BURNS. 



145 



Ayr, and 



small 



Mi !' 



Ill 1 1 . 

 within -i few hiim'i'-il \ 



/ //// " V 



in In 'l\i i 



' 



i;t, in his MXth year, to 



11, about a mile distant ; but 



. young schoolmaster of 



l.iruoch, whom hi; father, poor as he 



m conjunction with some neighbours, 



to i:: ir families, and live at their houses in 



rotation. Tl'ij te. ><:!:, i ...emsto have had an amiable 



ambition to cultivate the talents of his pupil, though 



he had little ar.ticipatiou v,f his fame : he taught 



English grammar, a circumstance of great import- 



l< Burns, in facilitating his correspondence and 



ersation with persons of superior education at a 



subsequent period of his life. In 1767, Burns'i fa 



th-.-r quitted the birth place of our poet, and took a 



farm at Mount Oliphant, a change of residence which 



made his attendance at Murdoch's school more irre- 



; and at the end of two years and a half from 

 . omuivncement of his tuition, Murdoch quitted 

 the place for a different appointment. Burns was 

 tliUi left vvith no other instructor than his father, at 

 the farm of Muuut Oliphant ; but the venerable rus- 

 tic seems to have done all that lay in himself for the 

 education of his family. He taught them arithmetic 

 by their solitary evening candle, and borrowed for 

 them some useful books, such as Salmon's Geogra- 

 phical Grammar. Derham's Pliysico and Astrotlicolo- 

 gy, and Ray's Wisdom of God in t/i'e Creation, He 

 was also a subscriber to Stackhouse's History of the 

 Bible. Whatever interests us in the Bible, (and 

 there is nothing which interests a young and curious 

 mind so much as elucidations of its history), is, inde- 

 pendant of all influence on morals a most valuable 

 guide to good taste. In tracing the education of 

 Burns, (an education interesting, because it is scan- 

 ty,) this early direction of his mind to the sacred 

 writings is a prominent circumstance. 



About the age of 13, he was sent for a week at a 

 time, alternately with his brother, to the parish 

 school of Dalrymplc, during a summer's quarter, to 

 improve his hand-writing. The following summer, 

 as his faithful friend Murdoch had been appointed to 

 the English school at Ayr, he was boarded with him 

 ,for three weeks, to revise his English grammar, and 

 to acquire a little French. Wonderful it is, that, 

 during a fortnight's instructions in the latter lan- 

 guage, he was enabled to translate it in prose. This 

 .seems to have been all his accomplishment in French ; 

 yet it is the only instance of hn manly and modest 

 nature being betrayed into vanity, that he piqued 

 himself so much upon it, as to affect French phrases, 

 when broad Scotch would have served him better. 

 He even sometimes tried to speak it. On one occa- 

 sion, when he called in Edinburgh at the house of an 

 inplished friend, a lady who h;:d been educated 

 in France, he found her conversing with i French 

 lady, to whom he was introduced. The French wo 



i ; but Burnt mutt try 



is. His pli- 



ih>' la>!\ parent e'< 



sat ion 

 l.idy undi : 



.11, highly mc-.-iibcd, 

 .inccs of vain pocti 

 .-. a obliged to 

 u his own language in .. her. 



He m^de a blight att irn Latin, but did 



vere. Upon the wholr, the , ., al- 



ready mentioned, with a quarter's attendance, at thr 

 age of 19, in geometry and Hurveying, and a (** 

 Icason* at a country dancing tchool, form the hi-i ry 

 of Burns's education. From the books \ 

 read during that period, he had imbibed a 'matt- 

 of history d. id philobopny ; but till the time u: 

 becoming an author, his brother assures us, that he 

 was imperfectly, <,r not at all acquainted with our 

 most eminent English authors. We have beeu thus 

 minute in noticing the history of our poet's mind, 

 because his education has been sometimes as much 

 over-rated as under-rated. It has been said to be 

 equal to that of Shakespeare.* If the education of 

 a poet meant, that leading which -hall best inspire a 

 poet, we beg to say, with deference to the high au- 

 thority which we contradict, that his reading must 

 have been infinitely inferior to that of Shakespeare. 

 The great ancient poet lived in an age overflowing 

 with chivalrous and romantic books, the richest food 

 for the imagination ; in an age, too, when transla- 

 tions were sought with more avidity ; translations 

 which Shakespeare must have perused incessantly, 

 from his business of writing for the stage. 



But the youth of Burns was depressed by circum- 

 stances still more dispiriting than want of education. 

 His lather was unfortunate on the farm of Mount 

 Oliphant. The family lived in a state of toil and po- 

 verty ; for several years, butcher's meat was a stran- 

 ger in their house, and Robert, who was the eldest, 

 threshed in the barn at 13 years of age, and a: 1 " 

 was the principal labourer on the farm. To 

 scanty diet, and exhaustion of strength, aggravated 

 by the prospect of still deeper family distn ss from 

 the declining health of his father, his brother ascribes 

 the melancholy and nervousness which fixed on his 

 constitution, and eventually drove him to baneful re- 

 liefs. " This kind of life (he "say?), the cheerless 

 gloom of a hermit, and the uncvasii;^ moil of a gal- 

 ley slave, brought me to my Kith year, a little be- 

 fore which period I first commuted the sin or rAy- 

 ntin. ' The object of his first attachment was Ma- 

 ry Campbell, a simple Highland girl, his fi-How- 

 reaper in the same field. He wa i separated fron 

 early id-1 of his attachment by the poverty of cir- 

 cumstanCvS, which did not aiLw to either of ; 

 a choice of residence, or an opportunity of mc. 

 after separation. * His heart was n .t so tenacious of 

 attachment as that of Petrarch, (though his poetry 

 speaks a more sine re language,) and w<_ m.d him 

 changing its object, of idolatry .-vveral times before 

 his i. arria^e. But if he was too horn : t of 



unvaried fidelity, he was too faithful to his lirst lovr 



Uurrn, 



Retim </ Bvrnts 



"VOL. v. PART I. 



*, edited by Mr Crumek. 



