affection. When it is con- 
 sidered, that his expenses in Edinburgh, and on 
 his various journeys, could not be inconsider- 
 able; that his agricultural undertaking was un- 
 successful ; that his income from the excise was 
 for some time as low as fifty, and never rose to 
 above seventy pounds a year 3 that his family 
 was large, and his spirit liberal no one will be 
 surprised that his circumstances were so poor, 
 or that, as his health decayed, his proud and 
 feeling heart sunk under the secret conscious- 
 ness of indigence, and the apprehensions of ab- 
 solute want. Yet poverty never bent the spirit 
 of Burns to any pecuniary meanness. Neither 
 chicanery nor sordidness ever appeared in his 
 conduct. He carried his disregard of money to 
 a blameable excess. Even in the midst of dis- 
 tress he bore himself loftily to the world, and 
 received with a jealous reluctance every offer 
 of friendly assistance. His printed poems had 
 procured him great celebrity, and a just and 
 fair recompense for the latter offsprings of his 
 pen might have produced him considerable 
 emolument. In the year 1795, the Editor of a 
 London newspaper, high in its character for 
 Q 2 literature,
 
 228 THE LIFE OF 
 
 literature, and independence of sentiment, made 
 a proposal to him that he should furnish them, 
 once a week, with an article for their poetical 
 department, and receive from them a recom- 
 pense of fifty-two guineas per annum ; an offer 
 which the pride of genius disdained to accept. 
 Yet he had for several years furnished, and was 
 at that time furnishing, the Museum of John- 
 son with his beautiful lyrics, without fee or re- 
 ward, and was obstinately refusing all recom- 
 pense for his assistance to the greater work of 
 Mr. Thomson, which the justice and generosity 
 of that gentleman was pressing upon him. 
 
 The sense of his poverty, and of the ap- 
 proaching distress of his infant family, pressed 
 heavily on Burns as he lay on the bed of death. 
 Yet he alluded to his indigence, at times, with 
 something approaching to his wonted gaiety. 
 '* What business," said he to Dr. Maxwell, 
 who attended him with the utmost zeal, " has 
 a physician to waste his time on me ? I am a 
 poor pigeon, not worth plucking. Alas ! I have 
 not feathers enough upon me to carry me to my 
 grave." And when his reason was lost in deli- 
 rium, his ideas ran in the same melancholy 
 train ; the horrors of a jail were continually pre- 
 sent to his troubled imagination, and produced 
 the most affecting exclamations. 
 
 As
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 229 
 
 As for some months previous to his death he 
 had been incapable of the duties of his office, 
 Burns dreaded that his salary should be reduced 
 one half, as is usual in such cases. His full 
 emoluments were, however, continued to him 
 by the kindness of Mr. Stobbie, a young ex- 
 pectant in the Excise, who performed the duties 
 of his office without fee or reward ;* and Mr. 
 Graham of Fintry, hearing of his illness, though 
 unacquainted with its dangerous nature, made 
 an offer of his assistance towards procuring him 
 the means of preserving his health. Whatever 
 might be the faults of Burns, ingratitude was not 
 of the number. Amongst his manuscripts, va- 
 rious proofs are found of the sense he entertained 
 of Mr. Graham's friendship, which delicacy 
 towards that gentleman has induced us to sup- 
 press; and on this last occasion there is no 
 doubt that his heart overflowed towards him, 
 though he had no longer the power of express- 
 ing his feelings. -f 
 
 On 
 
 * In the first Edition, it is supposed that the Board of 
 Excise deviated from their usual rule (a shocking rule it is !) 
 in our Poet's favour. It appears, on better information, 
 that the members of that Board were not guilty of any 
 such weakness. 
 
 ' f The letter of Mr. Graham, alluded to above, is 
 dated on the 13th of July, and probably arrived on the 
 l^th. Burns became delirious on the 17th or 18th, and 
 died on the 21st.
 
 230 THE LIFE OF 
 
 On the death of Burns, the inhabitants of 
 Dumfries and its neighbourhood opened a sub- 
 scription for the support of his wife and family ; 
 and Mr. Miller, Mr. M'Murdo, Dr. Maxwell, 
 Mr. Syme, and Mr. Cunningham, gentlemen 
 of the first respectability, became trustees for 
 the application of the money to its proper ob- 
 jects. The subscription was extended to other 
 parts of Scotland, and of England also, parti- 
 cularly London and Liverpool. By this means 
 a sum was raised amounting to seven hundred 
 pounds ; and thus the widow and children were 
 rescued from immediate distress, and the most 
 melancholy of the forebodings of Burns happily 
 disappointed. It is true, this sum, though equal 
 to their present support, is insufficient to secure 
 them from future penury. Their hope in regard 
 to futurity depends on the favourable reception 
 of these volumes from the public at large, in the 
 promoting of which the candour and humanity 
 of the Reader may induce him to lend his assists 
 ance. 
 
 Burns, as has already been mentioned, was 
 nearly five feet ten inches in height, and of a 
 form that indicated agility as well as strength. 
 His well-raised forehead, shaded with black 
 curling hair, indicated extensive capacity. His 
 eyes were large, dark, full of ardour and intel-r 
 ligence. His face was well formed; and his 
 
 countenance
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 231 
 
 countenance uncommonly interesting and ex- 
 pressive. His mode of dressing, which was 
 often slovenly, and a certain fulness and bend 
 in his shoulders, characteristic of his original 
 profession, disguised in some degree the natural 
 symmetry and elegance of his form. The ex- 
 ternal appearance of Burns was most strikingly 
 indicative of the character of his mind. On a 
 first view, his physiognomy had a certain air of 
 coarseness, mingled, however, with an expression 
 of deep penetration, and of calm thoughtful ness 
 approaching to melancholy. There appeared in 
 his first manner and address, perfect ease and 
 self-possession, but a stern and almost superci- 
 lious elevation, not, indeed, incompatible with 
 openness and affability, which, however, bespoke 
 a mind conscious of superior talents. Strangers 
 that supposed themselves approaching an Ayr- 
 shire peasant, who could make rhymes, and to 
 whom their notice was an honour, found them- 
 selves speedily overawed by the presence of a 
 man who bore himself with dignity, and who 
 possessed a singular power of correcting forward- 
 ness and of repelling intrusion. But though 
 jealous of the respect due to himself, Burns 
 never enforced it where he saw it was willing- 
 ly paid j and, though inaccessible to the ap- 
 proaches of pride, he was open to every ad- 
 vance of kindness and of benevolence. His 
 dark and haughty countenance easily relaxed 
 
 into
 
 232 THE LIFE OF 
 
 into a look of good-will, of pity, or of tender- 
 ness; and, as the various emotions succeeded 
 each other in his mind, assumed with equal 
 ease the expression of the broadest humour, of 
 the most extravagant mirth, of the deepest me- 
 lancholy, or of the most sublime emotion. The 
 tones of his voice happily corresponded with the 
 expression of his features, and with the feelings 
 of his mind. When to these endowments are 
 added a rapid and distinct apprehension, a most 
 powerful understanding, and a happy command 
 of language of strength as well as brilliancy 
 of expression we shall be able to account for 
 the extraordinary attractions of his conversa- 
 tion for the sorcery which in his social parties 
 he seemed to exert on all around him. In the 
 company of women this sorcery was more espe- 
 cially apparent. Their presence charmed the 
 fiend of melancholy in his bosom, and awoke 
 his happiest feelings ; it excited the powers of 
 his fancy, as well as the tenderness of his heart ; 
 and, by restraining the vehemence and the ex- 
 uberance of his language, at times gave to his 
 manners the impression of taste, and even of 
 elegance, which in the company of men they 
 seldom possessed. This influence was doubt- 
 less reciprocal. A Scottish Lady, accustomed 
 to the best society, declared with characteristic 
 naivete, that no man's conversation ever carried 
 her so completely off her feet as that of Burns ; 
 
 and
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 233 
 
 and an English Lady, familiarly acquainted 
 with several of the most distinguished charac- 
 ters of the present times, assured the editor, 
 that in the happiest of his social hours, there 
 was a charm ahout Burns which she had never 
 seen equalled. This charm arose not more from 
 the power than the versatility of his genius. No 
 languor could be felt in the society of a man who 
 passed at pleasure from grave to gay, from the 
 ludicrous to the pathetic, from the simple to the 
 sublime ; who wielded all his faculties with equal 
 strength and ease, and never failed to impress 
 the offspring of his fancy with the stamp of his 
 understanding. 
 
 This, indeed, is to represent Burns in his hap- 
 piest phasis. In large and mixed parties he was 
 often silent and dark, sometimes fierce and over- 
 bearing; he was jealous of the proud man's 
 scorn, jealous to an extreme of the insolence of 
 wealth, and prone to avenge, even on its inno- 
 cent possessor, the partiality of fortune. By 
 nature kind, brave, sincere, and in a singular 
 degree compassionate, he was on the other hand 
 proud, irascible, and vindictive. His virtues 
 and his failings had their origin in the extraor- 
 dinary sensibility of his mind, and equally par- 
 took of the chills and glows of sentiment. His 
 friendships were liable to interruption from jea- 
 lousy or disgust, and his enmities died away 
 
 under
 
 234 THE LIFE OF 
 
 under the influence of pity or self-accusation. 
 His understanding was equal to the other powers 
 of his mind, and his deliberate opinions were 
 singularly candid and just; but, like other men 
 of great and irregular genius, the opinions which 
 he delivered in conversation were often the off- 
 spring of temporary feelings, and widely different 
 from the calm decisions of his judgment. This 
 was not merely true respecting the characters of 
 others, but in regard to some of the most impor- 
 tant points of human speculation. 
 
 On no subject did he give a more striking 
 proof of the strength of his understanding, than 
 in the correct estimate he formed of himself. 
 He knew his own failings; he predicted their 
 consequence; the melancholy foreboding was 
 never long absent from his mind; yet his passions 
 carried him down the stream of error, and swept 
 him over the precipice he saw directly in his 
 course. The fatal defect in his character lay 
 in the comparative weakness of his volition, 
 that superior faculty of the mind, which go- 
 verning the conduct according to the dictates 
 of the understanding, alone entitles it to be de- 
 nominated rational ; which is the parent of for- 
 titude, patience, and self-denial ; which, by re- 
 gulating and combining human exertions, may 
 be said to have effected all that is great in the 
 works of man, in literature, in science, or on 
 
 the
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 235 
 
 the face of nature. The occupations of a poet 
 are not calculated to strengthen the governing 
 powers of the mind, or to weaken that sensibi- 
 lity which requires perpetual control, since it 
 gives birth to the vehemence of passion as well 
 as to the higher powers of imagination. Un- 
 fortunately the favourite occupations of genius 
 are calculated to increase all its peculiarities; 
 to nourish that lofty pride which disdains the 
 littleness of prudence, and the restrictions of 
 order ; and, by indulgence, to increase that sen- 
 sibility which, in the present form of our exist- 
 ence, is scarcely compatible with peace or hap- 
 piness, even when accompanied with the choicest 
 gifts of fortune ! 
 
 It is observed by one who was a friend and 
 associate of Burns,* and who has contemplated 
 and explained the system of animated nature, 
 that no sentient being with mental powers 
 greatly superior to those of men, could possibly 
 live and be happy in this world. " If such a 
 being really existed," continues he, "his misery 
 would be extreme. With senses more delicate 
 and refined ; with perceptions more acute and 
 penetrating ; with a taste so exquisite that the 
 objects around him would by no means gratify 
 
 * Smellie See his Philosophy of Natural History, 
 vol. 1. p. 526.
 
 236 THE LIFE OF 
 
 it; obliged to feed on nourishment too gross 
 for his frame; he must be born only to be mise- 
 rable, and the continuation of his existence 
 would be utterly impossible. Even in our pre- 
 sent condition, the sameness and the insipidity 
 of objects and pursuits, the futility of pleasure, 
 and the infinite sources of excruciating pain, 
 are supported with great difficulty by cultivated 
 and refined minds. Increase our sensibilities, 
 continue the same objects and situation, and no 
 man could bear to live." 
 
 Thus it appears, that our powers of sensation 
 as well as all our other powers, are adapted to 
 the scene of our existence ; that they are limited 
 in mercy, as well as in wisdom. 
 
 The speculations of Mr. Smellie are not to 
 be considered as the dreams of a theorist ; they 
 were probably founded on sad experience. The 
 being he supposes, " with senses more delicate 
 and refined, with perceptions more acute and 
 penetrating," is to be found in real life. He is 
 of the temperament of genius, and perhaps a 
 poet. Is there, then, no remedy for this inordi- 
 nate sensibility ? Are there no means by which 
 the happiness of one so constituted by nature 
 may be consulted ? Perhaps it will be found, 
 that regular and constant occupation, irksome 
 though it may at first be, is the true remedy. 
 
 Occupation
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 237 
 
 Occupation in which the powers of the under- 
 standing are exercised, will diminish the force of 
 external impressions, and keep the imagination 
 under restraint. 
 
 That the bent of every man's mind should be 
 followed in his education and in his destination 
 in life, is a maxim which has been often repeated, 
 but which cannot be admitted without many re- 
 strictions. It may be generally true when ap- 
 plied to weak minds, which being capable of 
 little, must be encouraged and strengthened in 
 the feeble impulses by which that little is pro- 
 duced. But where indulgent nature has bestow- 
 ed her gifts with a liberal hand, the very reverse 
 of this maxim ought frequently to be the rule of 
 conduct. In minds of a higher order, the object 
 of instruction and of discipline is very often to 
 restrain rather than to impel ; to curb the im- 
 pulses of imagination, so that the passions also 
 may be kept under control.* 
 
 Hence 
 
 # Quinctilian discusses the important question, whether 
 the bent of the individual's genius should be followed in 
 his education (an secundum sui quisque ingenii docendus 
 sit naturam), chiefly, indeed, with a reference to the 
 orator, but in a way that admits of very general applica- 
 tion. His conclusions coincide very much with those of 
 the text. An vero Isocrates cum de Ephoro atque Theo- 
 pompo sic judicaret, ut alteri frenis, alteri cal- 
 
 CARIBUS
 
 238 THE LIFE OF 
 
 Hence the advantages, even in a moral point 
 of view, of studies of a severer nature, which, 
 while they inform the understanding, employ 
 the volition, that regulating power of the mind, 
 which, like all our other faculties, is strengthen- 
 ed by exercise, and on the superiority of which, 
 virtue, happiness, and honourable fame, are 
 wholly dependent. Hence also the advantage of 
 regular and constant application, which aids the 
 voluntary power by the production of habits so 
 necessary to the support of order and virtue, 
 and so difficult to be formed in the temperament 
 of genius. 
 
 The man who is so endowed and so regulated, 
 may pursue his course with confidence in almost 
 any of the various walks of life which choice or 
 accident may open to him ; and, provided he 
 employs the talents he has cultivated, may hope 
 for such imperfect happiness, and such limited 
 success, as are reasonably to be expected from 
 human exertions. 
 
 The 
 
 caribus opus esse diceret ; aut in Mo lentiore tardi- 
 tatem, aut in illo pene prcccipiti concitationem adjuvan- 
 dum docendo existimavitV cum alterum allerius natura 
 miscendum arbitraretur. Imbecillis tamen ingeniis sane 
 sic obsequendum sit, ut tantum in id quo vocat natura, 
 ducantur. Ita enim, quod solum possunt, melius efficient. 
 
 Iiistit. Orator, lib. ii. 9.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 239 
 
 The pre-eminence among men, which pro- 
 cures personal respect, and which terminates in 
 lasting reputation, is seldom or never obtained 
 by the excellence of a single faculty of mind, 
 Experience teaches us, that it has been acquired 
 by those only who have possessed the compre- 
 hension and the energy of general talents, and 
 who have regulated their application, in the line 
 which choice, or perhaps accident, may have 
 determined, by the dictates of their judgment. 
 Imagination is supposed, and with justice, to be 
 the leading faculty of the poet. But what poet 
 has stood the test of time by the force of this 
 single faculty ? Who does not see that Homer 
 and Shakespeare excelled the rest of their spe- 
 cies in understanding as well as in imagination ; 
 that they were pre-eminent in the highest spe- 
 cies of knowledge the knowledge of the na- 
 ture and character of man ? On the other hand, 
 the talent of ratiocination is more especially 
 requisite to the orator ; but no man ever ob- 
 tained the palm of oratory, even by the highest 
 excellence in this single talent. Who does not 
 perceive that Demosthenes and Cicero were not 
 more happy in their addresses to the reason, 
 than in their appeals to the passions ? They 
 knew, that to excite, to agitate, and to delight, 
 are among the most potent arts of persuasion; 
 and they enforced their impression on the under- 
 standing, by their command of all the sympa- 
 thies
 
 240 THE LIFE OP 
 
 thies of the heart. These observations might 
 be extended to other walks of life. He who 
 has the faculties fitted to excel in poetry, has 
 the faculties which, duly governed, and differ- 
 ently directed, might lead to pre-eminence in 
 other, and, as far as respects himself, perhaps in 
 happier destinations. The talents necessary 
 to the construction of an Iliad, under different 
 discipline and application, might have led ar- 
 mies to victory, or kingdoms to prosperity ; 
 might have wielded the thunder of eloquence, 
 or discovered and enlarged the sciences that 
 constitute the power and improve the condi- 
 tion of our species.* Such talents are, indeed, 
 
 rare 
 
 * The reader must not suppose it is contended that 
 the same individual could have excelled in all these 
 directions. A certain degree of instruction and prac- 
 tice is necessary to excellence in every one, and life is 
 too short to admit of one man, however great his ta- 
 lents, acquiring this in all of them. It is only asserted, 
 that the same talents, differently applied, might have 
 succeeded in any one, though, perhaps, not equally well 
 in each. And, after all, this position requires certain 
 limitations, which the reader's candour and judgment 
 will supply. In supposing that a great poet might 
 have made a great orator, the physical qualities neces- 
 sary to oratory are pre-supposed. In supposing that a 
 great orator might have made a great poet, it is a ne- 
 cessary condition, that he should have devoted himself 
 to poetry, and that he should have acquired a profi- 
 ciency
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 241 
 
 rare among the productions of nature, and oc- 
 casions of bringing them into full exertion are 
 
 rarer 
 
 ciency in metrical numbers, which by patience and at- 
 tention may be acquired, though the want of it has 
 embarrassed and chilled many of the first efforts of 
 true poetical genius. In supposing that Homer might 
 have led armies to victory, more indeed is assumed than 
 the physical qualities of a general. To these must be 
 added that hardihood of mind, that coolness in the midst 
 of difficulty and danger, which great poets and orators 
 are found sometimes, but not always, to possess. The 
 nature of the institutions of Greece and Rome produced 
 more instances of single individuals who excelled in various 
 departments of active and speculative life, than occur in 
 modern Europe, where the employments of men are 
 more subdivided. Many of the greatest warriors of an- 
 tiquity excelled in literature and in oratory. That they had 
 the minds of great poets also, will be admitted, wheu the 
 qualities are justly appreciated which are necessary to ex- 
 cite, combine, and command the active energies of a great 
 body of men, to rouse that enthusiasm which sustains 
 fatigue, hunger, and the inclemencies of the elements, and 
 which triumphs over the fear of death, the most powerful 
 instinct of our nature. 
 
 The authority of Cicero may be appealed to in fa- 
 vour of the close connexion between the poet and the 
 orator. Est enim finitimiu oratori poeta, numeris ad~ 
 strictior paulo, verborum autem Hcentia liberior, fyc. 
 De Orator. Lib. i. c. 16. See also Lib. iii. c. 7. 
 
 VOL. I. R It
 
 242 THE LIFE OF 
 
 rarer still. But safe and salutary occupations 
 may be found for men of genius in every direc- 
 tion, 
 
 It is true the example of Cicero may be quoted against his 
 opinion. His attempts in verse, which are praised by 
 Plutarch, do not seem to have met the approbation of 
 Juvenal, or of some others. Cicero probably did not take 
 sufficient time to learn the art of the poet; but that he 
 had the afflatus necessary to poetical excellence, may be 
 abundantly proved from his compositions in prose. On 
 the other hand, nothing is more clear, than that, in the 
 character of a great poet, all the mental qualities of an 
 orator are included. It is said by Quinctilian, of Homer, 
 Omnibus eloquentia partibus exemplum et ortum dedit. 
 Lib. i. 47. The study of Homer is therefore recom- 
 mended to the orator, as of the first importance. Of the 
 two sublime poets in our own language, who are hardly 
 inferior to Homer, Shakespeare and Milton, a similar 
 recommendation may be given. It is scarcely necessary 
 to mention how much an acquaintance with them has 
 availed the great orator who is now the pride and ornament 
 of the English bar, a character that may be appealed to 
 with singular propriety, when we are contending for the 
 universality of genius. 
 
 The identity, or at least the great similarity, of the 
 talents necessary to excellence in poetry, oratory, paint- 
 ing, and war, will be admitted by some, who will be in- 
 clined to dispute the extension of the position to science 
 or natural knowledge. On this occasion I may quote 
 the following observations of Sir William Jones, whose 
 
 own
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 243 
 
 tion, while the useful and ornamental arts re- 
 main to be cultivated, while the sciences remain 
 to be studied and to be extended, and the prin- 
 ciples of science to be applied to the correction 
 and improvement of art. In the temperament of 
 sensibility, which is in truth the temperament 
 of general talents, the principal object of disci- 
 pline and instruction is, as has already been men- 
 tioned, to strengthen the self-command ; and 
 this may be promoted by the direction of the 
 studies, more effectually perhaps than has been 
 generally understood. 
 
 If these observations be founded in truth, 
 R 2 they 
 
 own example will however far exceed in weight the 
 authority of his precepts. " Abul Ola had so flourish- 
 ing a reputation, that several persons of uncommon 
 genius were ambitious of learning the art of poetry from 
 so able an instructor. His most illustrious scholars 
 were Feleki and Khakani, who were no less eminent 
 for their Persian compositions, than for their skill in 
 every branch of pure and mixed mathematics, and par- 
 ticularly in astronomy ; a striking proof that a sublime 
 poet may become master of any kind of learning which 
 he chooses to profess ; since a fine imagination, a lively 
 wit, an easy and copious style, cannot possibly obstruct 
 the acquisition of any scieuce whatever; but must ne- 
 cessarily assist him in his studies, and shorten his la- 
 bour." 
 
 Sir William Jones's Works, vol, ii. p. 317-
 
 244 THE LIFE OF 
 
 they may lead to practical consequences of 
 some importance. It has been too much the 
 custom to consider the possession of poetical 
 talents as excluding the possibility of applica- 
 tion to the severer branches of study, and as in 
 some degree incapacitating the possessor from 
 attaining those habits, and from bestowing that 
 attention, which are necessary to success in the 
 details of business, and in the engagements of 
 active life. It has been common for persons 
 conscious of such talents, to look with a sort 
 of disdain on other kinds of intellectual excel- 
 lence, and to consider themselves as in some 
 degree absolved from those rules of prudence 
 by which humbler minds are restricted. They 
 are too much disposed to abandon themselves 
 to their own sensations, and to suffer life to 
 pass away without regular exertion, or settled 
 purpose. 
 
 But though men of genius are generally 
 prone to indolence, with them indolence and 
 unhappiness are in a more especial manner al- 
 lied. The unbidden splendours of imagination 
 may indeed at times irradiate the gloom which 
 inactivity produces ; but such visions, though 
 bright, are transient, and serve to cast the 
 realities of life into deeper shade. In bestow- 
 ing great talents, Nature seems very generally 
 to have imposed on the possessor the necessity 
 
 of
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 245 
 
 of exertion, if he would escape wretchedness. 
 Better for him than sloth, toils the most pain- 
 ful, or adventures the most hazardous. Hap- 
 pier to him than idleness, were the condition of 
 the peasant, earning with incessant labour his 
 scanty food ; or that of the sailor, though 
 hanging on the yard-arm, and wrestling with 
 the hurricane. 
 
 These observations might be amply illus- 
 trated by the biography of men of genius of 
 every denomination, and more especially by the 
 biography of the poets. Of this last description 
 of men, few seem to have enjoyed the usual 
 portion of happiness that falls to the lot of hu- 
 manity, those excepted who have cultivated 
 poetry as an elegant amusement in the hours of 
 relaxation from other occupations, or the small 
 number who have engaged with success in the 
 greater or more arduous attempts of the muse, 
 in which all the faculties of the mind have been 
 fully and permanently employed. Even taste, 
 virtue, and comparative independence, do not 
 seem capable of bestowing on men of genius, 
 peace and tranquillity, without such occupation 
 as may give regular and healthful exercise to 
 the faculties of body and mind. The amiable 
 Shenstone has left us the records of his impru- 
 dence, of his indolence, and of his unhappiness, 
 
 amidst
 
 246 THE LIFE OF 
 
 amidst the shades of the Leasowes ;* and the 
 virtues, the learning, and the genius of Gray, 
 equal to the loftiest attempts of the epic muse, 
 failed to procure him in the academic bowers of 
 Cambridge, that tranquillity and that respect 
 which less fastidiousness of taste, and greater 
 constancy and vigour of exertion, would have 
 doubtless obtained. 
 
 It is more necessary that men of genius 
 should be aware of the importance of self-com- 
 mand, and of exertion, because their indolence 
 is peculiarly exposed, not merely to unhappi- 
 ness, but to diseases of mind, and to errors of 
 conduct, which are generally fatal. This in- 
 teresting subject deserves a particular investi- 
 gation ; but we must content ourselves with one 
 or two cursory remarks. Relief is sometimes 
 sought from the melancholy of indolence in 
 practices, which for a time sooth and gratify 
 the sensations, but which in the end involve 
 the sufferer in darker gloom. To command the 
 external circumstances by which happiness is 
 affected, is not in human power j but there are 
 various substances in nature which operate on 
 the system of the nerves, so as to give a ficti- 
 tious 
 
 * See his Letters, which, as a display of the effects 
 of poetical idleness, are highly instructive.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 24? 
 
 tious gaiety to the ideas of imagination, and 
 to alter the effect of the external impressions 
 which we receive. Opium is chiefly employed 
 for this purpose by the disciples of Mahomet 
 and the inhabitants of Asia ; but alcohol, the 
 principle of intoxication in vinous and spirituous 
 liquors, is preferred in Europe, and is univer- 
 sally used in the Christian world.* Under the 
 
 various 
 
 * There are a great number of other substances, 
 which may be considered under this point of view 
 Tobacco, tea, and coffee, are of the number. These 
 substances essentially differ from each other in their 
 qualities; and an inquiry into the particular effects of 
 each on the health, morals, and happiness, of those who 
 use them, would be curious and useful. The effects 
 of wine and of opium on the temperament of sensi- 
 bility, the Editor intended to have discussed in this 
 place at some length ; but he found the subject too 
 extensive aud too professional to be introduced with 
 propriety. The difficulty of abandoning any of these 
 narcotics (if we may so term them), when inclination 
 is strengthened by habit, is well known. Johnson, in 
 his distresses, had experienced the cheering but trea- 
 cherous influence of wine, and, by a powerful effort, 
 abandoned it. He was obliged however to use tea as 
 a substitute, and this was the solace to which he con- 
 stantly had recourse under his habitual melancholy. 
 The praises of wine form many of the most beautiful 
 lyrics of the poets of Greece and Rome, and of modern 
 Europe. Whether opium, which produces visions still 
 
 more
 
 248 THE LIFE OF 
 
 various wounds to which indolent sensibility is 
 exposed, and under the gloomy apprehensions 
 respecting futurity to which it is so often a prey, 
 how strong is the temptation to have recourse to 
 an antidote by which the pain of these wounds 
 is suspended, by which the heart is exhilarated, 
 visions of happiness are excited in the mind, and 
 the forms of external nature clothed with new 
 beauty ! 
 
 Elysium opens round, 
 A pleasing phrenzy buoys the lighten'd soul, 
 And sanguine hopes dispel your fleeting care ; 
 And what was difficult, and what was dire, 
 Yields to your prowess, and superior stars : 
 The happiest you of all that e'er were mad, 
 Or are, or shall be, could this folly last. 
 But soon your heaven is gone ; a heavier gloom 
 Shuts o'er your head 
 
 -Momins: 
 
 more ecstatic, has been the theme of the eastern poets, 
 I do not know. Wine is drunk in small quantities at 
 a time, in company, where for a time, it promotes har- 
 mony and social affection. Opium is swallowed by the 
 Asiatics in full doses at once, and the inebriate retires to 
 the solitary indulgence of his delirious imaginations. Hence, 
 the wine-drinker appears in a superior light to the imbiber 
 of opium, a distinction which he owes more to the form, 
 than to the quality of his liquor.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 249 
 
 Morning comes ; your cares return 
 
 With tenfold rage. An anxious stomach well 
 May be endured : so may the throbbing head : 
 But such a dim delirium, such a dream 
 Involves you ; such a dastardly despair 
 Unmans your soul, as madd'ning Pentheus felt, 
 When, baited round Cithaeron's cruel sides, 
 JTe saw two suns and double Thebes ascend. 
 
 Armstrong's Art of Preserving Health, b. iv. /. 163. 
 
 Such are the pleasures and the pains of in- 
 toxication, as they occur in the temperament of 
 sensibility, described by a genuine poet, with a 
 degree of truth and energy which nothing but 
 experience could have dictated. There are in- 
 deed some individuals of this temperament on 
 whom wine produces no cheering influence. 
 On some, even in very moderate quantities, its 
 effects are painfully irritating; in large draughts 
 it excites dark and melancholy ideas ; and in 
 draughts still larger, the fierceness of insanity 
 itself. Such men are happily exempted from a 
 temptation, to which experience teaches us the 
 finest dispositions often yield, and the influence 
 of which, when strengthened by habit, it is a 
 humiliating truth, that the most powerful minds 
 have not been able to resist. 
 
 It is the more necessary for men of genius 
 to be on their guard against the habitual use of 
 wine, because it is apt to steal on them insen- 
 sibly ;
 
 250 THE LIFE OF 
 
 sibly; and because the temptation to excess 
 usually presents itself to them in their social 
 hours, when they are alive only to warm and 
 generous emotions, and when prudence and 
 moderation are often contemned as selfishness 
 and timidity. 
 
 It is the more necessary for them to guard 
 against excess in the use of wine, because on 
 them its effects are, physically and morally, in 
 an especial manner injurious. In proportion 
 to its stimulating influence on the system (on 
 which the pleasurable sensations depend), is the 
 debility that ensues ; a debility that destroys 
 digestion, and terminates in habitual fever, 
 dropsy, jaundice, paralysis, or insanity. As the 
 strength of the body decays, the volition fails ; 
 in proportion as the sensations are soothed and 
 gratified, the sensibility increases; and morbid 
 sensibility is the parent of indolence, because, 
 while it impairs the regulating power of the 
 mind, it exaggerates all the obstacles to exer- 
 tion. Activity, perseverance, and self-command, 
 become more and more difficult, and the great 
 purposes of utility, patriotism, or of honour- 
 able ambition, which had occupied the imagi- 
 nation, die away in fruitless resolutions, or in 
 feeble efforts. 
 
 To apply these observations to the subject of 
 
 our
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 251 
 
 our memoirs, would be an useless as well as a 
 painful task. It is, indeed, a duty we owe to 
 the living, not to allow our admiration of great 
 genius, or even our pity for its unhappy destiny, 
 to conceal or disguise its errors. But there are 
 sentiments of respect, and even of tenderness, 
 with which this duty should be performed; there 
 is an awful sanctity which invests the mansions 
 of the dead ; and let those who moralize over 
 the graves of their contemporaries, reflect 
 with humility on their own errors, nor forget 
 how soon they may themselves require the 
 candour and the sympathy they are called upon 
 to bestow. 
 
 SOON after the death of Burns, the following 
 article appeared in the Dumfries Journal, from 
 which it was copied into the Edinburgh news- 
 papers, and into various other periodical publi- 
 cations. It is from the elegant pen of a lady 
 already alluded to in the course of these me- 
 moirs,* whose exertions for the family of our 
 bard, in the circles of literature and fashion 
 in which she moves, have done her so much 
 honour. 
 
 The 
 
 * See p. 220.
 
 252 THE LIFE OF 
 
 " The attention of the public seems to be 
 much occupied at present with the loss it has 
 recently sustained in the death of the Caledo- 
 nian poet Robert Burns ; a loss calculated to 
 be severely felt throughout the literary world, 
 as well as lamented in the narrower sphere of 
 private friendship. It was not therefore pro- 
 bable that such an event should be long unat- 
 tended with the accustomed profusion of post- 
 humous anecdotes and memoirs which are usually 
 circulated immediately after the death of every 
 rare and celebrated personage : I had however 
 conceived no intention of appropriating to my- 
 self the privilege of criticising Burns's writings 
 and character, or of anticipating on the province 
 of a biographer. 
 
 " Conscious indeed of my own inability to 
 do justice to such a subject, I should have con- 
 tinued wholly silent, had misrepresentation and 
 calumny been less industrious ; but a regard to 
 truth, no less than affection for the memory of 
 a friend, must now justify my offering to the 
 public a few at least of those observations which 
 an intimate acquaintance with Burns, and the 
 frequent opportunities I have had of observing 
 equally his happy qualities and his failings for 
 several years past, have enabled me to commu- 
 nicate. 
 
 It
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 253 
 
 " It will actually be an injustice done to 
 Burns's character, not only by future genera- 
 tions and foreign countries, but even by his 
 native Scotland, and perhaps a number of his 
 contemporaries, that he is generally talked of, 
 and considered, with reference to his poetical 
 talents only : for the fact is, even allowing his 
 great and original genius its due tribute of ad- 
 miration, that poetry (I appeal to all who have 
 had the advantage of being personally acquainted 
 with him) was actually not his forte. Many 
 others, perhaps, may have ascended to prouder 
 heights in the region of Parnassus, but none 
 certainly ever outshone Burns in the charms 
 the sorcery, I would almost call it, of fascinat- 
 ing conversation, the spontaneous eloquence of 
 social argument, or the unstudied poignancy of 
 brilliant repartee ; nor was any man, I believe, 
 ever gifted with a larger portion of the e vivida 
 vis animi.' His personal endowments were per- 
 fectly correspondent to the qualifications of his 
 mind ; his form was manly ; his action, energy 
 itself; devoid in great measure perhaps of those 
 graces, of that polish, acquired' only in the re- 
 finement of societies where in early life he could 
 have no opportunities of mixing; but where 
 such was the irresistible power of attraction 
 that encircled him, though his appearance and 
 manners were always peculiar, he never failed to 
 delight and to excel. His figure seemed to 
 
 bear
 
 254 THE LIFE OF 
 
 bear testimony to his earlier destination and 
 employments. It seemed rather moulded by 
 nature for the rough exercises of Agriculture, 
 than the gentler cultivation of the Belles Let- 
 tres. His features were stamped with the hardy 
 character of independence, and the firmness of 
 conscious, though not arrogant, pre-eminence ; 
 the animated expressions of countenance were 
 almost peculiar to himself; the rapid lightnings 
 of his eye were always the harbingers of some 
 flash of genius, whether they darted the fiery 
 glances of insulted and indignant superiority, 
 or beamed with the impassioned sentiment of 
 fervent and impetuous affections. His voice 
 alone could improve upon the magic of his eye: 
 sonorous, replete with the finest modulations, it 
 alternately captivated the ear with the melody 
 of poetic numbers, the perspicuity of nervous 
 reasoning, or the ardent sallies of enthusiastic 
 patriotism. The keenness of satire was, I am 
 almost at a loss whether to say, his forte or his 
 foible - y for though nature had endowed him 
 with a portion of the most pointed excellence 
 in that dangerous talent, he suffered it too 
 often to be the vehicle of personal, and some- 
 times unfounded, animosities. It was not al- 
 ways that sportiveness of humour, that e un- 
 wary pleasantry,' which Sterne has depicted 
 with touches so conciliatory, but the darts of 
 ridicule were frequently directed as the caprice 
 
 of
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 255 
 
 of the instant suggested, or as the altercations 
 of parties and of persons happened to kindle the 
 restlessness of his spirit into interest or aversion. 
 This, however, was not invariably the case ; 
 his wit (which is no unusual matter indeed) 
 had always the start of his judgment, and would 
 lead him to the indulgence of raillery uniformly 
 acute, but often unaccompanied with the least 
 desire to wound. The suppression of an arch 
 and full-pointed bon-mot, from a dread of of- 
 fending its object, the sage of Zurich very pro- 
 perly classes as a virtue only to be sought for in 
 the Calendar of Saints ; if so, Burns must not 
 be too severely dealt with for being rather defi- 
 cient in it. He paid for his mischievous wit 
 as dearly as any one could do. ' 'Twas no ex- 
 travagant arithmetic,' to say of him, as was 
 said of Yorick, that e for every ten jokes he 
 got an hundred enemies ;' but much allowance 
 will be made by a candid mind for the splenetic 
 warmth of a spirit whom c distress had spited 
 with the world,' and which, unbounded in its 
 intellectual sallies and pursuits, continually ex- 
 perienced the curbs imposed by the wayward- 
 ness of his fortune. The vivacity of his wishes 
 and temper was indeed checked by almost ha- 
 bitual disappointments, which sat heavy on a 
 heart that acknowledged the ruling passion of 
 independence, without having ever been placed 
 beyond the grasp of penury. His soul was 
 
 never
 
 256 THE LIFE OF 
 
 never languid or inactive, and his genius was ex- 
 tinguished only with the last spark of retreat- 
 ing life. His passions rendered him, according 
 as they disclosed themselves in affection or an- 
 tipathy, an object of enthusiastic attachment, 
 or of decided enmity ; for he possessed none of 
 that negative insipidity of character, whose love 
 might be regarded with indifference, or whose 
 resentment could be considered with contempt. 
 In this, it should seem, the temper of his asso- 
 ciates took the tincture from his own ; for he 
 acknowledged in the universe but two classes 
 of objects, those of adoration the most fervent, 
 or of aversion the most uncontrolable ; and it 
 has been frequently a reproach to him, that, 
 unsusceptible of indifference, often hating where 
 he ought only to have despised, he alternately 
 opened his heart and poured forth the treasures 
 of his understanding to such as were incapable of 
 appreciating the homage ; and elevated to the 
 privileges of an adversary, some who were un- 
 qualified in all respects for the honour of a con- 
 test so distinguished. 
 
 " It is said that the celebrated Dr. Johnson 
 professed to * love a good hater,' a temperament 
 that would have singularly adapted him to che- 
 rish a prepossession in favour of our bard, who 
 perhaps fell but little short even of the surly 
 Doctor in this qualification, as long as the dis- 
 position
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 257 
 
 position to ill-will continued ; but the warmth 
 of his passions was fortunately corrected by their 
 versatility. He was seldom, indeed never, im- 
 placable in his resentments, and sometimes, it 
 has been alleged, not inviolably faithful in his 
 engagements of friendship. Much indeed has 
 been said about his inconstancy and caprice; 
 but I am inclined to believe, that they originated 
 less in a levity of sentiment, than from an ex- 
 treme impetuosity of feeling, which rendered 
 him prompt to take umbrage ; and his sensations 
 of pique, where he fancied he had discovered 
 the traces of neglect, scorn, or unkindness, took 
 their measure of asperity from the overflowings 
 of the opposite sentiment which preceded them, 
 and which seldom failed to regain its ascendency 
 in his bosom on the return of calmer reflection. 
 He was candid and manly in the avowal of his 
 errors, and his avowal was a reparation. His na- 
 tive Jierte never forsaking him for a moment, the 
 value of a frank acknowledgment was enhanced 
 tenfold towards a generous mind, from its never 
 being attended with servility. His mind, or- 
 ganized only for the stronger and more acute 
 operations of the passions, was impracticable to 
 the efforts of superciliousness that would have 
 depressed it into humility, and equally superior 
 to the encroachments of venal suggestions that 
 might have led him into the mazes of hypo- 
 crisy. 
 
 VOL. I. S " It
 
 25$ THE LIFE OF 
 
 " It has been observed, that he was far from 
 averse to the incense of flattery, and could re- 
 ceive it tempered with less delicacy than might 
 have been expected, as he seldom transgressed 
 extravagantly in that way himself; where he 
 paid a compliment, it might indeed claim the 
 power of intoxication, as approbation from him 
 was always an honest tribute from the warmth 
 and sincerity of his heart. It has been some- 
 times represented by those who it should seem 
 had a view to depreciate, though they could not 
 hope wholly to obscure that native brilliancy, 
 which the powers of this extraordinary man had 
 invariably bestowed on every thing that came 
 from his lips or pen, that the history of the Ayr- 
 shire ploughboy was an ingenious fiction, fabri- 
 cated for the purposes of obtaining the interests 
 of the great, and enhancing the merits of what 
 in reality required no foil. The Cotter's Satur- 
 day Night, Tarn O'Shanter, and the Mountain 
 Daisy, besides a number of later productions, 
 where the maturity of his genius will be readily 
 traced, and which will be given to the public as 
 soon as his friends have collected and arranged 
 them, speak sufficiently for themselves ; and had 
 they fallen from a hand more dignified in the 
 ranks of society than that of a peasant, they had 
 perhaps bestowed as unusual a grace there, as 
 even in the humbler shade of rustic inspiration 
 from whence they really sprung, 
 
 "To
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 259 
 
 " To the obscure scene of Burns's education, 
 and to the laborious, though honourable station 
 of rural industry, in which his parentage en- 
 rolled him, almost every inhabitant of the south 
 of Scotland can give testimony. His only sur- 
 viving brother, Gilbert Burns, now guides the 
 ploughshare of his forefathers in Ayrshire, at a 
 farm near Mauchline j* and our poet's eldest 
 son (a lad of nine years of age, whose early dis- 
 positions already prove him to be in some mea- 
 sure the inheritor of his father's talents as well 
 as indigence), has been destined by his family 
 to the humble employments of the loom.f 
 
 " That Burns had received no classical edu- 
 cation, and was acquainted with the Greek and 
 Roman authors only through the medium of 
 translations, is a fact of which all who were in 
 the habits of conversing with him might readily 
 be convinced. I have indeed seldom observed 
 him to be at a loss in conversation, unless where 
 the dead languages and their writers have been 
 the subjects of discussion. When I have press- 
 ed him to tell me, why he never applied him- 
 
 S 2 self 
 
 * This very respectable and very superior man is now 
 removed to Dumfries-shire. He rents lands on the estate 
 of Closeburn, and is a tenant of the venerable Dr. Mon- 
 teith. (1800.) E. 
 
 f This destination is now altered. (1800.) E.
 
 260 THE LIFE OF 
 
 self to acquire the Latin, in particular, a lan- 
 guage which his happy memory would have so 
 soon enabled him to be master of, he used only 
 to reply with a smile, that he had already learnt 
 all the Latin he desired to know, and that was, 
 omnia vincit amor ; a sentence, that from his 
 writings and most favourite pursuits, it should 
 undoubtedly seem that he was most thoroughly 
 versed in j but I really believe his classic erudi- 
 tion extended little, if any, further. 
 
 <f The penchant Burns had uniformly acknow- 
 ledged for the festive pleasures of the table, and 
 towards the fairer and softer objects of nature's 
 creation, has been the rallying point from 
 whence the attacks of his censors have been uni- 
 formly directed 5 and to these, it must be con- 
 fessed, he shewed himself no stoic. His poetical 
 pieces blend with alternate happiness of descrip- 
 tion, the frolic spirit of the flowing bowl, or melt 
 the heart to the tender and impassioned senti- 
 ments in which beauty always taught him to 
 pour forth his own. But who would wish to re- 
 prove the feelings he has consecrated with such 
 lively touches of nature ? And where is the 
 rugged moralist who will persuade us so far to 
 " chill the genial current of the soul," as to re- 
 gret that Ovid ever celebrated his Corinna, or 
 that Anacreon sung beneath his vine? 
 
 " I will
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 261 
 
 '* I will not however undertake to be the apo- 
 logist of the irregularities even of a man of ge- 
 nius, though I believe it is as certain that genius 
 never was free from irregularities, as that their 
 absolution may in great measure be justly claim- 
 ed, since it is perfectly evident that the world 
 had continued very stationary in its intellectual 
 acquirements, had it never given birth to any 
 but men of plain sense. Evenness of conduct, 
 and a due regard to the decorums of the world, 
 have been so rarely seen to move hand in hand 
 with genius, that some have gone as far as to say, 
 though there I cannot wholly acquiesce, that 
 they are even incompatible ; besides, the frailties 
 that cast their shade over the splendour of supe- 
 rior merit, are more conspicuously glaring than 
 where they are the attendants of mere mediocrity. 
 It is only on the gem we are disturbed to see the 
 dust j the pebble may be soiled, and we never re- 
 gard it. The eccentric intuitions of genius too 
 often yield the soul to the wild effervescence 
 of desires, always unbounded, and sometimes 
 equally dangerous to the repose of others as fatal 
 to its own. No wonder then if virtue herself be 
 sometimes lost in the blaze of kindling animation, 
 or that the calm monitions of reason are not in- 
 variably found sufficient to fetter an imagination, 
 which scorns the narrow limits and restrictions 
 that would chain it to the level of ordinary minds. 
 The child of nature, the child of sensibility, un- 
 schooled
 
 262 THE LIFE OF 
 
 schooled in the rigid precepts of philosophy, too 
 often unable to control the passions which proved 
 a source of frequent errors and misfortunes to 
 him, Burns made his own artless apology in lan- 
 guage more impressive than all the argumenta- 
 tory vindications in the world could do, in one 
 of his own poems, where he delineates the gra- 
 dual expansion of his mind to the lessons of the 
 " tutelary muse," who concludes an address to 
 her pupil, almost unique for simplicity and beau- 
 tiful poetry, with these lines ; 
 
 " I saw thy pulse's madd'ning play 
 Wild send thee pleasure's devious way ; 
 Misled by Fancy's meteor ray, 
 
 By passion driven ; 
 But yet the light that led astray, 
 Was light from heaven !"* 
 
 s< I have already transgressed beyond the 
 bounds I had proposed to myself, on first com- 
 mitting this sketch to paper, which compre- 
 hends what at least I have been led to deem the 
 leading features of Burns's mind and character: 
 a literary critique I do not aim at; mine is 
 wholly fulfilled, if in these pages I have been 
 able to delineate any of those strong traits that 
 
 distinguished 
 
 * Vide the Vision Duan 2d.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 263 
 
 distinguished him, of those talents which raised 
 him from the plough, where he passed the bleak 
 morning of his life, weaving his rude wreaths of 
 poesy with the wild field-flowers that sprang 
 around his cottage, to that enviable eminence 
 of literary fame, where Scotland will long che- 
 rish his memory with delight and gratitude ; and 
 proudly remember, that beneath her cold sky a 
 genius was ripened, without care or culture, 
 that would have done honour to climes more fa- 
 vourable to those luxuriances that warmth of 
 colouring and fancy in which he so eminently 
 excelled, 
 
 " From several paragraphs I have noticed in 
 the public prints, ever since the idea of sending 
 this sketch to some one of them was formed, 
 I find private animosities have not yet sub- 
 sided, and that envy has not yet exhausted all 
 her shafts. I still trust, however, that honest 
 fame will be permanently affixed to Burns's cha- 
 racter, which I think it will be found he has 
 merited by the candid and impartial among his 
 countrymen. And where a recollection of the 
 imprudences that sullied his brighter qualifica- 
 tions interpose, let the imperfection of all hu- 
 man excellence be remembered at the same time, 
 leaving those inconsistencies, which alternately 
 exalted his nature into the seraph, and sunk it 
 again into the man, to the tribunal which alone 
 
 can
 
 264 THE LIFE OF 
 
 can investigate the labyrinths of the human 
 heart 
 
 ' Where they alike in trembling hope repose, 
 The bosom of his father and his God.' 
 
 " Gray's Elegy. 
 
 " Jnnandale, Aug. 7, 1796." 
 
 AFTER this account of the life and personal 
 character of Burns, it may be expected that 
 some inquiry should be made into his literary 
 merits. It will not however be necessary to 
 enter very minutely into this investigation. If 
 fiction be, as some suppose, the soul of poetry, 
 no one had ever less pretensions to the name of 
 poet than Burns. Though he has displayed 
 great powers of imagination, yet the subjects 
 on which he has written, are seldom, if ever 
 imaginary; his poems, as well as his letters, may 
 be considered as the effusions of his sensibility, 
 and the transcript of his own musings on the 
 real incidents of his humble life. If we add, 
 that they also contain most happy delineations 
 of the characters, manners, and scenery that 
 presented themselves to his observation, we shall 
 include almost all the subjects of his muse. His 
 writings may therefore be regarded as affording 
 a great part of the data on which our account 
 of his personal character has been founded ; and 
 
 most
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 265 
 
 most of the observations we have applied to the 
 man, are applicable, with little variation, to 
 the poet. 
 
 The impression of his birth, and of his ori- 
 ginal station in life, was not more evident on his 
 form and manners, than on his poetical produc- 
 tions. The incidents which form the subjects 
 of his poems, though some of them highly inter- 
 esting, and susceptible of poetical imagery, are 
 incidents in the life of a peasant who takes no 
 pains to disguise the lowliness of his condition, 
 or to throw into shade the circumstances attend- 
 ing it, which more feeble or more artificial 
 minds would have endeavoured to conceal. The 
 same rudeness and inattention appears in the 
 formation of his rhymes, which are frequently 
 incorrect, while the measure in which many of 
 the poems are written has little of the pomp or 
 harmony of modern versification, and is indeed 
 to an English ear, strange and uncouth. The 
 greater part of his earlier poems are written in 
 the dialect of his country, which is obscure, if 
 not unintelligible to Englishmen, and which, 
 though it still adheres more or less to the speech 
 of almost every Scotchman, all the polite and 
 the ambitious are now endeavouring to banish 
 from their tongues as well as their writings. The 
 use of it in composition naturally therefore calls 
 up ideas of vulgarity in the mind. These sin- 
 gularities
 
 '266 THE LIFE OF 
 
 gularities are increased by the character of the 
 poet, who delights to express himself with a sim- 
 plicity that approaches to nakedness, and with an 
 unmeasured energy that often alarms delicacy, 
 and sometimes offends taste. Hence, in ap- 
 proaching him, the first impression is perhaps 
 repulsive : there is an air of coarseness about 
 him, which is difficultly reconciled with our 
 established notions of poetical excellence. 
 
 As the reader however becomes better ac- 
 quainted with the poet, the effects of his pecu- 
 liarities lessen. He perceives in his poems, even 
 on the lowest subjects, expressions of sentiment, 
 and delineations of manners, which are highly 
 interesting. The scenery he describes is evi- 
 dently taken from real life ^ the characters he 
 introduces, and the incidents he relates, have 
 the impression of nature and truth. His hu- 
 mour, though wild and unbridled, is irresistibly 
 amusing, and is sometimes heightened in its ef- 
 fects by the introduction of emotions of ten- 
 derness, with which genuine humour so happily 
 unites. Nor is this the extent of his power. 
 The reader, as he examines farther, discovers 
 that the poet is not confined to the descriptive, 
 the humorous, or the pathetic: he is found, as 
 occasion offers, to rise with ease into the terri- 
 ble and the sublime. Every where he appears 
 devoid of artifice, performing what he attempts 
 
 with
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 26? 
 
 with little apparent effort; and impressing on 
 the offspring of his fancy the stamp of his under- 
 standing. The reader, capable of forming a just 
 estimate of poetical talents, discovers in these 
 circumstances marks of uncommon genius, and 
 is willing to investigate more minutely its nature 
 and its claims to originality. This last point we 
 shall examine first. 
 
 That Burns had not the advantages of a clas- 
 sical education, or of any degree of acquaint- 
 ance with the Greek or Roman writers in their 
 original dress, has appeared in the history of his 
 life. He acquired indeed some knowledge of 
 the French language, but it does not appear 
 that he was ever much conversant in French li- 
 terature, nor is there any evidence of his having 
 derived any of his poetical stores from that 
 source. With the English classics he became 
 well acquainted in the course of his life, and the 
 effects of this acquaintance are observable in 
 his latter productions; but the character and 
 style of his poetry were formed very early, and 
 the model which he followed, in as far as he can 
 be said to have had one, is to be sought for in 
 the works of the poets who have written in the 
 Scottish dialect in the works of such of them 
 more especially, as are familiar to the peasant^ 
 of Scotland. Some observations on these may 
 form a proper introduction to a more particular 
 
 examination
 
 268 THE LIFE OF 
 
 examination of the poetry of Burns. The stu- 
 dies of the Editor in this direction are indeed 
 very recent and very imperfect. It would have 
 been imprudent for him to have entered on this 
 subject at all, but for the kindness of Mr. Ram- 
 say of Ochtertyre, whose assistance he is proud 
 to acknowledge, and to whom the reader must 
 ascribe whatever is of any value in the following 
 imperfect sketch of literary compositions in the 
 Scottish idiom. 
 
 It is a circumstance not a little curious, and 
 which does not seem to be satisfactorily explain- 
 ed, that in the thirteenth century, the language 
 of the two British nations, if at all different, 
 differed only in dialect, the Gaelic in the one, 
 like the Welch and Armoric in the other, being 
 confined to the mountainous districts.* The 
 English under the Edwards, and the Scots under 
 Wallace and Bruce, spoke the same language. 
 We may observe also, that in Scotland the his- 
 tory of poetry ascends to a period nearly as re- 
 mote as in England. Barbour, and Blind Harry, 
 James the First, Dunbar, Douglas, and Lindsay, 
 who lived in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and six- 
 teenth centuries, were coeval with the fathers 
 of poetry in England ; and in the opinion of Mr. 
 
 Wharton, 
 
 * Historical Essay on Scottish Song, p. 9.0, by Mr. 
 Ritson.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 269 
 
 Wharton, not inferior to them in genius or in 
 composition. Though the language of the two 
 countries gradually deviated from each other 
 during this period, yet the difference on the 
 whole was not considerable ; not perhaps greater 
 than between the different dialects of the differ- 
 ent parts of England in our own time. 
 
 At the death of James the Fifth, in 1542, 
 the language of Scotland was in a flourishing 
 condition, wanting only writers in prose equal 
 to those in verse. Two circumstances, propi- 
 tious on the whole, operated to prevent this. 
 The first was the passion of the Scots for com- 
 position in Latin ; and the second, the accession 
 of James the Sixth to the English throne. It 
 may easily be imagined, that if Buchanan had 
 devoted his admirable talents, even in part, to 
 the cultivation of his native tongue, as was 
 done by the revivers of letters in Italy, he would 
 have left compositions in that language which 
 might have incited other men of genius to have 
 followed his example,* and given duration to 
 the language itself. The union of the two 
 crowns in the person of James, overthrew all 
 reasonable expectation of this kind. That mo- 
 narch, seated on the English throne, would no 
 
 longer 
 
 * e. g. The Authors of the Delicia Poetarum Scoto* 
 rum, 8$c.
 
 270 THE LIFE OF 
 
 longer suffer himself to be addressed in the rude 
 dialect in which the Scottish clergy had so often 
 insulted his dignity. He encouraged Latin or 
 English only, both of which he prided himself 
 on writing with purity, though he himself never 
 could acquire the English pronunciation, but 
 spoke with a Scottish idiom and intonation to 
 the last. Scotsmen of talents declined writing 
 in their native language, which they knew was 
 not acceptable to their learned and pedantic mo- 
 narch, and at a time when national prejudice 
 and enmity prevailed to a great degree, they 
 disdained to study the niceties of the English 
 tongue, though of so much easier acquisition 
 than a dead language. Lord Stirling and Drum- 
 mond of Hawthornden, the only Scotsmen who 
 wrote poetry in those times, were exceptions. 
 They studied the language of England, anckcom- 
 posed in it with precision and elegance. They 
 Were however the last of their countrymen who 
 deserved to be considered as poets in that cen- 
 tury. The muses of Scotland sunk into silence, 
 and did not again raise their voices for a period 
 of eighty years. 
 
 To what causes are we to attribute this ex- 
 treme depression among a people comparatively 
 learned, enterprising, and ingenious ? Shall we 
 impute it to the fanaticism of the covenanters, 
 or to the tyranny of the house of Stuart after 
 
 their
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 271 
 
 their restoration to the throne ? Doubtless these 
 causes operated, but they seem unequal to ac- 
 count for the effect. In England, similar dis- 
 tractions and oppression took place, yet poetry 
 flourished there in a remarkable degree. During 
 this period, Cowley, and Waller, and Dryden 
 sung, and Milton raised his strain of un- 
 paralleled grandeur. To the causes already 
 mentioned, another must be added, in account- 
 ing for the torpor of Scottish literature the 
 want of a proper vehicle for men of genius to 
 employ. The civil wars had frightened away 
 the Latin muses, and no standard had been 
 established of the Scottish tongue, which was 
 deviating still farther from the pure English 
 idiom. 
 
 The revival of literature in Scotland may be 
 dated from the establishment of the union, or 
 rather from the extinction of the rebellion in 
 1715. The nations being finally incorporated, 
 it was clearly seen that their tongues must in 
 the end incorporate also ; or rather indeed that 
 the Scottish language must degenerate into a 
 provincial idiom, to be avoided by those who 
 would aim at distinction in letters, or rise to 
 eminence in the united legislature. 
 
 Soon after this, a band of men of genius 
 appeared, who studied the English classics, and 
 
 imitated
 
 272 THE LIFE OF 
 
 imitated their beauties, in the same manner as 
 they studied the classics of Greece and Rome. 
 They had admirable models of composition 
 lately presented to them by the writers of the 
 reign of Queen Anne ; particularly in the pe- 
 riodical papers published by Steele, Addison, 
 and their associated friends, which circulated 
 widely through Scotland, and diffused every 
 where a taste for purity of style and sentiment, 
 and for critical disquisition. At length, the 
 Scottish writers succeeded in English composi- 
 tion, and an union was formed of the literary 
 talents, as well as of the legislatures of the two 
 nations. On this occasion the poets took the 
 lead. While Henry Home,* Dr. Wallace, and 
 their learned associates, were only laying in 
 their intellectual stores, and studying to clear 
 themselves of their Scottish idioms, Thomson, 
 Mallet, and Hamilton of Bangour, had made 
 their appearance before the public, and been 
 enrolled on the list of English poets. The 
 writers in prose followed a numerous and 
 powerful band, and poured their ample stores in- 
 to the general stream of British literature. Scot- 
 land possessed her four universities before the 
 accession of James to the English throne. Im- 
 mediately before the union, she acquired her 
 parochial schools. These establishments com- 
 bining 
 
 * Lord Kaims.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 273 
 
 bining happily together, made the elements of 
 knowledge of easy acquisition, and presented a 
 direct path, by which the ardent student might 
 be carried along into the recesses of science or 
 learning. As civil broils ceased, and faction 
 and prejudice gradually died away, a wider field 
 was opened to literary ambition, and the influ- 
 ence of the Scottish institutions for instruction, 
 on the productions of the press, became more 
 and more apparent. 
 
 It seems indeed probable, that the establish- 
 ment of the parochial schools produced effects 
 on the rural muse of Scotland also, which have 
 not hitherto been suspected, and which, though 
 less splendid in their nature, are not however 
 to be regarded as trivial, whether we consider 
 the happiness or the morals of the people. 
 
 There is some reason to believe, that the 
 original inhabitants of the British isles possessed 
 a peculiar and an interesting species of music, 
 which being banished from the plains by the 
 successive invasions of the Saxons, Danes, and 
 Normans, was preserved with the native race, 
 in the wilds of Ireland and in the mountains 
 of Scotland and Wales. The Irish, the Scottish, 
 and the Welch music, differ indeed from each 
 other, but the difference may be considered as 
 in dialect only, and probably produced by the 
 
 VOL. I. T influence
 
 274 THE LIFE OF 
 
 influence of time, like the different dialects of 
 their common language. If this conjecture be 
 true, the Scottish music must be more immedi- 
 ately of a Highland origin, and the Lowland 
 tunes, though now of a character somewhat dis- 
 tinct, must have descended from the mountains 
 in remote ages. Whatever credit may be given 
 to conjectures, evidently involved in great un- 
 certainty, there can be no doubt that the Scot- 
 tish peasantry have been long in possession of a 
 number of songs and ballads composed in their 
 native dialect, and sung to their native music. 
 The subjects of these compositions were such as 
 most interested the simple inhabitants, and in 
 the succession of time varied probably as the 
 condition of society varied. During the sepa- 
 ration and the hostility of the two nations, these 
 songs and ballads, as far as our imperfect docu- 
 ments enable us to judge, were chiefly warlike; 
 such as the Huntis of Cheviot, and the Battle 
 of Harlaw. After the union of the two crowns, 
 when a certain degree of peace and of tranquil- 
 lity took place, the rural muse of Scotland 
 breathed in softer accents. " In the want of 
 real evidence respecting the history of our 
 songs," says Mr. Ramsay of Ochtertyre, cc re- 
 course may be had to conjecture. One would 
 be disposed to think, that the most beautiful of 
 the Scottish tunes were clothed with new words 
 after the union of the crowns. The inhabitants 
 
 f
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 275 
 
 of the borders, who had formerly been warriors 
 from choice, and husbandmen from necessity, 
 either quitted the country, or were transformed 
 into real shepherds, easy in their circumstances, 
 and satisfied with their lot. Some sparks of 
 that spirit of chivalry for which they are cele- 
 brated by Froissart, remained, sufficient to in- 
 spire elevation of sentiment and gallantry to- 
 wards the fair sex. The familiarity and kind- 
 ness which had long subsisted between the 
 gentry and the peasantry, could not all at once 
 be obliterated, and this connexion tended to 
 sweeten rural life. In this state of innocence, 
 ease, and tranquillity of mind, the love of 
 poetry and music would still maintain its 
 ground, though it would naturally assume a 
 form congenial to the more peaceful state of 
 society. The minstrels, whose metrical tales 
 used once to rouse the borderers like the trum- 
 pet's sound, had been, by an order of the legis- 
 lature (in 1579), classed with rogues and vaga- 
 bonds, and attempted to be suppressed. Knox 
 and his disciples influenced the Scottish parlia- 
 ment, but contended in vain with her rural 
 muse. Amidst our Arcadian vales, probably on 
 the banks of the Tweed, or some of its tributary 
 streams, one or more original geniuses may have 
 arisen, who were destined to give a new turn 
 to the taste of their countrymen. They would 
 see that the events and pursuits which chequer 
 T 2 private
 
 276 TE LIFE OF 
 
 private life were the proper subjects for popular 
 poetry. Love, which had formerly held a di- 
 vided sway with glory and ambition, became 
 now the master-passion of the soul. To por- 
 tray in lively and delicate colours, though with 
 a hasty hand, the hopes and fears that agitate 
 the breast of the love-sick swain, or forlorn 
 maiden, affords ample scope to the rural poet. 
 Love-songs, of which Tibullus himself would 
 not have been ashamed, might be composed by 
 an uneducated rustic with a slight tincture of 
 letters ; or if in these songs the character of the 
 rustic be sometimes assumed, the truth of cha- 
 racter, and the language of nature, are pre- 
 served. With unaffected simplicity and ten- 
 derness, topics are urged, most Jikely to soften 
 the heart of a cruel and coy mistress, or to re- 
 gain a fickle lover. Even in such as are of a 
 melancholy cast, a ray of hope breaks through, 
 and dispels the deep and settled gloom which 
 characterizes the sweetest of the Highland lue- 
 ?iigs i or vocal airs. Nor are these songs all 
 plaintive j many of them are lively and hu- 
 morous, and some appear to us coarse and inde- 
 licate. They seem, however, genuine descrip- 
 tions of the manners of an energetic and seques- 
 tered people in their hours of mirth and festi- 
 vity, though in their portraits some objects are 
 brought into open view, which more fastidious 
 painters would have thrown into shade. 
 
 As
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 277 
 
 " As those rural poets sung for amusement, 
 not for gain, their effusions seldom exceeded a 
 love-song, or a ballad of satire or humour, 
 which, like the works of the elder minstrels, 
 were seldom committed to writing, but trea- 
 sured up in the memory of their friends and 
 neighbours. Neither known to the learned nor 
 patronised by the great, these rustic bards lived 
 and died in obscurity ; and by a strange fa- 
 tality, their story, and even their very names 
 have been forgotten.* When proper models 
 for pastoral songs were produced, there would 
 be no want of imitators. To succeed in this 
 species of composition, soundness of under- 
 standing and sensibility of heart were more re- 
 quisite than flights of imagination or pomp of 
 numbers. Great changes have certainly taken 
 place in Scottish song-writing, though we can- 
 not trace the steps of this change ; and few of 
 the pieces admired in Queen Mary's time are 
 now to be discovered in modern collections. It 
 is possible, though not probable, that the music 
 may have remained nearly the same, though 
 
 the 
 
 * In the Pepys collection, there are a few Scottish 
 songs of the last century, but the names of the authors 
 are not preserved.
 
 27S THE LIFE OF 
 
 the words to the tunes were entirely new-mo- 
 delled."* 
 
 These conjectures are highly ingenious. It 
 cannot, however, be presumed, that the state of 
 ease and tranquillity described by Mr. Ramsay 
 took place among the Scottish peasantry imme- 
 diately on the union of the crowns, or indeed 
 during the greater part of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury. The Scottish nation, through all its 
 ranks, was deeply agitated by the civil wars, 
 and the religious persecutions which succeeded 
 each other in that disastrous period ; it was not 
 till after the revolution in 1688, and the subse- 
 quent establishment of their beloved form of 
 Church government, that the peasantry of the 
 Lowlands enjoyed comparative repose ; and it 
 is since that period that a great number of the 
 most-admired Scottish songs have been pro- 
 duced, though the tunes to which they are 
 sung, are in general of much greater antiquity. 
 
 It 
 
 * Extract of a letter from Mr. Ramsay of Ochtertyre 
 to the Editor, Sept. 1 1, 1799- In the Bee, vol. i\. p. 201, 
 is a communication of Mr. Ramsay, under the signature 
 of J. Runcole, which enters into this subject somewhat 
 more at large. In that paper he gives his reasons for 
 questioning the antiquity of many of the most celebrated 
 Scottish songs.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 279 
 
 It is not unreasonable to suppose, that the peace 
 and security derived from the Revolution, and 
 the Union, produced a favourable change on 
 the rustic poetry of Scotland ; and it can 
 scarcely be doubted, that the institution of 
 parish-schools in 1696, by which a certain degree 
 of instruct.. 1 was diffused universally among the 
 peasantry, contributed to this happy effect. 
 
 Soon after this appeared Allan Ramsay, the 
 Scottish Theocritus. He was born on the high 
 mountains that divide Clydesdale and Annan- 
 dale, in a small hamlet by the banks of Glan- 
 gonar, a stream which descends into the Clyde. 
 The ruins of this hamlet are still shewn to the 
 inquiring traveller.* He was the son of a pea- 
 sant, and probably received such instruction as 
 his parish-school bestowed, and the poverty of 
 his parents admitted. -f Ramsay made his ap- 
 pearance 
 
 * See Campbell's History of Poetry in Scotland, p. 185. 
 
 f The father of Ramsay was, it is said, a workman 
 in the lead-mines of the Earl of Hopeton, at Lead-hilis. 
 The workmen in those mines at present are of a very 
 superior character to miners in general. They have 
 only six hours of labour in the day, and have time for 
 reading. They have a common library, supported by 
 contribution, containing several thousand volumes. When 
 
 this
 
 280 THE LIFE 0$ 
 
 pearance in Edinburgh in the beginning of the 
 present century, in the humble character of an 
 apprentice to a barber, or peruke-maker j he was 
 then fourteen or fifteen years of age. By de- 
 grees he acquired notice for his social disposi- 
 tion, and his talent for the composition of 
 verses in the Scottish idiom ; and, changing 
 his profession for that of a bookseller, he be- 
 came intimate with many of the literary, as 
 well as of the gay and fashionable characters of 
 his time.* Having published a volume of 
 poems of his own in 1721, which was favourably 
 received, he undertook to make a collection of 
 ancient Scottish poems, under the title of the 
 Ever-Green, and was afterwards encouraged to 
 present to the world a collection of Scottish 
 songs. " From what sources he procured 
 them," says Mr. Ramsay of Ochtertyre, "whe- 
 ther from tradition or manuscript, is uncertain. 
 
 As 
 
 this was instituted I have not learnt. These miners are 
 said to be of a very sober and moral character. Allan 
 Ramsay, when very young, is supposed to have been a 
 washer of ore in these mines. 
 
 * " He was coeval with Joseph Mitchell, and his 
 club of small wits, who, about 171.9, published a very 
 poor miscellany, to which Dr. Young, the author of the 
 Night Thoughts, prefixed a copy of verses." Ext/act of a 
 letter from Mr. Ramsay of Ochtertyre to the Editor.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 281 
 
 As in the Ever-Green he made some rash at- 
 tempts to improve on the originals of his an- 
 cient poems, he probably used still greater free- 
 dom with the songs and ballads. The truth 
 cannot, however, be known on this point, till 
 manuscripts of the songs printed by him, more 
 ancient than the present century, shall be pro- 
 duced, or access be obtained to his own papers, 
 if they are still in existence. To several tunes 
 which either wanted words, or had words that 
 were improper or imperfect, he or his friends 
 adapted verses worthy of the melodies they ac- 
 companied, worthy indeed of the golden age. 
 These verses were perfectly intelligible to every 
 rustic, yet justly admired by persons of taste, 
 who regarded them as the genuine offspring of 
 the pastoral muse. In some respects Ramsay 
 had advantages not possessed by poets writing 
 in the Scottish dialect in our days. Songs in 
 the dialect of Cumberland or Lancashire could 
 never be popular, because these dialects have 
 never been spoken by persons of fashion. But 
 till the middle of the present century, every 
 Scotsman, from the peer to the peasant, spoke 
 a truly Doric language. It is true the English 
 moralists and poets were by this time read by 
 every person of condition, and considered as 
 the standards for polite composition. But, as 
 national prejudices were still strong, the busy, 
 the learned, the gay, and the fair, continued to 
 
 speak
 
 282 THE LIFE OF 
 
 speak their native dialect, and that with an ele- 
 gance and poignancy, of which Scotsmen of the 
 present day can have no just notion. I am old 
 enough to have conversed with Mr. Spittal, of 
 Leuchat, a scholar and a man of fashion, who 
 survived all the members of the Union Parlia- 
 ment, in which he had a seat. His pronuncia- 
 tion and phraseology differed as much from the 
 common dialect, as the language of St. James's 
 from that of Thames-street. Had we retained a 
 court and parliament of our own, the tongues of 
 the two sister kingdoms would indeed have dif- 
 fered like the Castilian and Portuguese ; but each 
 would have had its own classics, not in a single 
 branch, but in the whole circle of literature. 
 
 ".Ramsay associated with the men of wit 
 and fashion of his day, and several of them at- 
 tempted to write poetry in his manner. Persons 
 too idle or too dissipated to think of composi- 
 tions that required much exertion, succeeded 
 very happily in making tender sonnets to fa- 
 vourite tunes in compliment to their mistresses, 
 and, transforming themselves into impassioned 
 shepherds, caught the language of the charac- 
 ters they assumed. Thus, about the year 1731, 
 Robert Crawfurd of Auchinames, wrote the mo- 
 dern song of Tweed Side* which has been so 
 
 much 
 
 * Beginning, What beauties does Flora disclose !
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 28S 
 
 much admired. In 1743, Sir Gilbert Elliot, 
 the first of our lawyers who both spoke and 
 wrote English elegantly, composed in the cha- 
 racter of a love-sick swain, a beautiful song, 
 beginning, My sheep I neglected, I lost my 
 sheep-hook, on the marriage of his mistress, 
 Miss Forbes, with Ronald Crawfurd. And 
 about twelve years afterwards, the sister of Sir 
 Gilbert wrote the ancient words to the tune of 
 the Flowers of the Forest* and supposed to al- 
 lude to the battle of Flowden. In spite of the 
 double rhyme, it is a sweet, and though in some 
 parts allegorical, a natural expression of national 
 sorrow. The more modern words to the same 
 tune, beginning, / have seen the smiling of for- 
 tune beguiling, were written long before by Mrs. 
 Cockburn, a woman of great wit, who outlived 
 all the first group of literati of the present cen- 
 tury, all of whom were very fond of her. I 
 was delighted with her company, though, when 
 I saw her, she was very old. Much did she 
 know that is now lost." 
 
 In addition to these instances of Scottish 
 songs produced in the earlier part of the present 
 century, may be mentioned the ballad of liar- 
 diknute, by Lady Wardlaw ; the ballad of Wil- 
 liam and Margaret , and the song entitled the 
 
 Birks 
 
 * Beginning, I have heard a lilting at our ewes-milking.
 
 284 THE LIFE OP 
 
 Birks of Endermay, by Mallet ; the love-song, 
 beginning, For ever, Fortune ; wilt thou prove, 
 produced by the youthful mUse of Thomson ; 
 and the exquisite pathetic ballad, the Braes of 
 Yarrow, by Hamilton of Bangour. On the re- 
 vival of letters in Scotland, subsequent to the 
 Union, a very general taste seems to have pre- 
 vailed for the national songs and music. " For 
 many years," says Mr. Ramsay, " the singing 
 of songs was the great delight of the higher 
 and middle order of the people, as well as of 
 the peasantry ; and though a taste for Italian 
 music has interfered with this amusement, it is 
 still \ery prevalent. Between forty and fifty 
 years ago, the common people were not only 
 exceedingly fond of songs and ballads, but of 
 metrical history. Often have I, in my cheer- 
 ful morn of youth, listened to them with de- 
 light, when reading or reciting the exploits of 
 Wallace and Bruce against the Southrons. Lord 
 Hailes was wont to call Blind Harrv their bible, 
 he being their great favourite next the Scrip- 
 tures. When therefore, one in the vale of life, 
 felt the first emotions of genius, he wanted not 
 models sui generis. But though the seeds of 
 poetry were scattered with a plentiful hand 
 among the Scottish peasantry, the product was 
 probably like that of pears and apples of a 
 thousand that spring up, nine hundred and fifty 
 are so bad as to set the teeth on edge ; forty-five 
 
 or
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 285 
 
 or more are passable and useful ; and the rest 
 of an exquisite flavour. Allan Ramsay and 
 Burns are wildlings of this last description. They 
 had the example of the elder Scottish poets ; 
 they were not without the aid of the best English 
 writers ; and, what was of still more importance, 
 they were no strangers to the book of nature, and 
 to the book of God." 
 
 From this general view, it is apparent that 
 Allan Ramsay may be considered as in a great 
 measure the reviver of the rural poetry of his 
 country. His collection of ancient Scottish 
 poems, under the name of The Ever-Green, his 
 collection of Scottish songs, and his own poems, 
 the principal of which is the Gentle Shepherd, 
 have been universally read among the peasantry 
 of his country, and have in some degree super- 
 seded the adventures of Bruce and Wallace, as 
 recorded by Barbour and Blind Harry. Burns 
 was well acquainted with all these. He had 
 also before him the poems of Fergusson in the 
 Scottish dialect, which have been produced in 
 our own times, and of which it will be necessary 
 to give a short account. 
 
 Fergusson was born of parents who had it in 
 their power to procure him a liberal education, 
 a circumstance, however, which in Scotland 
 implies no very high rank in society. From a 
 
 well
 
 286 THE LIFE OF 
 
 well written and apparently authentic account 
 of his life,* we learn that he spent six years at 
 the schools of Edinburgh and Dundee, and se- 
 veral years at the universities of Edinburgh and 
 St. Andrew's. It appears that he was at one 
 time destined for the Scottish church ; but, as 
 he advanced towards manhood, he renounced 
 that intention, and at Edinburgh entered, the 
 office of a writer to the signet, a title which de- 
 signates a separate and higher order of Scottish 
 attorneys. Fergusson had sensibility of mind, 
 a warm and generous heart, and talents for so- 
 ciety of the most attractive kind. To such a 
 man no situation could be more dangerous than 
 that in which he was placed. The excesses 
 into which he was led, impaired his feeble con- 
 stitution, and he sunk under them in the month 
 of October, 1774, in his 23d or 24th year. 
 Burns was not acquainted with the poems of 
 this youthful genius when he himself began to 
 write poetry; and when he first saw them, he 
 had renounced the muses. But while he re- 
 sided in the town of Irvine, meeting with Fer- 
 gusson's Scottish Poems, he informs us that he 
 " strung his lyre anew with emulating vigour."f 
 
 Touched 
 
 * In the Supplement to the Encyclopedia Britajinica. 
 See also, Campbell's Introduction to the History of Poetry 
 in Scotland, p. 288. 
 
 t See p. 51 of this volume.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 28? 
 
 Touched by the sympathy originating in kin- 
 dred genius, and in the forebodings of similar 
 fortune, Burns regarded Fergusson with a par- 
 tial and an affectionate admiration. Over his 
 grave he erected a monument, as has already 
 been mentioned ; and his poems he has, in seve- 
 ral instances, made the subjects of his imitation. 
 
 From this account of the Scottish poems 
 known to Burns, those who are acquainted with 
 them will see that they are chiefly humorous or 
 pathetic ; and under one or other of these de- 
 scriptions most of his own poems will class. 
 Let us compare him with his predecessors un- 
 der each of these points of view, and close our 
 examination with a few general observations. 
 
 It has frequently been observed, that Scot- 
 land has produced, comparatively speaking, few 
 writers who have excelled in humour. But this 
 observation is true only when applied to those 
 who have continued to reside in their own coun- 
 try, and have confined themselves to composi- 
 tion in pure English ; and in these circum- 
 stances it admits of an easy explanation. The 
 Scottish poets, who have written in the dialect 
 of Scotland, have been at all times remarkable 
 for dwelling on subjects of humour, in which 
 indeed many of them have excelled. It would 
 be easy to shew, that the dialect f Scotland 
 
 having
 
 288 THE LIFE OF 
 
 having become provincial, is now scarcely suited 
 to the more elevated kinds of poetry. If we 
 may believe that the poem of Christis Kirk of 
 the Grene was written by James the First of 
 Scotland,* this accomplished monarch, who 
 had received an English education under the 
 direction of, Henry the Fourth, and who bore 
 arms under his gallant successor, gave the mo- 
 del on which the greater part of the humorous 
 productions of the rustic muse of Scotland has 
 been formed. Christis Kirk of the Grene was 
 reprinted by Ramsay somewhat modernized in 
 the orthography, and two cantos were added 
 by him, in which he attempts to carry on the 
 design. Hence the poem of King James is 
 usually printed in Ramsay's works. The royal 
 bard describes, in the first canto, a rustic dance, 
 and afterwards a contention in archery, ending 
 in an affray. Ramsay relates the restoration of 
 concord, and the renewal of the rural sports, 
 with the humours of a country wedding. 
 Though each of the poets describes the man- 
 ners 
 
 * Notwithstanding the evidence produced on this sub- 
 ject by Mr. Tytler, the Editor acknowledges his being 
 somewhat of a sceptic on this point. Sir David Dalrymple 
 inclines to the opinion that it was written by his successor, 
 James the Fifth. There are difficulties attending this sup- 
 position also. But on the subject of Scottish Antiquities 
 the Editor is an incompetent judge.
 
 ROBERT RURNS. 28$ 
 
 tiers of his respective age, yet in the whole piece 
 there is a very sufficient uniformity ; a striking 
 proof of the identity of character in the Scottish 
 peasantry at the two periods, distant from each 
 other three hundred years. It is an honourable 
 distinction to this body of men, that their cha- 
 racter and manners, very little embellished, have 
 been found to be susceptible of an amusing and 
 interesting species of poetry ; and it must ap- 
 pear not a little curious, that the single nation 
 of modern Europe which possesses an original 
 rural poetry, should have received the model, 
 followed by their rustic bards, from the monarch 
 on the throne. 
 
 The two additional cantos to Christis Kirk 
 of the Grene, written by Ramsay, though ob- 
 jectionable in point of delicacy, are among the 
 happiest of his productions. His chief excel- 
 lence indeed, lay in the description of rural 
 characters, incidents and scenery ; for he did 
 not possess any very high powers either of ima- 
 gination or of understanding. He was well 
 acquainted with the peasantry of Scotland, their 
 lives and opinions. The subject was in a great 
 measure new j his talents were equal to the sub- 
 ject; and he Las shewn that it may be hap- 
 pily adapted to pastoral poetry. In his Gentle 
 Shepherd, the characters are delineations from 
 nature, the descriptive parts are in the genuine 
 
 vol. I. u style
 
 290 THE LIFE OF 
 
 style of beautiful simplicity, the passions and 
 affections of rural life are finely portrayed, and 
 the heart is pleasingly interested in the happi- 
 ness that is bestowed on innocence and virtue. 
 Throughout the whole there is an air of reality 
 which the most careless reader cannot but per- 
 ceive ; and in fact no poem ever perhaps ac- 
 quired so high a reputation, in which truth re- 
 ceived so little embellishment from the imagi- 
 nation. In his pastoral songs, and in his rural 
 tales, Ramsay appears to less advantage indeed, 
 but still with considerable attraction. The 
 story of the Monk and the Miller's Wife, 
 though somewhat licentious, may rank with the 
 happiest productions of Prior or La Fontaine. 
 But when he attempts subjects from higher life, 
 and aims at pure English composition, he is fee- 
 ble and uninteresting, and seldom even reaches 
 mediocrity.* Neither are his familiar epistles 
 and elegies in the Scottish dialect entitled to 
 much approbation. Though Fergusson had 
 higher powers of imagination than Ramsay, his 
 genius was not of the highest order; nor did 
 his learning, which was considerable, improve 
 his genius. His poems written in pure English 
 in which he often follows classical models, 
 though superior to the English poems of Ram- 
 say, seldom rise above mediocrity ; but in those 
 
 composed 
 
 * See The Morning Interview, &c
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 291 
 
 composed in the Scottish dialect he is often 
 very successful. He was in general, however, 
 less happy than Ramsay in the subjects of his 
 muse. As he spent the greater part of his life 
 in Edinburgh, and wrote for his amusement in 
 the intervals of business or dissipation, his Scot- 
 tish poems are chiefly founded on the incidents 
 of a town life, which, though they are suscep- 
 tible of humour, do not admit of those delinea- 
 tions of scenery and manners, which vivify the 
 rural poetry of Ramsay, and which so agreeably 
 amuse the fancy [and interest the heart. The 
 town-eclogues of Fergusson, if we may so de- 
 nominate them, are however faithful to nature, 
 and often distinguished by a very happy vein of 
 humour. His poems entitled The Daft Days, 
 The King's Birth-day in Edinburgh, Leith 
 Races, and The Hallow Fair, will justify this 
 character. In these, particularly in the last, 
 he imitated Christis Kirk of the Grene, as 
 Ramsay had done before him. His Address to 
 the Tron-kirk Bell is an exquisite piece of hu- 
 mour, which Burns has scarcely excelled. In 
 appreciating the genius of Fergusson, it ought 
 to be recollected, that his poems are the careless 
 effusions of an irregular though amiable young 
 man, who wrote for the periodical papers of the 
 day, and who died in early youth. Had his life 
 been prolonged under happier circumstances of 
 fortune, he would probably have risen to much 
 
 u 2 higher
 
 29$ THE LIFE OF 
 
 higher reputation . He might have excelled in 
 rural poetry ; for though his professed pastorals 
 on the established Sicilian model, are stale and 
 uninteresting, The Farmer's Ingle,* which may 
 be considered as a Scottish pastoral, is the hap- 
 piest of all his productions, and certainly was 
 the archetype of the Cotter's Saturday Night. 
 Fergusson, and more especially Burns, have 
 shewn that the character and manners of the 
 peasantry of Scotland, of the present times, are 
 as well adapted to poetry, as in the day of 
 Ramsay, or of the author of Christis Kirk of the 
 Grene. 
 
 The humour of Burns is of a richer vein than 
 that of Ramsay or Fergusson, both of whom, as 
 he himself informs us, he had " frequently in 
 his eye, but rather with a view to kindle at their 
 flame, than to servile imitation. "+ His de- 
 scriptive powers, whether the objects on which 
 they are employed be comic or serious, animate 
 or inanimate, are of the highest order. A su- 
 periority of this kind is essential to every spe- 
 cies of poetical excellence. In one of his 
 earlier poems, his plan seems to be to inculcate 
 a lesson of contentment on the lower classes of 
 society, by shewing that their superiors are 
 
 neither 
 
 * The farmer's fire-side. 
 
 f Vol. iii. Appendix, p. 389.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 393 
 
 neither much better nor happier than them- 
 selves; and this he chooses to execute in the 
 form of a dialogue between two dogs. He in- 
 troduces this dialogue by an account of the 
 persons and characters of the speakers. The 
 first, whom he has named Caesar, is a dog of 
 condition : 
 
 u His locked, letter'd, braw brass-collar, 
 Shew'd him the gentleman and scholar." 
 
 High-bred though he is, he is however full of 
 condescension-: 
 
 " At kirk or market, mill or smiddie, 
 Nae tawted tyke, tho' e'er sae duddie, 
 But he wad stan't, as glad to see him, 
 And stroan't on stanes an' hillocks wi' him" 
 
 The other, Luath, is a '* ploughman's collie," 
 but a cur of a good heart and a sound under- 
 standing. 
 
 " His honest, sonsie, bawsn't face, 
 Ay gat him friends in ilka place ; 
 His breast was white, his towsie back 
 Weel clad wi' coat o' glossy black ; 
 His gawcie tail, zvi' upward curl, 
 Hung o'er his hurdies wi' a swirl." 
 
 Never were twa dogs so exquisitely deli- 
 neated. Their gambols before they sit down to 
 
 moralize,
 
 294 THE LIFE OF 
 
 moralize, are described with an equal degree of 
 happiness j and through the whole dialogue, 
 the character, as well as the different condition 
 of the two speakers, is kept in view. The 
 speech of Luath, in which he enumerates the 
 comforts of the poor, gives the following ac- 
 count of their merriment on the first day of 
 the year : 
 
 " That merry day the year begins, 
 They bar the door on frosty winds ; 
 The nappy reeks wi* mantling ream, 
 And sheds a heart-inspiring steam ; 
 The luntin pipe, and sneeshin' mill, 
 Are handed round wi* right guid-will ; 
 The canty auld folks crackin crouse, 
 The young anes rantin thro' the house 
 My heart has been sae fain to see them, 
 That I for joy hae barkit wi' them.'* 
 
 Of all the animals who have moralized on 
 human affairs since the days of jEsop, the dog 
 seems best entitled to this privilege, as well 
 from his superior sagacity, as from his being 
 more than any other, the friend and associate of 
 man. The dogs of Burns, excepting in their 
 talent for moralizing, are downright dogs ; and 
 not like the horses of Swift, or the Hind and 
 Panther of Dryden, men in the shape of brutes. 
 It is this circumstance that heightens the hu- 
 mour of the dialogue. The " twa dogs" are 
 
 constantly
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 295 
 
 constantly kept before our eyes, and the con- 
 trast between their form and character as dogs, 
 and the sagacity of their conversation, height- 
 ens the humour, and deepens the impression of 
 the poet's satire. Though in this poem the 
 chief excellence may be considered as humour, 
 yet great talents are displayed in its composi- 
 tion; the happiest powers of description and 
 the deepest insight into the human heart.* It 
 is seldom, however, that the humour of Burns 
 appears in so simple a form. The liveliness of 
 his sensibility frequently impels him to intro- 
 duce into subjects of humour, emotions of ten- 
 derness or of pity : and, where occasion ad- 
 mits, he is sometimes carried on to exert the 
 higher powers of imagination. In such in- 
 stances 
 
 * When this poem first appeared, it was thought by 
 some very surprising, that a peasant who had not an oppor- 
 tunity of associating even with a simple gentleman, should 
 have been able to portray the character of high-life with 
 such accuracy. And when it was recollected that he had 
 probably been at the races of Ayr, where nobility as well 
 as gentry are to be seen, it was concluded that the race- 
 ground had been the field of his observation. This was 
 sagacious enough ; but it did not require such instruction to 
 inform Burns, that human nature is essentially the same in 
 the high and the low ; and a genius which comprehends the 
 human mind, easily comprehends the accidental varieties 
 introduced by situation.
 
 2$6 THE LIFE OF 
 
 stances he leaves the society of Ramsay and of 
 Fergusson, and associates himself with the mas- 
 ters of English poetry, whose language he fre- 
 quently assumes. 
 
 Of the union of tenderness and humour, ex- 
 amples may be found in The Death and Dying 
 Words of poor Mailie, in The auld Farmer's 
 New-Year 1 s Morning Salutation to his Mare 
 Maggie, and in many of his other poems. The 
 praise of whiskey is a favourite subject with 
 Burns. To this he dedicates his poem of Scotch 
 Drink* After mentioning its cheering in- 
 fluence in a variety of situations, he describes, 
 with singular liveliness and power of fancy, its 
 stimulating effects on the blacksmith working at 
 his forge : 
 
 " Nae mercy, then, for aim and steel; 
 The brawnie, bainie, ploughman chiel, 
 Brings hard owre-hip, wi* sturdy wheel, 
 
 The strong fore-hammer, 
 Till block an' studdie ring and reel 
 
 Wi' dinsome clamour ." 
 
 On another occasion,-}- choosing to exalt 
 whiskey above wine, he introduces a compari- 
 son 
 
 * Vol. iii. p. 12. 
 
 f The Author's earnest cry and prayer to the Scotch 
 Representatives in Parliament, vol. iii. p. 19.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 297 
 
 son between the natives of more genial climes, to 
 whom the vine furnishes their beverage, and his 
 own countrymen who drink the spirit of malt. 
 The description of the Scotsman is humorous : 
 
 " But bring a Scotsman frae his hill, 
 Clap in his cheek a Highland gill,* 
 Say, such is royal George's will, 
 
 An' there's the foe, 
 He has nae thought but how to kill 
 
 Twa at a blow." 
 
 Here the notion of danger rouses the imagina- 
 tion of the poet. He goes on thus : 
 
 " Nae cauld, faint-hearted doubtings teaze him ; 
 Death comes wi' fearless eye he sees him : 
 Wi' bluidy hand a welcome gies him, 
 
 An' when he fa's, 
 His latest draught o' breathing lea'es him 
 
 In faint huzzas." 
 
 Again, however, he sinks into humour, and 
 concludes the poem with the following most 
 laughable, but most irreverent apostrophe : 
 
 " Scotland, my auld, respected mither ! 
 Tho' whyles ye moistify your leather, 
 Till whare ye sit, on craps o' heather, 
 
 Ye tine your dam : 
 Freedom and whiskey gang thegither, 
 Tak aff your dram !" 
 
 Of 
 
 * Of whiskey,
 
 298 THE LIFE OF 
 
 Of this union of humour with the higher 
 powers of imagination, instances may be found 
 in the poem entitled Death and Dr. Hornbook, 
 and in almost every stanza of the Address to the 
 Deil y one of the happiest of his productions. 
 After reproaching this terrible being with all his 
 " doings" and misdeeds, in the course of which 
 he passes through a series of Scottish supersti- 
 tions, and rises at times into a high strain of po- 
 etry; he concludes this address, delivered in a 
 tone of great familiarity, not altogether unmixed 
 with apprehension, in the following words : 
 
 " But, fare ye weel, auld Nickie-ben! 
 O wad you tak a thought an' men' ! 
 Ye aiblins might I dinna ken 
 
 Still hae a stake 
 I'm wae to think upo' yon den 
 
 Ev'n for your sake !" 
 
 Humour and tenderness are here so happily 
 intermixed, that it is impossible to say which 
 preponderates. 
 
 Fergusson wrote a dialogue between the 
 Causeway and the Plainstones* of Edinburgh. 
 This probably suggested to Burns his dialogue 
 between the Old and the New bridge over the 
 
 river 
 
 * The middle of the street , and the side-way.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 299 
 
 river Ayr.* The nature of such subjects re- 
 quires that they shall be treated humorously, and 
 Fergusson has attempted nothing beyond this. 
 Though the Causeway and the Plainstones talk 
 together, no attempt is made to personify the 
 speakers. A " cadie"f heard the conversation, 
 and reported it to the poet. 
 
 In the dialogue between the Brigs of Ayr, 
 Burns himself is the auditor, and the time and 
 occasion on which it occurred is related with 
 great circumstantiality. The poet, " pressed 
 by care," or <c inspired by whim," had left his 
 bed in the town of Ayr, and wandered out alone 
 in the darkness and solitude of a winter-night, 
 to the mouth of the river, where the stillness 
 was interrupted only by the rushing sound of 
 the influx of the tide. It was after midnight. 
 The Dungeon-clock J had struck two, and the 
 sound had been repeated by Wallace-Tower. J 
 All else was hushed. The moon shone brightly, 
 and 
 
 " The chilly frost, beneath the silver beam, 
 
 Crept gently-crusting, o'er the glittering stream.'' 
 
 In this situation the listening bard hears the 
 
 " clanging 
 
 # The Brigs of Ayr, vol. iii. p. 50. 
 f A messenger. % The two steeples of Ayr.
 
 300 THE LIFE OF 
 
 C clanging sugh" of wings moving through the 
 air, and speedily he perceives two beings, reared, 
 the one on the Old, the other on the New Bridge, 
 whose form and attire he describes, and whose 
 conversation with each other he rehearses. 
 These genii enter into a comparison of the re- 
 spective edifices over which they preside, and 
 afterwards, as is usual between the old and 
 young, compare modern characters and man- 
 ners with those of past times. They differ, as 
 may be expected, and taunt and scold each 
 other in broad Scotch. This conversation, 
 which is certainly humorous, may be considered 
 as the proper business of the poem. As the de- 
 bate runs high, and threatens serious conse- 
 quences, all at once it is interrupted by a new 
 scene of wonders : 
 
 (< all before their sight 
 
 A fairy train appear'd in order bright ; 
 Adown the glittering stream they featly dane'd f 
 Bright to the moon their various dresses glanc'd ; 
 They footed o'er the wat'ry glass so neat, 
 The infant ice scarce bent beneath their feet ; 
 While arts of Minstrelsy among them rung, 
 And soul-ennobling Bards heroic ditties sung." 
 
 u The Genius of the Stream in front appears, 
 A venerable chief, advane'd in years ; 
 
 His
 
 ROBERT BURNS. SOI 
 
 His hoary head with water-lilies crown'd, 
 His manly leg with garter-tangle bound." 
 
 Next follow a number of other allegorical 
 foeings, among whom are the four seasons, Rural 
 Joy, Plenty, Hospitality, and Courage. 
 
 " Benevolence, with mild henignant air, 
 
 A female form, came from the tow'rs of Stair : 
 Learning and wealth in equal measures trode, 
 From simple Catrine, their long-lov'd abode : 
 Last, white-roh'd Peace, crown'd with a hazel-wreath, 
 To rustic Agriculture did bequeath 
 The broken iron instruments of Death ; 
 At sight of whom our Sprites forgat their kindling 
 wrath." 
 
 This poem, irregular and imperfect as it is, 
 displays various and powerful talents, and may 
 serve to illustrate the genius of Burns. In par- 
 ticular, it affords a striking instance of his being 
 carried beyond his original purpose by the 
 powers of imagination. 
 
 In Fergusson's poem, the Plainstones and 
 Causeway contrast the characters of the differ- 
 ent persons who walked upon them. Burns 
 probably conceived, that, by a dialogue between 
 the Old and New Bridge, he might form a hu- 
 morous contrast between ancient and modern 
 manners in the town of Ayr. Such a dialogue 
 
 could
 
 302 THE LIFE OF 
 
 could only be supposed to pass in the stillness of 
 night; and this led our poet into a description 
 of a midnight scene, which excited in a high de- 
 gree the powers of his imagination. During the 
 whole dialogue the scenery is present to his 
 fancy, and at length it suggests to him a fairy 
 dance of aerial beings, under the beams of the 
 moon, by which the wrath of the Genii of the 
 Brigs of Ayr is appeased. 
 
 Incongruous as the different parts of this 
 poem are, it is not an incongruity that dis- 
 pleases ; and we have only to regret that the 
 poet did not bestow a little pains in making the 
 figures more correct, and in smoothing the ver- 
 sification. 
 
 The epistles of Burns, in which may be in- 
 cluded his Dedication to G. H. Esq., discover, 
 like his other writings, the powers of a, superior 
 understanding. They display deep insight into 
 human nature, a gay and happy strain of re- 
 flection, great independence of sentiment, and 
 generosity of heart. It is to be regretted, that 
 in his Holy Fair, and in some of his other 
 poems, his humour degenerates into personal 
 satire, and that it is not sufficiently guarded in 
 other respects. The Halloween of Burns is free 
 from every objection of this sort. It is inte- 
 resting, not merely from its humorous descrip- 
 tion
 
 ROBERT BURNS. S03 
 
 tion of manners, but as it records the spells and 
 charms used on the celebration of a festival, 
 now, even in Scotland, falling into neglect, but 
 which was once observed over the greater part 
 of Britain and Ireland.* These charms are 
 supposed to afford an insight into futurity, espe- 
 cially on the subject of marriage, the most in- 
 teresting event of rural life. In the Halloween, 
 a female, in performing one of the spells, has 
 occasion to go out by moonlight to dip her shift- 
 sleeve into a stream running towards the South. f 
 It was not necessary for Burns to give a descrip- 
 tion of this stream. But it was the character of 
 his ardent mind to pour forth not merely what 
 the occasion required, but what is admitted ; and 
 the temptation to describe so beautiful a natural 
 object by moonlight, was not to be resisted 
 
 u Whyles ovvre a linn the burnie plays 
 As thro' the glen it wimpl't ; 
 Whyles round a rocky scar it strays ; 
 
 Whyles in a wiel it dimpl't ; 
 Whyles glitter'd to the nightly rays, 
 
 Wi' bickering dancing dazzle ; 
 Whylee cookit underneath the braes, 
 Beneath the spreading hazel, 
 
 Unseen that night. 
 
 Those 
 
 * In Ireland it is still celebrated. It is not quite in dis- 
 use in Wales. 
 
 f See vol. iii. p. 136. 137.
 
 304 THE LIFE OF 
 
 Those who understand the Scottish dialect will 
 allow this to be one of the finest instances of de- 
 scription which the records of poetry afford. 
 Though of a very different nature, it may be 
 compared in point of excellence with Thomson's 
 description of a river swollen by the rains of 
 winter, bursting through the streights that con- 
 fine its torrent, " boiling, wheeling, foaming, 
 and thundering along."* 
 
 In pastoral, or, to speak more correctly, in 
 rural poetry of a serious nature, Burns excelled 
 equally as in that of a humorous kind, and, 
 using less of the Scottish dialect in his serious 
 poems, he becomes more generally intelligible. 
 It is difficult to decide whether the Address 
 to a Mouse whose nest was turned up with the 
 plough,^ should be considered as serious or co- 
 mic. Be this as it may, the poem is one of the 
 happiest and most finished of his productions. 
 If we smile at the " bickering brattle" of this 
 little flying animal, it is a smile of tenderness 
 and pity. The descriptive part is admirable ; 
 the moral reflections beautiful, and arising di- 
 rectly out of the occasion ; and in the conclu- 
 sion there is a deep melancholy, a sentiment of 
 doubt and dread, that rises to the sublime. The 
 Address to a Mountain Daisy, turned down with 
 
 the 
 
 * See Thomson's Winter. + Vol. iii. 146.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 305 
 
 the plough,* is a poem of the same nature, 
 though somewhat inferior in point of origina- 
 lity, as well as in the interest produced. To 
 extract out of incidents so common, and seem- 
 ingly so trivial as these, so fine a train of sen- 
 timent and imagery, is the surest proof, as well 
 as the most brilliant triumph, of original ge- 
 nius. The vision, in two cantos, from which a 
 beautiful extract is taken by Mr. Mackenzie, 
 in the 97th number of the Lounger, is a poem 
 of great and various excellence. The opening, 
 in which the poet describes his own state of 
 mind, retiring in the evening, wearied from the 
 labours of the day, to moralize on his conduct 
 and prospects, is truly interesting. The cham- 
 ber, if we may so term it, in which he sits down 
 to muse, is an exquisite painting : 
 
 " There, lanely, by the ingle-cheek, 
 I sat and ey'd the spewing reek, 
 That fill'd wi' hoast-provoking sraeek 
 
 That auld clay biggin ; 
 An' heard the restless rattons squeak 
 
 About the riggm." 
 
 To reconcile to our imagination the entrance 
 of an aerial being into a mansion of this kind, 
 required the powers of Burns he however suc- 
 ceeds. Coila enters, and her countenance, at- 
 
 VOL. I. x titude^ 
 
 * Vol m.p. 201.
 
 306 THE LIFE OF 
 
 titude, and dress, unlike those of other spiritual 
 beings, are distinctly portrayed. To the paint- 
 ing on her mantle, on which is depicted the 
 most striking scenery, as well as the most dis- 
 tinguished characters, of his native country, 
 some exceptions may be made. The mantle of 
 Coila, like the cup of Thyrsis,* and the shield 
 of Achilles, is too much crowded with figures, 
 and some of the objects represented upon it are 
 scarcely admissible, according to the principles 
 of design. The generous temperament of Burns 
 led him into these exuberances. In his second 
 edition he enlarged the number of figures ori- 
 ginally introduced, that he might include ob- 
 jects to which he was attached by sentiments of 
 affection, gratitude, or patriotism. The second 
 Duan, or canto of this poem, in which Coila de- 
 scribes her own nature and occupations, parti- 
 cularly her superintendence of his infant genius, 
 and in which she reconciles him to the charac- 
 ter of a bard, is an elevated and solemn strain 
 of poetry, ranking in all respects, excepting the 
 harmony of numbers, with the higher produc- 
 tions of the English muse. The concluding 
 stanza, compared with that already quoted, 
 will show to what a height Burns rises in this 
 poem, from the point at which he set out : 
 
 And 
 
 * See the first Idyllium of Theocritus.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 307 
 
 u And wear thou this she solemn said, 
 And bound the holly round my head ; 
 The polish'd leaves, and berries red, 
 
 Did rustling play ; 
 And, like a passing thought, she fled 
 
 In light away." 
 
 In various poems Burns has exhibited the 
 picture of a mind under the deep impressions of 
 real sorrow. The Lament, the Ode to Ruin, De- 
 spondency, and Winter, a Dirge, are of this cha- 
 racter. In the first of those poems the 8th stanza, 
 which describes a sleepless night from anguish 
 of mind, is particularly striking. Burns often in- 
 dulged in those melancholy views of the nature 
 and condition of man, which are so congenial to 
 the temperament of sensibility. The poem en- 
 titled Man zvas made to Mourn, affords an in- 
 stance of this kind, and The Winter Night* is 
 of the same description. The last is highly cha- 
 racteristic, both of the temper of mind, and of 
 the condition of Burns. It begins with a de- 
 scription of a dreadful storm on a night in win- 
 ter. The poet represents himself as lying in bed, 
 and listening to its howling. In this situation 
 he naturally turns his thoughts to the ourie-\ 
 X 2 Cattle, 
 
 * See vol. iii. p. 149- 
 
 *j- Ourie, out-lying. Ourie Cattle, Cattle that are un- 
 housed all winter. Ourie drooping, shivering.
 
 308 THE LIFE OF 
 
 Cattle, and the silly* Sheep, exposed to all the 
 violence of the tempest. Having lamented their 
 fate, he proceeds in the following manner : 
 
 " Ilk happing bird -wee, helpless thing ! 
 That, in the merry months o' spring, 
 Delighted me to hear thee sing, 
 
 What comes o' thee ? 
 Whare wilt thou cow'r thy chittering wing, 
 
 An' close thy e'e ?" 
 
 Other reflections of the same nature occur to 
 his mind ; and as the midnight moon " muffled 
 with clouds'* casts her dreary light on his win- 
 dow, thoughts of a darker and more melancholy 
 nature crowd upon him. In this state of mind, 
 he hears a voice pouring through the gloom a 
 solemn and plaintive strain of reflection. The 
 mourner compares the fury of the elements with 
 that of man to his brother man, and finds the 
 former light in the balance. 
 
 " See stern Oppression's iron grip, 
 Or mad ambition's gory hand, 
 Sending, like blood-hounds from the slip, 
 Woe, want, and murder, o'er the land." 
 
 He pursues this train of reflection through a 
 variety of particulars, in the course of which he 
 introduces the following animated apostrophe : 
 
 " O 
 
 * Silly is in this, as in other places, a term of com- 
 passion and endearment.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 309 
 
 <f O ye ! who, sunk in beds of down, 
 
 Feel not a want but what yourselves create, 
 Think, for a moment, on his wretched fate, 
 
 Whom friends and fortune quite disown ! 
 Ill-satisfied keen Nature's clam'rous call, 
 
 Stretch'd on his straw he lays him down to sleep, 
 While thro' the ragged roof and chinky wall, 
 
 Cbjll o'er his slumbers piles the drifty heap." 
 
 The strain of sentiment which runs through 
 this poem is noble, though the execution is un* 
 equal, and the versification is defective. 
 
 Among the serious poems of Burns, The Cot- 
 ter's Saturday Night is perhaps entitled to the 
 first rank. The Farmer's Ingle of Fergusson evi- 
 dently suggested the plan of this poem, as has 
 been already mentioned ; but after the plan was 
 formed, Burns trusted entirely to his own powers 
 for the execution. Fergusson's poem is certainly 
 very beautiful. It has all the charms which de- 
 pend on rural characters and manners happily 
 portrayed, and exhibited under circumstances 
 highly grateful to the imagination. The Farmer's 
 Ingle begins with describing the return of even- 
 ing. The toils of the day are over, and the 
 farmer retires to his comfortable fire-side. The 
 reception which he and his men-servants receive 
 from the careful housewife, is pleasingly de- 
 scribed. After their supper is over, they begin 
 to talk on the rural events of the day. 
 
 " 'Bout
 
 310 THE LIFE OF 
 
 " 'Bout kirk and market eke their tales gae on, 
 How Jock woo'd Jenny here to be his bride ; 
 And there how Marion for a bastart son, 
 Upo' the cutty-stool was forced to ride, 
 The waefu' scauld o' our Mess John to bide." 
 
 The " Guidame" is next introduced as form- 
 ing a circle jround the fire, in the midst of her 
 grand-children, and while she spins from the 
 rock, and the spindle plays on her " russet lap," 
 she is relating to the young ones tales of witches 
 and ghosts. The poet exclaims, 
 
 " O mock na this my friends ! but rather mourn, 
 Ye in life's bra west spring wi' reason clear) 
 Wi' eild our idle fancies a' return, 
 
 And dim our dolefu' days wi' bairnly fear ; 
 The mind's aye cradled when the grave is near." 
 
 In the mean time the farmer, wearied with 
 the fatigues of the day, stretches himself at length 
 on the settle, a sort of rustic couch, which ex- 
 tends on one side of the fire, and the cat and 
 house-dog leap upon it to receive his caresses. 
 Here, resting at his ease, he gives his directions 
 to his men-servants for the succeeding day. The 
 house-wife follows his example, and gives her 
 orders to the maidens. By degrees the oil in the 
 cruise begins to fail ; the fire runs low ; sleep 
 steals on this rustic group; and they move off 
 to enjoy their peaceful slumbers. The poet con- 
 cludes
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 311 
 
 eludes by bestowing his blessing on the " hus- 
 bandman and all his tribe." 
 
 This is an original and truly interesting pas- 
 toral. It possesses every thing required in this 
 species of composition. We might have per- 
 haps said, every thing that it admits, had not 
 Burns written his Cotter's Saturday Night. 
 
 The cottager returning from his labours, has 
 no servants to accompany him, to partake of his 
 fare, or to receive his instructions. The circle 
 which he joins, is composed of his wife and 
 children only ; and if it admits of less variety, 
 it affords an opportunity for representing scenes 
 that more strongly interest the affections. The 
 younger children running to meet him, and 
 clambering round his knee; the elder, return- 
 ing from their weekly labours with the neigh- 
 bouring farmers, dutifully depositing their little 
 gains with their parents, and receiving their fa- 
 ther's blessing and instructions; the incidents 
 of the courtship of Jenny, their eldest daughter, 
 <f woman grown ;" are circumstances of the most 
 interesting kind, which are most happily deli- 
 neated : and after their frugal supper, the repre- 
 sentation of these humble cottagers forming a 
 wider circle round their hearth, and uniting in 
 the worship of God, is a picture the most deeply 
 affecting of any which the rural muse has ever 
 
 presented
 
 312 THE LIFE OF 
 
 presented to the view. Burns was admirably 
 adapted to this delineation. Like all men of ge- 
 nius he was of the temperament of devotion, and 
 the powers of memory co-operated in this in- 
 stance with the sensibility of his heart, and the 
 fervour of his imagination.* The Cotter's Sa- 
 turday Night , is tender and moral, it is solemn 
 and deyotional, and rises at length into a strain 
 of grandeur and sublimity, which modern poetry 
 has not surpassed. The noble sentiments of 
 patriotism with which it concludes, correspond 
 with the rest of the poem. In no age or coun- 
 try have the pastoral muses breathed such ele- 
 vated accents, if the Messiah of Pope be ex- 
 cepted, which is indeed a pastoral in form only. 
 It is to be regretted that Burns did not employ 
 his genius on other subjects of the same nature, 
 which the manners and customs of the Scottish 
 peasantry would have amply supplied. Such 
 poetry is not to be estimated by the degree of 
 pleasure which it bestows ; it sinks deeply into 
 the heart, and is calculated, far beyond any other 
 human means, for giving permanence to the 
 scenes and the characters it so exquisitely de- 
 scribes, f 
 
 Before 
 
 * The reader will recollect that the Cotter was 
 Burns's father. -See p. 83. 
 
 f See Appendix, No. II. Note D.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 313 
 
 Before we conclude, it will be proper to offer 
 a few observations on the lyric productions of 
 Burns. His compositions of this kind are chiefly 
 songs, generally in the Scottish dialect, and al- 
 ways after the model of the Scottish songs, on 
 the general character and moral influence of 
 which, some observations have already been of- 
 fered.* We may hazard a few more particular 
 remarks. 
 
 Of the historic or heroic ballads of Scotland, 
 it is unnecessary to speak. Burns has no where 
 imitated them, a circumstance to be regretted, 
 since in this species of composition, from its ad- 
 mitting the more terrible as well as the softer 
 graces of poetry, he was eminently qualified to 
 have excelled. The Scottish songs which served 
 as a model to Burns, are almost without ex- 
 ception pastoral, or rather rural. Such of them 
 as are comic frequently treat of a rustic court- 
 ship, or a country wedding j or they describe 
 the differences of opinion which arise in married 
 life. Burns has imitated this species, and sur- 
 passed his models. The song beginning, " Hus- 
 band, husband, cease your strife,"! ma y be cited 
 in support of this observation. J His other comic 
 
 songs 
 
 * Seep. 15, 16, 17- + See vol. iv. p. 145. 
 
 % The dialogues between husbands and their wives, 
 
 which
 
 314 THE LIFE OF 
 
 songs are of equal merit. In the rural songs of 
 Scotland, whether humorous or tender, the sen- 
 timents are given to particular characters, and 
 very generally, the incidents are referred to par- 
 ticular scenery. This last circumstance may be 
 considered as the distinguishing feature of the 
 Scottish songs, and on it a considerable part of 
 their attraction depends. On all occasions the 
 sentiments, of whatever nature, are delivered in 
 the character of the person principally interest- 
 ed. If love be described, it is not as it is ob- 
 served, but as it is felt ; and the passion is de- 
 lineated under a particular aspect. Neither is it 
 the fiercer impulses of desire that are expressed, 
 as in the celebrated ode of Sappho, the model of 
 so many modern songs ; but those gentler emo- 
 tions of tenderness and affection, which do not 
 entirely absorb the lover; but permit him to as- 
 sociate his emotions with the charms of external 
 nature, and breathe the accents of purity and 
 innocence, as well as of love. In these respects 
 the love-songs of Scotland are honourably distin- 
 guished 
 
 which form the subjects of the Scottish songs, are al- 
 most all ludicrous and satirical, and in these contests the 
 lady is generally victorious. From the collections of Mr. 
 Pinkerton we f*ud that the comic muse of Scotland de- 
 lighted in such representations from very early times, 
 in her rude dramatic efforts, as well as in her rustic 
 songs.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 315 
 
 guisbed from the most admired classical com- 
 positions of the same kind ; and by such asso- 
 ciations, a variety, as well as liveliness, is given 
 to the representation of this passion, which are 
 not to be found in the poetry of Greece or 
 Rome, or perhaps of any other nation. Many of 
 the love-songs of Scotland describe scenes of ru- 
 ral courtship 3 many may be considered as invo- 
 cations from lovers to their mistresses. On such 
 occasions a degree of interest and reality is given 
 to the sentiments, by the spot destined to these 
 happy interviews being particularized. The lovers 
 perhaps meet at the Bush aboon Traquair, or on 
 the Banks of Ettrick j the nymphs are invoked 
 to wander among the wilds of Roslin, or the 
 woods of Invermay. Nor is the spot merely 
 pointed outj the scenery is often described as 
 well as the characters, so as to present a com- 
 plete picture to the fancy.* Thus the maxim of 
 Horace, ut pictura poesis, is faithfully observed 
 
 by 
 
 * One or two examples may illustrate this observa- 
 tion. A Scottish song, written about a hundred years ago, 
 begins thus: 
 
 " On Ettrick banks, on a summer's night 
 
 At gloaming, when the sheep drove hame, 
 I met my lassie, braw and tight, 
 Come wading barefoot a' her lane : 
 
 My
 
 316 THE LIFE OF 
 
 by these rustic bards, who are guided by the 
 same impulse of nature and sensibility which in- 
 fluenced the father of epic poetry, on whose ex- 
 ample the precept of the Roman poet was per- 
 haps founded. By this means the imagination is 
 employed to interest the feelings. When we do 
 
 not 
 
 My heart grew light, I ran, I flang 
 
 My arms about her lily-neck, 
 And kiss'd and clasped there fu' lang, 
 
 My words they were na moiiy feck."* 
 
 The lover, who is a Highlander, goes on to relate the 
 language he employed with his Lowland maid to win her 
 heart, and to persuade her to fly with him to the High- 
 land hills, there to share his fortune. The sentiments 
 are in themselves beautiful. But we feel them with 
 double force, while we conceive that they were addressed 
 by a lover to his mistress, whom he met all alone, on a 
 summer's evening, by the banks of a beautiful stream, 
 which some of us have actually seen, and which all of us 
 can paint to our imagination. Let us take another ex- 
 ample. It is now a nymph that speaks. Hear how she 
 expresses herself 
 
 " How blythe each morn was I to see 
 My swain come o'er the hill ! 
 He skipt the burn, and flew to me, 
 I met him with guid will." 
 
 Here 
 
 * Monyfeck, not very many.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 317 
 
 not conceive distinctly, we do not sympathize 
 deeply in any human affection -, and we conceive 
 nothing in the abstract. Abstraction, so useful 
 in morals, and so essential in science, must be 
 abandoned when the heart is to be subdued by 
 the powers of poetry or of eloquence. The 
 bards of a ruder condition of society paint in- 
 dividual objects ; and hence among other causes, 
 the easy access they obtain to the heart. Ge- 
 neralization is the vice of poets whose learning 
 overpowers their genius ; of poets of a refined 
 and scientific age. 
 
 The dramatic style which prevails so much 
 in the Scottish songs, while it contributes 
 
 greatly 
 
 Here is another picture drawn by the pencil of Nature. 
 We see a shepherdess standing by the side of a brook, 
 watching her lover as he descends the opposite hill. He 
 bounds lightly along ; he approaches nearer and nearer ; 
 he leaps the brook, and flies into her arms. In the re- 
 collection of these circumstances, the surrounding scenery 
 becomes endeared to the fair mourner, and she bursts into 
 the following exclamation : 
 
 " O the broom, the bonnie bonnie broom, 
 The broom of the Cowden-Knowes ! 
 I wish I were with my dear swain, 
 With his pipe and my ewes." 
 
 Thus the individual spot of this happy interview is 
 pointed out, and the picture is completed.
 
 318 THE LIFE OF , 
 
 greatly to the interest they excite, also shews 
 that they have originated among a people in the 
 earlier stages of society. Where this form of 
 composition appears in songs of a modern date, 
 it indicates that they have been written after the 
 ancient model.* 
 
 The Scottish songs are of very unequal poe- 
 tical merit, and this inequality often extends to 
 the different parts of the same song. Those 
 that are humorous, or characteristic of manners, 
 have in general the merit of copying nature ; 
 
 those 
 
 * That the dramatic form of writing characterizes 
 the productions of an early, or, what amounts to the 
 same thing, of a rude stage of society, may be illustrated 
 by a reference to the most ancient compositions that 
 we know of, the Hebrew scriptures, and the writings. of 
 Homer. The form of dialogue is adopted in the old 
 Scottish ballads even in narration, whenever the situa- 
 tions described become interesting. This sometimes pro- 
 duces a very striking effect, of which an instance may be 
 given from the ballad of Edom o Gordon, a composition 
 apparently of the sixteenth century. The story of the 
 ballad is shortly this The castle of Rhodes, in the ab- 
 sence of its lord, is attacked by the robber Edom o' 
 Gordon. The lady stands on her defence, beats off the 
 assailants, and wounds Gordon, who in his rage orders 
 the castle to be set on fire. That his orders are carried 
 into effect, we learn from the expostulation of the lady, 
 
 who
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 319 
 
 those that are serious, are tender, and often 
 sweetly interesting, but seldom exhibit high 
 powers of imagination, which indeed do not 
 easily find a place in this species of composition. 
 The alliance of the words of the Scottish songs 
 with the music, has in some instances given to 
 the former a popularity, which otherwise they 
 would not have obtained. 
 
 The association of the words and the music 
 of these songs, with the more beautiful parts of 
 the scenery of Scotland, contributes to the same 
 
 effect. 
 
 who is represented as standing on the battlements, and 
 remonstrating on this barbarity. She is interrupted 
 
 " O then bespake her little son, 
 Sate on his nourice' knee ; 
 Says, ' mither dear, gi' owre this house, 
 
 ' For the reek it smithers me.' 
 " I wad gie a' my gowd, my childe, 
 * " Sae wad I a' my fee, 
 
 ({ For ae blast o' the westlin wind, 
 " To blaw the reek frae thee." 
 
 The circumstantiality of the Scottish love-songs, and 
 the dramatic form which prevails so generally in them, 
 probably arises from their being the descendants and 
 successors of the ancient ballads. In the beautiful mo- 
 dern song of Mary of Castle-Cary, the dramatic form has 
 a very happy effect. The same may be said of Donald 
 and Flora, and Come under my plaidie, by the same au- 
 thor, Mr. Macniel.
 
 320 THE LIFE OF 
 
 effect. It has given them not merely popularity, 
 but permanence j it has imparted to the works of 
 man some portion of the durability of the works 
 of nature. If, from our imperfect experience of 
 the past, we may judge with any confidence re- 
 specting the future, songs of this description are 
 of all others least likely to die. In the changes 
 of language they may no doubt suffer change; 
 but the associated strain of sentiment and of 
 music will perhaps survive, while the clear stream 
 sweeps down the vale of Yarrow, or the yellow 
 broom waves on the Cowden-Knowes. 
 
 The first attempts of Burns in song-writing 
 were not very successful. His habitual inatten- 
 tion to the exactness of rhymes, and to the har- 
 mony of numbers, arising probably from the 
 models on which his versification was formed, 
 were faults likely to appear to more disadvantage 
 in this species of composition, than in any other; 
 and we may also remark, that the strength of his 
 imagination, and the exuberance of his sensibi- 
 lity, were with difficulty restrained within the 
 limits of gentleness, delicacy, and tenderness, 
 which seem to be assigned to the love-songs of 
 his nation. Burns was better adapted by nature 
 for following, in such compositions, the model of 
 the Grecian than of the Scottish muse. By study 
 and practice he however surmounted all these 
 obstacles. In his earlier songs, there is some 
 
 ruggedness ;
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 321 
 
 ruggedness -, but this gradually disappears in his 
 successive efforts ; and some of his latter com- 
 positions of this kind may be compared, in po- 
 lished delicacy, with the finest songs in our lan- 
 guage, while in the eloquence of sensibility they 
 surpass them all. 
 
 The songs of Burns, like the models he fol- 
 lowed and excelled, are often dramatic, and for 
 the greater part amatory ; and the beauties of 
 rural nature are every where associated with the 
 passions and emotions of the mind. Disdain- 
 ing to copy the works of others, he has not, 
 like some poets of great name, admitted into his 
 descriptions exotic imagery. The landscapes 
 he has painted, and the objects with which they 
 are embellished, are, in every single instance, 
 such as are to be found in his own country. In 
 a mountainous region, especially when it is com- 
 paratively rude and naked, the most beautiful 
 scenery will always be found in the valleys, and 
 on the banks of the wooded streams. Such 
 scenery is peculiarly interesting at the close of 
 a summer-day. As we advance northwards, 
 the number of the days of summer, indeed, dimi- 
 nishes ; but from this cause, as well as from the 
 mildness of the temperature, the attraction of 
 the season increases, and the summer-night be- 
 comes still more beautiful. The greater obli- 
 quity of the sun's path on the ecliptic, prolongs 
 
 VOL, I. Y the
 
 32<2 THE LIFE OF 
 
 the grateful season of twilight to the midnight 
 hours, and the shades of the evening seem to 
 mingle with the morning's dawn. The rural 
 poets of Scotland, as may be expected, associate 
 in their songs the expressions of passion, with 
 the most beautiful of their scenery, in the fairest 
 season of the year, and generally in those hours 
 of the evening when the beauties of nature are 
 most interesting.* 
 
 * A lady, of whose genius the editor entertains high 
 admiration, (Mrs. Barbauld), has fallen into an error 
 in this respect. In her prefatory address to the works 
 of Collins, speaking of the natural objects that may 
 be employed to give interest to the descriptions of pas- 
 sion, she observes, u they present an inexhaustible variety, 
 from the Song of Solomon, breathing of cassia, myrrh, 
 and cinnamon, to the Gentle Shepherd of Ramsay, 
 whose damsels carry their milking pails through the 
 frosts and snows of their less genial, but not less pas- 
 toral country." The damsels of Ramsay do not walk- 
 in the midst of frost and snow. Almost all the scenes 
 of the Gentle Shepherd are laid in the open air, amidst 
 beautiful natural objects, and at the most genial season 
 of the year. Ramsay introduces all his acts with a 
 prefatory description to assure us of this. The fault 
 of the climate of Britain is not, that it does not afford 
 us the beauties of summer, but that the season of such 
 beauties is comparatively short, and even uncertain. 
 There are days and nights, even in the northern divi- 
 sion of the island, which equal, or, perhaps, surpass, 
 
 what
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 323 
 
 To all these adventitious circumstances, on 
 which so much of the effect of poetry depends, 
 great attention is paid by Burns. There is 
 scarcely a single song of his in which particu- 
 lar scenery is not described, or allusions made 
 to natural objects, remarkable for beauty or in- 
 terest 3 and though his descriptions are not so 
 full as are sometimes met with in the older Scot- 
 tish songs, they are in the highest degree appro- 
 priate and interesting. Instances in proof of 
 this might be quoted from the Lea Rig,* 
 Highland Mary,\ the Soldier's Return,"^ Lo- 
 gan Water ;^ from that beautiful pastoral, Bon- 
 nie Jean ,|| and a great number of others. Oc- 
 casionally the force of his genius carries him 
 "beyond the usual boundaries of Scottish song, 
 and the natural objects introduced have more 
 
 Y 2 of 
 
 what are to be found in the latitude of Sicily or of 
 Greece. Buchanan, when he wrote his exquisite Ode 
 to May, felt the charm as well as the transientness of these 
 happy days : 
 
 Salve fugacis gloria seculi, 
 Salve secunda digna dies nota, 
 
 Salve vetustae vita? imago, 
 
 Et specimen venientis iEvi ! 
 
 * Vol.iv.p.Q. Voliv. p. 73. 
 
 f Ibid. p. 17. || Ibid. ^.79- 
 
 % Ibid. p. 51.
 
 324 THE LIFE OF 
 
 of the character of sublimity. An instance of 
 this kind is noticed by Mr. Syme,* and many 
 others might be adduced : 
 
 " Had I a cave on some wild, distant shore, 
 Where the winds howl to the wave's dashing roar ; 
 There would I weep my woes, 
 There seek my lost repose, 
 Till grief my eyes should close, 
 Ne'er to wake more/'-f* 
 
 In one song, the scene of which is laid in a 
 winter night, the " wan moon" is described as 
 ** setting behind the white waves;" J in an- 
 other, the " storms" are apostrophized, and 
 commanded to " rest in the cave of their slum- 
 bers.'^ On several occasions, the genius of 
 Burns loses sight entirely of his archetypes, 
 and rises into a strain of uniform sublimity. 
 Instances of this kind appear in Libertie, a Vi- 
 sion^ and in his two war-songs, Bruce to his 
 Troops,** and the Song of Death. ff These 
 last are of a description of which we have no 
 other in our language. The martial songs of our 
 
 nation 
 
 * See p. 2 10 of this volume. 
 
 t VoL'vi. p. 92. Vol. iv. p. 50. 
 
 % Ibid. p. 45. || Ibid. jp. 344. 
 
 ** Vol. iv. p. 125. 
 
 ft See p. 216 of this volume.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 3%5 
 
 nation are not military, but naval. If we were 
 to seek a comparison of these songs of Burns 
 with others of a similar nature, we must have 
 recourse to the poetry of ancient Greece, or of 
 modern Gaul. 
 
 Burns has made an important addition to 
 the songs of Scotland. In his compositions, 
 the poetry equals and sometimes surpasses the 
 music. He has enlarged the poetical scenery 
 of his country. Many of her rivers and moun- 
 tains, formerly unknown to the muse, are now 
 consecrated by his immortal verse. The Doon, 
 the Lugar, the Ayr, the Nith, and the Cluden, 
 will in future, like the Yarrow, the Tweed, and 
 the Tay, be considered as classic streams, and 
 their borders will be trod with new and superior 
 emotions. 
 
 The greater part of the songs of Burns were 
 written after he removed into the county of 
 Dumfries. Influenced, perhaps, by habits 
 formed in early life, he usually composed while 
 walking in the open air. When engaged in 
 writing these songs, his favourite walks were 
 on the banks of the Nith, or of the Cluden, 
 particularly near the ruins of Lincluden Abbey ; 
 and this beautiful scenery he has very happily 
 described under various aspects, as it appears 
 during the softness and serenity of evening, 
 
 and
 
 326 THE LIFE OF - 
 
 and during the stillness and solemnity of the 
 moon-light night.* 
 
 There is no species of poetry, the produc- 
 tions of the drama not excepted, so much cal- 
 culated to influence the morals, as well as the 
 happiness of a people, as those popular verses 
 which are associated with national airs, and 
 which being learnt in the years of infancy, 
 make a deep impression on the heart before the 
 evolution of the powers of the understanding. 
 The compositions of Burns, of this kind, now 
 presented in a collected form to the world, 
 make a most important addition to the popular 
 songs of his nation. Like all his other writings, 
 they exhibit independence of sentiment j they 
 are peculiarly calculated to increase those ties 
 which bind generous hearts to their native soil, 
 and to the domestic circle of their infancy ; 
 and to cherish those sensibilities which, under 
 due restriction, form the purest happiness of 
 our nature. If in his unguarded moments he 
 composed some songs on which this praise 
 cannot be bestowed, let us hope that they will 
 speedily be forgotten. In several instances, 
 where Scottish airs were allied to words objec- 
 tionable in point of delicacy, Burns has substi- 
 tuted others of a purer character. On such oc- 
 casions, 
 
 * See vol. iv. p. 160. p. 346.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 327 
 
 casions, without changing the subject, he has 
 changed the sentiments. A proof of this may 
 be seen in the air of John Anderson my Joe, which 
 is now united to words that breathe a strain of 
 conjugal tenderness, that is as highly moral as 
 it is exquisitely affecting. 
 
 Few circumstances could afford a more strik- 
 ing proof of the strength of Burns's genius, than 
 the general circulation of his poems in England, 
 notwithstanding the dialect in which the greater 
 part are written, and which might be supposed 
 to render them here uncouth or obscure. In 
 some instances he has used this dialect on sub- 
 jects of a sublime nature ; but in general he 
 confines it to sentiments or description of a ten- 
 der or humorous kind ; and, where he rises into 
 elevation of thought, he assumes a purer Eng- 
 lish style. The singular faculty he possessed of 
 mingling in the same poem humorous senti- 
 ments and descriptions, with imagery of a sub- 
 lime and terrific nature, enabled him to use this 
 variety of dialect on some occasions with strik- 
 ing effect. His poem of Tarn o' Shanter affords 
 an instance of this. There he passes from a 
 scene of the lowest humour, to situations of the 
 most awful and terrible kind. He is a musician 
 that runs from the lowest to the highest of his 
 keys j and the use of the Scottish dialect en- 
 ables
 
 328 THE LIFE OF 
 
 ables him to add two additional notes to the 
 bottom of his scale. 
 
 Great efforts have been made by the inha- 
 bitants of Scotland, of the superior ranks, to ap- 
 proximate in their speech to the pure English 
 standard ; and this has made it difficult to write 
 in the Scottish dialect, without exciting in them 
 some feelings of disgust, which in England are 
 scarcely felt. An Englishman who understands 
 the meaning of the Scottish words, is not of- 
 fended, nay, on certain subjects, he is, perhaps, 
 pleased with the rustic dialect, as he may be 
 with the Doric Greek of Theocritus. 
 
 But a Scotchman inhabiting his own coun- 
 try, if a man of education, and more especially 
 if a literary character, has banished such words 
 from his writings, and has attempted to banish 
 them from his speech ; and being accustomed 
 to hear them from the vulgar daily, does not 
 easily admit of their use in poetry, which re- 
 quires a style elevated and ornamental. A dis- 
 like of this kind is, however accidental, not 
 natural. It is of the species of disgust which 
 we feel at seeing a female of high birth in the 
 dress of a rustic ; which, if she be really young 
 and beautiful, a little habit will enable us to 
 overcome. A lady who assumes such a dress 
 
 puts
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 329 
 
 puts her beauty, indeed, to a severer trial. She 
 rejects she, indeed, opposes the influence of 
 fashion ; she, possibly, abandons the grace of 
 elegant and flowing drapery; but her native 
 charms remain, the more striking, perhaps, be- 
 cause the less adorned ; and to these she trusts 
 for fixing her empire on those affections over 
 which fashion has no sway. If she succeeds, a 
 new association arises. The dress of the beauti- 
 ful rustic becomes itself beautiful, and esta- 
 blishes a new fashion for the young and the gay. 
 And when, in after ages, the contemplative ob- 
 server shall view her picture in the gallery that 
 contains the portraits of the beauties of succes- 
 sive centuries, each in the dress of her respective 
 day, her drapery will not deviate, more than 
 that of her rivals, from the standard of his taste, 
 and he will give the palm to her who excels in 
 the lineaments of nature. 
 
 Burns wrote professedly for the peasantry of 
 his country, and by them their native dialect 
 is universally relished. To a numerous class 
 of the natives of Scotland of another descrip- 
 tion it may also be considered as attractive in 
 a different point of view. Estranged from their 
 native soil, and spread over foreign lands, the 
 idiom of their country unites with the senti- 
 ments and the descriptions on which it is em- 
 ployed, to recal to their minds the interesting 
 
 scenes
 
 330 THE LIFE OF 
 
 scenes of infancy and youth to awaken many 
 pleasing, many tender recollections. Literary 
 men, residing at Edinburgh or Aberdeen, can- 
 not judge on this point for one hundred and 
 fifty thousand of their expatriated country- 
 men.* 
 
 To the; use of the Scottish dialect in one 
 species of poetry, the composition of songs, the 
 taste of the public has been for some time re- 
 conciled. The dialect in question excels, as 
 has already been observed, in the copiousness 
 and exactness of its terms for natural objects : 
 and in pastoral or rural songs, it gives a Doric 
 simplicity, which is very generally approved. 
 Neither does the regret seem well founded 
 
 which 
 
 * These observations are excited by some remarks 
 of respectable correspondents of the description alluded 
 to. This calculation of the number of Scotchmen living 
 out of Scotland is not altogether arbitrary, and it is 
 probably below the truth. It is, in some degree, founded 
 on the proportion between the number of the sexes in 
 Scotland, as it appears from the invaluable Statistics of 
 Sir John Sinclair. For Scotchmen of this description 
 more particularly, Burns seems to have written his song 
 beginning, Their groves o' sweet myrtle (vol. iv. p. 228), 
 a beautiful strain, which, it may be confidently predicted, 
 will be sung with equal or superior interest, on the banks 
 of the Ganges or of the Mississippi, as on those of the Tay 
 or the Tweed.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 331 
 
 which some persons of taste have expressed, 
 that Burns used this dialect in so many other 
 of his compositions. His declared purpose was 
 to paint the manners of rustic life among his 
 " humble compeers," and it is not easy to con- 
 ceive, that this could have been done with equal 
 humour and effect, if he had not adopted their 
 idiom. There are some, indeed, who will think 
 the subject too low for poetry. Persons of this 
 sickly taste will find their delicacies consulted 
 in many a polite and learned author ; let them 
 not seek for gratification in the rough and 
 vigorous lines, in the unbridled humour, or in 
 the overpowering sensibility of this bard of 
 nature. 
 
 To determine the comparative merit of 
 Burns would be no easy task. Many persons, 
 afterwards distinguished in literature, have been 
 born in as humble a situation of life; but it 
 would be difficult to find any other who, while 
 earning his subsistence by daily labour, has 
 written verses which have attracted and re- 
 tained universal attention, and which are likely 
 to give the author a permanent and distin- 
 guished place among the followers of the muses. 
 If he is deficient in grace, he is distinguished 
 for ease as well as energy ; and these are indi- 
 cations of the higher order of genius. The 
 father of Epic poetry exhibits one of his heroes 
 
 as
 
 332 THE LIFE OP 
 
 as excelling in strength, another in swiftness 1 - 
 to form his perfect warrior, these attributes are 
 combined. Every species of intellectual superi- 
 ority admits, perhaps, of a similar arrangement. 
 One writer excels in force another in ease 5 he 
 is superior to them both, in whom both these 
 qualities are united. Of Homer himself it may be 
 said, that, like his own Achilles, he surpasses his 
 competitors in mobility as well as strength. 
 
 The force of Burns lay in the powers of his 
 understanding, and in the sensibility of his 
 heart ; and these will be found to infuse the 
 living principle into all the works of genius 
 which seem destined to immortality. His sen- 
 sibility had an uncommon range. He was alive 
 to every species of emotion. He is one of the 
 few poets that can be mentioned, who have at 
 once excelled in humour, in tenderness, and in 
 sublimity -, a praise unknown to the ancients, 
 and which in modern times is only due to 
 Ariosto, to Shakespeare, and perhaps to Voltaire. 
 To compare the writings of the Scottish peasant 
 with the works of these giants in literature, 
 might appear presumptuous - 3 yet it may be as- 
 serted that he has displayed the foot of Hercules. 
 How near he might have approached them by 
 proper culture, with lengthened years, and un- 
 der happier auspices, it is not for us to calcu- 
 late. But while we run over the melancholy 
 
 story
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 333 
 
 story of his life, it is impossible not to heave a 
 sigh at the asperity of his fortune j and as we 
 survey the records of his mind, it is easy to see, 
 that out of such materials have been reared the 
 fairest and the most durable of the monuments 
 of genius.
 
 33.3 
 
 A great number of poems have been 
 written on the death of Burns, some of them of 
 considerable poetical merit. To have subjoined 
 all of them to the present edition, would have 
 been to have enlarged it to another volume at 
 least; and to have made a selection, would have 
 been a task of considerable delicacy. 
 
 The Editor, therefore, presents one poem 
 only on this melancholy subject; a poem which 
 has not before appeared in print. It is from the 
 pen of one who has sympathized deeply in the 
 fate of Burns, and will not be found unworthy 
 of its author the Biographer of Lorenzo de' 
 Medici. Of a person so well known, it is wholly 
 unnecessary for the Editor to speak ; and, if it 
 were necessary, it would not be easy for him to 
 find language that would adequately express his 
 respect and his affection.
 
 337 
 
 Hear high thy bleak majestic hills, 
 
 Thy shelter 'd valleys proudly spread, 
 And, Scotia, pour thy thousand rills, 
 
 And wave thy heaths with blossoms red ; 
 But, ah ! what poet now shall tread 
 
 Thy airy heights, thy woodland reign, 
 Since he the sweetest bard is dead 
 
 That ever breath'd the soothing strain ? 
 
 As green thy towering pines may grow, 
 
 As clear thy streams may speed along, 
 As bright thy summer suns may glow, 
 
 As gayly charm thy feathery throng ; 
 But now, unheeded is the song, 
 
 And dull and lifeless all around, 
 For his wild-harp lies all unstrung, 
 
 And cold the hand that wak'd its sound. 
 
 vol. i. z What
 
 338 
 
 What tho' thy vigorous offspring rise 
 
 In arts, in arms, thy sons excel ; 
 Tho' beauty in thy daughters' eyes, 
 
 And health in every feature dwell ; 
 Yet who shall now their praises tell, 
 
 In strains impassion'd, fond and free, 
 Since he no more the song shall swell 
 
 To love, and liberty, and thee. 
 
 With step-dame eye and frown severe 
 
 His hapless youth why didst thou view ? 
 For all thy joys to him were dear, 
 
 And all his vows to thee were due : 
 Nor greater bliss his bosom knew, 
 
 In opening youth's delightful prime, 
 Than when thy favouring ear he drew 
 
 To listen to his chanted rhyme. 
 
 Thy lonely wastes and frowning skies 
 
 To him were all with rapture fraught ; 
 He heard with joy the tempest rise 
 
 That wak'd him to sublimer thought ; 
 And oft thy winding dells he sought, 
 
 Where wild flow'rs pour'd their rathe perfume, 
 And with sincere devotion brought 
 
 To thee the summer's earliest bloom. 
 
 But
 
 339 
 
 But ah ! no fond maternal smile 
 
 His unprotected youth enjoy 'd ; 
 His limbs inur'd to early toil, 
 
 His days with early hardships tried ; 
 And more to mark the gloomy void, 
 
 And bid him feel his misery, 
 Before his infant eyes would glide 
 
 Day-dreams of immortality. 
 
 Yet, not by cold neglect depress'd, 
 
 With sinewy arm he turn'd the soil, 
 Sunk with the evening sun to rest, 
 
 And met at morn his earliest smile. 
 Wak'd by his rustic pipe, meanwhile 
 
 The powers of fancy came along, 
 And sooth'd his lengthen'd hours of toil 
 
 With native wit and sprightly song. 
 
 Ah ! days of bliss, too swiftly fled, 
 
 When vigorous health from labour springs, 
 And bland contentment smooths the bed, 
 
 And sleep his ready opiate brings ; 
 And hovering round on airy wings 
 
 Float the light forms of young desire, 
 That of unutterable things 
 
 The soft and shadowy hope inspire. 
 
 z 2 Now
 
 340 
 
 Now spells of mightier power prepare, 
 
 Bid brighter phantoms round him dance : 
 Let Flattery spread her viewless snare, 
 
 And Fame attract his vagrant glance ; 
 Let sprightly Pleasure too advance, 
 
 Unveil'd her eyes, unclasp'd her zone, 
 Till lost in love's delirious trance 
 
 He scorn the joys his youth has known. 
 
 Let Friendship pour her brightest blaze, 
 
 Expanding all the bloom of soul ; 
 And Mirth concentre all her rays, 
 
 And point them from the sparkling bowl ; 
 And let the careless moments roll 
 
 In social pleasures unconfined, 
 And Confidence that spurns control 
 
 Unlock the inmost springs of mind : 
 
 And lead his steps those bowers among, 
 
 Where elegance with splendour vies, 
 Or Science bids her favour'd throng, 
 
 To more refin'd sensations rise : 
 Beyond the peasant's humbler joys, 
 
 And freed from each laborious strife, 
 There let him learn the bliss to prize 
 
 That waits the sons of polish'd life. 
 
 Then
 
 341 
 
 Then whilst his throbbing veins beat high 
 
 With every impulse of delight, 
 Dash from his lips the cup of joy, 
 
 And shroud the scene in shades of night ; 
 And let Despair, with wizard light, 
 
 Disclose the yawning gulf below, 
 And pour incessant on his sight 
 
 Her specter'd ills and shapes of woe : 
 
 And shew beneath a cheerless shed, 
 
 With sorrowing heart and streaming eyes, 
 In silent grief where droops her head. 
 
 The partner of his early joys ; 
 And let his infants' tender cries 
 
 His fond parental succour claim, 
 And bid him hear in agonies 
 
 A husband's and a father's name. 
 
 Tis done, the powerful charm succeeds ; 
 
 His high reluctant spirit bends ; 
 In bitterness of soul he bleeds, 
 
 Nor longer with his fate contends. 
 An idiot laugh the welkin rends 
 
 As genius thus degraded lies ; 
 Till pitying Heaven the veil extends 
 
 That shrouds the Poet's ardent eyes. 
 
 Rear
 
 342 
 
 Rear high thy bleak majestic hills, 
 
 Thy shelter'd valleys proudly spread, 
 And, Scotia, pour thy thousand rills, 
 
 And wave thy heaths with blossoms red ; 
 But never more shall poet tread 
 
 Thy airy heights, thy woodland reign, 
 Since he the sweetest bard is dead 
 
 That ever breath'd the soothing strain.
 
 APPENDIX.
 
 345 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 No. I. Note A. See p. 4. 
 
 The importance of the national establish- 
 ment of parish schools in Scotland will justify a 
 short account of the legislative provisions re- 
 specting it, especially as the subject has escaped 
 the notice of all the historians. 
 
 By an act of the king (James Vlth) and 
 privy council, of the 10th of December, 1616, it 
 was recommended to the bishops to deale and 
 travel with the heritors (land proprietors), and 
 inhabitants of the respective parishes in their 
 respective dioceses, towards the fixing upon 
 " some certain, solid, and sure course" for 
 settling and entertaining a school in each pa- 
 rish. This was ratified by a statute of Char. I. 
 (the act, 1633, chap. 5.) which empowered the 
 bishop, with the consent of the heritors of a 
 
 parish,
 
 346 APPENDIX, No. I. Note A. 
 
 parish, or of a majority of the inhabitants, if 
 the heritors refused to attend the meeting, to 
 assess every plough of land (that is, every farm 
 in proportion to the number of ploughs upon it) 
 with a certain sum for establishing a school. 
 This was an ineffectual provision, as depending 
 on the consent and pleasure of the heritors and 
 inhabitants. Therefore a new order of things 
 was introduced by Stat. 1646, chap. 17, which 
 obliges the heritors and minister of each parish 
 to meet and assess the several heritors with the 
 requisite sum for building a school-house, and to 
 elect a school-master, and modify a salary for 
 him in all time to come. The salary is ordered 
 not to be under one hundred, nor above two 
 hundred merks, that is, in our present sterling 
 money, not under 51. lis. lfd. nor above 111. 
 2s. 3d. and the assessment is to be laid on the 
 land in the same proportion as it is rated for 
 the support of the clergy, and as it regulates 
 the payment of the land-tax. But in case the 
 heritors of any parish, or the majority of them, 
 should fail to discharge this duty, then the per- 
 sons forming what is called the Committee of 
 Supply of the county (consisting of the prin- 
 cipal landholders), or any Jive of them, are 
 authorized by the statute to impose the assess- 
 ment instead of them, on the representation of 
 the presbytery in which the parish is situated. 
 To secure the choice of a proper teacher, the 
 
 right
 
 Note A. APPENDIX. No. I. 347 
 
 right of election by the heritors, by a statute 
 passed in 1693, chap. 22, is made subject to the 
 review and control of the presbytery of the 
 district, who have the examination of the per- 
 son proposed committed to them, both as to his 
 qualifications as a teacher, and as to his proper 
 deportment in the office when settled in it. 
 The election of the heritors is therefore only a 
 presentment of a person for the approbation of 
 the presbytery, who, if they find him unfit, may 
 declare his incapacity, and thus oblige them to 
 elect anew. So far is stated on unquestionable 
 authority.* 
 
 The legal salary of the schoolmaster was not 
 inconsiderable at the time it was fixed ; but by 
 the decrease in the value of money, it is now 
 certainly inadequate to its object; and it is 
 painful to observe, that the landholders of 
 Scotland resisted the humble application of 
 the schoolmasters to the legislature for its in- 
 crease, a few years ago. The number of pa- 
 rishes in Scotland is 877; and if we allow the 
 salary of a schoolmaster in each to be, on an 
 average, seven pounds sterling, the amount of 
 the legal provision will be 6,1391. sterling. If 
 we suppose the wages paid by the scholars to 
 
 amount 
 
 * The authority of A. Frazer Tytler, and David Hume, 
 Esqrs.
 
 348 APPENDIX, No. I. Note A. 
 
 amount to twice this sum, which is probably 
 beyond the truth, the total of the expenses 
 among 1,526,492 persons (the whole population 
 of Scotland), of this most important establish- 
 ment, will be 18,4171. But on this, as well as 
 on other subjects respecting Scotland, accurate 
 information may soon be expected from Sir John 
 Sinclair's Analysis of his Statistics, which will 
 complete the immortal monument he has reared 
 to his patriotism. 
 
 The benefit arising in Scotland from the in- 
 struction of the poor, was soon felt ; and by an 
 act of the British Parliament, 4 Geo. I. chap. 6, 
 it is enacted, " that of the moneys arising from 
 the sale of the Scottish estates forfeited in the 
 rebellion of 1715, 2,0001. sterling shall be con- 
 verted into a capital stock, the interest of which 
 shall be laid out in erecting and maintaining 
 schools in the Highlands. The Society for pro- 
 pagating Christian Knowledge, incorporated in 
 1709, have applied a large part of their fund for 
 the same purpose. By their report, 1st May, 
 1795, the annual sum employed by them, in 
 supporting their schools in the Highlands and 
 Islands, was 3,9131. 19s. 10d., in which are 
 taught the English language, reading and 
 writing, and the principles of religion. The 
 schools of the society are additional to the le- 
 gal schools, which from the great extent of 
 
 many
 
 Note A. APPENDIX, No. I. 349 
 
 many of the Highland parishes, were found in- 
 sufficient. Besides these established schools, 
 the lower classes of people in Scotland, where 
 the parishes are large, often combine together, 
 and establish private schools of their own, at 
 one of which it was that Burns received the 
 principal part of his education. So convinced 
 indeed are the poor people of Scotland, by ex- 
 perience, of the benefit of instruction to their 
 children, that, though they may often find it 
 difficult to feed and clothe them, some kind of 
 school instruction they almost always procure 
 them. 
 
 The influence of the school establishment of 
 Scotland on the peasantry of that country, seems 
 to have decided by experience a question of le- 
 gislation of the utmost importance whether a 
 system of national instruction for the poor be 
 favourable to morals and good government. In 
 the year 1698, Fletcher of Sal ton declared as 
 follows : <( There are at this day in Scotland, 
 two hundred thousand people begging from door 
 to door. And though the number of them be 
 perhaps double to what it was formerly, by 
 reason of this present great distress (a famine 
 then prevailed), yet in all times there have been 
 about one hundred thousand of those vagabonds, 
 who have lived without any regard or subjec- 
 tion either to the laws of the land, or even 
 
 those
 
 350 APPENDIX, No. I. Note A. 
 
 those of God and Nature ; fathers incestuously 
 accompanying with their own daughters, the 
 son with the mother, and the brother with the 
 sister." He goes on to say, that no magistrate 
 ever could discover that they had ever been 
 baptized, or in what way one in a hundred 
 went out of the world. He accuses them as 
 frequently guilty of robbery, and sometimes of 
 murder : " In years of plenty," says he, " many 
 thousands of them meet together in the moun- 
 tains, where they feast and riot for many days ; 
 and at country weddings, markets, burials, and 
 other public occasions, they are to be seen, both 
 men and women, perpetually drunk, cursing, 
 blaspheming, and fighting together."* This 
 high-minded statesman, of whom it is said by a 
 contemporary, " that he would lose his life 
 readily to save his country, and would not do 
 a base thing to serve it," thought the evil so 
 great, that he proposed as a remedy the revival 
 of domestic slavery, according to the practice 
 of his adored republics in the classic ages ! A 
 better remedy has been found, which in the si- 
 lent lapse of a century has proved effectual. 
 The statute of 1696, the noble legacy of the 
 Scottish Parliament to their country, began soon 
 after this to operate ; and happily, as the minds 
 
 of 
 
 * Political Works of Andrew Fletcher, octavo, London, 
 1737, p. 144.
 
 Note A. APPENDIX, No. I. 351 
 
 of the poor received instruction, the Union 
 opened new channels of industry, and new 
 fields of action to their view. 
 
 At the present day there is perhaps no coun- 
 try in Europe, in which, in proportion to its 
 population, so small a number of crimes fall un- 
 der the chastisement of the criminal law, as 
 Scotland. We have the best authority for assert- 
 ing, that on an average of thirty years, preced- 
 ing the year 1797? the executions in that divi- 
 sion of the island did not amount to six annu- 
 ally ; and one quarter sessions for the town of 
 Manchester only, has sent, according to Mr. 
 Hume, more felons to the plantations than all 
 the judges of Scotland usually do in the space of 
 a year.* It might appear invidious to attempt 
 a calculation of the many thousand individuals 
 in Manchester and its vicinity who can neither 
 read nor write. A majority of those who suffer 
 the punishment of death for their crimes in 
 every part of England, are, it is believed, in this 
 miserable state of ignorance. 
 
 There is now a legal provision for parochial 
 schools, or rather for a school in each of the 
 different townships into which the country is 
 
 divided, 
 
 * Hume's Commentaries on the Laws of Scotland, 
 Jntrod. p. 50.
 
 352 APPENDIX, No. I. Note A. 
 
 divided, in several of the northern states of 
 North America. They are, however, of recent 
 origin there, excepting in New England, where 
 they were established in the last century, pro- 
 bably about the same time as in Scotland, and 
 by the same religious sect. In the Protestant 
 Cantons of Switzerland, the peasantry have the 
 advantage of similar schools, though established 
 and endowed in a different manner. This is also 
 the case in certain districts in England, particu- 
 larly in the northern parts of Yorkshire and of 
 Lancashire, and in the counties of Westmoreland 
 and Cumberland. 
 
 A law, providing for the instruction of the 
 poor, was passed by the Parliament of Ireland ; 
 but the fund was diverted from its purpose, and 
 the measure was entirely frustrated. Prok 
 pudor ! 
 
 The similarity of character between the 
 Swiss and the Scotch, and between the Scotch 
 and the people of New England, can scarcely 
 be overlooked. That it arises in a great mea- 
 sure from the similarity of their institutions for 
 instruction, cannot be questioned. It is no 
 doubt increased by physical causes. With a 
 superior degree of instruction, each of these 
 nations possesses a country that may be said to 
 be sterile, in the neighbourhood of countries 
 
 comparatively
 
 NoteB. APPENDIX. No. I. 353 
 
 comparatively rich. Hence emigrations and 
 the other effects on conduct and character 
 which such circumstances naturally produce. 
 This subject is in a high degree curious. The 
 points of dissimilarity between these nations 
 might be traced to their causes also, and the 
 whole investigation would perhaps admit of an 
 approach to certainty in our conclusions, to 
 which such inquiries seldom lead. How much 
 superior in morals, in intellect, and in happi- 
 ness, the peasantry of those parts of England 
 are, who have opportunities of instruction, to 
 the same class in other situations; those who 
 inquire into the subject will speedily discover. 
 The peasantry of Westmoreland, and of the 
 other districts mentioned above, if their physi- 
 cal and moral qualities be taken together, are, 
 in the opinion of the Editor, superior to the 
 peasantry of any part of the island. 
 
 NoteB. See p. 7. 
 
 It has been supposed that Scotland is less 
 populous and le.s improved on account of this 
 emigration ; but such conclusions are doubtful, 
 if not wholly fallacious. The principle of po- 
 pulation acts in no country to the full extent 
 of its power : marriage is every where retarded 
 beyond the period pointed out by nature, by 
 the difficulty of supporting a family ; and this 
 
 VOL. I. A A obstacle
 
 354 APPENDIX. No. I. Note B. 
 
 obstacle is greatest in long-settled communi- 
 ties. The emigration of a part of a people faci- 
 litates the marriage of the rest, by producing 
 a relative increase in the means of subsistence. 
 The arguments of Adam Smith, for a free ex- 
 port of corn, are perhaps applicable with less 
 exception to the free export of people. The 
 more certain the event, the greater the cultiva- 
 tion of the soil. This subject has been well in- 
 vestigated by Sir James Stewart, whose prin- 
 ciples have been expanded and farther illustrated 
 in a late truly philosophical Essay on Popula- 
 tion. In fact, Scotland has increased in the 
 number of its inhabitants in the last forty years, 
 as the Statistics of Sir John Sinclair clearly 
 prove, but not in the ratio that some had sup- 
 posed. The extent of the emigration of the 
 Scots may be calculated with some degree of 
 confidence from the proportionate number of 
 the two sexes in Scotland ; a point that may be 
 established pretty exactly by an examination of 
 the invaluable Statistics already mentioned. If 
 we suppose that there is an equal number of 
 male and female natives of Scotland, alive some- 
 zvhere or other, the excess by which the females 
 exceed the males in their own country, may be 
 considered to be equal to the number of Scots- 
 men living out of Scotland. But though the 
 males born in Scotland be admitted to be as 
 13 to 12, and though some of the females emi- 
 grate
 
 Note C. APPENDIX. No. I. 355 
 
 grate as well as the males, this mode of calcu- 
 lating would probably make the number of ex- 
 patriated Scotsmen, at any one time alive, 
 greater than the truth. The unhealthy climates 
 into which they emigrate, the hazardous ser- 
 vices in which so many of them engage, render 
 the mean life of those who leave Scotland (to 
 speak in the language of calculators) not per- 
 haps of half the value of the mean life of those 
 who remain. 
 
 Note C. See p. 20. 
 
 In the punishment of this offence the Church 
 employed formerly the arm of the civil power. 
 During the reign of James the Vlth (James 
 the 1st of England), criminal connexion be- 
 tween unmarried persons was made the subject 
 of a particular statute (see Hume's Commenta- 
 ries on the Laivs of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 332.), 
 which, from its rigour, was never much enforced, 
 and which has long fallen into disuse. When, 
 in the middle of the last century, the Puritans 
 succeeded in the overthrow of the monarchy in 
 both divisions of the island, fornication was a 
 crime against which they directed their utmost 
 zeal. It was made punishable with death in the 
 second instance (see Blachtone, b. iv\ chap. 4. 
 No. 11.). Happily this sanguinary statute was 
 swept away along with the other acts of the 
 A a 2 Commonwealth,
 
 356 APPENDIX. No. I. Note D. 
 
 Commonwealth, on the restoration of Charles II, 
 to whose temper and manners it must have been 
 peculiarly abhorrent. And after the Revolu- 
 tion, when several salutary acts passed during 
 the suspension of the monarchy, were re-enact- 
 ed by the Scottish Parliament, particularly that 
 for the establishment of parish-schools, the sta- 
 tute, punishing fornication with death, was suf- 
 fered to sleep in the grave of the stern fanatics 
 who had given it birth. 
 
 Note D. See p. 21. 
 The legitimation of children, by subsequent 
 marriage, became the Roman law under the 
 Christian emperors. It was the canon law of 
 modern Europe, and has been established in 
 Scotland from a very remote period. Thus a 
 child born a bastard, if his parents afterwards 
 marry, enjoys all the privileges of seniority over 
 his brothers afterwards born in wedlock. In the 
 Parliament of Merton, in the reign of Henry III, 
 the English clergy made a vigorous attempt to 
 introduce this article into the law of England, 
 and it was on this occasion that the Barons 
 made the noted answer, since so often appealed 
 to : Quod nolunt leges Anglic mutare ; qua hue 
 usque usitatae sunt et approbate. With regard 
 to what constitutes a marriage, the law of Scot- 
 land, as explained, p. 21, differs from the Ro- 
 man law, which required the ceremony to be 
 
 performed in facie ecclcsia. 
 
 No. II.
 
 357 
 
 No. II. 
 
 Note A. See p. 42. 
 
 It may interest some persons to peruse 
 the first poetical production of our Bard, and it 
 is therefore extracted from a kind of common- 
 place book, which he seems to have begun in 
 his twentieth year; and which he entitled, 
 " Observations, Hints, Songs, Scraps of Po- 
 etry, 8(c. by Robert Burness, a man who had 
 little art in making money, and still less in 
 keeping it ; but was, however, a man of some 
 sense, a great deal of honesty, and unbounded 
 good-will to every creature, rational, or irra- 
 tional. As he was but little indebted to a scho- 
 lastic education, and bred at a plough-tail, his 
 performances must be strongly tinctured with 
 his unpolished rustic way of life -, but as, I be- 
 lieve, they are really his own, it may be some 
 entertainment to a curious observer of human 
 nature, to see how a ploughman thinks and 
 
 feels.
 
 35S APPENDIX. No. II. Note A. 
 
 feels, under the pressure of love, ambition, 
 anxiety, grief, with the like cares and passions, 
 which, however diversified by the modes and 
 manners of life, operate pretty much alike, I 
 believe, in all the species." 
 
 " Pleasing, when youth is long expir'd, to trace 
 The forms our pencil or our pen design'd, 
 Such was our youthful air, and shape, and face, 
 Such the soft image of the youthful mind." 
 
 Shenstone. 
 
 This MS book, to which our poet prefixed 
 this account of himself, and of his intention in 
 preparing it, contains several of his earlier 
 poems, some as they were printed, and others 
 in their embryo state. The song alluded to is 
 as follows : 
 
 Tune ' I AM A MAN UNMARRIED.' 
 
 O once I lov'd a bonnie lass, 
 
 Ay, and I love her still, 
 And whilst that virtue warms my breast 
 
 I'll love my handsome Nell. 
 
 Tal lal de ral, fyc. 
 
 As bonnie lasses I hae seen, 
 
 And mony full as braw, 
 But for a modest gracefu' mien 
 
 The like I never saw. 
 
 A bonnie
 
 Note A. APPENDIX. No. II. 359 
 
 A bonnie lass, I will confess, 
 
 Is pleasant to the e'e, 
 But without some better qualities 
 
 She's no a lass for me. 
 
 But Nelly's looks are blythe and sweet, 
 
 And what is best of a', 
 Her reputation is complete, 
 
 And fair without a flaw. 
 
 She dresses ay sae clean and neat, 
 
 Both decent and genteel : 
 And then there's something in her gait 
 
 Gars ony dress look weel. 
 
 A gaudy dress and gentle air 
 
 May slightly touch the heart, 
 But it's innocence and modesty 
 
 That polishes the dart. 
 
 Tis this in Nelly pleases me, 
 
 'Tis this enchants my soul ; 
 For absolutely in my breast 
 
 She reigns without control. 
 
 Tal lal de ral, fyc. 
 
 It must be confessed that these lines give no 
 indication of the future genius of Burns j but he 
 himself seems to have been fond of them, proba- 
 bly from the recollections they excited. 
 
 Note
 
 360 APPENDIX. No. II. Note B. 
 
 Note B. p. 5 
 
 At the time that our poet took the resolution 
 of becoming wise, he procured a little book of 
 blank paper, with the purpose (expressed on the 
 first page) of making farming memorandums 
 upon it. These farming memorandums are cu- 
 rious enough ; many of them have been written 
 with a pencil, and are now obliterated, or at least 
 illegible. A considerable number are however 
 legible, and a specimen may gratify the reader. 
 It must be premised, that the poet kept the 
 book by him several years that he wrote upon 
 it, here and there, with the utmost irregularity, 
 and that on the same page are notations very 
 distant from each other as to time and place. 
 ****** 
 
 EXTEMPORE. 
 
 why the deuce should I repine, 
 And be an ill foreboder ; 
 
 I'm twenty-three, and five-feet nine, 
 I'll go and be a sodger. 
 
 1 gat some gear \vi' meikle care, 
 I held it weel thegither ; 
 
 But now it's gane, and something mair, 
 I'll go and be a sodger. 
 
 ^f ^r "R* ^F *Q tt 
 
 April, 1782. 
 
 FRAGMENT.
 
 NoteB. APPENDIX. No. II. 361 
 
 FRAGMENT. 
 Tune ' Donald Blue/ 
 
 O leave novels, ye Maucbline belles, 
 Ye're safer at your spinning-wheel ; 
 
 Such witching books are baited hooks, 
 For rakish rooks like Rob Mossgiel. 
 Sing tal lal lay, fyc. 
 
 Your fine Tom Jones, and Grandisons, 
 They make your youthful fancies reel, 
 
 They heat your brains, and fire your veins, 
 And then you're prey for Rob Mossgiel. 
 
 Beware a tongue that's smoothly hung ; 
 
 A heart that warmly seems to feel ; 
 That feeling heart but acts a part, 
 
 Tis rakish art in Rob Mossgiel. 
 
 The frank address, the soft caress, 
 Are worse than poison'd darts of steel, 
 
 The frank address, and politesse, 
 Are all finesse in Rob Mossgiel. 
 
 For he's far aboon Dunkel the night 
 Maun white the stick and a' that. 
 
 Mem. To get for Mr. Johnston these two 
 songs : 
 
 ' Molly,
 
 362 APPENDIX. No. II. Note B. 
 
 ' Molly, Molly, my dear honey.* ( The cock 
 and the hen, the deer in her den, y 8Cc. 
 
 ****** 
 
 Ah, Cloris ! Sir Peter Halket, of Pitferran, 
 the author. Note. He married her the heiress 
 of Pitferran. 
 
 Colonel George Crawford, the author of Down 
 the Burn Davy. 
 
 Pinkey -house, by J. Mitchell. 
 
 My apron Deary! and Amynta, by Sir G. 
 Elliot. 
 
 Willie was a wanton Wag, was made on Wal- 
 kinshaw of Walkinshaw, near Paisley. 
 
 I loe na a laddie but ane, Mr. Clunzee. 
 
 The bonnie wee thing beautiful Lundie's 
 Dream very beautiful. 
 
 He tilVt and she tilVt assez bien. 
 
 Armstrong's Farewell fine. 
 
 The author of the Highland Queen was a 
 Mr. M'lver, purser of the Solboy. 
 
 Fife and a? the land about it, R. Fergusson. 
 
 The
 
 NoteC. APPENDIX. No. II. 363 
 
 The author of The Bush aboon Traquair was 
 a Dr. Stewart. 
 
 Polwart on the Green, composed by Captain 
 John Drummond M'Gregor of Boehaldie. 
 
 Mem. To inquire if Mr. Cockburn was the 
 author of / hae seen the smiling, &c. 
 
 # * * # 
 
 The above may serve as a specimen. All 
 the notes on farming are obliterated. 
 
 Note C. Seep. 107. 
 
 Rides and Regulations to be observed in the 
 Bachelor's Club. 
 
 1st. The club shall meet at Tarbolton every 
 fourth Monday night, when a question on any 
 subject shall be proposed, disputed points of re- 
 ligion, only excepted, in the manner hereafter 
 directed ; which question is to be debated in 
 the club, each member taking whatever side he 
 thinks proper. 
 
 2d. When the club is met, the president, 
 or, he failing, some one of the members till he 
 come, shall take his seat ; then the other mem- 
 bers shall seat themselves, those who are for one 
 
 side
 
 364 APPENDIX. No. II. Note C. 
 
 side of the question, on the president's right 
 hand ; and those who are for the other side, on 
 his left; which of them shall have the right 
 hand is to be determined by the president. The 
 president and four of the members, being pre- 
 sent, shall have power to transact any ordinary 
 part of the society's business. 
 
 3d. The club met and seated, the president 
 shall read the question out of the club's book of 
 records (which book is always to be kept by 
 the president), then the two members nearest 
 the president shall cast lots who of them shall 
 speak first, and according as the lot shall de- 
 termine, the member nearest the president on 
 that side shall deliver his opinion, and the mem- 
 ber nearest on the other side shall reply to him ; 
 then the second member of the side that spoke 
 first ; then the second member of the side that 
 spoke second j and so on to the end of the com- 
 pany ; but if there be fewer members on one side 
 than on the other, when all the members of the 
 least side have spoken according to their places, 
 any of them, as they please among themselves, 
 may reply to the remaining members of the op- 
 posite side : when both sides have spoken the 
 president shall give his opinion, after which they 
 may go over it a second or more times, and so 
 continue the question. 
 
 4th.
 
 Note C. APPENDIX. No. II. 365 
 
 4th. The club shall then proceed to the choice 
 of a question for the subject of next night's 
 meeting. The president shall first propose one, 
 and any other member who chooses may propose 
 more questions ; and whatever one of them is 
 most agreeable to the majority of the members, 
 shall be the subject of debate next club-night. 
 
 5th. The club shall, lastly, elect a new presi- 
 dent for the next meeting : the president shall 
 first name one, then any of the club may name an- 
 other, and whoever of them has the majority of 
 votes shall be duly elected; allowing the president 
 the first vote, and the casting vote upon a par, 
 but none other. Then after a general toast to 
 mistresses of the club, they shall dismiss. 
 
 6th. There shall be no private conversation 
 carried on during the time of debate, nor shall 
 any member interrupt another while he is speak- 
 ing, under the penalty of a reprimand from the 
 president for the first fault, doubling his share of 
 the reckoning for the second, trebling it for the 
 third, and so on in proportion for every other 
 fault, provided always however that any member 
 may speak at any time after leave asked, and given 
 by the president. All swearing and profane lan- 
 guage, and particularly all obscene and inde- 
 cent conversation, is strictly prohibited, under 
 
 the
 
 366 APPENDIX. No. II. Note C. 
 
 the same penalty as aforesaid in the first clause of 
 this article. 
 
 7th. No member, on any pretence whatever, 
 shall mention any of the club's affairs to any 
 other person but a brother member, under the 
 pain of being excluded ; and particularly if any 
 member shall reveal any of the speeches or affairs 
 of the club, with a view to ridicule or laugh at 
 any of the rest of the members, he shall be for 
 ever excommunicated from the society ; and the 
 rest of the members are desired, as much as pos- 
 sible, to avoid, and have no communication with 
 him as a friend or comrade. 
 
 8th. Every member shall attend at the meet- 
 ings, without he can give a proper excuse for 
 not attending ; and it is desired that every one 
 who cannot attend, will send his excuse with 
 some other member ; and he who shall be ab- 
 sent three meetings without sending such ex- 
 cuse, shall be summoned to the next club-night, 
 when, if he fail to appear, or send an excuse, he 
 shall be excluded. 
 
 9th. The club shall not consist of more than 
 sixteen members, all bachelors, belonging to the 
 parish of Tarbolton : except a brother member 
 marry, and in that case he may be continued, 
 
 if
 
 Note D. APPENDIX. No. II. 367 
 
 if the majority of the club think proper. No 
 person shall be admitted a member of this so- 
 ciety, without the unanimous consent of the 
 club ; and any member may withdraw from the 
 club altogether, by giving a notice to the presi- 
 dent in writing of his departure. 
 
 10th. Every man proper for a member of this 
 society, must have a frank, honest, open heart; 
 above any thing dirty or mean ; and must be a 
 professed lover of one or more of the female 
 sex. No haughty, self-conceited person, who 
 looks upon himself as superior to the rest of the 
 club, and especially no mean-spirited, worldly 
 mortal, whose only will is to heap up money, 
 shall upon any pretence whatever be admitted. 
 In short, the proper person for this society 
 is, a cheerful, honest-hearted lad, who, if he 
 has a friend that is true, and a mistress that is 
 kind, and as much wealth as genteelly to make 
 both ends meet is just as happy as this world 
 can make him. 
 
 Note D. See p. 308. 
 
 A great number of manuscript poems were 
 found among the papers of Burns, addressed to 
 him by admirers of his genius, from different parts 
 of Britain, as well as from Ireland and America. 
 Among these was a poetical epistle from Mr. 
 
 Telford,
 
 368 APPENDIX. No. II. Note D. 
 
 Telford, of Shrewsbury, of superior merit. It is 
 written in the dialect of Scotland (of which 
 country Mr. Telford is a native), and in the ver- 
 sification generally employed by our poet himself. 
 Its object is to recommend to him other subjects 
 of a serious nature, similar to that of the Cot' 
 ter y s Saturday Night; and the reader will find 
 that the advice is happily enforced by example. 
 It would have given the editor pleasure to have 
 inserted the whole of this poem, which he hopes 
 will one day see the light : he is happy to have 
 obtained, in the mean time, his friend Mr. Tel- 
 ford's permission to insert the following extracts: 
 
 j|f 3 sft 3| 3 j 
 
 Pursue, O Burns ! thy happy style, 
 
 " Those manner-painting strains," that while 
 
 They bear me northward mony a mile, 
 
 Recall the days, 
 When tender joys, with pleasing smile, 
 
 Blest my young ways. 
 
 I see my fond companions rise, 
 
 I join the happy village joys, 
 
 I see our green hills touch the skies, 
 
 And thro' the woods, 
 I hear the river's rushing noise, 
 
 Its roaring floods.* 
 
 No. 
 
 * The banks of the Esk f in Dumfries-shire, are here 
 alluded to. .
 
 Note D. APPENDIX. No. II. 369 
 
 No distant Swiss with warmer glow, 
 E'er heard, his native music flow, 
 Nor could his wishes stronger grow, 
 
 Than still have mine, 
 When up this ancient mount* I go, 
 
 With songs of thine. 
 
 O happy Bard ! thy gen'ious flame 
 Was given to raise thy country's fame, 
 For this thy charming numbers came, 
 
 Thy matchless lays ; 
 Then sing, and save her virtuous name, 
 
 To latest days. 
 
 # sfc ^s :{: : ; j 
 
 But mony a theme awaits thy muse, 
 Fine as thy Cotter's sacred views, 
 Then in such verse thy soul infuse, 
 
 With holy air, 
 And sing the course the pious choose, 
 
 With all thy care. 
 
 How with religious awe imprest, 
 They open lay the guileless breast, 
 And youth and age with fears distrest, 
 
 All due prepare, 
 The symbols of eternal rest 
 
 Devout to share, f 
 VOL. I. B B How 
 
 * A beautiful little mount, which stands immediately 
 before, or rather forms a part of Shrewsbury castle, a seat 
 of Sir William Pulteney, bait. 
 
 f The Sacrament, generally administered in the coun- 
 try parishes of Scotland in the open air. E.
 
 370 APPENDIX, No. II. Note D. 
 
 How clown ilk lang withdrawing hill, 
 Successive crowds the valleys fill, 
 While pure religious converse still 
 
 Beguiles the way, 
 And gives a cast to youthful will, 
 
 To suit the day. 
 
 How plac'd along the sacred board, 
 
 Their hoary pastor's looks ador'd, 
 
 His voice with peace and blessing stor'd, 
 
 Sent from above, 
 And faith, and hope, and joy afford, 
 
 And boundless love. 
 
 O'er this, with warm seraphic glow, 
 
 Celestial beings pleased bow, 
 
 And, whisper'd, hear the holy vow, 
 
 'Mid grateful tears -, 
 And mark amid such scenes below, 
 
 Their future peers. 
 
 Jjc s -Jc 2jc ^ 4* ^f* 
 
 O mark the awful solemn scene !* 
 When hoary winter clothes the plain, 
 Along the snowy hills is seen 
 
 Approaching slow, 
 In mourning weeds, the village train, 
 
 In silent woe. 
 
 Some 
 
 # A Scottish funeral. .
 
 NoteD. APPENDIX. No. II. 371 
 
 Some much-respected brother's bier, 
 (By turns in pious task they share) 
 With heavy hearts they forward bear 
 
 Along the path ; 
 Where nei'bours saw in dusky air,* 
 
 The light of death. 
 
 And when they pass the rocky how, 
 Where binwood bushes o'er them flow, 
 And move around the rising knowe, 
 
 Where far away 
 The kirk -yard trees are seen to grow, 
 
 By th' water brae. 
 
 Assembled round the narrow grave, 
 While o'er them wintry tempests rave, 
 In the cold wind their gray locks wave, 
 
 As low they lay 
 Their brother's body 'mongst the lave 
 
 Of parent clay. 
 
 Expressive looks from each declare 
 The griefs within, their bosoms bear, 
 One holy bow devout they share, 
 
 Then home return, 
 And think o'er all the virtues fair 
 
 Of him they mourn. 
 ******* 
 
 B B c 2 Say 
 
 # This alludes to a superstition prevalent in Eskdale, 
 and Annandale, that a light precedes in the night every 
 funeral, marking the precise path it is to pass. E.
 
 372 APPENDIX. No. II. Note IX 
 
 Say how by early lessons taught, 
 (Truth's pleasing air is willing caught) 
 Congenial to th' untainted thought, 
 
 The shepherd boy, 
 Who tends his flocks on lonely height, 
 
 Feels holy joy. 
 
 Is aught on earth so lovely known, 
 On sabbath morn and far alone, 
 His guileless soul all naked shown 
 
 Before his God 
 Such pray'rs must welcome reach the throne^ 
 
 And blest abode. 
 
 O tell ! with what a heartfelt joy, 
 The parent eyes the virtuous boy; 
 And all his constant kind employ, 
 
 Is how to give 
 The best of lear he can enjoy, 
 
 As means to live. 
 
 The parish-school, its curious site, 
 The master who can clear indite, 
 And lead him on to count and write, 
 
 Demand thy care ; 
 Nor pass the ploughman's school at night 
 
 Without a share. 
 
 Nor
 
 Note D. APPENDIX. No. II. 373 
 
 Nor yet the tenty curious lad, 
 Who o'er the ingle hings his head, 
 And begs of nei'bours books to read; 
 
 For hence arise 
 Thy country's sons, who far are spread, 
 
 Baith banld and wise. 
 
 The bonny lasses, as they spin, 
 
 Perhaps with Allan's sangs begin, 
 
 How Tay and Tweed smooth flowing rin 
 
 Thro' flowery hows ; 
 Where Shepherd-lads their sweethearts win 
 
 With earnest vows. 
 
 Or may be, Burns, thy thrilling page 
 May a' their virtuous thoughts engage, 
 While playful youth and placid age 
 
 In concert join, 
 To bless the bard, who, gay or sage, 
 
 Improves the mind. 
 ******* 
 
 Long may their harmless, simple ways, 
 Nature's own pure emotions raise ; 
 May still the dear romantic blaze 
 
 Of purest love, 
 Their bosoms warm to latest days, 
 
 And ay improve. 
 
 May
 
 374 APPENDIX. No. II. Note D. 
 
 May still each fond attachment glow, 
 
 O'er woods, o'er streams, o'er hills of snow; 
 
 May rugged rocks still dearer grow, 
 
 And may their souls 
 Even love the warlock glens which through 
 
 The tempest howls. 
 
 To eternize such themes as these, 
 And all their happy manners seize, 
 Will every virtuous bosom please, 
 
 And high in fame 
 To future times will justly raise 
 
 Thy patriot name. 
 
 While all the venal tribes decay, 
 That bask in flattery's flaunting ray, 
 The noisome vermin of a day, 
 
 Thy works shall gain 
 O'er every mind a boundless sway, 
 
 And lasting reign. 
 
 When winter binds the harden'd plains, 
 Around each hearth, the hoary swains 
 Shall teach the rising youth thy strains, 
 
 And anxious say, 
 Our blessing with our sons remains, 
 
 And Burns's Lay ! 
 
 No. III.
 
 375 
 
 No. III. 
 
 (First inserted in the Second Edition.) 
 
 The Editor has particular pleasure in 
 presenting to the public the following letter, to 
 the due understanding of which a few previous 
 observations are necessary. 
 
 The Biographer of Burns was naturally de- 
 sirous of hearing the opinion of the friend and 
 brother of the poet, on the manner in which he 
 had executed his task, before a second edition 
 should be committed to the press. He had the 
 satisfaction of receiving this opinion, in a letter 
 dated the 24th of August, approving of the Life 
 in very obliging terms, and offering one or two 
 trivial corrections as to names and dates chiefly, 
 which are made in this edition. One or two 
 observations were offered of a different kind. 
 In the 319th page of the first volume, first edi- 
 tion, a quotation is made from the pastoral song, 
 Ettrick Banks, and an explanation given of the 
 phrase " mony feck" which occurs in this quo- 
 tation. Supposing the sense to be complete after 
 " mony," the editor had considered " feck" as 
 a rustic oath which confirmed the assertion. The 
 words were therefore separated by a comma. 
 
 Mr.
 
 376 APPENDIX. No. III. 
 
 Mr. Burns considered this an error. " Feck," 
 he presumes, is the Scottish word for quantity, 
 and " mony feck" to mean simply, very many. 
 The editor, in yielding to this authority, ex- 
 pressed some hesitation, and hinted that the 
 phrase " mony feck" was in Mr. Burns's sense 
 a pleonasm or barbarism which deformed this 
 beautiful song.* His reply to this observation 
 makes the first clause of the following letter. 
 
 In the same communication he informed 
 me, that the Mirror and the Lounger were pro- 
 posed by him to the Conversation Club of 
 Mauchline, and that he had thoughts of giving 
 me his sentiments on the remarks I had made 
 respecting the fitness of such works for such 
 societies. The observations of such a man on 
 such a subject, the editor conceived, would be 
 received with particular interest by the public, 
 and having pressed earnestly for them, they will 
 be found in the following letter. Of the value 
 of this communication, delicacy towards his 
 very respectable correspondent prevents him 
 from expressing his opinion. The original letter 
 is in the hands of Messrs. Cadell and Davies. 
 
 * The correction made by Gilbert Burns has also 
 been suggested by a writer in the Monthly Magazine, 
 under the signature of Alboin, who, for taking this trouble, 
 and for mentioning the author of the poem of Donocht- 
 head, deserves the Editor's thanks.
 
 APPENDIX. No. III. 377 
 
 Dinning, Dumfries-shire, %4th Oct. 1800. 
 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 Yours of the 17th hist, came to my 
 hand yesterday, and I sit down this afternoon 
 to write you in return : but when I shall be able 
 to finish all I wish to say to you, I cannot tell. 
 I am sorry your conviction is not complete re- 
 specting feck. There is no doubt that if you 
 take two English words which appear synony- 
 mous to mony feck, and judge by the rules of 
 English construction, it will appear a barbarism. 
 I believe if you take this mode of translating 
 from any language, the effect will frequently be 
 the same. But if you take the expression mony 
 feck to have, as I have stated it, the same mean- 
 ing with the English expression very many 
 (and such license every translator must be al- 
 lowed, especially when he translates from a 
 simple dialect which has never been subjected 
 to rule, and where the precise meaning of words 
 is of consequence not minutely attended to), it 
 will be well enough. One thing I am certain 
 of, that ours is the sense universally understood 
 "in this country ; and I believe no Scotsman 
 who has lived contented at home, pleased with 
 
 the
 
 378 APPENDIX. No. III. 
 
 the simple manners, the simple melodies, and 
 the simple dialect of his native country, unvi- 
 tiated by foreign intercourse, tc whose soul proud 
 science never taught to stray," ever discovered 
 barbarism in the song of Ettrick Banks. 
 
 The story you have heard of the gable of 
 my father's house falling down, is simply as 
 follows;* When my father built his " clay 
 biggin," he put in two stone-jambs, as they 
 are called, and a lintel, carrying up a chim- 
 ney in his clay-gable. The consequence was, 
 that as the gable subsided, the jambs, remaining 
 firm, threw it off its centre ; and, one very 
 stormy morning, when my brother was nine or 
 ten days old, a little before day-light, a part of 
 the gable fell out, and the rest appeared so shat- 
 tered, that my mother, with the young poet, 
 had to be carried through the storm to a neigh- 
 bour's house, where they remained a week till 
 their own dwelling was adjusted. That you 
 may not think too meanly of this house, or of 
 my father's taste in building, by supposing the 
 poet's description in the Vision (which is en- 
 tirely a fancy picture) applicable to it, allow 
 me to take notice to you, that the house con- 
 sisted 
 
 * The editor had heard a report that the poet was 
 born in the midst of a storm which blew down a part of 
 the house. E.
 
 APPENDIX. No. III. 379 
 
 sisted of a kitchen in one end, and a room in 
 the other, with a fire-place and chimney ; that 
 my father had constructed a concealed bed in 
 the kitchen, with a small closet at the end, of 
 the same materials with the house, and, when 
 altogether cast over, outside and in, with lime, 
 it had a neat, comfortable appearance, such as 
 no family of the same rank, in the present im- 
 proved style of living, would think themselves 
 ill-lodged in. I wish likewise to take notice in 
 passing, that although, the " Cotter," in the 
 Saturday night, is an exact copy of my father 
 in his manners, his family devotion, and exhort- 
 ations, yet the other parts of the description do 
 not apply to our family. None of us were ever 
 " at service out amang the neebors roun\" In- 
 stead of our depositing our " sair-won penny- 
 fee" with our parents, my father laboured hard, 
 and lived with the most rigid economy, that he 
 might be able to keep his children at home, 
 thereby having an opportunity of watching the 
 progress of our young minds, and forming in 
 them early habits of piety and virtue, and from 
 this motive alone did he engage in farming, the 
 source of all his difficulties and distresses. 
 
 When I threatened you in my last with a 
 long letter on the subject of the books I recom- 
 mended to the Mauchline club, and the effects 
 of refinement of taste on the labouring classes 
 
 of
 
 380 APPENDIX. No. III. 
 
 of men, I meant merely that I wished to write 
 you on that subject, with the view that, in 
 some future communication to the public, you 
 might take up the subject more at large, that, 
 by means of your happy manner of writing, the 
 attention of people of power and influence might 
 be fixed on it. I had little expectation, how- 
 ever, that I should overcome my indolence, 
 and the difficulty of arranging my thoughts so 
 far as to put my threat in execution, till some 
 time ago, before I had finished my harvest, hav- 
 ing a call from Mr. Ewart,* with a message 
 from you, pressing me to the performance of 
 this task, I thought myself no longer at liberty 
 to decline it, and resolved to set about it with 
 my first leisure. I will now therefore endea- 
 vour to lay before you what has occurred to my 
 mind on a subject where people capable of ob- 
 servation, and of placing their remarks in a 
 proper point of view, have seldom an opportu- 
 nity of making their remarks on real life. In 
 doing this, I may perhaps be led sometimes to 
 write more in the manner of a person communi- 
 cating information to you which you did not 
 know before, and at other times more in the 
 style of egotism than I would choose to do to 
 
 any 
 
 * The Editor's friend, Mr. Peter Ewart, of Man- 
 chester. E.
 
 APPENDIX. No. III. 381 
 
 any person in whose candour, and even per- 
 sonal good-will, I had less confidence. 
 
 There are two several lines of study that open 
 to every man as he enters life : the one, the ge- 
 neral science of life, of duty, and of happiness; 
 the other, the particular arts of his employment 
 or situation in society, and the several branches 
 of knowledge therewith connected. This last is 
 certainly indispensable, as nothing can be more 
 disgraceful than ignorance in the way of one's 
 own profession ; and whatever a man's specula- 
 tive knowledge may be, if he is ill-informed 
 there, he can neither be a useful nor a respect- 
 able member of society. It is nevertheless true, 
 that " the proper study of mankind is man :" 
 to consider what duties are incumbent on him 
 as a rational creature, and a member of society -> 
 how he may increase or secure his happiness ; 
 and how he may prevent or soften the many 
 miseries incident to human life. I think the 
 pursuit of happiness is too frequently confined 
 to the endeavour after the acquisition of wealth. 
 I do not wish to be considered as an idle de- 
 claimer against riches, which, after all that can 
 be said against them, will still be considered by 
 men of common sense as objects of importance; 
 and poverty will be felt as a sore evil, after all 
 the fine things that can be said of its advan- 
 tages ; on the contrary I am of opinion, that a 
 
 great
 
 38a APPENDIX. No. III. 
 
 great proportion of the miseries of life arise from 
 the want of economy, and a prudent attention 
 to money, or the ill-directed or intemperate pur- 
 suit of it. But however valuable riches may be 
 as the means of comfort, independence, and the 
 pleasure of doing good to others, yet I am of 
 opinion, that they may be, and frequently are, 
 purchased at too great a cost, and that sacrifices 
 are made in the pursuit, which the acquisition 
 cannot compensate. I remember hearing my 
 worthy teacher, Mr. Murdoch, relate an anec- 
 dote to my father, which I think sets this matter 
 in a strong light, and perhaps was the origin, or 
 at least tended to promote this way of think- 
 ing in me. When Mr. Murdoch left Alloway, 
 he went to teach and reside in the family of an 
 opulent farmer who had a number of sons. A 
 neighbour coming on a visit, in the course of 
 conversation asked the father how he meant to 
 dispose of his sons. The father replied, that he 
 had not determined. The visitor said, that were 
 he in his place he would give them all good edu- 
 cation and send them abroad, without (perhaps) 
 having a precise idea where. The father ob- 
 jected, that many young men lost their health 
 in foreign countries, and many their lives. 
 True, replied the visitor, but as you have a 
 number of sons, it will be strange if some one 
 of them does not live and make a fortune. 
 
 Let
 
 APPENDIX. No. III. 383 
 
 Let any person who has the feelings of a fa- 
 ther comment on this story : but though few 
 will avow, even to themselves, that such views 
 govern their conduct, yet do we not daily see 
 people shipping off their sons (and who would do 
 so by their daughters also, if there were any de- 
 mand for them), that they may be rich or perish? 
 
 The education of the lower classes is seldom 
 considered in any other point of view than as 
 the means of raising them from that station to 
 which they were born, and of making a fortune. 
 I am ignorant of the mysteries of the art of ac- 
 quiring a fortune without any thing to begin with, 
 and cannot calculate, with any degree of exact- 
 ness, the difficulties to be surmounted, the mor- 
 tifications to be suffered, and the degradation 
 of character to be submitted to, in lending one's 
 self to be the minister of other people's vices, 
 or in the practice of rapine, fraud, oppression, 
 or dissimulation, in the progress; but even 
 when the wished-for end is attained, it may be 
 questioned whether happiness be much increased 
 by the change. When I have seen a fortunate ad- 
 venturer of the lower ranks of life returned from 
 the East or West Indies, with all the hauteur of 
 a vulgar mind accustomed to be served by 
 slaves, assuming a character, which, from the 
 early habits of life, he is ill fitted to support, 
 displaying magnificence which raises the envy 
 
 of
 
 384 APPENDIX. No. III. 
 
 of some, and the contempt of others ; claiming 
 an equality with the great, which they are un- 
 willing to allow ; inly pining at the precedence 
 of the hereditary gentry; maddened by the po- 
 lished insolence of some of the unworthy part 
 of them ; seeking pleasure in the society of 
 men who can condescend to flatter him, and 
 listen to his ( absurdity for the sake of a good 
 dinner and good wine; I cannot avoid conclud- 
 ing, that his brother, or companion, who, by 
 a diligent application to the labours of agricul- 
 ture, or some useful mechanic employment, and 
 the careful husbanding of his gains, has ac- 
 quired a competence in his station, is a much 
 happier, and, in the eye of a person who can 
 take an enlarged view of mankind, a much 
 more respectable man. 
 
 But the votaries of wealth may be considered 
 as a great number of candidates striving for a 
 few prizes, and whatever addition the success- 
 ful may make to their pleasure or happiness, the 
 disappointed will always have more to suffer, 
 I am afraid, than those who abide contented in 
 the station to which they were born. I wish, 
 therefore, the education of the lower classes to 
 be promoted and directed to their improvement 
 as men, as the means of increasing their virtue, 
 and opening to them new and dignified sources 
 of pleasures and happiness. I have heard some 
 
 people
 
 APPENDIX, No. III. 385 
 
 people object to the education of the lower 
 classes of men, as rendering them less useful, 
 by abstracting them from their proper business ; 
 others, as tending to make them saucy to their 
 superiors, impatient of their condition, and tur- 
 bulent subjects -, while you, with more huma- 
 nity, have your fears alarmed, lest the delicacy 
 of mind, induced by that sort of education and 
 reading I recommend, should render the evils 
 of their situation insupportable to them. I wish 
 to examine the validity of each of these objec- 
 tions, beginning with the one you have men- 
 tioned. 
 
 I do not mean to controvert your criticism 
 of my favourite books the Mirror and Lounger, 
 although I understand there are people who 
 think themselves judges, who do not agree with 
 you. The acquisition of knowledge, except what 
 is connected with human life and conduct, or 
 the particular business of his employment, does 
 not appear to me to be the fittest pursuit for a 
 peasant. I would say with the poet, 
 
 " How empty learning, and how vain is art, 
 
 Save where it guides the life, or mends the heart !" 
 
 There seems to be a considerable latitude in 
 the use of the word taste. I understand it to 
 be the perception and relish of beauty, order, 
 or any other thing, the contemplation of which 
 
 VOL. I. C C gives
 
 386 APPENDIX, No. III. 
 
 gives pleasure and delight to the mind. I sup- 
 pose it is in this sense you wish it to be under- 
 stood. If I am right, the taste which these 
 books are calculated to cultivate (beside the taste 
 for fine writing, which many of the papers tend 
 to improve and to gratify), is what is proper, 
 consistent, and becoming in human character 
 and conduct, as almost every paper relates to 
 these subjects. 
 
 I am sorry I have not these books by me, that 
 I might point out some instances. I remember 
 two ; one, the beautiful story of La Roche, 
 where, beside the pleasure one derives from a 
 beautiful simple story told in M'Kenzie's hap- 
 piest manner, the mind is led to taste, with heart- 
 felt rapture, the consolation to be derived in deep 
 affliction, from habitual devotion and trust in 
 Almighty God. The other, the story of Gene- 
 ral W , where the reader is led to have a 
 
 high relish for that firmness of mind which dis- 
 regards appearances, the common forms and va- 
 nities of life, for the sake of doing justice in a 
 case which was out of the reach of human laws. 
 
 Allow me then to remark, that if the mora- 
 lity of these books is subordinate to the cultiva- 
 tion of taste ; that taste, that refinement of mind 
 and delicacy of sentiment which they are in- 
 tended to give, are the strongest guard and surest 
 
 foundation
 
 APPENDIX, No. III. 387 
 
 foundation of morality and virtue. Other mo- 
 ralists guard, as it were, the overt act; these 
 papers, "by exalting duty into sentiment, are cal- 
 culated to make every deviation from rectitude 
 and propriety of conduct, painful to the mind, 
 
 " Whose temper'd powers, 
 Refine at length, and every passion wears 
 A chaster, milder, more attractive mien." 
 
 I readily grant you that the refinement of 
 mind which I contend for, increases our sensi- 
 bility to the evils of life ! but what station of 
 life is without its evils ! There seems to be no 
 such thing as perfect happiness in this world, 
 and we must balance the pleasure and the pain 
 which we derive from taste, before we can pro- 
 perly appreciate it in the case before us. I ap- 
 prehend that on a minute examination it will ap- 
 pear, that the evils peculiar to the lower ranks of 
 life, derive their power to wound us, more from 
 the suggestions of false pride, and the " conta- 
 gion of luxury, weak and vile," than the refine- 
 ment of our taste. It was a favourite remark of 
 my brother's, that there was no part of the con- 
 stitution of our nature, to which we were more 
 indebted, than that by which " custom makes 
 things familiar and easy" (a copy Mr. Murdoch 
 used to set us to write), and there is little labour 
 which custom will not make easy to a man in 
 health, if he is not ashamed of his employment, 
 
 or
 
 338 APPENDIX, No. III. 
 
 or does not begin to compare his situation with 
 those he may see going about at their ease. 
 
 But the man of enlarged mind feels the respect 
 due to him as a man; he has learned that no 
 employment is dishonourable in itself; that while 
 he performs aright the duties of that station in 
 which God has placed him, he is as great as a 
 king in the ej-es of Him whom he is principally 
 desirous to please ; for the man of taste, who is 
 constantly obliged to labour, must of necessity be 
 religious. If you teach him only to reason, you 
 may make him an atheist, a demagogue, or any 
 vile thing; but if you teach him to feel, his feel- 
 ings can only find their proper and natural relief 
 in devotion and religious resignation. He knows 
 that those people who are to appearance at ease, 
 are not without their share of evils, and that 
 even toil itself is not destitute of advantages. 
 He listens to the words of his favourite poet : 
 
 " O mortal man, that livest here by toil, 
 
 Cease to repine and grudge thy hard estate ; 
 That like an emmet thou must ever moil, 
 
 Is a sad sentence of an ancient date ; 
 And, certes, there is for it reason great ; 
 
 Although sometimes it makes thee weep and wail, 
 And curse thy star, and early drudge and late ; 
 
 Withouten that would come an heavier bale, 
 Loose life, unruly passions, and diseases pale !" 
 
 And,
 
 APPENDIX, No. III. 389 
 
 And, while he repeats the words, the grateful 
 recollection comes across his mind, how often 
 he has derived ineffable pleasure from the sweet 
 song of " Nature's darling child." I can say, 
 from my own experience, that there is no sort 
 of farm-labour inconsistent with the most refined 
 and pleasurable state of the mind that I am ac- 
 quainted with, thrashing alone excepted. That, 
 indeed, I have always considered as insupport- 
 able drudgery, and think the ingenious mechanic 
 who invented the thrashing machine, ought to 
 have a statue among the benefactors of his coun- 
 try, and should be placed in the niche next to 
 the person who introduced the culture of pota- 
 toes into this island. 
 
 Perhaps the thing of most importance in the 
 education of the common people is, to prevent 
 the intrusion of artificial wants. I bless the 
 memory of my worthy father for almost every 
 thing in the dispositions of my mind, and my 
 habits of life, which I can approve of; and for 
 none more than the pains he took to impress my 
 mind with the sentiment, that nothing was more 
 unworthy the character of a man, than that his 
 happiness should in the least depend on what he 
 should eat or drink. So early did he impress 
 my mind with this, that although I was as fond 
 of sweetmeats as children generally are, yet I 
 seldom laid out any of the half-pence which re- 
 lations
 
 390 APPENDIX, No. III. 
 
 Jations or neighbours gave me at fairs, in the 
 purchase of them ; and if I did, every mouth- 
 ful I swallowed was accompanied with shame 
 and remorse ; and to this hour I never indulge 
 in the use of any delicacy, but I feel a consi- 
 derable degree of self-reproach and alarm for 
 the degradation of the human character. Such 
 a habit of thinking I consider as of great con- 
 sequence, both to the virtue and happiness of 
 men in the lower ranks of life. And thus, Sir, 
 I am of opinion, that if their minds are early 
 and deeply imprest with a sense of the dignity 
 of man, as such ; with the love of independence 
 and of industry, economy and temperance, as the 
 most obvious means of making themselves inde- 
 pendent, and the virtues most becoming their si- 
 tuation, and necessary to their happiness ; men 
 in the lower ranks of life may partake of the 
 pleasures to be derived from the perusal of books 
 calculated to improve the mind and refine the 
 taste, without any danger of becoming more 
 unhappy in their situation, or discontented with 
 it. Nor do I think there is any danger of their 
 becoming less useful. There are some hours 
 every day that the most constant labourer is 
 neither at work nor asleep. These hours are 
 either appropriated to amusement or to sloth. 
 If a taste for employing these hours in reading 
 were cultivated, I do not suppose that the return 
 to labour would be more difficult. Every one 
 
 will
 
 APPENDIX, No. III. 391 
 
 will allow, that the attachment to idle amuse- 
 ments, or even to sloth, has as powerful a ten- 
 dency to abstract men from their proper busi- 
 ness, as the attachment to books ; while the one 
 dissipates the mind, and the other tends to in- 
 crease its powers of self-government. To those 
 who are afraid that the improvement of the 
 minds of the common people might be danger- 
 ous to the state, or the established order of so- 
 ciety, I would remark, that turbulence and 
 commotion are certainly very inimical to the 
 feelings of a refined mind. Let the matter be 
 brought to the test of experience and obser- 
 vation. Of what description of people are mobs 
 and insurrections composed ? Are they not uni- 
 versally owing to the want of enlargement and 
 improvement of mind among the common peo- 
 ple ? Nay, let any one recollect the characters 
 of those who formed the calmer and more deli- 
 berate associations, which lately gave so much 
 alarm to the government of this country. I 
 suppose few of the common people who were 
 to be found in such societies, had the education 
 and turn of mind I have been endeavouring to 
 recommend. Allow me to suggest one reason 
 for endeavouring to enlighten the minds of the 
 common people. Their morals have hitherto 
 been guarded by a sort of dim religious awe, 
 which from a variety of causes seems wearing 
 off. I think the alteration in this respect con- 
 siderable,
 
 392 APPENDIX, No. III. 
 
 siderable, in the short period of my observation, 
 I have already given my opinion of the effects 
 of refinement of mind on morals and virtue. 
 Whenever vulgar minds begin to shake off the 
 dogmas of the religion in which they have been 
 educated, the progress is quick and immediate 
 to downright infidelity : and nothing but re- 
 finement of mind can enable them to distinguish 
 between the pure essence of religion, and the 
 gross systems which men have been perpetually 
 connecting it with. In addition to what has 
 already been done for the education of the com- 
 mon people of this country, in the establish- 
 ment of parish schools, I wish to see the salaries 
 augmented in some proportion to the present ex- 
 pense of living, and the earnings of people of 
 similar rank, endowments and usefulness, in so- 
 ciety ; and I hope that the liberality of the pre- 
 sent age will be no longer disgraced by refus- 
 ing, to so useful a class of men, such encourage- 
 ment as may make parish schools worth the at- 
 tention of men fitted for the important duties of 
 that office. In filling up the vacancies, I would 
 have more attention paid to the candidate's ca- 
 pacity of reading the English language with 
 grace and propriety ; to his understanding tho- 
 roughly, and having a high relish for the beau- 
 ties of English authors, both in poetry and 
 prose ; to that good sense and knowledge of hu- 
 man nature which would enable him to acquire 
 
 some
 
 APPENDIX. No. III. 393 
 
 some influence on the minds and affections of 
 his scholars ; to the general worth of his cha- 
 racter, and the love of his king and his country, 
 than to his proficiency in the knowledge of 
 Latin and Greek. I would then have a sort of 
 high English class established, not only for the 
 purpose of teaching the pupils to read in that 
 graceful and agreeable manner that might make 
 them fond of reading, but to make them un- 
 derstand what they read, and discover the beau- 
 ties of the author, in composition and senti- 
 ment. I would have established in every parish 
 a small circulating library, consisting of the 
 books which the young people had read extracts 
 from in the collections they had read at school, 
 and any other books well calculated to refine 
 the mind, improve the moral feelings, recom- 
 mend the practice of virtue, and communicate 
 such knowledge as might be useful and suitable 
 to the labouring classes of men. I would have 
 the schoolmaster act as librarian, and in recom- 
 mending books to his young friends, formerly 
 his pupils, and letting in the light of them upon 
 their young minds, he should have the assist- 
 ance of the minister. If once such education 
 were become general, the low delights of the 
 public-house, and other scenes of riot and de- 
 pravity, would be contemned and neglected, 
 while industrj', order, cleanliness, and every 
 virtue which taste and independence of mind 
 VOL. I. D D could
 
 394 APPENDIX. No. III. 
 
 could recommend, would prevail and flourish. 
 Thus possessed of a virtuous and enlightened 
 populace, with high delight I should consider 
 my native country as at the head of all the na- 
 tions of the earth, ancient or modern. 
 
 Thus, Sir, have I executed my threat to the 
 fullest extent, in regard to the length of my let- 
 ter. If I had not presumed on doing it more to 
 my liking, I should not have undertaken it ; but 
 I have not time to attempt it anew ; nor, if I 
 would, am I certain that I should succeed any 
 better. I have learned to have less confidence 
 in my capacity of writing on such subjects. 
 
 I am much obliged by your kind inquiries 
 about my situation and prospects. I am much 
 pleased with the soil of this farm, and with the 
 terms on which I possess it. I receive great 
 encouragement likewise in building, enclosing, 
 and other conveniencies, from my landlord Mr. 
 G. S. Monteith, whose general character and 
 conduct, as a landlord and country gentleman, 
 I am highly pleased with. But the land is in 
 such a state as to require a considerable imme- 
 diate outlay of money in the purchase of ma- 
 nure, the grubbing of brush-wood, removing of 
 stones, &c, which twelve years' struggle with a 
 farm of a cold ungrateful soil has but ill pre- 
 pared me for. If I can get these things done, 
 
 however,
 
 APPENDIX. No. III. 395 
 
 however, to my mind, I think there is next to a 
 certainty that in five or six years I shall be in a 
 hopeful way of attaining a situation which I 
 think as eligible for happiness as any one I know ; 
 for I have always been of opinion, that if a man 
 bred to the habits of a farming life, who pos- 
 sesses a farm of good soil, on such terms as ena- 
 bles him easily to pay all demands, is not happy, 
 he ought to look somewhere else than to his si- 
 tuation for the causes of his uneasiness. 
 
 I beg you will present my most respectful 
 compliments to Mrs. Currie, and remember me 
 to Mr. and Mrs. Roscoe, and Mr. Roscoe, jun., 
 whose kind attentions to me, when in Liverpool, 
 I shall never forget. 
 
 I am, dear Sir, 
 
 Your most obedient, 
 
 and much obliged 
 
 humble servant, 
 
 GILBERT BURNS. 
 
 To James Currie, M. D. F. R. S. 
 Liverpool. 
 
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