by Robert Burns
26 Years Old.
He wrote many poems during this year, the most important being ‘Epistle to Davie, a Brother Poet,’ ‘Holy Willie’s Prayer,’ ‘Death and Doctor Hornbook,’ three long ‘Epistles to John Lapraik,’ ‘Epistle to William Simpson,’ ‘Epistle to John Goldie,’ ‘Rantin’, Rovin’ Robin,’ ‘Epistle to Rev. John M’Math,’ ‘Second Epistle to Davie,’ ‘Farewell to Ballochmyle,’ ‘Hallowe’en,’ ‘To a Mouse,’ ‘The Jolly Beggars,’ ‘The Cotter’s Saturday Night,’ ‘Address to the Deil,’ and ‘The Auld Farmer’s New-Year Morning Salutation to his Auld Mare Maggie.’
27 Years Old.
This was an eventful and productive year for Burns. Quickly following each other came ‘The Twa Dogs,’ ‘The Author’s Earnest Cry and Prayer,’ ‘The Ordination,’ ‘Epistle to James Smith,’ ‘The Vision,’ ‘Address to the Unco Guid,’ ‘The Holy Fair,’ ‘To a Mountain Daisy,’ ‘To Ruin,’ ‘Despondency: an Ode,’ ‘Epistle to a Young Friend,’ ‘Nature’s Law,’ ‘The Brigs of Ayr,’ ‘O Thou Dread Power!’ ‘Farewell Song to the Banks of Ayr,’ ‘Lines on Meeting Lord Daer,’ ‘Masonic Song,’ ‘Tam Samson’s Elegy,’ ‘A Winter Night,’ ‘Yon Wild Mossy Mountains,’ ‘Address to Edinburgh,’ and ‘Address to a Haggis,’ with love-songs and many minor pieces.
Burns had given Jean Armour a certificate of marriage, and he nearly lost his mental balance when, at her father’s order, she consented to have it burned. Fortunately for him two things aided in preserving his balance: the publication of the Kilmarnock edition of his poems, and his love for Mary Campbell, ‘Highland Mary.’ No man ever needed a love, deep and true, to save him more than Burns did. He believed Jean was lost to him for ever. He was not a faithless but a needy lover when he found a responsive heart in Highland Mary. They made their marriage vows on the Fail, Sunday, 14th May 1786. Mary went home to prepare for marriage, but caught a fever and died. Burns went to Edinburgh later in the year to publish a second edition of his poems, as the first edition had been so well received. In Edinburgh he was the hero of the highest and most thoroughly educated classes. He wrote several fine poems to Mary Campbell.
28 Years Old.
Three thousand copies of his poems were published in April in Edinburgh, netting him over five hundred pounds. He made two triumphal tours — the Border Tour and the Highland Tour. As Mary Campbell was dead, his love was kindled by Clarinda, Mrs M’Lehose, with whom he conducted an intensive love correspondence, and to whom he wrote several beautiful love-songs. As she was a married woman who was separated from her husband, Burns could not marry her. In this year he wrote the ‘Inscription for the Headstone of Fergusson,’ ‘Epistle to Mrs Scott,’ ‘The Bonnie Moor Hen,’ ‘On the Death of John M’Leod,’ ‘Elegy on the Death of James Hunter Blair,’ ‘The Humble Petition of Bruar Water,’ ‘Lines on the Fall of Fyers,’ ‘Castle Gordon,’ ‘On Scaring Some Waterfowl,’ ‘A Rosebud by My Early Walk,’ ‘The Banks of Devon,’ ‘The Young Highland Rover,’ ‘Birthday Ode,’ and many short pieces and love-songs, among them ‘The Birks of Aberfeldy.’
29 Years Old.
Rented Ellisland farm, on the Nith, near Dumfries. Married Jean Armour (second marriage to her) in April, and left her in Mauchline till he could build a home for her on Ellisland, which was ready in December. Building his new home, stocking and managing the farm, and riding fifty miles occasionally to his Jean, made his year so busy that he wrote little poetry, but exquisite love-songs. The estate of Glenriddell, owned in the time of Burns by Robert Riddell, bordered on Ellisland farm. Robert Riddell was a fine type of Scottish gentleman, and Burns and he became warm friends. Among the best poems of this year, not love-songs, are ‘Verses written in Friar’s Carse Hermitage,’ ‘Epistle to Robert Graham of Fintry,’ ‘The Day Returns,’ ‘A Mother’s Lament,’ ‘The Fall of the Leaf,’ ‘Auld Lang Syne,’ ‘The Poet’s Progress,’ ‘Elegy on the Year 1788,’ and ‘Epistle to James Tennant.’
30 Years Old.
Wrote many love-songs for Johnson’s Scots Musical Museum, though busily engaged in farming, and, in addition, a new Psalm for the Chapel of Kilmarnock; a sketch in verse to Right Hon. C. J. Fox, ‘The Wounded Hare,’ ‘The Banks of Nith,’ ‘John Anderson my Joe,’ ‘The Kirk of Scotland’s Alarm,’ ‘Caledonia,’ ‘The Battle of Sherramuir,’ ‘The Braes o’ Killiecrankie,’ ‘Farewell to the Highlands,’ ‘To Mary in Heaven,’ ‘Epistle to Dr Blacklock,’ and ‘New Year’s Day, 1790.’
31 Years Old.
Found his farm ‘a ruinous affair.’ Accepted a position as an exciseman at fifty pounds a year. Had to ride two hundred miles each week. Continued writing love-songs for Johnson’s Museum (without pay), and wrote in addition, ‘Tam o’ Shanter,’ ‘Lament of Mary Queen of Scots,’ and ‘The Banks of Doon.’
32 Years Old.
Continued to write love-songs, among the most beautiful being ‘Sweet Afton’ and ‘Parting Song to Clarinda.’ In addition, wrote ‘Lament for James, Earl of Glencairn,’ ‘On Glenriddell’s Fox Breaking his Chain,’ ‘Poem on Pastoral Poetry,’ ‘Verses on the Destruction of the Woods near Drumlanrig,’ ‘Second Epistle to Robert Graham of Fintry,’ ‘The Song of Death,’ and ‘Poem on Sensibility.’
33 Years Old.
Wrote many love-songs, among them ‘The Lea Rig’ and ‘Highland Mary.’ His other poems were mainly election ballads. His love-songs were now written mainly for Thomson’s National Songs and Melodies. He still refused pay for his songs.
34 Years Old.
Still, notwithstanding his very busy life, he sent a continuous stream of songs to Edinburgh. Other poems of the year were ‘Sonnet Written on the Author’s Birthday,’ ‘Lord Gregory,’ and ‘Scots, wha hae wi’ Wallace bled.’ In this year he moved to the house in which he died, and in which Jean died thirty-eight years afterwards.
35 Years Old.
In this year Burns, to supplement ‘Scots, wha hae’ (the greatest bugle-song of freedom), wrote two grand poems on Liberty: ‘The Ode to Liberty’ and ‘The Tree of Liberty;’ and ‘Contented Wi’ Little and Cantie Wi’ Mair.’ In this year he declined an offer from the London Morning Chronicle to become a regular contributor to that paper.
36 Years Old.
Love-songs, and election ballads in favour of his friend Mr Heron, were his most numerous poems this year. In addition to other minor pieces he wrote a fine poem to his friend, Alexander Cunningham, ‘Does Haughty Gaul Invasion Threat,’ and the most triumphant combined interpretation of democracy and brotherhood ever written, ‘A Man’s a Man for a’ That.’
37 Years Old.
Early in the year his health gave way, and he died, 21st July 1796. Though apparently a strong man, it is reasonable to believe that he had a constitutional tendency towards consumption. His father died from this dread disease, and his grandmother (his mother’s mother) died at thirty-five from the same cause. Burns inherited his physical and intellectual powers mainly from his mother. Both by heredity and contagion, therefore, he was made susceptible to influences that develop consumption. He continued to write poetry, chiefly love-songs, during his illness. His last poem was written, nine days before his death, to Miss Margaret Chalmers, for whom he had a reverent affection.
No reference has been made in this sketch of his development to the prose written each year. Five hundred and thirty-four of his letters have been published. They are written in a stately style, and most of them contain philosophic discussions of religion, ethics, or democracy.
A shy, sensitive, retiring boy; a deep-thinking, persistently studying, eloquent, still shy youth; a brilliant reasoner, a thinker ranking with leaders in his neighbourhood, meeting each on equal terms, and easily proving his superiority by his remarkable knowledge of each man’s special subject of study, and by his still more remarkable powers of independent thinking and clear revelation of his thought in his young manhood, but still at twenty-two too shy to propose to the first lover of his maturity; always a reverent lover of Nature, whose mind saw God in beauty, in dawn-gl
eam and eve-glow, in tree and flower, in river and mountain; he studied, thought, and expressed his thoughts in exquisite poetry, and, according to those who knew him best, in still richer and more captivating conversation, until at twenty-seven he stood in the midst of the most learned professors of Scotland and outclassed them all. No single professor of the galaxy of culture in which he stood, modest and dignified, could have spoken so wisely, so profoundly, so easily, and with such graceful manner and charming eloquence on so many subjects as did Burns.
It is a marvel that grows greater the more we try to understand it, that a boy who left school when he was nine years old, and, except for a few weeks, did not go to school again; and who, from nine years of age to his thirty-second year, was a steady farm-worker, with the exception of a brief interval during which he was engaged publishing his poems; and was a gauger from thirty-two to thirty-six, should have been able to write so much immortal poetry and so much instructive prose in such a short time.
One of the most interesting of all the pictures of the lives of the world’s literary leaders is the picture of Robert Burns, after a day of toil on the farm, walking from Mossgiel farm, when his evening meal was over, two miles to his favourite seat in the woods on Ballochmyle estate, and sitting there on the high bank of the Ayr in the long Scottish gloaming, and often on in the moonlight, ‘shut in with God,’ revealing in sublime form the visions that thrilled his soul. During the last few years of his life he walked from his home to Lincluden Abbey ruins on his favourite path beside the winding Nith to spend his gloaming hours alone, and composed there some of his masterpieces.
Short was his life, but he lives on in the hearts of succeeding generations. He lives on, too, in his permanent influence on religion, freedom, and brotherhood.
THE END
ROBERT BURNS by John Campbell Shairp
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. YOUTH IN AYRSHIRE.
CHAPTER II. FIRST WINTER IN EDINBURGH
CHAPTER III. BORDER AND HIGHLAND TOURS.
CHAPTER IV. SECOND WINTER IN EDINBURGH.
CHAPTER V. LIFE AT ELLISLAND.
CHAPTER VI. MIGRATION TO DUMFRIES.
CHAPTER VII. LAST YEARS.
CHAPTER VIII. CHARACTER, POEMS, SONGS.
CHAPTER I. YOUTH IN AYRSHIRE.
Great men, great events, great epochs, it has been said, grow as we recede from them; and the rate at which they grow in the estimation of men is in some sort a measure of their greatness. Tried by this standard, Burns must be great indeed, for during the eighty years that have passed since his death, men’s interest in the man himself and their estimate of his genius have been steadily increasing. Each decade since he died has produced at least two biographies of him. When Mr. Carlyle wrote his well-known essay on Burns in 1828, he could already number six biographies of the Poet, which had been given to the world during the previous thirty years; and the interval between 1828 and the present day has added, in at least the same proportion, to their number. What it was in the man and in his circumstances that has attracted so much of the world’s interest to Burns, I must make one more attempt to describe.
If success were that which most secures men’s sympathy, Burns would have won but little regard; for in all but his poetry his was a defeated life — sad and heart-depressing to contemplate beyond the lives even of most poets.
Perhaps it may be the very fact that in him so much failure and shipwreck were combined with such splendid gifts, that has attracted to him so deep and compassionate interest. Let us review once more the facts of that life, and tell again its oft-told story.
It was on the 25th of January, 1759, about two miles from the town of Ayr, in a clay-built cottage, reared by his father’s own hands, that Robert Burns was born. The “auld clay bigging” which saw his birth still stands by the side of the road that leads from Ayr to the river and the bridge of Doon. Between the banks of that romantic stream and the cottage is seen the roofless ruin of “Alloway’s auld haunted kirk,” which Tam o’ Shanter has made famous. His first welcome to the world was a rough one. As he himself says, —
A blast o’ Janwar’ win’
Blew hansel in on Robin.
A few days after his birth, a storm blew down the gable of the cottage, and the poet and his mother were carried in the dark morning to the shelter of a neighbour’s roof, under which they remained till their own home was repaired. In after-years he would often say, “No wonder that one ushered into the world amid such a tempest should be the victim of stormy passions.” “It is hard to be born in Scotland,” says the brilliant Parisian. Burns had many hardships to endure, but he never reckoned this to be one of them.
His father, William Burness or Burnes, for so he spelt his name, was a native not of Ayrshire, but of Kincardineshire, where he had been reared on a farm belonging to the forfeited estate of the noble but attainted house of Keith-Marischal. Forced to migrate thence at the age of nineteen, he had travelled to Edinburgh, and finally settled in Ayrshire, and at the time when Robert, his eldest child, was born, he rented seven acres of land, near the Brig o’ Doon, which he cultivated as a nursery-garden. He was a man of strict, even stubborn integrity, and of strong temper — a combination which, as his son remarks, does not usually lead to worldly success. But his chief characteristic was his deep-seated and thoughtful piety. A peasant-saint of the old Scottish stamp, he yet tempered the stern Calvinism of the West with the milder Arminianism more common in his northern birthplace. Robert, who, amid all his after-errors, never ceased to revere his father’s memory, has left an immortal portrait of him in The Cotter’s Saturday Night, when he describes how
The saint, the father, and the husband prays.
William Burness was advanced in years before he married, and his wife, Agnes Brown, was much younger than himself. She is described as an Ayrshire lass, of humble birth, very sagacious, with bright eyes and intelligent looks, but not beautiful, of good manners and easy address. Like her husband, she was sincerely religious, but of a more equable temper, quick to perceive character, and with a memory stored with old traditions, songs, and ballads, which she told or sang to amuse her children. In his outer man the poet resembled his mother, but his great mental gifts, if inherited at all, must be traced to his father.
Three places in Ayrshire, besides his birthplace, will always be remembered as the successive homes of Burns. These were Mount Oliphant, Lochlea (pronounced Lochly), and Mossgiel.
Mount Oliphant. — This was a small upland farm, about two miles from the Brig o’ Doon, of a poor and hungry soil, belonging to Mr. Ferguson, of Doon-holm, who was also the landlord of William Burness’ previous holding. Robert was in his seventh year when his father entered on this farm at Whitsuntide, 1766, and he had reached his eighteenth when the lease came to a close in 1777. All the years between these two dates were to the family of Burness one long sore battle with untoward circumstances, ending in defeat. If the hardest toil and severe self-denial could have procured success, they would not have failed. It was this period of his life which Robert afterwards described, as combining “the cheerless gloom of a hermit with the unceasing moil of galley-slave.” The family did their best, but a niggard soil and bad seasons were too much for them. At length, on the death of his landlord, who had always dealt generously by him, William Burness fell into the grip of a factor, whose tender mercies were hard. This man wrote letters which set the whole family in tears. The poet has not given his name, but he has preserved his portrait in colours which are indelible: —
I’ve noticed, on our Laird’s court-day,
An’ mony a time my heart’s been wae,
Poor tenant bodies, scant o’ cash,
How they maun thole a factor’s snash;
He’ll stamp an’ threaten, curse and swear,
He’ll apprehend them, poind their gear,
While they maun stan’, wi aspect humble,
And hear it a’, an’ fear an’ tremble.
In his autobiographical sketch the
poet tells us that, “The farm proved a ruinous bargain. I was the eldest of seven children, and my father, worn out by early hardship, was unfit for labour. His spirit was soon irritated, but not easily broken. There was a freedom in the lease in two years more; and to weather these two years we retrenched expenses, and toiled on.” Robert and Gilbert, the two eldest, though still boys, had to do each a grown man’s full work. Yet for all their hardships these Mount Oliphant days were not without alleviations. If poverty was at the door, there was warm family affection by the fireside. If the two sons had, long before manhood, to bear toil beyond their years, still they were living under their parents’ roof, and those parents two of the wisest and best of Scotland’s peasantry. Work was no doubt incessant, but education was not neglected — rather it was held one of the most sacred duties. When Robert was five years old, he had been sent to a school at Alloway Mill, and when the family removed to Mount Oliphant, his father combined with four of his neighbours to hire a young teacher, who boarded among them, and taught their children for a small salary. This young teacher, whose name was Murdoch, has left an interesting description of his two young pupils, their parents, and the household life while he sojourned at Mount Oliphant. At that time Murdoch thought that Gilbert possessed a livelier imagination, and was more of a wit than Robert. “All the mirth and liveliness,” he says, “were with Gilbert. Robert’s countenance at that time wore generally a grave and thoughtful look.” Had their teacher been then told that one of his two pupils would become a great poet, he would have fixed on Gilbert. When he tried to teach them church music along with other rustic lads, they two lagged far behind the rest. Robert’s voice especially was untuneable, and his ear so dull, that it was with difficulty he could distinguish one tune from another. Yet this was he who was to become the greatest song-writer that Scotland — perhaps the world — has known. In other respects the mental training of the lads was of the most thorough kind. Murdoch taught them not only to read, but to parse, and to give the exact meaning of the words, to turn verse into the prose order, to supply ellipses, and to substitute plain for poetic words and phrases. How many of our modern village schools even attempt as much? When Murdoch gave up, the father himself undertook the education of his children, and carried it on at night after work-hours were over. Of that father Murdoch speaks as by far the best man he ever knew. Tender and affectionate towards his children he describes him, seeking not to drive, but to lead them to the right, by appealing to their conscience and their better feelings, rather than to their fears. To his wife he was gentle and considerate in an unusual degree, always thinking of her ease and comfort; and she repaid it with the utmost reverence. She was a careful and thrifty housewife, but, whenever her domestic tasks allowed, she would return to hang with devout attention on the discourse that fell from her wise husband. Under that father’s guidance knowledge was sought for as hid treasure, and this search was based on the old and reverential faith that increase of knowledge is increase of wisdom and goodness. The readings of the household were wide, varied, and unceasing. Some one entering the house at meal-time found the whole family seated, each with a spoon in one hand and a book in the other. The books which Burns mentions as forming part of their reading at Mount Oliphant surprise us even now. Not only the ordinary school-books and geographies, not only the traditional life of Wallace and other popular books of that sort, but The Spectator, odd plays of Shakespeare, Pope (his Homer included), Locke on the Human Understanding, Boyle’s Lectures, Taylor’s Scripture Doctrine of Original Sin, Allan Ramsay’s works, formed the staple of their reading. Above all there was a collection of songs, of which Burns says, “This was my vade mecum. I pored over them driving my cart, or walking to labour, song by song, verse by verse; carefully noting the true tender or sublime, from affectation and fustian, I am convinced I owe to this practice much of my critic-craft, such as it is!” And he could not have learnt it in a better way.
