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CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE

OF

BURNS'S LIFE AND WORKS.

ALLOWAY.
1759.

January 25.-Robert Burns born at Alloway, parish of Ayr, in a clay-built cottage, the work of his father's own hands. His father, William Burnes (so the family name was always written until changed by the poet), was a native of Kincardineshire, born November 11, 1721. His mother, Agnes Brown, born March 17, 1732, was daughter of a farmer in Carrick, Ayrshire. The poet's parents were married December 15, 1757. William Burnes was then a gardener and farm-overseer.

1765-(ÆTAT. SIX).

Sent to a school at Alloway Mill, kept by one Campbell, who was succeeded in May by John Murdoch, a young teacher of uncommon merit, engaged by William Burnes and four of his neighbours, who boarded him alternately at their houses, and guaranteed him a small salary. Two advantages were thus possessed by the poet-an excellent father and an excellent teacher.

MOUNT OLIPHANT.

1766—(SEVEN).

William Burnes removed to the farm of Mount Oliphant, two miles distant. His sons still attended Alloway school. The books used were a Spelling Book. the New Testament, the Bible, Mason's Collection of Prose and Verse, and Fisher's English Grammar.

1768-NINE).

Murdoch gave up Alloway school. Visiting the Burnes family before his departure, he took with him, as a present, the play of Titus Andronicus; he read part of the play aloud, but the horrors of the scene shocked and distressed the children,

and Robert threatened to burn the book if it was left! Instead of it Murdoch gave them a comedy, the School for Love (translated from the French) and an English Grammar. He had previously lent Robert a Life of Hannibal. "The earliest composition that I recollect taking any pleasure in," says the poet, "was the Vision of Mirza and a hymn of Addison's beginning How are Thy servants blest, O Lord! I particularly remember one half-stanza, which was music to my boyish ear

'For though in dreadful whirls we hung

High on the broken wave!'"

He had found these in Mason's Collection. The latent seeds of poetry were further cultivated in his mind by an old woman living in the family, Betty Davidson, who had a great store of tales, songs, ghost-stories, and legendary lore.

1770-(ELEVEN).

By the time he was ten or eleven years of age he was an excellent English scholar, "a critic in substantives, verbs, and particles." After the departure of Murdoch, William Burnes was the only instructor of his sons and other children. He taught them arithmetic, and procured for their use Salmon's Geographical Grammar, Derham's Physics and Astro-Theology, and Ray's Wisdom of God in the Creation. These gave the boys some idea of Geography, Astronomy, and Natural History. He had also Stackhouse's History of the Bible, Taylor's Scripture Doctrine of Original Sin, a volume of English History (reigns of James I. and Charles I.). The blacksmith lent the common metrical Life of Sir William Wallace (which was read with Scottish fervour and enthusiasm), and a maternal uncle supplied a Collection of Letters by the wits of Queen Anne's reign, which inspired Robert with a strong desire to excel in letter-writing.

1772-(THIRTEEN).

To improve their penmanship, William Burnes sent his sons, week about, during the summer quarter, to the parish school of Dalrymple, two or three miles distant. This year Murdoch was appointed teacher of English in Ayr school, and he renewed his acquaintance with the Burnes family, sending them Pope's Works and "some other poetry."

1773-(FOURTEEN).

Robert boarded three weeks with Murdoch at Ayr in order to revise his English Grammar. He acquired also a smattering of French, and on returning home he took with him a French Dictionary and French Grammar, and a copy of Télémaque. He attempted Latin, but soon abandoned it.

1774-(FIFTEEN).

His knowledge of French introduced him to some respectable families in Ayr (Dr. Malcolm's and others). A lady lent him the Spectator, Pope's Homer, and several other books. In this year began with him love and poetry. His partner in the harvest-field was a "bewitching creature" a year younger than himself, Nelly Kilpatrick, daughter of the blacksmith, who sang sweetly, and on her he afterwards wrote his first song and first effort at rhyme, O, once I loved a bonie lass.

1775-(SIXTEEN).

About this time Robert was the principal labourer on the farm. From the unproductiveness of the soil, the loss of cattle, and other causes, William Burnes had got into pecuniary difficulties, and the threatening letters of the factor (the landlord being dead) used to set the distressed family all in tears. The character of the factor is drawn in the Tale of Twa Dogs. The hard labour, poor living, and sorrow of this period formed the chief cause of the poet's subsequent fits of melancholy, frequent headaches, and palpitation of the heart.

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Spent his seventeenth summer (so in poet's MS. British Museum; Dr. Currie altered the date to nineteenth) on a smuggling coast in Ayrshire, at Kirkoswald, on purpose to learn mensuration, surveying, &c. He made good progress, though mixing somewhat in the dissipation of the place, which had then a flourishing contraband trade. Met the second of his poetical heroines, Peggy Thomson, on whom he afterwards wrote his fine song Now westlin winds and slaughtring guns. The charms of this maiden "overset his trigonometry and set him off at a tangent from the sphere of his studies." On his return from Kirkoswald (“in my seventeenth year" he writes) he attended a dancing school to "give his manners a brush." His father had an antipathy to these meetings, and his going "in absolute defiance of his father's commands” (sic in orig.) was an "instance of rebellion" which he conceived brought on him the paternal resentment and even dislike. Gilbert Burns dissents altogether from this conclusion: the poet's extreme sensibility and regret for his one act of disobedience led him unconsciously to exaggerate the circumstances of the case. At Kirkoswald he had enlarged his reading by the addition of Thomson's and Shenstone's Works, and among the other books to which he had access at this period, besides those mentioned above, were some plays of Shakespeare, Allan Ramsay's Works, Hervey's Meditations, and a Select Collection of English Songs (“The Lark," 2 vols.). This last work was, he says, his vade mecum; he pored over it driving his cart or walking to labour, and carefully noted the true tender or sublime from affectation and fustian. He composed this year two stanzas, I dream'd I lay where flowers were springing.

LOCHLEA.

1777-(EIGHTEEN).

William Burnes and family remove to a larger farm at Lochlea, parish of Tarbolton. Take possession at Whitsunday. Affairs for a time look brighter, and all work diligently. Robert and Gilbert have £7 per annum each, as wages, from their father, and they also take land from him for the purpose of raising flax on their own account. "Though, when young, the poet was bashful and awkward in his intercourse with women, as he approached manhood his attachment to their society became very strong, and he was constantly the victim of some fair enslaver." (Gilbert Burns.) He was in the secret, he says, of alf the loves of the parish of Tarbolton!

1778-(NINETEEN).

"I was," he says, "about eighteen or nineteen when I sketched the outlines of a tragedy." The whole had escaped his memory except a fragment of twenty lines: All devil as I am, &c.

1780-(TWENTY-ONE).

The "Bachelors' Club" established at Tarbolton by Robert and Gilbert Burns, and five other young men. Meetings were held once a month and questions debated. The sum expended by each member was not to exceed threepence.

1781--(TWENTY-TWO),

David Sillar admitted a member of the Bachelors' Club. He describes Burns: "I recollect hearing his neighbours observe he had a great deal to say for himself, and that they suspected his principles (his religious principles). He wore the only tied hair in the parish, and in the church his plaid, which was of a particular colour, I think fillemot, he wrapped in a particular manner round his shoulders. Between sermons we often took a walk in the fields; in these walks I have frequently been struck by his facility in addressing the fair sex, and it was generally a death-blow to our conversation, however agreeable, to meet a female acquaintance. Some book he always carried and read when not otherwise employed. It was likewise his custom to read at table. In one of my visits to Lochlea, in time of a sowen supper, he was so intent on reading, I think Tristram Shandy, that his spoon falling out of his hand made him exclaim in a tone scarcely imitable, Alas, poor Yorick!'" The poet had now added to his collection of books Mackenzie's Man of Feeling (which he said he prized next to the Bible) and Man of the World, Sterne's Works, and Macpherson's Ossian. He would appear also to have had the poetical works of Young. Among the fair ones whose society he courted was a superior young woman, bearing the unpoetical name of Ellison Begbie. She

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was the daughter of a small farmer at Galston, but was servant with a family on the banks of the Cessnock. On her he wrote a song of similes," beginning On Cessnock banks there lives a lass, and the earliest of his printed correspondence is addressed to Ellison. His letters are grave, sensible epistles, written with remarkable purity and correctness of language. At this time poesy was, he says, a darling walk for his mind." The oldest of his printed pieces were Winter, a Dirge, the Death of poor Mailie, John Barleycorn, and the three songs It was upon a Lammas night, Now westlin winds and slaught ring guns, and Behind yon hills where Stinchar flows. We may add to these O Tibbie I hae seen the day and My Father was a Farmer. His exquisite lyric O Mary, at thy window be, was also,

he says, one of his juvenile works.

1782-(TWENTY-THREE).

Ellison Begbie refuses his hand. She was about to leave her situation, and he expected himself to "remove a little further off." He went to the town of Irvine. "My twenty-third year," he says, "was to me an important era. Partly through whim, and partly that I wished to set about doing something in life, I joined a flax-dresser in a neighbouring town, to learn his trade, and carry on the business of manufacturing and retailing flax. This turned out a sadly unlucky affair. My partner was a scoundrel of the first water, who made money by the mystery of thieving, and to finish the whole, while we were giving a welcoming carousal to the New Year, our shop, by the drunken carelessness of my partner's wife, took fire, ""* In and was burned to ashes; and left me, like a true poet, not worth a sixpence.' Irvine his reading was only increased, he says, by two volumes of Pamela, and one of Ferdinand, Count Fathom, which gave him some idea of novels. Rhyme, except some religious pieces that are in print, he had given up, but meeting with Fergusson's Scottish Poems, he "strung anew his lyre with emulating vigour.' He also formed a friendship for a young fellow, "a very noble character," Richard Brown, and with others of a freer manner of thinking and living than he had been used to, "the consequence of which was," he says, "that soon after I resumed the plough, I wrote the Poet's Welcome" (to his illegitimate child). But this was not till the summer of 1784. Before leaving Lochlea he became a Freemason.

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* From orig. in Brit. Museum. Burns wrote an interesting and affecting letter to his father, from Irvine. Dr. Currie dates it 1781, which we think is an error. The poet's statement is corroborated by his brother's narrative, and the stone chimney of the room occupied by the poet is inscribed, evidently by his own hand, "R. B. 1782." He consoled himself for his loss after this fashion :

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