S3 6 '•/ B U 
fchool, to receive the ordinary mfmnStlon of reading, wri¬ 
ting, aiihmetic, and the principles of religion. By this 
courfe of education, young Robert profited to a degree 
that might have encouraged his friends to deftine him to 
one of the liberal profefsions, had not his father’s poverty 
made it necell'ary to remove him from fchool, as foon as 
he had grown up, to earn for himfelf the means of ftip- 
port, as a 1 lired plough-boy, or Ihepherd. Prom the fpring 
labours of a plough-boy, from the fummer employment 
of a fhepherd, the peafant-youth often returns, for a few- 
months, eagerly to purfue his education at the parifh- 
i'chool. It was fo with Burns ; he returned from labour 
to learning, and from learning went again to labour, till 
Bis mind began to open to the charms of tafte and know¬ 
ledge ; till he began to feel a pa (lion for books, and for 
the fubjedts of books, which was to give a colour to the 
whole thread of his future life. Burns gradually became 
a poet. Me was not, however, one of thofe forward chil¬ 
dren, who, from a rniftaken impulfe, begin prematurely to 
write and to rhyme, and hence never attain to excellence. 
He was diftiiigiiiftied among his fellows, for extraordinary 
intelligence, good fenfe, and penetration, long before o- 
thers, or peihaps even himfelf, fufpedled.him to be capa¬ 
ble of writing verfes. His mind was mature, and well 
ftored with (itch knowledge as lay within his fearch : he 
.had made himfelf m^fter of powers of language, fuperior 
to thofe of almoft any former writer in the Scottifh dialed!, 
before he conceived the idea .of furpafling Ramfay and 
■Fergnfon. In the mean time, befides the fhidious bent 
of his genius, there were dome other particulars in his 
opening character, which might feem to mark him for a 
poet. He began early in life, to regard with a fort of 
fallen difdain and averfion, all that was fordid, in the pur- 
fuits and intereffs of the peafants, amongyvhom he was 
placed. He became difcontented with the humble labours 
to which he faw himfelf confined, and with the poor fub- 
fiffence he was able to earn by them. He could not help 
looking upon the rich and great, whom he faw around 
him, with an emotion between envy and contempt.; as if 
fomething had dill vvhifpered to his heart, that there was 
injuftice in the exterior inequality between his fate and 
their’s. While Inch emotions arofe in his mind, he con¬ 
ceived an inclination very common among the y.oung men 
of the more uncultivated parts of Scotland—to go abroad 
to America, or the Weft Indies, in queft of a better for¬ 
tune. At the fame time, his heart was expanded with 
paffionate ardour, to meet the impreflions of love and 
friendjhip. With feveral of the young peafantry, who 
were his fellows in labour, lie contracted an affectionate 
intimacy of acquaintance. He eagerly fought admiftion 
into the brotherhood of free-tnafons ; and had foon the 
fortune, whether good or bad, to gain the notice of feve¬ 
ral gentlemen, better able to eftimate the true value of 
fuch a mind as his, than were his fellow-peafants, with 
whom alone he had hitherto adociated. 
About this time, in the progrefs of his life and charac¬ 
ter, did he fir ft begin to be diftinguifhed as a poet. A 
mafonic fong, a fatirical epigram, a rhyming epiftle to a 
friend, attempted with fuccefs, taught him to know his 
own powers, and gave him confidence to try talks more 
arduous, and which fhoitld command dill higher applaufe. 
The annual celebration of the facrament of the Lord’s 
Supper, in the rural parifhes of Scotland, has much in it 
of thofe old popifh feftivals, in which fuperftition, traffic, 
and amufement, ufe-d to be ftrangely intermingled. Burns 
feized in it one of the happieft of all fubjefts, to afford 
fcope for the difplay of that piercing fagacily by which 
he could almoft intuitively diftinguifh the reafonable from 
the abfurd, and the becoming from the ridiculous ; of 
that piCturefque power of fancy, which enabled him to 
reprefent fcenes, and pcrfons, in a manner almoft as lively 
and imprefiive, even in words, as if all the artifices and 
energies of the pencil had been employed ; of that know¬ 
ledge which he had neceffarily acquired of the manners, ' 
paflions, and prejudices, of the rnftics around him, of 
It N S. 
whatever was ridiculous, no lefs than of whatever was 
affectingly beautiful, in rural life. A thoufand preju¬ 
dices of popifii, and perhaps too .of ruder pagan, fuperfti¬ 
tion, have, from time immemorial, been connected in the 
minds of the Scottilh peafantry, with the annual recur¬ 
rence of the eve of the feftival of All-Saints, or Halloween. 
Thefe were all intimately known to Burns, and had made 
a powerful imprellion upon his imagination and feelings. 
He chofe them for the fubjeCt of a poem, and produced a 
piece, which is the delight of thofe who are belt acquaint¬ 
ed with its fubjeCt ; and which will not fail to preferve 
the memory of the prejudices and ufages which it de- 
fcribes, when-they (hull, perhaps, have ceafed to give one 
merry evening in the year to the cottage fire-fide. 
Thefe pieces, the true effulions of genius, informed by 
reading and obfervation, and prompted by his own native 
ardour, as well as by friendly applaufe, were foon handed 
about among the moft difcerning of Burns’s acquaintance; 
and were perilled with an eagernefs of delight and appro¬ 
bation, which would not fuffer him long to with-hold 
them from the prefs. A fubfcription was propofed; was 
earneftiy promoted by feme gentlemen, who were glad to 
intereft themfelves in behalf of fuch fignal poetical merit; 
was foon crowded with the names of a conliderable num¬ 
ber of the inhabitants of Ayrfliire, who, in the proffered 
purchafe, fought not lefs to gratify their ow n paffion for 
Scottifh poefy, than to encourage, the wonderful plough¬ 
man. At Kilmarnock, were the poems of Burns, for the 
firft time, printed. The whole edition was quickly diftri- 
buted over the country; and fome few copies found their 
way to Edinburgh: one was communicated to the late in¬ 
genious Dr. Blacklock; and it was Blacklock’s invitation 
that finally determined him to abandon his firft intentions 
of going to the Weft Indies; and rather to repair to Edin¬ 
burgh with his book, in hopes there to find fome powerful 
patron, and, perhaps, to make his fortune by his poetry. 
In the beginning of the winter 1786-87, Burns came to 
Edinburgh: by Dr. Blacklock he was received with the 
moft: flattering kindnefs, and introduced to every perfon 
of tafte and generality among the good old man’s friends. 
Others foon officioufly interpofed, to fhare with Black¬ 
lock in the honour of patroniling Burns ; and, ere he had 
been many weeks in Edinburgh, he found himfelf the ob¬ 
ject of univerfal curiofity and admiration : he was fought 
after, courted, and careffed, by all ranks, as the firft boaft 
of the country. Every one wondered that the ruftic bard 
was not fpoiled by fo much careffing, favour, and flattery, 
as he found ; and every one went on to fpoil him, by con¬ 
tinually repeating ail thefe, as if with an obftinate refolu- 
tion that they fliould, in the end, produce their effect. 
He was infenfibly led to affociate lefs with the learned, 
the auftere, and the rigoroufly temperate, than with the 
young, with the votaries of intemperate joys, with per¬ 
sons to whom he was commended chiefly by licentious 
wit, and with whom he could not long alfociate without 
(haring in the excefles of their debauchery. After redd¬ 
ing fome months in Edinburgh, he began to eftrange him¬ 
felf, not altogether, but in fome meafure, from the fociety 
of his graver friends. He fnffered himfelf to be furround- 
ed by a race of miferabie beings, who were proud to tell 
that they had been in company with Burns, and had feen 
Burns as loofe and as foolifh as -themfelves. He was not 
yet irrecoverably loft to temperance and moderation: but 
he was already almoft too much captivated with their wan¬ 
ton rivals, to be ever more won back to a faithful attach¬ 
ment to their more fober charms. He now alfo began to 
contract fomething of new arrogance in converfation : ac- 
cuftomed to be, among his favourite affociates, what is 
vulgarly but expreflively called ‘ the cock of the company,’ 
he could fcarcely refrain from indulging in limilar free¬ 
dom and dictatorial decifion of talk, even in the prefence 
of perfons who could lefs patiently endure his prefump- 
tion. A fubfeription-edition of his poems, in the mean 
time, appeared; and the film paid to the poet for the copy¬ 
right, and for the fubfcription-copies of his book, amount- 
3 ed. 
