SKETCH

OF THE

LIFE

OF

ROBERT BURNS.

ROBERT BURNS, the subject of the present sketch, was born in the parish of Ayr, in Ayrshire, on the 25th of January, 1759; his father, who came from the north of Scotland, was at that time gardener to a gentleman of the name of Ferguson; in which situation his conduct was so much approved, that his employer leased him a farm of considerable extent; but the produce, on account of the indifferent soil, and a train of disastrous circumstances, was scarcely adequate to support his family; he still, however, endeavoured to keep them together, being sensible, that their future welfare could only be ensured by giving a virtuous bias to their pliant minds. The order of his father's house is well described by Burns, in his Cotter's Saturday Night:

B

The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face
They round the ingle form a circle wide;
The sire turns o'er with patriarchal grace,
The big ha' bible, once his father's pride.

He wales a portion with judicious care,

And "let us worship God," he says, with solemn air.

It is much to be regretted that the poet paid such an indifferent regard to the instructions of his pious father, when maturity withdrew him from his admonitions; to this cause may, in some measure, be imputed the errors and sufferings of his subsequent life. His education was nothing superior to what is usual among the peasantry in Scotland; but his father having a taste for books, and the particular attention he received from his schoolmaster, Mr. Murdoch, inspired him with a love of knowledge, which may be considered as a leading string to that eminence, as a poet, which he afterwards attained; yet he displayed so little of that vivacity, for which he was subsequently distinguished, while under the care of his tutor, that the latter was induced to observe, that Burns "was not a genius likely to address the

muses."

The daily fatigue he endured in his early years was excessive; at the age of fifteen he was the principal labourer on the farm, his father being unable to pay the hire of a servant. This exposure, in the dawn of youth, to all the severity

of manual exertion, combined with the effects of a coarse and scanty fare, the sad and only recompence of almost incessant toil, occasioned him frequent headachs; which, at a more advanced period of life, were succeeded by a palpitation of the heart, at times so violent as to threaten suffocation. In his twenty-third year, he joined a flax-dresser, at Irvine, in Ayrshire, with an intention to practice the trade, and, at the same time, to render it subservient to the growth of flax; but this design was crushed in its infancy, through the shop wherein he was engaged being consumed by fire: his hopes of independency from a new profession being thus frustrated, he returned to his former occupation. About this period the death of Burns' father induced the family to change their residence, and they jointly rented a farm in the neighbourhood, where, for the space of four years, their utmost exertions. were unavailing, to rescue them from the iron hand of want. During this era of labour and distress, strange as it may appear, Robert composed almost the whole of the poems which were published in the first, or Kilmarnock, edition. It was likewise at this, apparently, unpropitious time, that Burns formed an attachment of the tenderest nature, the particulars of which are related by himself, in the lines that follow;

There was a lass, and she was fair,
At kirk and market to be seen,

When a' the fairest maids were there,
The fairest maid was bonnie Jean.

Young Rabie was the brawest lad,
The flower and pride of a' the glen;
And he had owsen, sheep, and kyes,
And wanton naigies nine or ten.

He gae'd wi' Jeanie to the tryste,
He danc'd wi' Jeanie on the down;
And lang ere witless Jeanie wist,
Her heart was tint, her peace was stown.

As in the bosom o' the stream,
The moon-beam dwells at dewy e'en,
So trembling pure was tender love
Within the breast o' bonnie Jean.

And now she works her mammie's wark,
And ay she sighs wi' care and pain,
Yet wist na what her ail might be,
Or what wad make her weel again.

But did na Jeanie's heart loup light,
And did na joy blink in her e'e,
As Rabie tauld a tale o' love,
Ae e'enin on the lily lea?

O Jeanie fair, I loe thee dear;
O canst thou think to fancy me,
Or wilt thou leave thy mammie's cot,
And learn to tent the farms wi' me?

Now, what could artless Jeanie do?
She had na will to say him na;

At length she blush'd a sweet consent,

And love was ay between them twa.

This connection was violently opposed by the parents of Jeanie, and so bitter was their resentment, that they not only compelled her to abandon him, though the most solemn vows had been interchanged, but subjected him to the ignominy of penance, and employed the terriers of the law, who hunted him from place to place like a felon, to obtain from him a maintenance for the fruit of his amour. His reflections were so melancholy on this occasion, that, to use an expression of his own, he "was nearly qualified for a place among those who have lost the chart, and mistaken the reckoning of rationality." Resigning his own share of the farm to his brother, he made preparations for a migration to Jamaica; yet, before he quitted his native country, he resolved to publish his poems. This publication gave a new and unexpected turn to his pursuits, and opened the most inviting prospects, though at a time when his difficulties seemed rapidly approximating to a crisis, for he had composed the last song that he expected to write in Caledonia, had taken leave of the few he could denominate his friends; and, such were his pecuniary embar

* "The gloomy night is gathering fast."