scrape into which he fell soon after "he put his hand to the plough again." He was compelled, according to the then all but universal custom of rural parishes in Scotland, to do penance in church, before the congregation, in consequence of the birth of an illegitimate child; and whatever may be thought of the propriety of such exhibitions, there can be no difference af opinion as to the culpable levity with which he describes the nature of his offence, and the still more reprehensible bitterness with which, in his Epistle to Rankine,' he inveighs against the clergyman, who, in rebuking him, only performed what was then a regular part of the clerical duty, and a part of it that could never have been at all agreeable to the worthy man whom he satirizes under the appellation of "Daddie Auld.” "The Poet's Welcome to an Illegitimate Child" was composed on the same occasion—a piece in which some very manly feelings are expressed, along with others which it can give no one pleasure to contemplate. There is a song in honour of the same occasion, or a similar one, about the same period, "The Rantin' Dog the Daddie o't," which exhibits the poet as glorying, and only glorying, in his shame.2 1 There is much humour in some of the verses; as, I gaed a roving wi' the gun, And, as the twilight was begun, Thought nane wad ken," &c. 2 [The biographer here has made some inconsiderate misstatements, for which he was severely reflected on by Sir Harris Nicolas in a memoir of the poet prefixed to his "Aldine edition" of the Poems. He properly pointed out that the song called "The Rantin' Dog the Daddie o't," equally with the "Poet's Welcome," is remarkable for the tenderness it displays towards both mother and child. Some other composition of the bard on this topic must have been hanging in Mr. Lockhart's When I consider his tender affection for the surviving members of his own family, and the reverence with which he ever regarded the memory of the father whom he had so recently buried, I cannot believe that Burns has thought fit to record in verse all the feelings which this exposure excited in his bosom. “To waive (in his own language) the quantum of the sin," he who, two years afterwards, wrote the "Cotter's Saturday Night," had not, we may be sure, hardened his heart to the thought of bringing additional sorrow and unexpected shame to the fireside of a widowed mother. But his false pride recoiled from letting his jovial associates guess how little he was able to drown the whispers of the still small voice, and the fermenting bitterness of a mind ill at ease within itself, escaped (as may be too often traced in the history of satirists) in the shape of angry sarcasms against others, who, whatever their private errors might be, had at least done him no wrong. It is impossible not to smile at one item of consolation which Burns proposes to himself on this occasion :— 66 The mair they talk, I'm kenn'd the better; E'en let them clash!" This is indeed a singular manifestation of "the last infirmity of noble minds." memory; if not the "Epistle to Rankine," it may have been the "Reply to a Tailor." Certainly the words quoted from the "Welcome," "The mair they talk, I'm kenn'd the better!" display a singular manifestation of the poet's early aspiration, "To be rich was not my wish, yet to be great was charming! " but at the same time they do not justify the harsh allegation challenged by Sir Harris.] TH CHAPTER III. "The star that rules my luckless lot And damn'd my fortune to the groat; Has bless'd me wi' a random shot O' country wit.” HREE months before the death of William Burnes, Robert and Gilbert took the farm of Mossgiel, in in the neighbouring parish of Mauchline, with the view of providing a shelter for their parents in the storm, which they had seen gradually thickening, and knew must soon burst; and to this place the whole family removed on William's death.1 "It was stocked by the property and individual savings of the whole family (says Gilbert), and was a joint concern among us. Every member of the family was allowed ordinary wages for the labour he performed on the farm. My brother's allowance and mine was £7 per annum each. And during the whole time this family concern lasted, as well as during the preceding period at Lochlea, Robert's expenses never, in any one year, exceeded his slender income." "I entered on this farm," says the poet, "with a full re 1 The farm consisted of 119 acres, and the rent was £90. [But it is by no means certain that the family shifted their residence to Mossgiel till Whitsunday following. Indeed, the presumption is all against such a supposition, because their predecessor at Mossgiel was entitled to retain possession of the house there until 25 May.] solution, Come, go to! I will be wise. I read farming books, I calculated crops, I attended markets, and, in short, in spite of the devil, and the world, and the flesh, I believe I should have been a wise man; but the first year, from unfortunately buying bad seed, the second, from a late harvest, we lost half our crops. This overset all my wisdom, and I returned like the dog to his vomit, and the sow that was washed, to her wallowing in the mire.”—(Autob., 1787). "At the time that our poet took the resolution of becoming wise, he procured," says Currie, "a little book of blank paper, with the purpose expressed on the first page, of making farming memorandums. These farming memoranda are curious enough," that biographer slyly adds, "and a specimen may gratify the reader." 1 Specimens accordingly he gives; as, 1 "O why the deuce should I repine I'm twenty-three, and five foot nine- "O leave novells, ye Mauchline belles, Your fine Tom Jones and Grandisons, They make your youthful fancies reel, And then ye're prey for Rob Mossgiel," &c. The four years 2 during which Burns resided on this cold [This quotation from Dr. Currie's first vol., page 355, has hitherto appeared in every edition of the present work (through some misapprehension of the author) as if the words were those of Gilbert Burns, and formed part of his narrative. But the words are distinctly Currie's own, and in the present text, the proper correction is made accordingly.] 2 [Why four years? The poet's residence there, from Whitsunday, 1784, to Whitsunday, 1786, when his poems were at the press to raise E and ungrateful farm of Mossgiel, were the most important of his life. It was then that his genius developed its highest energies; on the works produced in those years his fame was first established, and must ever continue mainly to rest it was then also that his personal character came out in all its brightest lights, and in all but its darkest shadows; and indeed, from the commencement of this period, the history of the man may be traced, step by step, in his own immortal writings. : Burns now began to know that Nature had meant him for a poet; and diligently, though as yet in secret, he laboured in what he felt to be his destined vocation. Gilbert continued for some time to be his chief, often indeed his only confidant; and anything more interesting and delightful than this excellent man's account of the manner in which the poems included in the first of his brother's publications were composed, is certainly not to be found in the annals of literary history. The reader has already seen, that long before the earliest of these poems was known beyond the domestic circle, the strength of Burns's understanding, and the keenness of his wit, as displayed in his ordinary conversation, and more particularly at masonic meetings and debating clubs (of which funds to help him off to Jamaica, embraced a period of two years only. He continued there till the following November, when he removed to Edinburgh; and from that time till Whitsunday, 1788, when he entered on possession of Ellisland, he cannot well be said to have been a resident at Mossgiel.] [This statement requires to be considerably qualified. We have seen that Gilbert knew nothing of Robert's first dancing-school escapade; we shall see that although residing under the same roof with his brother, when the latter cantered off to Edinburgh on horseback, on his first journey to that city, he allowed Dr. Currie to tell the world that the journey was performed on foot; moreover, the poet wrote his Autokiography in the parlour of Mossgiel, and Gilbert was only made aware of its existence some years after his brother's death.] |