Burns

Burns, Robert, born January 25, 1759, was the son of William Burns, a small farmer, who had come in early life from Kincardineshire, and settled about two miles from Ayr. In the year 1766 William Burns became tenant of the farm of Mt. Oliphant in the same district, and here were passed the later boyhood and youth of the poet. Here a private tutor gave Robert Burns most of his elementary education. The poet himself has left it on record, however, that the ordinary school books did not suffice for his own love of instruction. A copy of the Spectator, some odd plays of Shakespeare, the works of Pope, Locke, and Allan Ramsay, attracted and won his interest. Above all, he found pleasure in a collection of songs. "This," he says," was my vade mecum." The family rented the farm of Lochlea from 1777 to 1784, and here Burns composed his first verses. One of the best of his songs, Mary Morrison, written in honour of Ellison Begbie, dates from this period. About 1781 he had seriously thought of becoming a flax-dresser, and went to Irvine to acquire a knowledge of the business, but without result. The last year of the lease at Lochlea saw the death of Burns's father. In March, 1784, he and his brother Gilbert became tenants of Mossgiel. Two unprofitable harvests, however, on his beginning life at Mossgiel at once depressed his impulsive nature. He now first became less prudent in social life. In poetry this found expression in satirical attacks on the minister and other leaders of the church with which he was connected. The most bitter of these were The Holy Fair and Holy Willie's Prayer. The favourable reception given to the ability and skill of composition in these and other pieces deepened the consciousness Burns had of his own power. In his commonplace book of August, 1784, we find an entry in regard to Ramsay and Fergusson, and the expression of his own simple wish that he may yet sing the "romantic woodlands "of Ayr. The wish was speedily to be fulfilled. Burns about this time produced some of his very best longer poems, the Cotter's Saturday Night, The Jolly Beggars, Hallowe'en, The Mountain Daisy, and others. Early in 1786 he went through a form of marriage with Jean Armour. To the same period belongs the pathetic love episode with Mary Campbell, the Highland Mary of two beautiful songs. In April of this year the publication of Burns's poems was resolved on by his friends for the sake of his poetical reputation, by himself principally to get a few pounds wherewith to emigrate to Jamaica. In July the volume was issued by subscription from the press at Kilmarnock. The popularity of the book was unbounded, and Burns himself was sought after on all hands. His passage to the West Indies was cancelled, and finally he set out for Edinburgh to let himself become better known in the world of letters.

In Edinburgh Burns at once became the rage; he was courted by the nobility, literary coteries, and social clubs. The litterateurs of the period, Robertson the historian, Dr. Hugh Blair, and others, were charmed by the rare personality of the poet. The excellence of his powers of conversation impressed everyone. His genius in poetry was extolled in the Lounger, a critical journal. After the publication of a second edition of his poems, Burns, accompanied by his friend Robert Ainslie, went on tours through the border country and the Highlands. He was now engaged in writing songs for Johnson's Museum, a work that was really the means of developing his purely lyrical gift. Most of his contributions were marked by his peculiar power. They were of three kinds: sometimes an old song with some lines added; sometimes only a line might be old; again, they were altogether original. Two of the most famous - Auld Lang Syne and John Anderson - belong to the second of these divisions. The profits on the sale of the second edition of his book enabled him to lease the farm of Ellisland, near Dumfries. There he settled with his wife in 1789. In the same year he was appointed exciseman for his district. His conduct of this office, though generally precise, is marked by some humorous incidents. The summer of 1789 is memorable for a holiday visit to his friend Nicol, in Moffatdale, as a result of which he wrote Willie Brewed a Peck o' Maut. In addition to songs for the Museum, he now meditated a drama on the subject of Robert Bruce, but it came to nothing. In 1790 he produced Tam o' Shanter, at the suggestion of Captain Grose, who wished some letterpress, for an illustration by himself, of Alloway Kirk. One of his crowning efforts in the lyrical vein - The Banks o' Doon - was published in the winter of 1791. His popularity was now at its zenith, but misfortune soon fell upon him. He was forced by poor returns to leave Ellisland. His social excesses alienated some of his best friends; his cordial but injudicious sympathy with the French republic embroiled him with the Government, who threatened to cancel his appointment in the Excise. Burns outwardly acquiesced in the rebuke he received on this second head, though he appears to have felt strongly on the subject. No doubt, as is thought by some, we partly owe to that sympathy two of his most virile compositions - Scots Wha Hoe and A Man's a man for a' that. The prospect of a supervisorship of excise at Leith came before him in 1796, but he never received it. Burns was prostrated with rheumatic fever in the autumn of 1795, and his constitution was fatally shaken. After a good deal of suffering, he died on July 21, 1796.

Beugo's engraving of Nasmyth's portrait of Burns was the picture of him most esteemed by his friends. The completist editions of his poems and correspondence are those by Scott Douglas and R. Chambers (new ed. by William Wallace). Among numerous biographies, Lockhart's excels in insight and accuracy. Of critical estimates, those by Carlyle, Blackie, and Henley are the best. The greatness of Burns rests mainly on his songs; these, by their fresh and transparent sentiment, their rich mingling of human passion with delight in external nature, and their apt and musical diction, hold a place above the work of any other lyrist. As a narrative poet he also ranks high. His Cotter's Saturday Night is an idyll of true classical restraint; his Tam O'Shanter is to be placed beside the creations of Shakespeare and Scott. The satire of his occasional poems is brilliant, keen, and unsparing. Everywhere Burns displays generous views of society; if he was preceded by Cowper in proclaiming a spirit of humaneness, he was the first British poet to insist on that of brotherhood.