William Burnes might enjoy a mental feast. Then the labouring oar was shifted to some other hand. The father and the son sat down with us, when we enjoyed a conversation, wherein solid reasoning, sensible remark, and a moderate seasoning of jocularity, were so nicely blended, as to render it palatable to all parties. Robert had ́a hundred questions to ask me about the French, &c., and the father, who had always rational information in view, had still some question to propose to my more learned friends, upon moral or natural philosophy, or some such interesting subjeet. Mrs Burnes, too, was of the party as much as possible. But still the house affairs would draw her Which ever as she could with haste dispatch, And particularly that of her husband. At all times, and in all companies, she listened to him with a more marked attention than to any body else. When under the necessity of being absent while he was speaking, she seemed to regret as a real loss, that she had missed what the good man had said. This worthy woman, Agnes Brown, had the most thorough esteem for her husband, of any woman I ever knew. I can by no means wonder that she highly esteemed him; for I myself have always considered William Burnes as by far the best of the human race that ever I had the plea sure of being acquainted with-and many a wor thy character I have known. I can cheerfully join with Robert in the last line of his epitaph (borrowed from Goldsmith), And ev'n his failings lean'd to virtue's side.' "He was an excellent husband, if I may judge from his assiduous attention to the ease and come fort of his worthy partner; and from her affeé tionate behaviour to him, as well as her unwearied attention to the duties of a mother. "He was a tender and affectionate father; he took pleasure in leading his children in the path of virtue; not in driving them, as some parents do, to the performance of duties to which they themselves are averse. He took care to find fault but very seldom; and, therefore, when he did rebuke, he was listened to with a kind of reveren. tial awe. A look of disapprobation was felt; a reproof was severely so; and a stripe with the tawx, even on the skirt of the coat, gave heart-felt pain, produced a loud lamentation, and brought forth a flood of tears. "He had the art of gaining the esteem and good will of those that were labourers under him. I think I never saw him angry but twice; the one time it was with the foreman of the band, for not reaping the field as he was desired; and the other time it was with an old man for using smutty inuendos and double entendres. Were every foulmouth'd old man to receive a seasonable check in this way, it would be to the advantage of the ri sing generation. As he was at no time overbearing to inferiors, he was equally incapable of that passive, pitiful, paltry spirit, that induces some people to keep booing and booing in the presence of a great man. He always treated superiors with a becoming respect; but he never gave the smallest encouragement to aristocratical arrogance. But I must not pretend to give you a description of all the manly qualities, the rational and Christian vir. tues, of the venerable William Burnes. Time would fail me. I shall only add, that he carefully practis ed every known duty, and avoided every thing that was criminal; or, in the apostle's words, Herein did he exercise himself, in living a life void of of O for a fence towards God, and towards men. world of men of such dispositions! We should then have no wars. I have often wished, for the good of mankind, that it were as customary to honour and perpetuate the memory of those who excel in moral rectitude, as it is to extol what are called heroic actions:-then would the mausoleum of the friend of my youth, overtop and surpass most of the monuments I see in Westminster Abbey. He "Although I cannot do justice to the character of this worthy man, yet you will perceive, from these few particulars, what kind of person had the principal hand in the education of our poet. spoke the English language with more propriety (both with respect to diction and pronunciation) than any man I ever knew, with no greater advantages. This had a very good effect on the boys, who began to talk, and reason like men, much sooner than their neighbours. I do not recollect any of their cotemporaries at my little seminary, who afterwards made any great figure as literary characters, except Dr. Tennant, who was chaplain to colonel Fullarton's regiment, and whe is now in the East Indies. He is a man of genius and learning; yet affable, and free from pedantry. "Mr. Burnes, in a short time, found that he had overrated Mount Oliphant, and that he could not rear his numerous family upon it.-After be ing there some years, he removed to Lochlea, in the parish of Tarbolton, where, I believe, Robert wrote most of his poems. "But here, sir, you will permit me to pause. I can tell you but little more relative to our poet. I shall, however, in my next, send you a copy of one of his letters to me, about the year 1783*. I received one since, but it is mislaid. Please remember me, in the best manner, to my worthy friend, Mr. Adair, when you see him, or write to him." Hart-street, Bloomsbury-square, * See General Correspondence, No. I. As the narrative of Gilbert Burns was written at a time when he was ignorant of the existence of the preceding narrative of his brother, so this letter of Mr. Murdoch was written without his having any knowledge that either of his pupils had been employed on the same subject. The three relations serve, therefore, not merely to illustrate, but to authenticate each other. Though the information they convey might have been presented within a shorter compass, by reducing the whole into one unbroken narrative, it is scarcely to be doubted, that the intelligent reader will be far more gratified by a sight of these original documents themselves. Under the humble roof of his parents, it ap pears, indeed, that our poet had great advantages; but his opportunities of information at school, were more limited as to time, than they usually are among his countrymen, in his condition of life; and the acquisitions which he made, and the poetical talent which he exerted, under the pres sure of early and incessant toil, and of inferior, and perhaps scanty nutriment, testify at once the extraordinary foree and activity of his mind. his frame of body he rose nearly to five feet ten inches, and assumed the proportions that indicate agility as well as strength. In the various labours of the farm he excelled all his competitors. Gilbert Burns declares, that in mowing, the exercise that tries all the muscles most severely, Robert was the only man that, at the end of a summer's day, he was ever obliged to acknowledge as his In But, though our poet gave the powers of his body to the labours of the farm, he refused to bestow on them his thoughts or his cares. While the ploughshare under his guidance passed through the sward, or the grass fell under the sweep of his seythe, he was humming the songs of his country, musing on the deeds of ancient valour, or rapt in the illusions of fancy, as her enchantments rose on his view. Happily, the Sunday is yet a sabbath, on which man and beast rest from their labours. On this day, therefore, Burns could indulge in a freer intercourse with the charms of nature. It was his delight to wander alone on the banks of the Ayr, whose stream is now immortal, and to listen to the song of the blackbird, at the close of the summer's day. But still greater was his pleasure, as he himself informs us, in walking on the sheltered side of a wood, in a cloudy winter day, and hearing the storm rave among the trees; and more elevated still, his delight, to ascend some eminence during the agitations of nature, to stride along its sum mit, while the lightning flashed around him, and, amidst the howlings of the tempest, to apostro phize the spirit of the storm. Such situations he declares most favourable to devotion-" Rapt in enthusiasm, I seem to ascend towards Him, who walks on the wings of the wind!" If other proofs were wanting of the character of his genius, this might determine it. The heart of the poet is pe culiarly awake to every impression of beauty and sublimity; but, with the higher order of poets, the beautiful is less attractive than the sublime. The gaiety of many of Burns' writings, and the lively, and even cheerful colouring with which he has pourtrayed his own character, may lead some persons to suppose, that the melancholy which hung over him towards the end of his days, was not an original part of his constitution. It is not to be doubted, indeed, that this melancholy acquired a darker hue in the progress of his life : but, independent of his own, and of his brother's testimony, evidence is to be found among his pa pers, that he was subject very early to those depressions of mind, which are, perhaps, not wholly separable from the sensibility of genius, but which in him arose to an uncommon degree. The following letter, addressed to his father, will serve as a proof of this observation. It was written at the time when he was learning the business of a flax-dresser, and is dated |