human race that ever I had the pleasure of being acquainted with." He was of a swarthy complexion, thin hair, and a form spare and bent with labour. In his wanderings he had acquired much experience of the world. "I have met with few who understood men, their manners, and their ways, equal to him," says his son; "but stubborn, ungainly integrity, and headlong, ungovernable irascibility, are disqualifying circumstances; consequently I was born a very poor man's son.' From these accounts there can be little doubt which of his parents the poet most resembled, both in appearance and in temper. It is plain that his father was a man of no common stamp, yet of a kind not so rare in Scotland,-men whose innate desire for knowledge, and power of acquiring it and reasoning upon it, raise them to a mental plane far above what their position in life might be expected to yield them. It is also worth while to note Murdoch's remark, that "he spoke the English language with more propriety, both with respect to diction and pronunciation, than any man I ever knew with no greater advantages. This had a very good effect on the boys, who began to talk and reason like men much sooner than their neighbours." No doubt much of Robert's readiness of speech came from this feature in his father's manner.

To secure the education of his children-an aim ever dear to the Scottish parent-William Burnes, along with four of his neighbours, engaged the services of a young man of eighteen, the John Murdoch quoted above, who has given a full account of the transaction. As he boarded with his employers in turn, his description of life in the "argillaceous fabric," alias "claybiggin," is full of interest. This was in 1765, when Robert was a little over six years old, but he had

already received some instruction from his father, and he and Gilbert were usually at the head of the class, except in music, where "Robert's ear in particular was dull, and his voice untunable. It was long before I could get them to distinguish one tune from another." There was no indication then of the future genius of Scottish song.

The school-books were of a kind still in use long after this period, the Bible and Masson's Collection. In the latter Robert found particular delight in the Vision of Mirza and one of Addison's hymns, while from a life of Hannibal lent him by Murdoch he received intense pleasure. Murdoch's teaching was of a thorough nature, well adapted to bring out the latent powers of his pupils, and in later years, while yet unknown to fame, the poet records the "many obligations" he owed to his "masterly teacher."* "In those years," he elsewhere records, "I was by no means a favourite with anybody. I was a good deal noted for a retentive memory, a stubborn, sturdy something in my disposition, and an enthusiastic idiotpiety. I say 'idiot-piety,' because I was then but a child."

1766-1777.

At Whitsunday, 1766, William Burnes quitted his house at Alloway, and removed to the farm of Mount Oliphant, about two miles distant, which Mount he had leased from his generous employer, Oliphant. Provost Ferguson. One of his main reasons for this step was to be able to keep his children at home, instead of sending them out to serve with others, exposed to all the dangers of such a life. The attendance of the boys at Murdoch's school now became irregular, in consequence of the distance, and

* Letter to Murdoch, Jan. 15, 1783.

not long afterwards the teacher himself left the district. By this time, however, Robert had received a good training in English, and by the age of ten or eleven was "a critic in substantives, verbs and particles." From an old woman, named Betty Davidson, who lived with the family, he received learning of a different stamp. "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, enchanted towers, giants, dragons, and other trumpery. This cultivated the latent seeds of poesy."

Attendance at school being now given up, the father again undertook the education of his children, teaching them arithmetic in the evenings, and in this way the two elder girls received all their education. With the two eldest boys he conversed on all subjects as if they had been men, and always aimed at conveying instruction to them. For them he borrowed works on geography, astronomy, and natural history, and subscribed to Stackhouse's History of the Bible. All of these Robert eagerly read, while the accidental acquisition of a collection of letters by eminent writers laid the foundation of his later epistolary style. Two volumes of Richardson's Pamela which fell in his way about this time gave him his first novel, and almost the only one until many years later.

In 1772 the brothers were sent week about, during a summer quarter, to the school at Dalrymple to improve their penmanship. It was in this year too that Murdoch returned to Ayr, having been appointed teacher of English there. He then renewed his acquaintance with the family, sending them Pope's works, and some other poetry, "the first," says Gilbert,

"that we had an opportunity of reading, except what is contained in The English Collection . .," a fact which may well account for the influence of Pope on some of Burns's later work. His former teacher being so near, Robert was sent to him in the summer of 1773, to revise his knowledge of grammar, and stayed with him for three weeks. During this short time, however, Murdoch had taught him a good deal of French-they had even begun to read Télémaque in the original-and he took home with him to Mount Oliphant a French grammar and dictionary. In that language he seems to have made considerable progress, but an attempt to learn Latin came to very little, the "Rudiments proving as dry to him as they have done to many a one less gifted. His French, however, procured him some acquaintances in Ayr, rather above his own rank in the social scale, but not yet old enough, as he somewhat bitterly remarks, to exclude him from their society on that account.

more.

But the farm now claimed most of his time. It was of seventy Scots acres in extent, of very poor soil, and taken at too high a rent. It might, by the conditions. of the lease, have been given up in 1771, but in that year William Burnes had failed to find a better, and had perforce to remain where he was for six years To make ends meet the whole family had to do their utmost, and at fifteen Robert was the principal labourer on it, doing a grown man's work. Both he and Gilbert paint the miseries of these years in the darkest colours," the cheerless gloom of a hermit, with the unceasing toil of a galley slave," is the poet's account of it. Hard work and scanty living was the lot of all, and this over-exertion was no doubt the main cause of his ill-health in after life.

"My father's

generous master died," he adds, "and to clench the curse 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 indignation yet boils at the threatening insolent epistles from the Scoundrel Tyrant, which used to set us all in tears."

1773.

It was in the midst of all this distress that the young ploughman "first committed the sin of rhyme." This first attempt to express his feelings in verse was, appropriately enough, a love- First song. song, inspired by the young girl who was his partner in the harvest-field, "a bonnie, sweet, sonsie lass," Nelly Kirkpatrick by name, and daughter of the blacksmith at Mount Oliphant. Although the poet refers to this song of Handsome Nell as "very puerile and silly," he not only took good care to give all the particulars connected with it in his letter to Dr. Moore, but he had set it down in his Commonplace Book in April 1783, with a detailed criticism of each verse. * No doubt he was prouder of his first verses than he afterwards cared to acknowledge. am always pleased with it," he wrote in 1783, "as it recalls to my mind those happy days when my heart was yet honest and my tongue was sincere."

"I

From the blacksmith, too, he borrowed Hamilton's version of Blind Harry's Wallace-a work dear to the Scot of last century, and the reading of it "poured a Scottish prejudice in my veins, which will boil along there till the flood-gates of life shut in eternal rest.” The old minstrel had not lived in vain, when his epic, which he had bid "Go, bide thy time," bore such fruit in after days. In later years Burns gratified a desire to

* His finest account of his dawning Muse is that in the Epistle to Mrs. Scott, written while in Edinburgh, 1787.