that the clergy and elders excercise their zeal. After | industry, both are improving. Industry and the useful examination before the kirk-session, touching the circumstances of her guilt, she must endure a public penance, and sustain a public rebuke from the pulpit, for three Sabbaths successively, in the face of the congregation to which she belongs, and thus have her weakness exposed, and her shame blazoned. The sentence is the same with respect to the male, but how much lighter the punishment! It is well known that this dreadful law, worthy of the iron minds of Calvin and of Knox, has often led to consequences, at the very mention of which human nature recoils.*

arts came later into Scotland than into England, because the security of property came later. With causes of internal agitation and warfare, similar to those which occurred to the more southern nation, the people of Scotland were exposed to more imminent hazards, and more extensive and destructive spoliation, from external war. Occupied in the maintenance of their independence against their more powerful neighbours, to this were necessarily sacrificed the arts of peace, and, at certain periods, the flower of their population. And when the union of the crowns produced a security from national wars with England, for the century succeeding, the civil wars common to both divisions of the island, and the dependence, perhaps the necessary dependence, of the Scottish councils on those of the more powerful kingdom, counteracted this disadvantage. Even the union of the British nations was not, from obvious causes, immediately followed by all the benefits which it was ultimately destined to produce. At length, however, these benefits are distinctly felt, and generally acknow ledged. Property is secure; manufactures and comin Scotland. As yet, indeed, the farmers are not, in general, enabled to make improvements out of their own capitals, as in England; but the landholders, who have seen and felt the advantages resulting from them, contribute towards them with a liberal hand. Hence property, as well as population, is accumulating rapidly on the Scottish soil; and the nation, enjoying a great part of the blessings of Englishmen, and retaining several of their own happy institutions, might be considered, if confidence could be placed in human foresight, to be as yet only in an early stage of their progress. Yet there are obstructions in their way. To the cultivation of the soil are opposed the extent and the strictness of the entails; to the improvement of the people, the rapidly increasing use of spirituous liquors, a detestable practice, which includes in its consequences almost every evil, physical and moral.* The peculiarly social disposition of the Scottish peasantry exposes them to this practice. This disposition, which is fostered by their national songs and music, is perhaps characteristic of the nation at large. Though the source of many pleasures, it counteracts by its consequences the effects of their patience, industry, and frugality, both at home and abroad, of which those especially who have witnessed the progress of Scotsmen in other countries must have known many striking instances.

While the punishment of incontinence prescribed by the institutions of Scotland is severe, the culprits have an obvious method of avoiding it, afforded them by the law respecting marriage, the validity of which requires neither the ceremonies of the church, nor any other ceremonies, but simply the deliberate acknowledgement of each other as husband and wife, made by the parties before witnesses, or in any other way that gives legal evidence of such an acknowledgment having taken place. And as the parties themselves fix the date of their marriage, an opportunity is thus given to avoid the punish-merce increasing; and agriculture is rapidly improving ment, and repair the consequences, of illicit gratification. Such a degree of laxity respecting so serious a contract might produce much confusion in the descent of property, without a still farther indulgence; but the law of Scotland, legitimating all children born before wedlock, on the subsequent marriage of their parents, renders the actual date of the marriage itself of little consequence. Marriages contracted in Scotland without the ceremonies of the church, are considered as irregular, and the parties usually submit to a rebuke for their conduct, in the face of their respective congregations, which is not however necessary to render the marriage valid. Burns, whose marriage, it will appear, was irregular, does not seem to have undergone this part of the discipline of the church.

Thus, though the institutions of Scotland are in many particulars favourable to a conduct among the peasantry founded on foresight and reflection, on the subject of marriage the reverse of this is true. Irregular marriages, it may be naturally supposed, are often improvident ones, in whatever rank of society they occur. The children of such marriages, poorly endowed by their parents, find a certain degree of instruction of easy acquisition, but the comforts of life, and the gratifications of ambition, they find of more difficult attainment in their native soil; and thus the marriage laws of Scotland conspire, with other circumstances, to produce that habit of emigration, and spirit of adventure, for which the people are so remarkable.

The manners and appearance of the Scottish peasantry do not bespeak to a stranger the degree of their cultivation. In their own country, their industry is inferior to that of the same description of men in the southern division of the island. Industry and the useful arts reached Scotland later than England; and though their advance has been rapid there, the effects produced are as yet far inferior both in reality and in appearance. The Scottish farmers have in general neither the opulence nor the comforts of those of England, neither vest the same capital in the soil, nor receive from it the same return. Their clothing, their food, and their habitations, are almost every where inferior. Their appearance in these respects corresponds with the appearance of their country; and under the operation of patient *[The practice of the Scottish church in matters of this kind

Since the Union, the manners and language of the people of Scotland have no longer a standard among themselves, but are tried by the standard of the nation to which they are united. Though their habits are far from being flexible, yet it is evident that their manners and dialect are undergoing a rapid change. Even the farmers of the present day appear to have less of the peculiarities of their country in their speech than the men of letters of the last generation. Burns, who never left the island, nor penetrated farther into England than Carlisle on the one hand, or Newcastle on the other, had less of the Scottish dialect than Hume, who lived for many years in the best society of England and France-or perhaps than Robertson, who wrote the English language in a style of such purity; and if he had been in other respects fitted to take a lead in the British House of Commons, his pronunciation would neither have fettered his eloquence, nor deprived it of its due effect.

has undergone considerable modification since the time when Dr peasantry, is one which it is hoped will not be lost-the A striking particular in the character of the Scottish

Currie wrote.]

†These remarks are confined to the class of farmers; the same corresponding inferiority will not be found in the condition of the cottagers and labourers, at least in the article of food, as those who examine this subject impartially will soon discover. [The above remarks, however just in the days of Dr Currie, do not now apply. Husbandry is in a much higher state in Scotland generally than in England; the farmers are equal in point of capital and returns, and live fully as well. On the other hand, the farm labourer in England and the Scottish hynd are in nearly an equal

condition.

strength of their domestic attachments. The privations *The amount of the duty on spirits distilled in Scotland is now upwards of £250,000 annually. In 1777, it did not reach £8000, The rate of the duty has indeed been raised, but making every allowance, the increase of consumption must be enormous. This is independent of the duty on malt, &c., malt liquor, îmported spirits, and wine. [The use of whisky has probably increased since the days of Dr Currie. The amount of spirits made in Scotland in 1832 was 5,407,097 imperial gallons, and the duty £901,183.]

LOVE OF COUNTRY IN SCOTLAND.

to which many parents submit for the good of their children, and particularly to obtain for them instruction, which they consider as the chief good, has already been noticed. If their children live and prosper, they have their certain reward, not merely as witnessing, but as sharing of their prosperity. Even in the humblest ranks of the peasantry, the earnings of the children may generally be considered as at the disposal of their parents: perhaps in no country is so large a portion of the wages of labour applied to the support and comfort of those whose days of labour are past. A similar strength of attachment extends through all the domestic relations. Our poet partook largely of this amiable characteristic of his humble compeers: he was also strongly tinctured with another striking feature which belongs to them-a partiality for his native country, of which many proofs may be found in his writings. This, it must be confessed, is a very strong and general sentiment among the natives of Scotland, differing, however, in its character, according to the character of the different minds in which it is found-in some appearing a selfish prejudice, in others a generous affection.

11

social affections, amidst scenery that acts most powerfully on the sight, and makes a lasting impression on the memory. It may also be remarked, that mountainous countries are often peculiarly calculated to nourish sentiments of national pride and independence, from the influence of history on the affections of the mind. In such countries, from their natural strength, inferior nations have maintained their independence against their more powerful neighbours, and valour, in all ages, has made its most successful efforts against oppression. Such countries present the fields of battle where the tide of invasion was rolled back, and where the ashes of those rest who have died in defence of their nation!

The operation of the various causes we have mentioned is doubtless more general and more permanent, where the scenery of a country, the peculiar manners of its inhabitants, and the martial achievements of their ancestors, are embodied in national songs, and united to national music. By this combination, the ties that attach men to the land of their birth are multiplied and strengthened, and the images of infancy, strongly associating with the generous affections, resist the influence of time, and of new impressions; they often survive in countries far distant, and amidst far different scenes, to the latest periods of life, to soothe the heart with the pleasures of memory, when those of hope die away.

An attachment to the land of their birth is, indeed, common to all men. It is found among the inhabitants of every region of the earth, from the arctic to the antarctic circle, in all the vast variety of climate, of surface, and of civilisation. To analyse this general sentiment, to trace it through the mazes of association up to the If this reasoning be just, it will explain to us why, primary affection in which it has its source, would among the natives of Scotland, even of cultivated minds, neither be a difficult nor an unpleasing labour. On the we so generally find a partial attachment to the land of first consideration of the subject, we should perhaps their birth, and why this is so strongly discoverable in expect to find this attachment strong in proportion the writings of Burns, who joined to the higher powers to the physical advantages of the soil; but inquiry, far of the understanding the most ardent affections. Let from confirming this supposition, seems rather to lead not men of reflection think it a superfluous labour to to an opposite conclusion. In those fertile regions where trace the rise and progress of a character like his. Born beneficent nature yields almost spontaneously whatever in the condition of a peasant, he rose by the force of is necessary to human wants, patriotism, as well as every his mind into distinction and influence, and in his works other generous sentiment, seems weak and languid. In has exhibited what are so rarely found, the charms of countries less richly endowed, where the comforts, and original genius. With a deep insight into the human even necessaries of life, must be purchased by patient heart, his poetry exhibits high powers of imaginationtoil, the affections of the mind, as well as the faculties it displays, and as it were embalms, the peculiar manof the understanding, improve under exertion, and pa-ners of his country; and it may be considered as a triotism flourishes amidst its kindred virtues. Where monument, not to his own name only, but to the expirit is necessary to combine for mutual defence, as well ing genius of an ancient and once independent nation. as for the supply of common wants, mutual good-will In relating the incidents of his life, candour will presprings from mutual difficulties and labours, the social vent us from dwelling invidiously on those failings which affections unfold themselves, and extend from the men justice forbids us to conceal; we will tread lightly over with whom we live to the soil on which we tread. It his yet warm ashes, and respect the laurels that shelter will perhaps be found, indeed, that our affections can- his untimely grave. not be originally called forth, but by objects capable, or supposed capable, of feeling our sentiments, and of returning them; but when once excited, they are strengthened by exercise, they are expanded by the powers of imagination, and seize more especially on those inanimate parts of creation, which form the theatre on which we have first felt the alternations of joy and sorrow, and first tasted the sweets of sympathy and regard. If this reasoning be just, the love of our country, although modified, and even extinguished in individuals by the chances and changes of life, may be presumed, in our general reasonings, to be strong among a people, in proportion to their social, and more especially to their domestic affections. In free governments it is found more active than in despotic ones, because, as the individual becomes of more consequence in the community, the community becomes of more consequence to him. In small states it is generally more active than in large ones, for the same reason, and also because the independence of a small community being maintained with difficulty, and frequently endangered, sentiments of patriotism are more frequently excited. In mountainous countries it is generally found more active than in plains, because there the necessities of life often require a closer union of the inhabitants; and more especially, because in such countries, though less populous than plains, the inhabitants, instead of being scattered equally over the whole, are usually divided into small communities on the sides of their separate vallies, and on the banks of their respective streams--situations well calculated to call forth and to concentrate the

ROBERT BURNS was, as is well known, the son of a farmer in Ayrshire, and afterwards himself a farmer there; but, having been unsuccessful, he was about to emigrate to Jamaica. He had previously, however, attracted some notice by his poetical talents in the vicinity where he lived; and having published a small volume of his poems at Kilmarnock, this drew upon him more general attention. In consequence of the encouragement he received, he repaired to Edinburgh, and there published, by subscription, an improved and enlarged edition of his poems, which met with extraordinary success. By the profits arising from the sale of this edition, he was enabled to enter on a farm in Dumfriesshire; and having married a person to whom he had been long attached, he retired to devote the remainder of his life to agriculture. He was again, however, unsuccessful; and, abandoning his farm, he removed into the town of Dumfries, where he filled an inferior office in the excise, and where he terminated his life in July 1796, in his thirtyeighth year.

The strength and originality of his genius procured him the notice of many persons distinguished in the republic of letters, and, among others, that of Dr Moore, well known for his Views of Society and Manners on the Continent of Europe, for his Zeluco, and various other works. To this gentleman our poet addressed a letter, after his first visit to Edinburgh, giving a history of his life, up to the period of his writing. In a

takes an effort of philosophy to shake off these idle ter-
rors. The earliest composition that I recollect taking
pleasure in was The Vision of Mirza, and a hymn of
Addison's, beginning, How are thy servants blest, oh
Lord! I particularly remember one half-stanza, which
was music to my boyish ear:—

For though on dreadful whirls we hung
High on the broken wave.'

I met with these pieces in Mason's English Collection,
one of my school-books. The two first books I ever
read in private, and which gave me more pleasure than
any two books I ever read since, were The Life of Han-
nibal, and The History of Sir William Wallace. Han-
nibal gave my young ideas such a turn, that I used to
strut in raptures up and down after the recruiting drum
while the story of Wallace poured a Scottish prejudice
and bagpipe, and wish myself tall enough to be a soldier;
into my veins, which will boil along there till the flood-
gates of life shut in eternal rest.

composition never intended to see the light, elegance, | be more sceptical than I am in such matters, yet it often or perfect correctness of composition, will not be expected. These, however, will be compensated by the opportunity of seeing our poet, as he gives the incidents of his life, unfold the peculiarities of his character with all the careless vigour and open sincerity of his mind. "Mauchline, 2d August 1787. SIR-For some months past I have been rambling over the country, but I am now confined with some lingering complaints, originating, as I take it, in the stomach. To divert my spirits a little in this miserable fog of ennui, I have taken a whim to give you a history of myself. My name has made some little noise in this country-you have done me the honour to interest yourself very warmly in my behalf; and I think a faithful account of what character of a man I am, and how I came by that character, may perhaps amuse you in an idle moment. I will give you an honest narrative, though I know it will be often at my own expense; for I assure you, sir, I have, like Solomon, whose character, excepting in the trifling affair of wisdom, I sometimes think I resemble-I have, I say, like him, turned my eyes to behold madness and folly, and, like him, too frequently shaken hands with their intoxicating friendship. After you have perused these pages, should you think them trifling and impertinent, I only beg leave to tell you, that the poor author wrote them under some twitching qualms of conscience, arising from suspicion that he was doing what he ought not to do a predicament he has more than once been in before.

***

I have not the most distant pretensions to assume that character which the pye-coated guardians of escutcheons call a gentleman. When at Edinburgh last winter, I got acquainted in the Herald's Office; and, looking through that granary of honours, I there found almost every name in the kingdom; but for me,

of

My ancient but ignoble blood

Has crept thro' scoundrels ever since the flood.' Gules, Purpure, Argent, &c., quite disowned me. My father was of the north of Scotland, the son of a farmer, and was thrown by early misfortunes on the world at large, where, after many years' wanderings and sojournings, he picked up a pretty large quantity of observation and experience, to which I am indebted for most of my little pretensions to wisdom. I have met with few who understood men, their manners, and their ways, equal to him; but stubborn, ungainly integrity, and headlong ungovernable irascibility, are disqualifying circumstances, consequently I was born a very poor man's son. For the first six or seven years my life, my father was gardener to a worthy gentleman of small estate in the neighbourhood of Ayr. Had he continued in that station, I must have marched off to be one of the little underlings about a farm-house; but it was his dearest wish and prayer to have it in his power to keep his children under his own eye till they could discern between good and evil; so, with the assistance of his generous master, my father ventured on a small farm on his estate. At those years I was by no means a favourite with any body. I was a good deal noted for a retentive memory, a stubborn sturdy something in my disposition, and an enthusiastic idiot* piety. say idiot piety, because I was then but a child. Though it cost the schoolmaster some thrashings, I made an excellent English scholar, and by the time I was ten or eleven years of age, I was a critic in substantives, verbs, and particles. In my infant and boyish days, too, I owed much to an old woman who resided in the family, remarkable for her ignorance, credulity, and superstition. She had, I suppose, the largest collection in the country of tales and songs concerning devils, ghosts, fairies, brownies, witches, warlocks, spunkies, kelpies, elf-candles, dead-lights, wraiths, apparitions, cantraips, giants, enchanted towers, dragons, and other trumpery. This cultivated the latent seeds of poetry, but had so strong an effect on my imagination, that to this hour, in my nocturnal rambles, I sometimes keep a sharp look-out in suspicious places; and though nobody can

I

* Idiot for idiotic.

Polemical divinity about this time was putting the country half mad; and I, ambitious of shining in conversation parties on Sundays, between sermons, at funerals, with so much heat and indiscretion, that I raised a hue &c. used, a few years afterwards, to puzzle Calvinismi and cry of heresy against me, which has not ceased to this hour.

My vicinity to Ayr was of some advantage to me. My social disposition, when not checked by some modifica tions of spirited pride, was, like our Catechism definition of infinitude, without bounds or limits. I formed several connections with other younkers who possessed superior advantages, the youngling actors, who were busy in the rehearsal of parts in which they were shortly to appear on the stage of life, where, alas! I was destined to drudge behind the scenes. It is not commonly at this green age that our young gentry have a just sense of the immense distance between them and their ragged play-fellows. It takes a few dashes into the world, to give the young great man that proper, decent, unnoticing disregard for the poor insignificant, stupid devils, the mechanics and peasantry around him, who were perhaps born in the same village. My young superiors never insulted the clouterly appearance of my plough-boy carcase, the two extremes of which were often exposed to all the inclemencies of all the seasons. They would give me stray volumes of books: among them, even then, I could pick up some observations; and one, whose heart I am sure not even the Munny Begum scenes have tainted, helped me to a little French. Parting with these my young friends and benefactors, as they occasionally went off for the East or West Indies, was often to me a sore affliction; but I was soon called to more serious evils. My father's generous master died; the farm proved a ruinous bargain; and to clench the misfortune, we fell into the hands of a factor, who sat for the picture I have drawn of one in my tale of Twa Dogs. My father was advanced in life when he married; I was the eldest of seven children; and he, worn out by early hardships, was unfit for labour. My father's spirit was soon irritated, but not easily broken. There was a freedom in his lease in two years more; and, to weather these two years, we retrenched our expenses. We lived very poorly. I was a dexterous ploughman, for my age; and the next eldest to me was a brother (Gilbert) who could drive the plough very well, and help me to thrash the corn. A novel-writer might perhaps have viewed these scenes with some satisfaction, but so did not I; my indignation yet boils at the recollection of the scoundrel factor's insolent threatening letters, which used to set us all in tears.

This kind of life-the cheerless gloom of a hermit, with the unceasing moil of a galley-slave, brought me to my sixteenth year; a little before which period I first committed the sin of rhyme. You know our country custom of coupling a man and woman together as partners in the labours of harvest. In my fifteenth autumn my partner was a bewitching creature a year younger than myself. My scarcity of English denies me the power of doing her justice in that language; but you know the

EARLY ATTACHMENTS.

Scottish idiom-she was a bonnie, sweet, sonsie lass. In short, she altogether, unwittingly to herself, initiated me in that delicious passion, which in spite of acid disappointment, gin-horse prudence, and book-worm philosophy, I hold to be the first of human joys, our dearest blessing here below! How she caught the contagion, I cannot tell; you medical people talk much of infection from breathing the same air, the touch, &e., but I never expressly said I loved her. Indeed, I did not know myself why I liked so much to loiter behind with her when returning in the evening from our labours; why the tones of her voice made my heart-strings thrill like an Eolian harp; and particularly why my pulse beat such a furious ratan when I looked and fingered over her little hand to pick out the cruel nettle stings and thistles. Among her other love-inspiring qualities, she sang sweetly; and it was her favourite reel to which I attempted giving an embodied vehicle in rhyme.* I was not so presumptuous as to imagine that I could make verses like printed ones, composed by men who had Greek and Latin; but my girl sang a song, which was said to be composed by a small country laird's son, on one of his father's maids, with whom he was in love, and I saw no reason why I might not rhyme as well as he; for, excepting that he could smear sheep, and cast peats, his father living in the moor-lands, he had no more scholar-craft than myself.

13

of my path, yet early ingrained piety and virtue kept me for several years afterwards within the line of innocence. The great misfortune of my life was to want an aim. I had felt early some stirrings of ambition, but they were the blind gropings of Homer's Cyclops round the walls of his cave. I saw my father's situation entailed on me perpetual labour. The only two openings by which I could enter the temple of fortune, was the gate of niggardly economy, or the path of little chicaning bargain-making. The first is so contracted an aperture, I never could squeeze myself into it; the last I always hated-there was contamination in the very entrance! Thus abandoned of aim or view in life, with a strong appetite for sociability, as well from native hilarity as from a pride of observation and remark-a constitutional melancholy or hypochondriasm that made me fly to solitude; add to these incentives to social life, my reputation for bookish knowledge, a certain wild logical talent, and a strength of thought, something like the rudiments of good sense, and it will not seem surprising that I was generally a welcome guest where I visited, or any great wonder that, always where two or three met together, there was I among them. But far beyond all other impulses of my heart, was un penchant à l'adorable moitié du genre humain. My heart was completely tinder, and was eternally lighted up by some goddess or other; and as in every other warfare in this world my fortune was various, sometimes I was received with favour, and sometimes I was mortified with a repulse. At the plough, scythe, or reap-hook, I feared no competitor, and thus I set absolute want at defiance; and as I never cared farther for my labours than while I was in actual exercise, I spent the evenings in the way after my own heart. A country lad seldom carries on a love-adventure without an assisting confidant. I possessed a curiosity, zeal, and intrepid dexterity, that recommended me as a proper second on these occasions; and, I dare say, I felt as much pleasure in being in the secret of half the loves of the parish of Tarbolton, as

Thus with me began love and poetry; which at times have been my only, and till within the last twelve months, have been my highest enjoyment. My father struggled on till he reached the freedom in his lease, when he entered on a larger farm, about ten miles farther in the country. The nature of the bargain he made was such as to throw a little ready money into his hands at the commencement of his lease; otherwise the affair would have been impracticable. For four years we lived comfortably here; but a difference commencing between him and his landlord as to terms, after three years' tossing and whirling in the vortex of litigation, my father was just saved from the horrors of a jail by a consump-ever did statesman in knowing the intrigues of half the tion, which, after two years' promises, kindly stepped in, and carried him away, to where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.

courts of Europe.* The very goose feather in my hand seems to know instinctively the well-worn path of my imagination, the favourite theme of my song, and is with difficulty restrained from giving you a couple of paragraphs on the love-adventures of my compeers, the humble inmates of the farm-house and cottage; but the grave sons of science, ambition, or avarice, baptise these things by the name of follies. To the sons and daughters

*[In October 1837, the editor conversed at Tarbolton with John Lees, shoemaker, who, when a stripling, used to act as Burns's second in his courting expeditions. The old man spoke with much glee of the aid he had given the poet in the way of asking out lasses for him. When he had succeeded in bringing the girl out of doors, he of course became Monsieur de Trop, and Burns would say, "Now, Jock, ye may gang hame."]

† [A correspondent of the Scotsman newspaper, 1828, commu

It is during the time that we lived on this farm that my little story is most eventful. I was, at the beginning of this period, perhaps the most ungainly, awkward boy in the parish-no solitaire was less acquainted with the ways of the world. What I knew of ancient story was gathered from Salmon's and Guthrie's geographical grammars; and the ideas I had formed of modern manners, of literature and criticism, I got from the Spectator. These, with Pope's Works, some plays of Shakspeare, Tull and Dickson on Agriculture, the Pantheon, Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding, Stackhouse's History of the Bible, Justice's British Gardener's Directory, Bayle's Lectures, Allan Ramsay's Works, Taylor's Scripture Doctrine of Original Sin, A Select Collection of English Songs, and Hervey's Medi- nicated the following as recollections of Burns in his early rustic tations, had formed the whole of my reading. The col-years:-" He was particularly distinguished at that species of merry-making called Rockings,' which are frequently alluded lection of songs was my vade mecum. I pored over to in his writings. This kind of meeting is, or was (for I suppose them driving my cart, or walking to labour, song by the change of manners will have suppressed this innocent species song, verse by verse-carefully noting the true tender of ploy') formed of young people-servants generally, of both or sublime, from affectation and fustian. I am consexes, to the neighbouring farmers-who were allowed, during vinced I owe to this practice much of my critic craft, moonlight, to meet alternately at their respective houses, each such as it is. lass thriftily carrying with her the spinning-wheel, and, while the song and the tale went round, never failing to complete her assigned task of spinning; the lads, in the meanwhile, being as busily employed in knitting the stocking: the entertainment ending with a supper of a particular dish or two of country fare. On these occasions my narrator remembers well the distinguished part Burns used to take in the business of the evening. Often has she met him at the head of a little troop, coming from a distance of three or four miles, with the spinning-wheel of his

In my seventeenth year, to give my manners a brush, I went to a country dancing-school. My father had an unaccountable antipathy against these meetings, and my going was, what to this moment I repent, in opposition to his wishes. My father, as I said before, was subject to strong passions; from that instance of disobedience in me he took a sort of dislike-to me, which I believe was one cause of the dissipation which marked my succeeding years. I say dissipation, comparatively with the strictness, and sobriety, and regularity, of Presbyterian country life; for though the Will o' Wisp meteors of thoughtless whim were almost the sole lights * [The song written on this occasion was that beginning"Once I loved a bonnie lass." The girl's name is said to have been Nelly Blair.]

favourite, for the time being, mounted on his shoulders, and his approach announced by the bursts of merriment which his ready and rough jokes had excited amongst the group. It was always expected that some new effusion of his muse should be produced to promote the enjoyment of the party, and seldom were they disappointed, Rob Burns's last night's poem' generally reaching the parlour in the course of the next day. At the kitchen of my friend's father (an extensive land proprietor) Burns's visits