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