there was I among them. 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, surveying, dialling, &c., in which I made pretty good progress. But I made 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; 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 always a carnival in my bosom -when a charming fillette, who lived next door to the school, upset my trigonometry, and set me off at a tangent from the sphere of my studies." [The following additional particulars, respecting this period of his life, will be found interesting to every admirer of the Poet. They were collected by Mr. Robert Chambers, and appeared originally in Chambers' Edinburgh Journal: "If Burns be correct in stating that it was his nineteenth summer which he spent in Kirkoswald parish, the date of his residence there must be 1777. What seems to have suggested his going to Kirkoswald school was the connection of his mother with that parish. She was the daughter of Gilbert Brown, farmer of Craigenton, in this parochial division of Carrick, in which she had many friends still living, particularly a brother, Samuel Brown, who resided, in the miscellaneous capacity of farm-labourer, fisherman, and dealer in wool, at the farm-house of Ballochneil, above a mile from the village of Kirkoswald. This Brown, though not the farmer or guidman of the place, was a person held to be in creditable circumIstances, in a district where the distinction between master and servant was, and still is, by no means great. His wife was the sister of Niven, the tenant; and he lived in the "Chamber" or better portion of the farm-house, but was now a widower. It was with Brown that Burns lived during his attendance at Kirkoswald school, walking every morning to the village where the little seminary of learning was situate, and returning at night. The district into which the young poet of Kyle was thus thrown has many features of a remarkable kind. Though situated on the shore of the Firth of Clyde, where steamers are every hour to be seen on their passage be * This was the school of Kirkoswald. "This business was first carried on here from the Isle of Man, and afterwards to a considerable extent from France, Ostend, and Gottenburg. Persons engaged in tween enlightened and busy cities, it is to this day the seat of simple and patriarchal usages. Its land, composed of bleak green uplands, partly cultivated and partly pastoral, was, at the time alluded to, occupied by a generation of primitive small farmers, many of whom, while preserving their native simplicity, had superadded to it some of the irregular habits, arising from a concern in the trade of introducing contraband goods on the Carrick coast.† Such dealings did not prevent superstition from flourishing amongst them in a degree of vigour of which no district of Scotland now presents any example. The parish has six miles of sea-coast; and the village, where the church and school are situate, is in a sheltered situation about a couple of miles inland. as The parish schoolmaster, Hugh Rodger, enjoyed great local fame as a teacher of mensuration and geometry, and was much employed a practical land-surveyor. On the day when Burns entered at the school, another youth, a little younger than himself, also entered. This was a native of the neighbouring town of Maybole, who, having there completed a course of classical study, was now sent by his father, a respectable shopkeeper, to acquire arithmetic and mensuration under the famed mathematician of Kirkoswald. It was then the custom, when pupils of their age first entered a school, to take the master to a tavern, and complete the engagement by treating him to some liquor. Burns and the Maybole youth, accordingly, united to regale Rodger with a potation of ale, at a publichouse in the village, kept by two gentlewomanly sort of persons named Kennedy-Jean and Anne Kennedy-the former of whom was destined to be afterwards married to immortal verse, under the appellation of Kirkton Jean, and whose house, in consideration of some pretensions to birth or style above the common, was always called the Leddies' House." From that time, Burns and the Maybole youth became intimate friends, insomuch that, during this summer, neither had any companion with whom he was more frequently in company than the one with the other. Burns was only at the village during school hours; but when his friend Willie returned to the paternal dome on Saturday nights, the poet would accompany him, and stay till it was time for both to come back to school on Monday morning. There was also an interval between the morning and afternoon meetings of the school, which the two youths used to spend together. Instead of amusing themselves with ball or any other sport, like the rest of the scholars, they would it found it necessary to go abroad, and enter into business with foreign merchants; and, by dealing in tea, spirits, and silks, brought home to their families and friends the means of luxury and finery at the cheapest rate."-Statist. Account of Kirkoswald, 1794. take a walk by themselves in the outskirts of the village, and converse on subjects calculated to improve their minds. By and bye, they fell upon a plan of holding disputations, or arguments on speculative questions, one taking one side, and the other the other, without much regard to their respective opinions on the point, whatever it might be, the whole object being to sharpen their intellects. They asked several of their companions to come and take a side in these debates, but not one would do so; they only laughed at the young philosophers. The matter at length reached the ears of the master, who, however skilled in mathematics, possessed but a narrow understanding and little general knowledge. With all the bigotry of the old school, he conceived that this supererogatory employment of his pupils was a piece of absurdity, and he resolved to correct them in it. One day, therefore, when the school was fully met, and in the midst of its usual business, he went up to the desk, where Burns and Willie were sitting opposite to each other, and began to advert in sarcastic terms to what he had heard of them. They had become great debaters, he understood, and conceived themselves fit to settle affairs of importance, which wiser heads usually let alone. He hoped their disputations would not ultimately become quarrels, and that they would never think of coming from words to blows; and so forth. The jokes of schoolmasters always succeed amongst the boys, who are too glad to find the awful man in any thing like good humour to question either the moral aim or the point of his wit. They therefore, on this occasion, hailed the master's remarks with hearty peals of laughter. Nettled at this, Willie resolved he would "speak up" to Rodger; but first he asked Burns, in a whisper, if he would support him, which Burns promised to do. He then said that he was sorry to find that Robert and he had given offence;—it had not been intended. And indeed he had expected that the master would have been rather pleased, to know of their endeavours to improve their minds. He could assure him that such improvement was the sole object they had in view. Rodger sneered at the idea of their improving their minds by nonsensical discussions, and contemptuously asked what it was they disputed about? Willie replied that, generally, there was a new subject every day; that he could not recollect all that had come under their attention; but the question of to-day had been-" Whether is a great general or a respectable merchant the most valuable member of society?" The dominie laughed outrageously at what he called the silliness of such a question, seeing there could be no doubt for a moment about it. "Well," sid Burns, "if you think so, I shall be glad if you take any side you please, and allow me to take the other, and let us discuss it before the school." Rodger most unwisely assented, and commenced the argument by a flourish in favour of the general. Burns answered by a pointed advocacy of the pretensions of the merchant, and soon had an evident superiority over his preceptor. The latter replied, but without success. His hand was observed to shake; then his voice trembled; and he dissolved the school in a state of vexation pitiable to behold. In this anecdote, who can fail to read a prognostication of future eminence to the two disputants? The one became the most illustrious poet of his country; and it is not unworthy of being mentioned, in the same sentence, that the other advanced, through a career of successful industry in his native town, to the possession of a large estate in its neighbourhood, and some share of the honours usually reserved in this country for birth and aristocratic connection. The coast, in the neighbourhood of Burns's residence at Ballochneil, presented a range of rustic characters upon whom his genius was destined to confer an extraordinary interest. At the farm of Shanter, on a slope overlooking the shore, not far from Turnberry Castle, lived Douglas Graham, a stout hearty specimen of the Carrick farmer, a little addicted to smuggling, but withal a worthy and upright member of society, and a kind-natured man. He had a wife named Helen M'Taggart, who was unusually addicted to superstitious beliefs and fears. The steading where this good couple lived is now no more, and the farm has been divided for the increase of two others in its neighbourhood; but genius has given them a perennial existence in the tale of Tam o' Shanter, where their characters are exactly delineated under the respective appellations of Tam and Kate. * * * At Ballochneil, Burns engaged heartily in the sports of leaping, dancing, wrestling, putting (throwing) the stone, and others of the like kind. His innate thirst for distinction and superiority was manifested in these, as in more important, affairs; but though he was possessed of great strength, as well as skill, he could never match his young bedfellow John Niven. Obliged at last to acknowledge himself beat by this person in bodily warfare, he had recourse for amends to a spiritual mode of contention, and would engage young Niven in an argument about some speculative question, when, of course, he invariably floored his antagonist. His satisfaction on these occasions is said to have been extreme. One day, as he was walking slowly along the street of the village, in a manner customary with him, his eyes bent on the ground, he was met by the Misses Biggar, the daughters of the parish pastor. He would have passed without noticing them, if one of the young ladies had not called him by name. She then rallied him on his inattention to the fair sex, in preferring to look towards the inanimate ground, instead of seizing the opportunity afforded him, of indulging in the most invaluable privilege of man, that of beholding and conversing with the ladies. "Madam," said he, "it is a natural and right thing for man to contemplate the ground, from whence he was taken, and for woman to look upon and observe man, from whom she was taken." This was a conceit, but it was the conceit of "no vulgar boy." There is a great fair at Kirkoswald in the beginning of August on the same day, we believe, with a like fair at Kirkoswald in Northumberland, both places having taken their rise from the piety of one person, Oswald, a Saxon king of the heptarchy, whose memory is probably honoured in these observances. During the week preceding this fair, in the year 1777, Burns made overtures to his Maybole friend, Willie, for their getting up a dance, on the evening of the approaching festival, in one of the public-houses of the village, and inviting their sweethearts to join in it. Willie knew little at that time of dances or sweethearts; but he liked Burns, and was no enemy to amusement. He therefore consented, and it was agreed that some other young men should be requested to join in the undertaking. The dance took place, as designed, the requisite music being supplied by a hired band; and about a dozen couples partook of the fun. When it was proposed to part, the reckoning was called, and found to amount to eighteen shillings and fourpence. It was then discovered that almost every one present had looked to his neighbours for the means of settling this claim. Burns, the originator of the scheme, was in the poetical condition of not being master of a single penny. The rest were in the like condition, all except one, whose resources amounted to a groat, and Maybole Willie, who possessed about half-a-crown. The last individual, who alone boasted any worldly wisdom or experience, took it upon him to extricate the company from its difficulties. By virtue of a candid and sensible narration to the landlord, he induced that individual to take what they had, and give credit for the remainder. The payment of the debt is not the worst part of the story. Seeing no chance from begging or borrowing, Willie resolved to gain it, if possible, by merchandise. Observing that stationery articles for the school were procured at Kirkoswald with difficulty, he supplied himself with a stock from his father's warehouse at Maybole, and for some weeks sold pens and paper to his companions, with so much advantage, at length, that he realised a sufficient amount of profit to liquidate the expense of the dance. Burns and he then went in triumph to the inn, and not only settled the claim to the last penny, but gave the kind-hearted host a bowl of thanks into the bargain. Willie, however, took care from that time forth to engage in no schemes for country dances without looking carefully to the probable state of the pockets of his fellow adventurers. Burns, according to his own account, concluded his residence at Kirkoswald in a blaze of passion for a fair fillette who lived next door to the school. At this time, owing to the destruction of the proper school of Kirkoswald, a chamber at the end of the old church, the business of parochial instruction was conducted in an apartment on the ground floor of a house in the main street of the village, opposite the church-yard. From behind this house, as from behind each of its neighbours in the same row, a small stripe of kail-yard (Anglice, a kitchen-garden) runs back about fifty yards, along a rapidly ascending slope. When Burns went into the particular patch behind the school to take the sun's altitude, he had only to look over a low enclosure to see the similar patch connected with the next house. Here, it seems, Peggy Thomson, the daughter of the rustic occupant of that house, was walking at the time, though more probably engaged in the business of cutting a cabbage for the family dinner, than imitating the Hower-gathering Proserpine, or her prototype Eve. Hence the bewildering passion of the poet. Peggy afterwards became Mrs. Neilson, and lived to a good age in the town of Ayr, where her children still reside. 66 At his departure from Kirkoswald, he engaged his Maybole friend and some other lads to keep up a correspondence with him. His object in doing so, as we may gather from his own narrative, was to improve himself in composition. "I carried this whim so far," says he, "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." To Willie, in particular, he wrote often, and in the most friendly and confidential terms. When that individual was commencing business in his native town, the poet addressed him a poetical epistle of appropriate advice, headed with the well-known lines from Blair's Grave, beginning "Friendship! mysterious cement of the soul, This correspondence continued till the period of the publication of the poems, when Burns wrote to request his friend's good offices in increasing his list of subscribers. The young man was then possessed of little influence; but what little he had, he exercised with all '| the zeal of friendship, and with no ittle success. A considerable number of copies were accordingly transmitted in proper time to his care, and soon after, the poet came to Maybole to receive the money. His friend collected a few choice spirits to meet him at the King's Arms Inn, and they spent a happy night together. Burns was on this occasion particularly elated, for Willie, in the midst of their conviviality, handed over to him above seven pounds, being the first considerable sum of money the poor bard had ever possessed. In the pride of his heart, next morning, he determined that he should not walk home, and accordingly he hired from his host a certain poor hack mare, well known along the whole road from Glasgow to Portpatrick-in all probability the first hired conveyance that Poet Burns had ever enjoyed, for even his subsequent journey to Edinburgh, auspicious as were the prospects under which it was undertaken, was performed on foot. Willie and a few other youths who had been in his company on the preceding night, walked out of town before him, for the purpose of taking leave at a particular spot; and before he came up, they had prepared a few mock-heroic verses in which to express their farewell. When Burns rode up, accordingly, they saluted him in this formal manner, a little to his surprise. He thanked them, however, and instantly added, "What need of all this fine parade of verse? It would have been quite enough if you had said The company then allowed Burns to go on his way rejoicing.]"* Nature, in all this, resumes Mr. Cunningham, was pursuing her own plan in the education of Burns. The melancholy of which he complains was a portion of his genius; the invisible object to which he was impelled was poetry. No one can fail to perceive, in the scenes which he describes as dear to his heart and fancy, the very materials over which his muse afterwards breathed life and inspiration; and no one can fail to feel, that all this time he had been walking in the path of the muse without knowing it. He complains that he was unfitted with an aim. He looked around, and saw no outlet for his ambition. Farming he failed to find the ["All this pleasantry was not without its bitter. The poet's Maybole frend, on inspecting the volume, was mortified to find the poetical epistle which had been addressed to him, printed with the name Andrew substituted for his own, and the motto from Blair, as was but proper, omitted. He said nothing at the time; but, young, ambitious, and conscious of having done all in his humble power for friendship's cause, he could not forgive so marked a slight. He therefore from that time ceased to answer Burns's letters. When the poet was next at Maybole, he asked the cause, and Willie answered by inquiring if he could not himself divine it. He said he thought he could, and adverted to the changed name in the poem. Mr. same as it is in Virgil-elegance united with toil. The high places of the land were occupied, and no one could hope to ascend save the titled or the wealthy. The church he could not reach without an expensive education, or patronage less attainable still. Law held out temptation to talent, but not to talent without money; while the army opened its glittering files to him who could purchase a commission, or had, in the words of the divine, "A beauteous sister, or convenient wife," to smooth the way to preferment. With a consciousness of genius, and a desire of distinction, he stood motionless, like a stranded vessel whose sails are still set, her colours flying, and the mariners a-board. He had now and then a sort of vague intimation from his own heart that he was a poet; but the polished and stately versification of English poetry alarmed and dismayed him: he had sung to himself a song or two, and stood with his hand on the plough, and his heart with the muse. The strength which he could not himself discover was not likely to be found out by others. It is thus we find him spoken of by his good old kind preceptor :"Gilbert," says Murdoch, "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. Robert's ear, in particular, was remarkably dull, and his voice untuneable. It was long before I could get him 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 live;" and certainly, if any person who knew the two boys had been asked which of them was most likely to court the muses, he would surely never have guessed that Robert had a propensity of that kind." The simple schoolmaster had perhaps paid court to some small heritor's daughter, and dressed his face in smiles for the task; he accordingly thought that the Muse was to be wooed and won in the same Malvolio way, and never imagined that the face inspired with contemplation and melancholy could be dear to her heart. While the boy was thus rising into the man, Robert Aiken, writer in Ayr, had been, he said, a useful friend and patron to him. He had a son commencing a commercial life in Liverpool. I thought, he said, that a few verses addressed to this youth would gratify his father, and be accepted as a mark of my gratitude. But, my muse being lazy, I could not well make them out. After all, this old epistle occurred to me, and by putting his name into it, in place of yours, I made it answer this purpose. Willie told him in reply that he had just exchanged his friendship for that of Mr. Aiken, and requested that their respective letters might be burnt-a duty which he scrupulously performed on his own part. The two disputants of Kirkoswald never saw or corresponded with each other again."] and the mind was expanding with the body, both were in danger of being crushed, as the daisy was, in the Poet's own immortal strains, beneath the weight of the furrow. The whole life of his father was a continued contest with fortune. Burns saw, as he grew up, to what those days of labour and nights of anxiety would lead, and set himself, with heart and hand, to lighten the one, and alleviate the other. At the plough, scythe, and reaping hook, he feared no competitor, and so set all fears of want in his own person at defiance: he felt but for his father. All this is touchingly described by Gilbert. "My brother, at the age of thirteen, assisted in thrashing the crop of corn, and, at fifteen, was the principal labourer on the farm; for we had no hired servant, male or female. The anguish of mind we felt, at our tender 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. At this time he was almost constantly afflicted in the evening with a dull head-ache, which, at a future period of his life, was exchanged for a palpitation of the heart, and a threatening of fainting and suffocation in his bed in the night-time." The elder Burness, while in the Lothians, had paid attention to gardening; but he could not bring much agricultural knowledge from his native county. His toil was incessant; but it was of the body, not of the brain. More is required in farming than mere animal vigour and dexterity of hand. A skilful farmer may be called a learned man; -to work according to the season, and in the spirit of the soil; to anticipate sunshine, and be prepared for storms; to calculate chances and consequences; suit demands at home, and fit markets abroad; require what not many fully possess. I know not how much of this knowledge William Burness possessed. He was, however, fertile in expedients: when he found that his farm was unproductive in corn, he thought the soil suitable for flax, and resolved himself to raise the commodity, while to the Poet he allotted the task of manufacturing it for the market. To accomplish this, it was necessary that he should be instructed in flaxdressing accordingly, at Midsummer, 1781, Robert went to Irvine, where he wrought under the eye of one Peacock, kinsman to his mother. His mode of life was frugal enough. "He possessed," says Currie, "a single room for his lodging, 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." A picture of his situation and feelings is luckily preserved of his own drawing: the simplicity of the expression, and pure English of the style, are not its highest qualities. He thus wrote to his father:"Honoured Sir:-I have purposely delayed writing, in the hope that I should have the pleasure of seeing you on new year's day : but work comes so hard upon us that I do not choose to be absent on that account. 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 forward into futurity: for the least anxiety or perturbation 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 transported 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 myself, I could contentedly and gladly resign it. No "As for this world," he continues, "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." This letter is dated Dec. 27, 1781. one can mistake the cause of his melancholy : obscure toil and an undistinguished lot on earth directed his thoughts in despair to another world, where the righteous "shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat." To plough, and sow, and reap were poetic labours, compared with the dusty toil of a flax-dresser: with the lark for his companion, and the green fields around him, his spirits rose, and he looked on himself as forming a part of creation: but when he sat down to the brake and the heckle, his spirits sank, and his dreams of ambition vanished. Flax-dressing, in the poet's estimation, seemed any thing but the way to wealth and fame: the desponding tone of his letter was no |