SCOTTISH POETRY. 185 



Stewart ; so that it was merely left to some accomplished hand to 

 give. us all the information in a compact three hundred pages, which, 

 we need hardly add, Mr. Cunningham has successfully done. 



The same great writer who lamented our want of biographical 

 materials, tells us that criticism has been used by most people in dis- 

 covering the faults of the living and the beauties of the dead. In 

 the former of these we fear the point is too true; the hireling spirit 

 that is every where shown so forcibly in the writings of the mere un- 

 derlings of literature, and the irritability so characteristic of authors, 

 causes the venom to fall in profusion from their mouths. The suc- 

 cess of one writer generally brings forward the enmity of another. 

 In a far different spirit from this we intend to run through a hasty 

 narrative of Burns' life, adorning cur skeleton sketch with some of 

 Mr. Cunningham's pithy, interesting paragraphs, and offering such re- 

 marks of our own as we think will time in with the subject. 



But first we should let Mr. Cunningham speak for himself: 



" With something of hope and fear," he observes in his short and manly 

 preface, " I offer this work to my country. I have endeavoured to relate 

 the chequered fortunes, delineate the character, and trace the works of the 

 illustrious Peasant with candour and accuracy : his farming speculations 

 excise schemes political feelings and poetic musing are discussed 

 with a fulness not common to biography: and his sharp lampoons and 

 personal sallies are alluded to with all possible tenderness to the living 

 and respect for the dead. In writing the Poet's life I have availed 

 myself of his unpublished journals, private letters, manuscript verses, and 

 of well -authenticated anecdotes and traits of character supplied by his 

 friends." 



Robert Burns was born on the 25th of January, 1759, in a clay- 

 built cottage, raised by his father's hands, on the banks of the Doon, 

 in Ayrshire. " The auld claybiggin" a few days after his birth was 

 crushed in about his ears. " The unconscious Poet," Mr. Cunning- 

 ham says, " was carried unharmed to the shelter of a neighbouring 

 house." Of the supposed strong jacobitical feelings of the Poet's 

 father, Mr. Cunningham speaks at length an example not lost on 

 Burns, for his biographer adds " The feelings of the Poet were 

 very early coloured with jacobitism." 



Soon after the Poet's birth, William Burness leased a farm of a 

 hundred acres called Mount Oliphant, an inhospitable spot, where 

 he was not destined to succeed. In Robert's seventh year he removed 

 to a larger farm, in the parish of Tarbolton : but here usual ill-suc- 

 cess proceeded with him ; indeed, the Fates never intended William 

 Burness should meet with prosperity. 



The impediments which the youthful muse of Burns encountered 

 have been detailed by many writers, and are known to all who are 

 acquainted with either the author's misfortunes or his works. Burns' 

 father was a steady, sober person, but met with no success in life ; 

 like his son afterwards, he placed himself on a barren spot, where the 

 stones very nearly concealed the mould. With all his trying circum- 

 stances, William Burness never failed to instil into his sons the duties 

 of religion. He sent them to the neighbouring schools, where they 

 were made to write, read, and cypher. Young Burns also began to 

 read, he tells us, " a little of the adventures of Telemachus, in Fene- 

 M. M. No. 98. B 



