: mar; 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 schoolbook 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 blacksmith 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: 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 parents 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 scarcely 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 perpetual lease of seven acres of land from Dr. Campbell, physician in Ayr, with the view of commencing nurseryman and public gardener; 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 subject of these memoirs, born on the 25th of January, 1759, as has already been mentioned. Before William Burnes had made much progress in preparing his "The farm was upwards of seventy nursery, he was withdrawn from that un- acres* (between eighty and ninety English dertaking by Mr. Ferguson, who pur- statute measure,) the rent of which was to chased the estate of Doonholm, in the be forty pounds annually for the first six immediate neighbourhood, and engaged years, and afterwards forty-five pounds. him as his gardener and overseer; and My father endeavoured to sell his leasethis was his situation when our poet hold property, for the purpose of stocking was born. Though in the service of Mr. this farm, but at that time was unable, Ferguson, he lived in his own house, his and Mr. Ferguson lent him a hundred wife managing her family and her little pounds for that purpose. He removed to dairy, which consisted sometimes of two, his new situation at Whitsuntide, 1766. sometimes of three milch cows; and this It was, I think, not above two years after state of unambitious content continued this, that Murdoch, our tutor and friend, till the year 1766. His son Robert was left this part of the country; and there sent by him in his sixth year, to a school being no school near us, and our little at Alloway Miln, about a mile distant, services being useful on the farm, my taught by a person of the name of Camp-father undertook to teach us arithmetic bell; but this teacher being in a few months appointed master of the workhouse at Ayr, William 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 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 gram Letter from Gilbert Burns to Mrs. Dunlop. in the winter evenings by candle-light; and in this way my two eldest sisters got all the education they received. I remember a circumstance that happened at this time, which, though trifling in itself, 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 memorial of him, a small compendium of English *Letter of Gilbert Burns to Mrs. Dunlop. The name of this farm 1 Mount Oliphant, in Ayr parish. Grammar, and the tragedy of Titus An-, dronicus, and by way of passing the evening, he began to 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. My 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; we rarely saw any body but the members of our own family. There were no boys of our own age, or near it, in the neighbourhood. 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 conversed 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 It is to be remembered that the poet was only nine years of age and the relator 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 representa the conversation to such subjects as might tend to increase our knowledge, or confirm us in virtuous habits. He borrowed Salmon's Geographical Grammar for us, and endeavoured to make us acquainted with the situation and history of the different countries in the world; 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 Creation, 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 Meuross in Kilmarnock: from this Robert collected a competent knowledge of history; for no book was so voluminous as to slacken his industry, or so antiquated as to damp his researches. A brother of my mother, who had lived with us some time, and had learnt some arithmetic by 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 attaining 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 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 tions are calculated rather to produce disgust or laugh- opportunity of remedying this defect. ter, than tears. The scene to which Gilbert Burns alludes, opens thus: Titus Andronicus, Act II. Scene 5. About this time a bookish acquaintance of my father's procured us a reading of two volumes of Richardson's Pamela, which was the first novel we read, and the only part of Richardson's works my Enter Demetrius and Chiron, with Lavinia ravished, brother was acquainted with till towards her hands cut off, and her tongue cut out. Why is this silly play still printed as Shakespeare's, against the opinion of all the best critics? The bard of Avon was guilty of man extravagances, but he always performed what he intended to perform. That he ever excited in a British mind (for the French cri tics must be set aside) disgust or ridienie, where he meant to have awakened pity or horror, is what will not be imputed to that master of the passions 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 exalmost all our authors of eminence of cepted,) with Hume, with Robertson, and the later times. I recollect indeed my THE LIFE OF BURNS. 66 19 Observing the facility with which he father borrowed a volume of English history from Mr. Hamilton of Bourtreehill's had acquired the French language, Mr. gardener. It treated of the reign of Robinson the established writing-master James the First, and his unfortunate son, in Ayr, and Mr. Murdoch's particular Charles, but I do not know who was the friend, having himself acquired a consiauthor; all that I remember of it is some-derable knowledge of the Latin language thing of Charles's conversation with his by his own industry, without ever having children. About this time Murdoch, our | learnt it at school, advised Robert to former teacher, after having been in differ- make the same attempt, promising him ent places in the country,and having taught every assistance in his power. Agreeaa school some time in Dumfries, came to be bly to this advice, he purchased The Ruthe established teacher of the English lan-diments of the Latin Tongue, but finding He frequently reguage in Ayr, a circumstance of considera- this study dry and uninteresting, it was ble consequence to us. The remembrance quickly laid aside. of my father's former friendship, and his turned to his Rudiments on any little chaattachraent to my brother, made him do grin or disappointment, particularly in Observevery thing in his power for our improve- his love affairs; but the Latin seldom ment. He sent us Pope's works, and predominated more than a day or two some other poetry, the first that we had at a time, or a week at most. an opportunity of reading, excepting ing himself the ridicule that would atwhat is contained in The English Collec- tach to this sort of conduct if it were tion, and in the volume of The Edinburgh known, he made two or three humorous Magazine for 1772; excepting also those stanzas on the subject, which I cannot excellent new songs that are hawked about now recollect, but they all ended, the country in baskets, or exposed on stalls in the streets. "The summer after we had been at Dalrymple 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. "So I'll to my Latin again." "Thus you see Mr. Murdoch was a principal means of my brother's improvecannot take leave ment. Worthy man; though foreign to my present purpose, of him without tracing his future 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 stationary wares. "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 "The father of Dr. Patterson, now my brother, who, when he returned, brought home with him a French dictionary and grammar, and the Adventures of physician at Ayr, was, I believe a native Telemachus in the original. In a little of Aberdeenshire, and was one of the eswhile, by the assistance of these books, tablished teachers in Ayr, when my fahe had acquired such a knowledge of the ther settled in the neighbourhood. He earlanguage, as to read and understand any ly recognized my father as a fellow native of French author in prose. This was con- the north of Scotland, and a certain desidered as a sort of prodigy, and through gree of intimacy subsisted between them the medium of Murdoch, procured him during Mr. Patterson's life. the acquaintance of several lads in Ayr, death, his widow, who is a very genteel who were at that time gabbling French, woman, and of great worth, delighted in and the notice of some families, particu- doing what she thought her husband larly that of Dr. Malcolm, where a know- would have wished to have done, and asJedge of French was a recommendation. Isiduously kept up her attentions to all his P After his acquaintance. She kept alive the inti- | he had a right to throw it up, if he thought macy with our family, by frequently inviting my father and mother to her house on Sundays, when she met them at church. tration, and the decision involved my father's affairs in ruin. He lived to know of this decision, but not to see any execution in consequence of it. He died on the 13th of February, 1784. 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, but failing in that attempt, he continued "When she came to know my bro- where he was for six years more. He ther's passion for books, she kindly offer- then took the farm of Lochlea, of 130 ed us the use of her husband's library, acres, at the rent of twenty shillings an and from her we got the Spectator, Pope's acre, in the parish of Tarbolton, of Mr. Translation of Homer, and several other then a merchant in Ayr, and now books that were of use to us. Mount (1797,) a merchant in Liverpool. He re Oliphant, the farm my father possessed moved to this farm on Whitsunday, 1777. in the parish of Ayr, is almost the very and possessed it only seven years. No poorest soil I know of in a state of culti-writing had ever been made out of the vation. A stronger proof of this I can- conditions of the lease; a misunderstandnot give, than that, notwithstanding the ing took place respecting them; the sub extraordinary rise in the value of lands injects in dispute were submitted to arbiScotland, 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 increased by the loss of several of his cattle by accidents and disease. To the buffetings of misfortune, we could only oppose hard labour, and the most rigid economy. We lived very sparing. For several years butcher's meat was a 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 labours of the farm. 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. I doubt not but the hard labour 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 evenings 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 seven years we lived in Tarbolton parish (extending from the seven teenth 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 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, 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 a plentiful store 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 "By a stipulation in my father's lease, but as Yorick's affections flowed out to 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 brother's allowance and mine was seven pounds per annum each. And during the whole was for four years, as well as during the preceding period at Lochlea, his expenses never in any one year exceeded his slender income. As I was entrusted 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 temperance and frugality were every thing that could be wished. ward Madam de L- at the remise door, | rent of 90l. per annum (the farm on which while the eternal vows of Eliza were I live at present,) from Mr. Gavin Hamupon him, so Robert was frequently en-ilton, as an asylum for the family in case countering other attractions, which formed so many underplots 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 stock-time this family concern lasted, which ing of a farm required a sum of money 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 contracted 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 restrained 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 Ranklin. During this period also he became a freemason, which was his first introduction to the life of a boon companion. Yet, notwithstanding these circumstances, and the praise he has bestowed on Scotch drink (which seems to have misled his historians,) I do not recollect, during these seven years, nor till towards the end of his commencing author (when his growing celebrity 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 required 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 article 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 "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 consequence were very unprofitable; and, notwithstanding our utmost diligence and economy, we found ourselves obliged to give up our bargain, with the loss of a considerable part of our original stock. It was during these four years that Robert formed his connexion with Jean Armour, afterwards Mrs. Burns. This connexion could no longer be concealed, about the time we came to a final determination to quit the farm. Robert durst not engage with his family in his poor unsettled state, but was anxious to shield his partner, by every means in his power, from the consequence of their imprudence. It was agreed therefore between them, that they should make a legal acknowledgment of an irregular 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 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 Jamaica appeared to him and his wife little better than none, and an effectual bar to any other prospects of a settlement in life that their daughter might have. They |