A SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS

Robert Burns was born on January 25, 1759, in a clay-built cottage, at Alloway in Ayrshire, in southwest Scotland. Except for the personal character of his father, his lot was that of any poor peasant lad. But the elder Burns had a natural love of learning, attended carefully to his sons' education himself, and, further, gave them as good schooling as it lay in his power to do. The teacher of Robert Burns and his younger brother Gilbert was John Murdoch, a young man of uncommon merit, who interested himself in the boys, and lent them various books. Robert grew thoroughly familiar with his small library, learned French fairly well, and began Latin. He was particularly fascinated by a book of English songs, and carried it with him into the fields. He early became noted as the best converser and the best letter writer in the parish. When Burns was still a child his father had removed to another farm, at Mount Oliphant; later, when Burns was eighteen, to Lochlea, in the parish of Tarbolton. The family affairs were never long prosperous; and the distress endured at Mount Oliphant from a tyrannical factor, or landlord's agent, is commemorated in The Twa Dogs, just as the happy home life is reproduced in The Cotter's Saturday Night. Through all his youth Burns was a laborer for his father; and his first song, Handsome Nell, written when he was only fifteen, is in honor of a chance partner in the harvest field.

In 1782, when he was twenty-three years old, Burns engaged in business at the town of Irvine, but was reduced to poverty by the burning of his shop, and returned to Lochlea. The short residence at the thriving seaport affected for the worse his habits of life and thought. Until then Burns had led an ordinarily correct life; but at Irvine he learned to drink, and to think lightly of infidelity to women. The Poet's Welcome to his Illegitimate Child bears sad witness to this alteration in his character.

In 1784, soon after Burns's return home, his father died, leaving his affairs in utter ruin. Three months before his death Robert and Gilbert had taken the farm of Mossgiel, in the neighboring parish of Mauchline, and thither the whole family now removed. The years 1785 and 1786 are Burns's great period of poetical production; within them fall most of the pieces, exclusive of Tam O'Shanter and of his songs, by which he is now best known. At this time the theological controversy between the two parties in the Scotch Kirk occupied the attention of every one. Burns was attracted by the personal character of the leaders of the New Light, or progressive, party; and aided them in their warfare upon the Old Light divines by many stinging satires, notably The Holy Fair, The Twa Herds, and Holy Willie's Prayer. Readers to-day have come to have a new interest in the Old Lights, or Auld Lichts, as the Scotch term is, through J. M. Barrie's tales and sketches.

In 1785 Burns met and fell in love with Jean Armour, and the next year twin children were born to them. Burns, in order to save the girl from disgrace, had given her a written acknowledgment of marriage; but her father, who had a poor opinion of the poet's general character, had forced her to destroy this. Burns, finding himself without money or position in society, resolved to emigrate to Jamaica, and published a thin volume of his poems in order to raise money for the passage. The success of the book was great and immediate, and altered the whole course of Burns's life. Dugald Stewart, the philosopher, entertained him at his house; Henry MacKenzie, the novelist, gave him a flattering review; and, finally, an enthusiastic letter from Dr. Blacklock, one of the most celebrated Edinburgh critics, made him decide to give up his plan of flight from his native country, and to try his fortune at the Scotch capital. The volume of poems was also the means of his acquaintance with the excellent Mrs. Dunlop, with whom he corresponded until the end of his life.

In November, 1786, Burns went to Edinburgh, and was the "lion" of the following winter. A new edition of his poems received three thousand subscribers, and brought him in about £500. Of this he lent £180 to his brother Gilbert, to help in the management of Mossgiel,—the loan was finally repaid some thirty years later to the poet's family. During the following year he made two trips through Scotland, partly to collect songs, and began to contribute to Johnson's Scot's Musical Museum and Thomson's Collection of Scottish Airs. The poet applied for, and obtained, a commission in the Excise, the only worldly advantage, except the profits of his poems, that he derived from his triumphal Edinburgh season. Reserving his commission as a last resort, Burns rented a farm at Ellisland, near Dumfries, where he settled, in the summer of 1788. He had renewed his intimacy with Jean Armour, and, when she became once more exposed to the anger of her father, made her all the reparation in his power, by marriage. The farm was not a success, and Burns tried to carry on the Excise business along with it. When this division of labor also proved unsatisfactory, he abandoned Ellisland, and, in November, 1792, moved to Dumfries.

At Dumfries Burns was advanced to all Excise division, with a salary of seventy pounds, and retained the position until his death. His hopes of further promotion were cut off by his ill-timed expressions of sympathy with the American Revolution, and with the republican party in France. He attended well to the duties of his office, but occasional drunkenness and other misconduct brought on him the ill favor of the "Dumfries aristocracy." The boon companions with whom he mingled, and the curious tourists attracted by his fame, were in no small measure the cause of his poor success. On January 2, 1793, he writes to Mrs. Dunlop:—

"Occasionally hard drinking is the devil to me. Against this I have again and again bent my resolution, and have greatly succeeded. Taverns I have totally abandoned: it is the private parties in the family way, among the hard-drinking gentlemen of this country, that do me the mischief."

The poet's excesses did not keep him from being an affectionate father, and attending carefully to his children's education. He died on July 21, 1796.

Burns's life since leaving Edinburgh had, on the whole, been one of decline. With the exception of his songs, which he never ceased to contribute to Thomson's Collection of Scottish Airs, and of Tam O'Shanter, written at Ellisland, he had produced no important poem since that time. But this sketch of Burns's life must not attempt an estimate of his character as poet or man. Its only object is to furnish for ready reference a few of the facts necessary for understanding Carlyle's work.