Page:The poetical works of Robert Burns.djvu/19

society in Ayr; among which are named Derham's Physico- and Astro-Theology, and Ray's Wisdom of God. Stackhouse's History of the Bible was in the house, and from it Robert contrived to extract a considerable knowledge of ancient history. Mr. Murdoch sometimes visited the family, and brought books with him. On one occasion he read Titus Andronicus aloud at Mount Oliphant, and Robert's pure taste rose in a passionate revolt against its coarse cruelties and unspiritual horrors. When about fourteen years of age, he and his brother Gilbert were sent "week about during a summer quarter," to a parish-school two or three miles distant from the farm, to improve themselves in penmanship. Next year, about midsummer, Robert spent three weeks with his tutor Murdoch, who had established himself in Ayr. The first week was given to a careful revision of the English Grammar, the remaining fortnight was devoted to French, and on his return he brought with him the Adventures of Telemachus and a French Dictionary, and with these he used to work alone during his evenings. He also turned his attention to Latin, but does not seem to have made much progress therein, although in after life he could introduce a sentence or so of the ancient tongue to adorn his correspondence. By the time the family had left Mount Oliphant, he had torn the heart out of a good many books, among which were several theological works, some of a philosophical nature, a few novels, the Spectator, Shakspeare's, Pope's Homer, and above all, the Works of Allan Ramsay. These, with the Bible, a collection of English songs, and a collection of letters, were almost the only books he was acquainted with when he broke out in literature. No great library certainly, but he had a quick eye and ear, and all Ayrshire was an open page to him, filled with strange matter, which he only needed to read off into passionate love-song or blistering satire.

In his sixteenth year the family removed from Mount Oliphant to Lochlea. Here Robert and Gilbert were employed regularly on the farm, and received from their father 7l. per annum of wages. Up till now, Burns had led a solitary self-contained life, with no companionship save his own thoughts and what books he could procure, with no acquaintances save his father, his brother, and Mr. Murdoch. This seclusion was now about to cease. In his seventeenth year, "to give his manners a finish" he went to a country dancing school,—an important step in life for any young fellow, a specially important step for a youth of his years, heart, brain, and passion. In the Torbolton dancing school the outer world with its fascinations burst upon him. It was like attaining majority and freedom. It was like coming up to London from the provinces. Here he first felt the sweets of society, and could assure himself of the truthfulness of his innate sense of superiority. At the dancing school, he encountered other young rustics laudably ambitious of "brushing up their manners," and, what was of more consequence, he encountered their partners also. This was his first season, and he was as gay as a young man of fortune who had entered on his first London one. His days were spent in hard work, but the evenings were his own, and these he seems to have spent almost entirely in sweethearting on his own account, or on that of others. His brother tells us that he was almost constantly in love. His innamoratas were the freckled beauties who milked cows and hoed potatoes; but his passionate imagination attired them with the most wonderful graces. He was Antony, and he found a Cleopatra—for whom the world were well lost—in every harvest-field. For some years onward he did not read much; indeed, his fruitful reading, with the exception of Fergusson's Poems, of which hereafter, was accomplished by the time he was seventeen; his leisure being occupied in making love to rustic maids, where his big black eyes could come into play. Perhaps, on the whole, looking to poetic outcome, he could not have employed himself to better purpose.

He was now rapidly getting perilous cargo on board. The Torbolton dancing school introduced him to unlimited sweethearting, and his nineteenth summer, which he spent in the study of mensuration, at the school at Kirkoswald, made him acquainted with the interior of taverns, and with "scenes of swaggering riot." He also made the acquaintance of certain smugglers who frequented that bare and deeply-coved coast, and seems to have been attracted by their lawless ways and speeches. It is characteristic, that in