BURNS, ROBERT, the great lyric poet of Scotland, was b. 25th Jau., 1759, in a small cottage near Ayr. His father, then a nursery-gardener, and afterwards the occupant of a small farm, had to struggle all his life with poverty and misfortune, but made every exertion to give his children a good education; and the young poet enjoyed an amount of instruction and miscellaneous reading which, to those unacquainted with the habits of the Scottish peasantry, would seem incompatible with the straitened circumstances and early toil which were his lot. About his 16th year, lie began composing verses in the Scottish dialect, which attracted notice in the vicinity, and extended the circle of his acquaintance; and thus he became exposed to temptations which, acting on an extremely sociable and passionate disposition, broke in upon the previous sobriety and correctness of his life. A small farm, on which he had entered with his brother in 1781, proved far from a prosperous undertaking; and being harassed and embittered by other misfor tunes—the results of imprudence—he resolved to leave his native land, and go to Jamaica. Partly to procure the means of paying his passage, he published a collection of his poems at Kilmarnock in 1786. The reception these met with was highly favor able, and his genius was recognized in quarters where he had not looked for notice. While preparing to embark, he received a letter encouraging him to go to Edinburgh, and issue a new edition. This was the turning-point of his life. During his stay in the Scottish metropolis, he associated with all that was eminent in letters, rank, and fashion, and his conversational powers excited little less admiration than his poetry. The profits of the publication were considerable, and enabled him to take the farm of Ellislaud, near Dumfries, where he settled in 1788, having publicly ratified his marriage with Jean Armour. With his farm he conjoined the office of an exciseman; but after 3 or 4 years, he was obliged to give up farming, and from that time lived in Dumfries, depen dent on his salary from the excise, which, at first, only £50, never rose above £70. The striking contrasts in the lot of the rich and the poor with which his residence in Edin burgh had impressed him, made him hail the French revolution with enthusiasm; and some imprudent expressions of his having been reported to the authorities, destroyed his prospects of promotion in the service, and only the interference of an influential friend prevented him from losing his office. Such was then the terror of innovation,
and the hatred of everything like liberal opinions, that many of the better classes, who had ftlted the poet, now shunned the "Jacobin," as they stigmatized him. Imbittered by what he felt to be injustice, he recklessly allowed those habits of dissipation to grow upon him which made the more respectable of all classes look coldly on him; and the remorse thus occasioned in his calmer moments aggravated that tendency to melancholy which the gloom and toil of his early years had probably implanted in his i constitution. Broken in health, lie died 21st July, 1796.
The poetry of B. is purely the outpouring of the moment—the response of the feel ings to the iitanediate circumstances of life. Its charm and power lie in the justness of the feelings expressed, and in the truthfulness and freshness which it derives direct from life. Seldom have such manliness, tenderness, and passion been united as in the songs of Burns. They formed the first awakening of the spirit of true poetry in Britain after a long slumber. The popularity that B. instantly acquired has continued unabated, not only in his native Scotland, but wherever English is spoken; his poems have also been translated into almost every European tongue. Dr. Currie, of Liverpool, pub lished the first collected edition of his poems and letters, with a life (4 vols., Lond., 1800). Several more complete collections have appeared since, such as that by Allan Cunningham (8 vols., Loud. 1834), and that by Mr. Scott Douglas, of which the first volumes appeared in 1877. A life of B., by Lockhart, appeared, Edin. 1828. In The Life and Works of Burns (Edin. 1851-52), by R. Chambers, the poems are incorporated in the narrative in chronological order.
In 1859, the centenary of R's birth was celebrated with unparalleled enthusiasm, not only in every city and almost in every village of Scotland, but in the chief cities of England, and throughout America, the British colonies, and India.