Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns
by Robert Burns
Robert Burns was born near Ayr, Scotland, 25th of January,
1759. He was the son of William Burnes, or Burness, at the time
of the poet's birth a nurseryman on the banks of the Doon in
Ayrshire. His father, though always extremely poor, attempted to
give his children a fair education, and Robert, who was the
eldest, went to school for three years in a neighbouring village,
and later, for shorter periods, to three other schools in the
vicinity.
But it was to his father and to his own reading that
he owed the more important part of his education; and by the
time that he had reached manhood he had a good knowledge of
English, a reading knowledge of French, and a fairly wide
acquaintance with the masterpieces of English literature from
the time of Shakespeare to his own day.
In 1766 William Burness
rented on borrowed money the farm of Mount Oliphant, and in
taking his share in the effort to make this undertaking succeed,
the future poet seems to have seriously overstrained his
physique. In 1771 the family move to Lochlea, and Burns went to
the neighbouring town of Irvine to learn flax-dressing. The only
result of this experiment, however, was the formation of an
acquaintance with a dissipated sailor, whom he afterward blamed
as the prompter of his first licentious adventures.
His father
died in 1784, and with his brother Gilbert the poet rented the
farm of Mossgiel; but this venture was as unsuccessful as the
others. He had meantime formed an irregular intimacy with Jean
Armour, for which he was censured by the Kirk-session. As a
result of his farming misfortunes, and the attempts of his
father-in-law to overthrow his irregular marriage with Jean, he
resolved to emigrate; and in order to raise money for the
passage he published (Kilmarnock, 1786) a volume of the poems
which he had been composing from time to time for some years.
This volume was unexpectedly successful, so that, instead of
sailing for the West Indies, he went up to Edinburgh, and during
that winter he was the chief literary celebrity of the season.
An enlarged edition of his poems was published there in 1787,
and the money derived from this enabled him to aid his brother
in Mossgiel, and to take and stock for himself the farm of
Ellisland in Dumfriesshire.
His fame as poet had reconciled the
Armours to the connection, and having now regularly married
Jean, he brought her to Ellisland, and once more tried farming
for three years. Continued ill-success, however, led him, in
1791, to abandon Ellisland, and he moved to Dumfries, where he
had obtained a position in the Excise. But he was now thoroughly
discouraged; his work was mere drudgery; his tendency to take
his relaxation in debauchery increased the weakness of a
constitution early undermined; and he died at Dumfries in his
thirty-eighth year.
