BURNS, ROBERT, the great lyric poet of Scotland, born near Ayr, Jan. 25, 1759, his father being a gardener, and later a small farmer. He was in structed in the ordinary branches of an English education by a teacher engaged by his father and a few neighbors; to these he afterward added French and a little mathematics. But most of his edu cation was got from the general reading of books, to which he gave himself with passion. In this manlier he learned what the best English poets might teach him, and cultivated the instincts for poetry which had been implanted in his nature. At an early age, he had to assist in the labors of the farm, and when only 15 years old he had almost to do the work of a man. His father dying in 1784, he took a small farm (Mossgiel), in conjunction with his younger brother Gilbert. He now began to produce poetical pieces which at tracted the notice of his neighbors and gained him considerable reputation. His first lines had been written some time previously, having been inspired by love, a passion to which he was peculiarly sus ceptible. An attachment formed by the poet for a local belle, Jean Armour, ren dered his position so uncomfortable that he determined to emigrate to Jamaica, and engaged himself as assistant over seer on a plantation there. To obtain the funds necessary for the voyage, he was induced to publish, by subscription, a volume of his poetical effusions. It was printed at Kilmarnock in 1786, and Burns, having thus obtained the assist ance he expected, was about to set sail from his native land, when he was drawn to Edinburgh by a letter from Dr. Blacklock to an Ayrshire friend of his an the poet, recommending that he should take advantage of the general ad miration his poems had excited, and pub lish a new edition of them. This advice was eagerly adopted, and the result ex ceeded his most sanguine expectations.
After remaining more than a year in the Scottish metropolis, admired, flattered, and caressed by persons of rank, for tune, or talents, he retired to the country with the sum of some £500, which he had realized by the second publication of his poems. A part of this sum he advanced to his brother, and with the remainder took a considerable farm (Ellisland) near Dumfries, to which he subsequently added the office of exciseman. He now married Jean Armour. But the farming at Ellisland was not a success, and in about three years Burns removed to Dumfries and relied on his employment as an exciseman alone. He continued to exereise his pen, particularly in the composition of a number of beautiful songs adapted to old Scottish tunes. But his residence in Dumfries, and the so ciety of the idle and the dissipated who gathered around him there, attracted by the brilliant wit that gave its charm to their convivialities, had an evil effect on Burns, whom disappointment and mis fortune were now making somewhat reckless. In the winter of 1795 his con stitution, broken by cares, irregularities, and passions, fell into premature decline, and, on July 21, 1796, a rheumatic fever terminated his life and sufferings at the early age of 37. His character, though marred by imprudence, was never con taminated by duplicity or meanness. He was an honest, proud, warm-hearted man, combining sound understanding with high passions and a vigorous and excursive imagination. He was alive to every species of emotion; and he is one of the few poets who have at once ex celled in humor, in tenderness, and in sublimity.