LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS.

PREFATORY REMARKS.

THOUGH the dialect in which many of the happiest effusions of Robert Burns are composed be peculiar to Scotland, yet his reputation has extended itself beyond the limits of that country, and his poetry has been admired as the offspring of original genius by persons of taste in every part of the sister islands. The interest excited by his early death and the distress of his infant family, has been felt in a remarkable manner wherever his writings have been known; and these posthumous volumes, which give to the world his works complete, and which it is hoped may raise his widow and children from penury, are printed and published B

VOL. I.

in

in England. It seems proper therefore to write the memoirs of his life, not with the view of their being read by Scotchmen only, but also by natives of England, and of other countries where the English language is spoken or understood.

Robert Burns was in reality what he has been represented to be, a Scottish peasant. To render the incidents of his humble story generally intelligible, it seems therefore advisable to prefix some observations on the character and situation of the order to which he belonged, a class of men distinguished by many peculiarities. By this means we shall form a more correct notion of the advantages with which he started, and of the obstacles which he surmounted. A few observations on the Scottish peasantry, will not perhaps be found unworthy of attention in other respects, and the subject is in a great measure new. Scotland has produced persons of high distinction in every branch of philosophy and literature, and her history, while a separate and independent nation, has been successfully explored. But the present character of the people was not then formed; the nation then presented features similar to those which the feudal system and the Catholic religion had diffused over Europe, modified indeed by the peculiar nature of her territory and climate. The reformation, by which such important changes were produced

produced on the national character, was speedily followed by the accession of the Scottish monarchs to the English throne, and the period which elapsed from that accession to the Union has been rendered memorable, chiefly, by those bloody convulsions in which both divisions of the island were involved, and which in a considerable degree concealed from the eye of the historian, the domestic history of the people, and the gradual variations in their condition and manners. Since the Union, Scotland, though the seat of two unsuccessful attempts to restore the house of Stewart to the throne, has enjoyed a comparative tranquillity, and it is since this period that the present character of her peasantry has been in a great measure formed, though the political causes affecting it are to be traced to the previous acts of her separate legislature.

A slight acquaintance with the peasantry of Scotland, will serve to convince an unprejudiced observer that they possess a degree of intelligence not generally found among the same class of men in the other countries of Europe. In the very humblest condition of the Scottish peasants every one can read, and most persons are more or less skilled in writing and arithmetic; and under the disguise of their uncouth appearance, and of their peculiar manners and dialect, a stranger will discover that they possess a curiosity, and have obtained a de

gree of information corresponding to these acquirements.

These advantages they owe to the legal provision made by the parliament of Scotland in 1646, for the establishment of a school in every parish throughout the kingdom, for the express purpose of educating the poor; a law which may challenge comparison with any act of legislation to be found in the records of history, whether we consider the wisdom of the ends in view, the simplicity of the means employed, or the provisions made to render these means effectual to their purpose. This excellent statute was repealed on the accession of Charles II. in 1660, together with all the other laws passed during the commonwealth, as not being sanctioned by the royal assent. It slept during the reigns of Charles and James, but was reenacted precisely in the same terms, by the Scottish parliament, after the revolution in 1696; and this is the last provision on the subject. Its effects on the national character may be considered to have commenced about the period of the Union, and doubtless it cooperated with the peace and security arising from that happy event, in producing the extraordinary change in favour of industry and good morals, which the character of the common people of Scotland has since undergone. See appendix, No. I. Note A.

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