But the youth of Burns was depressed by circum stances still more dispiriting than want of education. His father was unfortunate on the farm of Mount Oliphant. The family lived in a state of toil and poverty ; for seve ral years, butcher's meat was a stranger in their house, and Robert, who was the eldest, threshed in the barn at 13 years of age, and at 15 was the principal labourer on the farm. To this scanty diet, and exhaustion of strength, aggravated by the prospect of still deeper family dis tress from the declining health of his father, his brother ascribes the melancholy and nervousness which fixed on his constitution, and eventually drove him to b'neful re liefs. " This kind of life (he says,) the cheerless gloom of a hermit, and the unceasing moil of a galley slave, brought me to my 16th year, a little before which pe riod I first committed the sin of rhyming." The object of his first attachment was Mary Campbell, a simple Highland girl, his fellow-reaper in the same field. Ile was separated from this early idol of his attachment Ly the poverty of circumstances, which did not allow to either of them a choice of residence, or an opportunity of meeting after separation. His heart was not so tenacious of attachment as that of Pen-arch, (though his poetry speaks a more sincere language,) and we find him chang ing its object of idolatry several times before his mar riage. But if he was too honest to boast of unvaried fi delity, he was too faithful to his first love to hear of the death of Mary, without the sincerest agitation. He was a married man when he received the news. He entreat ed his wife Jane to sing to him all the tenderest airs, which she knew had power to solace his spirits in a state of emotion ; after which, he withdrew himself, and for several hours gave way to a flood of tears, and the deep est paroxysms of grief. After he was calmed, he wrote his Address to Mary in Heaven, a most exquisite ef fusion.
His father removed from Mount Oliphant to a neigh bouring farm, called Lochlea, and there Burns continu ed from his 17th to his 24th year. In his 23d year, he attempted to settle himself in business as a flax-dresser in the neighbouring town of Irwin ; but his shop took fire one unhappy evening, when he was celebrating the elcome of the new year with a carousal, his stock was consumed, and he was not so fond of the trade as to at tempt obtaining credit for a new adventure. His father died soon after, and his all went to his creditors ; but the family contrived to collect some money among them selves, and entered on the neighbouring farm of Moss g-iel. Robert now said to himself, " Come go too, I will be wise ;" he read farming books, calculated crops, and attended markets ; but neither this purposed wisdom of the poet, nor the steady sagacity of his brother Gilbert, could avert misfortunes. The soil of their farm was un improvable, and a succession of bad crops obliged them to abandon it, with great loss of stock, at the end of four years. During this period, Burns had become known in the neighbourhood as a maker of rhymes. A satire on the Calvinistical clergymen of the place had met with applause, not only from the laity, but from a certain des cription of the clergy, who relished humour. Holy Wil lie's Prayer next made its appearance, and alarmed the kirk-session so much, that they held several meetings to consult on taking vengeance on the author. " Unluckily for me (says the poet,) my wanderings led me on ano ther side, within point blank shot of thcir heaviest me tal." IIe alludes to the church censure, which he was obliged to undergo for his connexion with Jane Armour, afterwards his wife,—a connexion which could no longer be concealed at the time, when he was forced to quit his farm, and had resolved to push his fortunes on the other side of the Atlantic. For want of money to procure his
passage to Jamaica, he had thought of indenting himself as a servant. From this necessity he was extricated, by publishing his Poems at Kilmarnock : he reaped from them a temporary supply, but not sufficient for the pre sent to set aside his thoughts of emigration. In the mean time, his pride and affections were wounded al most to distraction, by the consequences of his amour. He loved the partner of his disgrace very tenderly, and, as all the atonemem he could offer to her, made a private marriage with her. But his affairs being still in a hope less state, he could form no other arrangement, than that he should lc ave her behind him at her father's, a sub stantial farmer, proposing, whilst ho pushed his fortune in Jamaica, that they should trust to better circumstances for their re-union. Toe parents of Jane were, however, more sensible to the misfortune of her having a husband so far r( moved, than to the disgrace of her having chil dren without the name of a wile, and persuaded her to renounce the marriage, which was inkemal. Burns, though he sufficiently proved his honour, by marrying her in his prosperity, consented that she should renounce him in his adversity. But, amidst the distraction and gloom of his prospects, the fame of his poems had made a rapid progress. A letter from Dr Blacklock induced him to repair immediately to Edinburgh,. after his chest was on the road to the port from which he was to sail, and after he had composed his farewell song to Caledo nia. The reception which he met with in his native ca pital is well known, as the impression which he made by the interesting powers of his conversation is still remem bered by many. He possessed, with all his practical folly and misconduct, a quick and almost intuitive power of reading human character. His manners, when he came to Edinburgh, are thus described by Professor Stewart : " They were then, as they continued ever af terwards, simple, manly, and independent,—strongly im pressive of conscious genius and worth, but without any thing that indicated forwardness, arrogance, or vanity. The attentions which he received in Edinburgh were such, as would have turned any head but his own. I cannot say that I perceived any unfavourable effect which they left upon his mind. He retained the same simplicity of manners and appearance, which struck me so forcibly when I first saw him in the country. From his conversation, I should have pronounced him to be fitted to excel in whatever walk of ambition he had cho sen to exert his abilities." Among the first encouragers of Burn's genius was the Earl of Glencairn, an accomplished and highminded nobleman ;—if he had lived longer, and if his power had equalled his wishes, Scotland (as his biographer re marks) might have still exulted in the genius, instead of lamenting the early fate of her bard. But unhappily at this period, Edinburgh contained an uncommon propor tion of men of considerable talents, but devoted to social excesses. Burns was as much beset, by the importunity of those admirers of his genius to share his society, as impelled by the vehemence of his character to indulge in their orgies. The sudden alteration in his habits of life,. operated on him physically as well as morally. The humble fare of an Ayrshire peasant he had exchanged for the luxuries of the Scottish metropolis ; and the ef fects of this change on his constitution could not be in considerable. He saw his danger, and at times formed resolutions to guard against it ; but he had embarked on the tide of dissipation, and was borne along its stream.