me. and its incidents are as well known to you as to His genius having procured him your pa tronage and friendship, this gave rise to the cor respondence between you, in which I believe his sentiments were delivered with the most respectful, but most unreserved confidence, and which only terminated with the last days of his life." This narrative of Gilbert Burns may serve as a commentary on the preceding sketch of our poet's life by himself. It will be seen, that the distraction of mind which he mentions (p. 36), arose from the distress and sorrow in which he had involved his future wife.-The whole circumstances attending this connexion are certainly of a very singular nature*. The reader will perceive, from the foregoing narrative, how much the children of William Burnes were indebted to their father, who was certainly a man of uncommon talents; though it does not appear that he possessed any portion of that vivid imagination for which the subject of these memoirs was distinguished. In page 30, it is observed by our poet, that his father had an unaccountable antipathy to dancing-schools, and that his attending one of these, brought on him his displeasure, and even dislike. On this observation Gilbert has made the following remark, which seems entitled to implicit credit.-" I wonder how Robert could attribute to our father that lasting resentment of his going to a dancing-school against his will, of which he was incapable. I belive the truth was, that he about this time began to see the dangerous impetuosity of my brother's passions, as well as his not being amenable In page 37, the poet mentions his-" skulking from covert to covert, under the terror of a jail."The pack of the law" were "uncoupled at his heels," to oblige him to find security for the maintenance of his twin-children, whom he was not permitted to legitimate by a marriage with their mother! to counsel, which often irritated my father; and which he would naturally think a dancing-school was not likely to correct. But he was proud of Robert's genius, which he bestowed more expense in cultivating, than on the rest of the family, in the instances of sending him to Ayr and KirkOswald's schools; and he was greatly delighted with his warmth of heart, and his conversational powers. He had, indeed, that dislike of dancingschools which Robert mentions; but so far overcame it during Robert's first month of attendance, that he allowed all the rest of the family that were fit for it, to accompany him during the second month. Robert excelled in dancing, and was for some time distractedly fond of it." In the original letter to Dr. Moore, our poet described his ancestors as "renting lands of the noble Keiths of Marischal, and as having had the honour of sharing their fate. I do not," continues he," use the word honour with any refe rence to political principles; loyal and disloyal, I take to be merely relative terms, in that ancient and formidable court, known in this country by the name of Club-law, where the right is always with the strongest. But those who dare welcome ruin, and shake hands with infamy, for what they sincerely believe to be the cause of their God, or their king, are, as Mark Antony says in Shakespeare, of Brutus and Cassius, honourable men. I mention this circumstance because it threw my father on the world at large." This paragraph has been omitted in printing the letter, at the desire of Gilbert Burns, and it would have been unnecessary to have noticed it on the present occasion, had not several manuscript copies of that letter been in circulation. "I do not know," observes Gilbert Burns, "how my brother could be misled in the account he has given of the Jacobitism of his ancestors.-I be lieve the earl Marischal forfeited his title and estate in 1715, before my father was born; and among a collection of parish certificates in his possession, I have read one, stating that the bearer had no concern in the late wicked rebellion." On the information of one who knew William Burnes soon after he arrived in the county of Ayr, it may be mentioned, that a report did prevail, that he had taken the field with the young Chevalier, a report which the certificate mentioned by his son, was, perhaps, intended to counteract. Strangers from the north, settling in the low country of Scotland, were in those days liable to suspi cions, of having been, in the familiar phrase of the country, "Out in the forty-five" (1745), espe cially when they had any stateliness or reserve about them, as was the case with William Burnes. It may easily be conceived, that our poet would cherish the belief of his father's having been engaged in the daring enterprise of prince CharlesEdward. The generous attachment, the heroic valour, and the final misfortunes of the adherents of the house of Stewart, touched with sympathy his youthful and ardent mind, and influenced his original political opinions*. There is another observation of Gilbert Burns on his brother's narrative, in which some persons will be interested. It refers to page 27, where "My the poet speaks of his youthful friends. brother," says Gilbert Burns, "seems to set off his early companions in too consequential a manner. The principal acquaintance we had in Ayr, while boys, were four sons of Mr. Andrew M'Culloch, a distant relation of my mother's, who kept a tea-shop, and had made a little money in the contraband trade, very common at that time. He died while the boys were young, and my father was nominated one of the tutors. The two eldest were bred shopkeepers, the third a surgeon, and the youngest, the only surviving one, was bred in a counting-house in Glasgow, where he is now at respectable merchant. I believe all these boys went to the West Indies. Then there were two sons of Dr. Malcolm, whom I have mentioned in The father of our poet is described by one who knew him towards the latter end of his life, as above the common stature, thin, and bent with labour. His countenance was serious and expressive, and the seanty locks on his head were grey. He was of a religious turn of mind, and, as is usual among the Scottish peasantry, a good deal conversant in speculative theology. There is in Gilbert's hands, a little manual of religious belief, in the form of a dialogue between a father and his son, composed by him for the use of his children, in which the benevolence of his heart seems. to have led him to soften the rigid Calvinism of the Scottish church, into something approaching to Arminianism. He was a devout man, and in the practice of calling his family together to join in prayer. It is known that the following exqui. site picture, in the Cotter's Saturday Night represents William Burnes and his family at their evening devotions. The cheerful supper done, with serious face, my letter to Mrs. Dunlop. The eldest, a very worthy young man, went to the East Indies, where he had a commission in the army; he is the person whose heart my brother says the Munny Begum scenes could not corrupt. The other, by the interest of lady Wallace, got an ensigney in a regiment, raised by the duke of Hamilton, during the American war. I believe neither of them are now (1797) alive. We also knew the present Dr. Paterson, of Ayr, and a younger brother of his now in Jamaica, who were much younger than us. I had almost forgot to mention Dr. Charles, of Ayr, who was a little older than my brother, and with whom we had a longer and closer intimacy than with any of the others, which did not, however, continue in after-life. * Fire, The sire turns o'er, with patriarchal grace, His lyart haffets wearing thin and bare; And let us worship God!" he says, with solemn air. They chaunt their artless notes in simple guise; The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays: The tickl'd ears no heart-felt raptures raise; No unison have they with our Creator's praise. The priest-like father reads the sacred pagell, With Amalek's ungracious progeny; Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre. Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme, Gray temples. + Chooses. Names of tunes in Scottish psalmody. The tunes mentioned in this poem, are the three which were used by William Burnes, who had no greater variety. § Adds fuel to. The course of family devotion among the Scotch, is first to sing a psalm, then to read a portion of scripture, and lastly to kneel down in prayer. |