want an aim. I saw my father's situation entailed on me perpetual labour. The only two openings by which I could enter the temple of Fortune, were the gate of niggardly economy, or the path of little chicaning bargain-making. The first is so contracted an aperture, I could never squeeze myself into it;—the last I always hated-there was contamination in the very entrance! Thus abandoned of aim or view in life, with a strong appetite for sociability, as well from native hilarity, as from a pride of observation and remark; a constitutional melancholy or hypochondriacism that made me fly solitude; add to these incentives to social life, my reputation for bookish knowledge, a certain wild logical talent, and a strength of thought, something like the rudiments of good sense; and it will not seem well as his not being amenable to counsel, which often irritated my father, and which he would naturally think a dancing school was not likely to correct. But he was proud of Robert's genius, which he bestowed more expense on cultivating than on the rest of the family—and he was equally delighted with his warmth of heart, and conversational 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 permitted the rest of the family that were fit for it, to accompany him during the second month. Robert excelled in dancing, and was for some time distractedly fond of it." 66 [The dancing-school experience referred to by Gilbert at the close of his note belonged to the Tarbolton period of his history, when the father was prostrated by his last illness, and all the children had very much their own way. The poet tells us that even during his Irvine days, his father was 66 visibly far gone in a consumption." The country dancing-school" spoken of in the text is understood to have been at Dalrymple in the year 1775; and it is more than probable that neither Gilbert nor any younger member of the family were made aware of Robert's secret adventure. Dr. Currie has sadly weakened the force of the poet's own words in this part of the narrative. In the MS. it stands thus :—“ My going was, what to this hour I repent, in absolute defiance of his commands: from that instance of rebellion, he took a kind of dislike to me," &c.] surprising that I was generally a welcome guest where I visited, or any great wonder that, always where two or three met together, there was I among them. But far beyond all other impulses of my heart, was un penchant pour l'adorable moitié du 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 reaphook, 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 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 dexterity, 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.' In regard to the same critical period of Burns's life, his excellent brother writes as follows::- "The seven years we 1 [There is some parenthetical matter contained in the long passage above quoted from the autobiography, and that peculiarity has caused considerable confusion to chronologists. It opens, as we have seen, with incidents and allusions which can refer only to the Mount Oliphant period of the writer's history, and farther on the reference to his constitutional hypochondria operating as an incentive to social excitement is equally applicable to that time. The same may be said regarding his extensive practice in epistolary correspondence coupled with his dexterity in directing the love-adventures of his companions, for he says, in the paragraph immediately following, that such was the direct result of his visit to Kirkoswald. It is only in his concluding sentence that he slides into Tarbolton matters by anticipation; and in the next paragraph he resumes his narrative of the earlier period, by detailing another incident of his "seventeenth year."] lived in Tarbolton parish (extending from the seventeenth to the twenty-fourth of my brother's age)1 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 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 anything 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, therefore, rarely settled on persons of this description. 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 dissimilitude between his fair captivator, as she appeared to others, and as she seemed when invested with the attributes he gave her. One generally reigned paramount in his affections; but as Yorick's affections flowed out towards Madame de L- at the remise door, while the eternal vows of Eliza were upon him, so Robert was frequently 1 [Really, from the 19th to the 26th, i.e., from 1777 to 1784.] 2 [Gilbert's own words (as still to be seen in the MS.) are much better than Dr. Currie's paraphrase quoted in the text. In the original it stands thus:-" and there was often a great disparity between his fair captivator and her attributes." For these fourteen words, Currie substitutes precisely double the number, with only half the effect.] encountering other attractions, which formed so many underplots in the drama of his love." Thus occupied with labour, love, and dancing, the youth "without an aim" found leisure occasionally to clothe the sufficiently various moods in his mind in rhymes. It was as early as seventeen, he tells us, that he wrote some stanzas which begin beautifully: "I dream'd I lay where flowers were springing Gaily in the sunny beam; Listening to the wild birds singing, By a falling crystal stream. Straight the sky grew black and daring, Thro' the woods the whirlwinds rave, O'er the swelling drumlie wave. Such was life's deceitful morning, &c."1 On comparing these verses with those on "Handsome Nell," the advance achieved by the young bard in the course of two short years must be regarded with admiration, nor should a minor circumstance be entirely overlooked, that in the piece which we have just been quoting, there occurs but one Scotch word. It was about this time also, that he wrote a ballad of much less ambitious vein, which, years after, he says, he used to con over with delight, because of the faithfulness with which it recalled to him the circumstances and feelings of his opening manhood. 1 "My father was a farmer Upon the Carrick border, And carefully he bred me He bade me act a manly part, Though I had ne'er a farthing; For without an honest manly heart No man was worth regarding. [These verses refer to, and were composed during, the darkest period at Mount Oliphant-a year before the removal to Lochlea.] "Then out into the busy world "No help, nor hope, nor view had I, So I must toil, and sweat, and moil, To plough and sow, and reap and mow, For one (he said) to labour bred Thus all obscure, unknown and poor, In everlasting slumber : No view, nor care, but shun whate'er These are the only two of his very early productions in which we have nothing expressly about love. The rest were composed to celebrate the charms of those rural beauties who followed each other in the dominion of his fancy-or shared the capacious throne between them; and we may easily believe, that one who possessed, with other qualifications, such powers of flattering, feared competitors as little in the diversions of his evenings as in the toils of his day. The rural lover, in those districts, pursues his tender vocation in a style, the especial fascination of which townbred swains may find it somewhat difficult to comprehend. |