ΤΟ THE

NOBLEMEN AND GENTLEMEN

OF THE

CALEDONIAN HUNT.

My Lords and Gentlemen,

A SCOTISH BARD, proud of the name, and whose

highest ambition is to sing in his Country's service, where shall he so properly look for patronage as to the illustrious Names of his native Land; those who bear the honours and inherit the virtues of their Ancestors? The Poetic Genius of my Country found me, as the prophetic bard Elijah did Elisha-at the PLOUGH; and threw her inspiring mantle over me. She bade me sing the loves, the joys, the rural scenes, and rural pleasures of my natal soil in my native tongue: I tuned my wild, artless notes, as she inspired. She whispered me to come to this ancient Metropolis of Caledonia, and lay my songs under your honoured protection; I now obey her dic

tates.

Though much indebted to your goodness, I do not approach you, my Lords and Gentlemen, in the usual style of dedication, to thank you for past favours; that path is so hackneyed by prostituted learning, that honest rusticity is ashamed of it. Nor do I present this Address with the venal soul of a servile Author, looking for a continuation of those favours. -I was bred to the Plough, and am independent. I come to claim the common Scotish name you, my illustrious countrymen, and to tell the world that I glory in the title. I come to congratulate my Country, that the blood of her ancient heroes

with

still runs uncontaminated; and that from your courage, knowledge, and public spirit, she may expect protection, wealth, and liberty. In the last place, I come to proffer my warmest wishes to the Great Fountain of Honour, the Monarch of the Universe, for your welfare and happiness.

When you go forth to waken the Echoes, in the ancient and favourite amusement of your Forefathers, may Pleasure ever be of your party; and may Social Joy await your return. When harassed in courts or camps with the jostlings of bad men and bad measures, may the honest consciousness of injured worth attend your return to your native Seats! and may Domestic Happiness, with a smiling welcome, meet you at your gates! May corruption shrink at your kindling indignant glance; and may tyranny in the Ruler, and licentiousness in the People, equally find an inexorable foe!

I have the honour to be,

With the sincerest gratitude,

And highest respect,

My Lords and Gentlemen,

Your most devoted humble servant,

Edinburgh, April 4, 1787.

ROBERT BURNS..

THE

LIFE

OF

ROBERT BURNS.

THE

HIS celebrated Bard was born on the 29th of January, 1759 on the banks of the Doon, about two miles from Ayr, near to which stand the ruins of Alloway Kirk, rendered immortal by his admirable Tale of " Tam o' Shanter."

His Father, William Burns, was a farmer in Ayrshire, a man of very respectable character, and of more than ordinary iuformation and capacity. It is stated by Burns, that, to his father's Observations and experience, he was indebted for most of his little pretensions to wisdom. From such a son this eulogium cannot be thought undeserving. In 1757 he married Agnes Brown. Our poet was the first fruit of this union. He was sent to school when about six years old; aud so great was his progress, that he became a critic in English Grammar at the age of eleven, and was also remarkable for the correctness of his pronunciation. He says of himself, in his letter to Dr. Moore, "At those years I was by no means a favorite 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; I say, ideot piety, because I was then but a child. Though it cost the school master some thrashings, I made an excellent English Scholar. In my 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 sup pose, the largest collection in the country of tales and songs concerning devils, ghosts, fairies, brownies, witches, warlocks, spunkeys, kelpies, elf-candles, dead-lights, wraiths, apparitions, cantraips, giants, enchanted towers, dragons, and other trum pery. This cultivated the latent seeds of poetry."

Before he was nine years of age, he had acquired a strong propensity for reading, which, however, was greatly checked by his want of access to books. He read the life of Haunibal through with great avidity, and devoured every other book that came in his way, with an eagerness truly astonishing. Mr. Murdoch, to whom our poet was indebted for the rudiments of his educatiou, remarks, that "Gilbert (his brother) always appeared to me to possess a more lively imagination, and to be more of the wit than Robert. Robert's ear, in particular, was remarkably dull, and his voice untuueable. It was long before I

could get him to distinguish one tune from another

face was generally grave, and plative, and thoughtful mind. thee I mean to live !'"

Robert's

expressive of a serious, contemGilbert's face said, ' Mirth, with

At Whitsuntide, 1766, our poet's father, who for eight years had acted as gardener to Mr. Ferguson, of Denholm, obtained from that gentleman a lease of the small farm of Mount Oliphant in Ayrshire, as an acknowledgement for his faithful services. He also advanced 100l. to enable him to stock his farm. His family consisted of a wife and six children. The soil of this farm was extremely barren. This, with the loss of cattle and other accidents, involved them in many difficulties. To combat these, the whole family observed the most rigid economy, abstaining from butchers-meat for years together, and toiling early and late. However, notwithstanding all their joint exertions, it proved a ruinous concern. To add to their misfortunes, their patron and friend Mr. Ferguson died, and they fell into the hands of a merciless factor, whose picture is so ably drawn in the tale of the "Twa Dogs.'

The first circumstance which induced our Poet to string bis lyre, and taught him to warble "wood notes wild" at the age of fifteen is extremely interesting, This kind of life, (says he, in his' letter to Dr. Moore,) the cheerless gloom of the 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 Scotish idiom; she was a bonnie sweet sonsie lass.' In short, she altogether, unwittingly to herself, initiated me in that sweet delicious passion, which in spite of acid disappointment, ginhorse prudence, and luke-warm philosophy, I hold to be the first of human joys, our darest blessing here below. 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 au Æolian harp; and particularly, why my pulse beat such a furious rattan, when I looked and fingered over her little hand, to pick out the cruel nettle-stings and thistles.

"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.

"It is during the time that we have lived on this farm that my little story is most eventful. I was at the beginning of this period, perhaps, the most ungainly aukward 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. A collection of songs was my vade mecum. I pored over them driving my cart, or walking to labour, song by song, verse by verse; carefully noting the true tender, or sublime, from affectation and fustian. I am convinced I owe to this practice much of my critic-craft, such as it is.

"In my seventeenth year, to give my manners a brush, I went to a country dancing-school. My father had an antipathy against these meetings, and my going was, what to this moment I repent, in opposition to his wishes. My father was subject to strong passions; from that instauce of disobedience in me, he took a 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. The great misfortune of my life. was to want an aim. I had felt early 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 eutailed 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 entrauce. 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 that made me fly solitude; add to these incentives to social life, my repu tation for bookish knowledge, a certain wild logical talent and 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 1 among them. But far beyond all other impulses of my heart, was un penchant à l'adorable moitiée du genre humain. 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 as a proper second on these occasions; and I dare say, I feltas much pleasure in being in the secret of half the loves of the parish of Tarbolton, as ever did statesman in knowing the iutrigues of half the courts of Europe. The very goose-feather in