146 



BURKS. 



Burn*, 



to hear of the death of Mary, withdut the sincerest 

 agitation. He was a married man when he received 

 the news. He entreated his wife Jane to sing to him 

 all the tenderest airs, which she knew had power to 

 olace his spirits in a state of emotion ; after which, 

 he withdrew himself, and for several hours gave way 

 to a flood of tears, and the deepest paroxysms of 

 grief. After he was calmed, he wrote his Address to 

 Mary in Heaven, a most exquisite effusion. 



His father removed from Mount Oliphant to a 

 neighbouring farm, called Lochlea, and there Burns 

 continued from his 17th to his 24th year. In his 

 23d year, he attempted to settle himself in business 

 as a flax dresser in the neighbouring town of Irwin ; 

 but his shop took fire one unhappy evening, when 

 he was celebrating the welcome of the new year with 

 a carousal, his stock was consumed, and he was not 

 so fond of the trade as to attempt obtaining credit 

 for a new adventure. His father died soon after, and 

 his all went to his creditors ; but the family contri- 

 ved to collect some money among themselves, and 

 entered on the neighbouring farm of Mossgiel. Ro- 

 bert now said to himself, " Come go too, I will be 

 wise ;" he read farming books, calculated crops, and 

 attended markets ; but neither this purposed wisdom 

 of the poet, nor the steady sagacity of his brother 

 Gilbert, could avert misfortunes. The soil of their 

 farm was unimprovable, and a succession of bad 

 erops obliged them to abandon it, with great loss 

 of stock, at the end of four years. During this pe- 

 riod, Burns had become known in the neighbourhood 

 as a maker of rhymes. A satire on the Calvinisti- 

 eal clergymen of the place had met with applause, 

 not only from the laity, but from a certain de- 

 scription of the clergy, who relished humour. Holy 

 Willie' s Prayer next made its appearance, and alarm- 

 ed the kirk-session so much, that they held several 

 meetings to consult on taking vengeance on the au- 

 thor. *' Unluckily for me (says the poet), my wan- 

 derings led me on another side, within point blank 

 shot of their heaviest metal." He alludes to the 

 church censure, which he was obliged to undergo 

 for his connexion with Jane Armour, afterwards his 

 wife, a connexion which could no longer be con- 

 cealed at the time, when he was forced to quit his 

 farm, and had resolved to push his fortunes on the 

 other side of the Atlantic. For want of money to 

 procure his passage to Jamaica, he had thought of 

 indenting himself as a servant. From this necessity 

 he was extricated, by publishing his Poems at Kil- 

 marnock : he reaped from them a temporary supply, 

 but not sufficient for the present to set aside his 

 thoughts of emigration. In the mean time, his pride 

 and affections were wounded almost to distraction, 

 by the consequences of his amour. He loved the 

 partner of his disgrace very tenderly, and 1 , as all the 

 atonement he could offer to her, made a private mar- 

 riage with her. But his affairs being still in a hope- 

 less state, he could form no other arrangement, than 

 that he should leave her behind him at her father's, 

 a substantial farmer, proposing, whilst he pushed his 

 fortune in Jamaica, that they should trust to better 

 circumstances for their re-union. The parents of 

 Jane were, however, more sensible to the misfortune 

 of her having a husband so far removed, than to the 



disgrace of her having children without the name of 

 a wife, and persuaded her to renounce the marriage, < 

 which was informal. Burns, though he sufficiently 

 proved his honour, by marrying her in his prosperity, 

 consented that she should renounce him in his adver- 

 sity. But, amidst the distraction and gloom of his 

 prospects, the fame of his poems had made a rapid 

 progress. A letter from Dr Blacklock induced him 

 to repair immediately to Edinburgh, after his chest 

 was on the road to the port from which he was to 

 sail, and after he had composed his farewell song to 

 Caledonia. The reception which he met with in hi$ 

 native capital is well known, at the impression which, 

 he made by the interesting powers of his conversa- 

 tion is still remembered by many. He possessed, 

 with all his practical folly and misconduct, a quick 

 and almost intuitive power of reading human charac- 

 ter. His manners, when he came to Edinburgh, are 

 thus described by Professor Stewart : " They were 

 then, as they continued ever afterwards, simple, man- 

 ly, and independent, strongly impressive of consci- 

 ous genius and worth, bat without any thing that 

 indicated forwardness, arrogance, or vanity. The 

 attentions which he received in Edinburgh were 

 such, as would have turned any head but his own. 

 I cannot say that I perceived any unfavourable ef- 

 fect which they left upon his mind. He retained 

 the same simplicity of manners and appearance 

 which struck me so forcibly when I first saw him 

 in the country. From his conversation, I should 

 have pronounced him to be fitted to excel in what- 

 ever walk of ambition he had chosen to exert his 

 abilities." 



Among the first encouragers of Burns's genius was 

 the Earl of Glencairn, an accomplished and high- 

 minded nobleman ; if he had lived lo-iger, and if hi 

 power had equalled his wishes, Scotland (as his bio- 

 grapher remarks) might have still exulted in the ge- 

 nius, instead of lamenting the early fate of her bard. 

 But unhappily at this period, Edinburgh contained 

 an uncommon proportion of men of considerable ta- 

 lents, but devoted to social excesses. Burns was a 

 much beset, by the importunity of those admirers of 

 his genius to share his society, as impelled by the 

 vehemence of his character to indulge in their orgies. 

 The sudden alteration in his habits of life, operated 

 on him physically as well as morally. The humble 

 fare of an Ayrshire peasant he had exchanged for the 

 luxuries of the Scottish metropolis ; and the effect* 

 of this change on his constitution could not be in- 

 considerable. He saw his danger, and at times form- 

 ed resolutions to guard against it ; but he had em- 

 barked on the tide of dissipation, and was borne along 

 its stream. 



The profits of a new edition enabled him, in the 

 year after his arrival in Edinburgh, (1787,) to make 

 the tour of a considerable extent of Scotland. He 

 visited the tomb of Bruce, and knelt at it with cha- 

 racteristic devotion. Unhappily for his habits, he 

 returned to Edinburgh, and spent there the winter of 

 1787 8. His visit seems to have been without any- 

 serious object, and consumed some portion of his 

 capital, which would have been much better bestowed 

 on stocking a farm, than in renewing his round of 

 dissipation. He probably looked, however, to some 



