Essay on Burns · Thomas Carlyle
A SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS.
Robert Burns was born on January 25, 1759, in a clay-built cottage, at Alloway in Ayrshire, in southwest Scotland. Except for the personal character of his father, his lot was that of any poor peasant lad. But the elder Burns had a natural love of learning, attended carefully to his sons' education himself, and, further, gave them as good schooling as it lay in his power to do. The teacher of Robert Burns and his younger brother Gilbert was John Murdoch, a young man of uncommon merit, who interested himself in the boys, and lent them various books. Robert grew thoroughly familiar with his small library, learned French fairly well, and began Latin. He was particularly fascinated by a book of English songs, and carried it with him into the fields. He early became noted as the best converser and the best letter writer in the parish. When Burns was still a child his father had removed to another farm, at Mount Oliphant; later, when Burns was eighteen, to Lochlea, in the parish of Tarbolton. The family affairs were never long prosperous; and the distress endured at Mount Oliphant from a tyrannical _factor_, or landlord's agent, is commemorated in _The Twa Dogs_, just as the happy home life is reproduced in _The Cotter's Saturday Night_. Through all his youth Burns was a laborer for his father; and his first song, _Handsome Nell_, written when he was only fifteen, is in honor of a chance partner in the harvest field.
In 1782, when he was twenty-three years old, Burns engaged in business at the town of Irvine, but was reduced to poverty by the burning of his shop, and returned to Lochlea. The short residence at the thriving seaport affected for the {xv} worse his habits of life and thought. Until then Burns had led an ordinarily correct life; but at Irvine he learned to drink, and to think lightly of infidelity to women. _The Poet's Welcome to his Illegitimate Child_ bears sad witness to this alteration in his character. In 1784, soon after Burns's return home, his father died, leaving his affairs in utter ruin. Three months before his death Robert and Gilbert had taken the farm of Mossgiel, in the neighboring parish of Mauchline, and thither the whole family now removed. The years 1785 and 1786 are Burns's great period of poetical production; within them fall most of the pieces, exclusive of _Tam O'Shanter_ and of his songs, by which he is now best known. At this time the theological controversy between the two parties in the Scotch Kirk occupied the attention of every one. Burns was attracted by the personal character of the leaders of the _New Light_, or progressive, party; and aided them in their warfare upon the _Old Light_ divines by many stinging satires, notably _The Holy Fair_, _The Twa Herds_, and _Holy Willie's Prayer_. Readers to-day have come to have a new interest in the _Old Lights_, or _Auld Lichts_, as the Scotch term is, through J. M. Barrie's tales and sketches.
In 1785 Burns met and fell in love with Jean Armour, and the next year twin children were born to them. Burns, in order to save the girl from disgrace, had given her a written acknowledgment of marriage; but her father, who had a poor opinion of the poet's general character, had forced her to destroy this. Burns, finding himself without money or position in society, resolved to emigrate to Jamaica, and published a thin volume of his poems in order to raise money for the passage. The success of the book was great and immediate, and altered the whole course of Burns's life. Dugald Stewart, the philosopher, entertained him at his house; Henry MacKenzie, the novelist, gave him a flattering review; and, finally, an enthusiastic letter from Dr. Blacklock, one of the most celebrated Edinburgh critics, {xvi} made him decide to give up his plan of flight from his native country, and to try his fortune at the Scotch capital. The volume of poems was also the means of his acquaintance with the excellent Mrs. Dunlop, with whom he corresponded until the end of his life.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.