POEMS AND SONGS OF ROBERT BURNS




Preface

Robert Burns was born near Ayr, Scotland, 25th of January, 1759. He was
the son of William Burnes, or Burness, at the time of the poet's birth a
nurseryman on the banks of the Doon in Ayrshire. His father, though
always extremely poor, attempted to give his children a fair education,
and Robert, who was the eldest, went to school for three years in a
neighboring village, and later, for shorter periods, to three other
schools in the vicinity. But it was to his father and to his own reading
that he owed the more important part of his education; and by the time
that he had reached manhood he had a good knowledge of English, a
reading knowledge of French, and a fairly wide acquaintance with the
masterpieces of English literature from the time of Shakespeare to his
own day. In 1766 William Burness rented on borrowed money the farm of
Mount Oliphant, and in taking his share in the effort to make this
undertaking succeed, the future poet seems to have seriously
overstrained his physique. In 1771 the family move to Lochlea, and Burns
went to the neighboring town of Irvine to learn flax-dressing. The only
result of this experiment, however, was the formation of an acquaintance
with a dissipated sailor, whom he afterward blamed as the prompter of
his first licentious adventures. His father died in 1784, and with his
brother Gilbert the poet rented the farm of Mossgiel; but this venture
was as unsuccessful as the others. He had meantime formed an irregular
intimacy with Jean Armour, for which he was censured by the
Kirk-session. As a result of his farming misfortunes, and the attempts